A comparison study on sound defects of Bilkent Amphitheatre in terms of intelligibility of the speech

Abstract

The 4000 seated multi-purpose hall Bilkent Amphitheater is a semi-closed amphitheater with a large volume of 90,000 m3.At the beginning, the amphitheater was designed only for open-air performances. Afterwards it was decided to be roofed with a tensile membrane in order to protect the spectators against atmospheric effects. However, the covered amphitheater was turned into a very resounding and a problematic place with a reverberation time even more than 6 s. when the hall is unoccupied. After that time, some acoustical interventions were implemented, but these have not been sufficient in decreasing the number of problematic areas of echoes and dead spots. In 2000, Akukon Oy Consulting Engineers, Finland, carried out the real-size measurements when the hall was unoccupied, in order to find out the values of different acoustical parameters. In 2004, the computer simulation of the hall for the unoccupied condition was made [2]. In order to test speech intelligibility in the hall, besides the computer simulation and real size measurements, in 2006, articulation testing (AI) was made by using normal hearing listeners in the hall. In this paper, comparison between the measurements and the experimental studies are presented. Results confirm that excessive values of reverberation time cause too much reverberant and liveliness throughout the hall, besides the lack of warmth subjectively. Clarity is undermined by excessive reverberate and the sound becomes blurred. Sound energy are not satisfactory in reflecting the sound sufficiently through the hall and the direct sound becomes insufficient at some locations as back and mid sides.