Speaker
Description
Recently, complaints about room acoustics in Austrian sports halls have increased noticeably. This development can be traced back to a rising number of acceptance measurements and the simplified comparability with the specified reverberation time of the latest versions of the local standard (ÖNORM B 8115-3) and guideline (ÖISS RL10). Our measurements and those collected from partners show that (almost) no sports hall meets the new requirements, or the old one for that matter. To determine whether this reflects an actual problem for users of these sports halls or is a symptom of the kind of sound field and how it is calculated and measured, room acoustic measurements were carried out in newly constructed schools in Vienna and compared with the planned acoustic design. It was also investigated whether the sound strength in the respective rooms correlates with the measured reverberation time. The preliminary findings suggest that some but not all deviations between the measured reverberation times and the planned values can be considered problematic, and that evaluating the acoustic quality of sports halls solely based on reverberation time may be misleading.The findings are restricted by the small number of measurements conducted and the limited scope of the measurements from external sources. Further investigations should therefore examine additional sports halls regarding the relationship between sound strength and reverberation time. The insights gained from the present research contribute to present and future standards like the new ÖNORM B 2608 “Sports halls - Guidelines for planning and execution”. Initial outcomes from those committees will be highlighted during the presentation.