Investigating Room Acoustics by Simulations and Measurements

Abstract

Measurements in room acoustics are often used as the true reference of reality, while simulations are considered to be only a crude representation of it. However, both approaches have their own challenges and limitations, so measuring an impulse response and deriving room acoustic parameters correctly may be more difficult than it appears at first glance. In this article we present the comparison between measurements and simulations for two real-case rooms: an auditorium and a cathedral. The comparison is made in the ODEON Room Acoustics Software version 12¹ and shows that careful postprocessing of the measured data can lead to high agreement with advanced room acoustics simulations. For a complete room acoustics study both measurements and simulations seem to be equivalently necessary.