Investigation on acceptable reverberation time at various frequency bands in halls that present amplified music

Subjective ratings from 25 professional musicians and sound engineers were obtained to assess two Danish rock venues of similar size and similar low frequency reverberation times, but different high frequency reverberation times. The musicians judged one hall significantly better than the other, confirming a hypothesis that rock venues can have a longer reverberation time at mid to high frequencies at least in the empty condition.

A fairly long reverberation time in the 63 Hz octave band is found to be acceptable, so the 125 Hz octave band is probably the single most important band to control for amplified music.