Effect of laboratory conditions on the perception of virtual stages for music

This manuscript presents initial findings critical for supporting augmented acoustics experiments in custom-made hearing booths, addressing a key challenge in ensuring perceptual validity and experimental rigor in these highly sensitive setups. This validation ensures our proposed methodology is sound, guarantees the reliability of future results, and lays the foundational groundwork for subsequent perceptual studies and the development of robust guidelines for laboratory design in virtual acoustics research. A preliminary study on the effect of the acoustical conditions of three different rooms on the perception of virtual stages for music is presented: an anechoic room, a custom-made hearing booth with insufficient sound absorption, and another custom-made hearing booth with achievable sound absorption. The goal of this study is to assess the impact of these different conditions on the perception of virtual stages for music. The results show that the anechoic room and the hearing booth with achievable sound absorption have a difference between the total sound and the virtual sound below the just-noticeable difference, which means that the virtual sound is not perceived louder than it should. In contrast, the hearing booth with insufficient sound absorption has a difference above the just-noticeable difference, which means that the virtual sound is perceived louder than it should. This study provides a preliminary validation of the proposed methodology for assessing the acoustical conditions of custom-made hearing booths in stage acoustics experiments. Future work will include a more comprehensive analysis of the results, including the effect of different sound sources.