Analysis of Acoustical Characteristics and Some Recommendations for Different Educational Rooms

Acoustic parameters were analysed in nine auditoria and multi-purpose confer-
ence rooms in the University of Extremadura. Parameters related to the reverber-
ation time, background noise, and intelligibility (both physical measurements of
different parameters [Definition (D-50) and STI] and speech tests used to study the
subjective response of listeners) were studied. The measurements were compared
with some recommendations from the literature and, considering that speech was
the main use of the studied rooms, with the intelligibility results. Some different
recommendations for reverberation times taken from the literature were analysed.
The intelligibility results obtained from the measurements were also compared with
the intelligibility results that were determined by the speech tests.