A methodology for the study of the acoustic environment of Catholic cathedrals: Application to the Cathedral of Malaga

Abstract Sound propagation in large reverberant religious spaces has remained relatively unexplored within the general context of the acoustics of places of worship. However, complex acoustic physical phenomena can occur in these buildings, where substantial changes in the behaviour of the space can be produced depending on where the sound source is placed. This paper describes the methodology used for the study of the acoustic environment of the Catholic cathedrals of southern Spain, and this is applied to the Cathedral of Malaga. The monaural and binaural impulse responses were determined in the various receivers for five positions of the sound source: major altar, pulpit, choir, organ and retrochoir, which correspond to the positions of use of liturgical, musical, and cultural activities that take place in the temple nowadays. According to the typology of the cathedral, six areas can be established for the location of the congregants and/or the audience. The interdependence of the positions of the source and positions of listeners in the various zones is analysed by processing acoustic parameters related to reverberation, sound strength, clarity, early lateral reflections, and the speech intelligibility. Furthermore, experimental results are compared spectrally with the simulated values obtained from a 3D geometrical-acoustic model created for the space, in which simulation mappings determine the areas of visibility for each sound source position together with the statistical distribution of the values of the acoustic parameters in the areas of influence selected in the cathedral.