Acoustics of new and renovated chamber music halls in Russia

In recent years several classic halls for chamber music were renovated and a few halls of similar capacity were built in Russia. The most interesting halls were selected for this investigation. Here are presented detailed descriptions of five halls in Moscow, Tula, Ufa and Penza in combination with the measurement data. Some of them have long reverberation time and their acoustics is considered as very good. There is an organ in two of the halls and another hall will be supplied with a new organ. Moreover, the hall in Ufa is destined not only for chamber music; amplified performances may also take place there. In spite of big differences between these halls the authors are trying to find connecting features and compare them with well-known chamber music halls. One of the main results is that we revealed the trend that general audience has subjective preferences towards longer reverberation time. Those results were obtained at the same time as evaluation of acoustic changes in the Bolshoi Theatre Historic ...