Acoustic characterization of the Usina del Arte Symphony Hall

This paper presents a historical and architectural review of the Usina del Arte Symphony Hall, the main concert hall of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the definitive host of the Symphonic and Philharmonic National orchestras. A complete acoustic study of the hall is carried out. ISO 3382 is complied in order to obtain multiple impulse responses, including monoaural, binaural and 3D sound field recordings. With the purpose of characterizing the hall, several acoustical parameters are evaluated: reverberation time (RT30), early decay time (EDT), definition (D50), clarity (C80), speech intelligibility (STI, RaSTI), inter-aural cross correlation (IACC) and background noise (NC curve), including 3D impulse response mapping and the sound field diffusion coefficient (SFDC).