AVALIAÇÃO ACÚSTICA DE UM TEMPLO CATÓLICO DE GRANDES DIMENSÕES SUBMETIDO À EXCITAÇÃO IMPULSIVA

Abstract

The proposal to evaluate churches acoustically brings two relevants aspects: the importance of sound quality in religious environments and its consequence to the followers. The present work analyzes the acoustic performance of a Basilic with contemporary architecture, evaluating data obtained from experiments performed in loco from the impulsive reply due to excitement for source of manual and semistructured interviews with followers and enthusiasts. The premises studied are the Basilic Sanctuary of Our Lady Medianeira that consists of an important center dedicated to the Patroness of Rio Grande do Sul State. In a church, good speech intelligibility is necessary for the right comprehension from the audience. Music also should be clearly understood. A wooden device manufactured by UFSM s Acoustic Sector regarding scientific researches, revealed ability of impulsive signal emission necessary for carrying out the measurements. After the source validation, the environment acoustic assessment was determined according quality and intelligibility rates for music and speech. Then it was obtained values of Reverberation Time (RT), Initial Decay Time (IDT), Clarity (C80) and Definition (D50). The data, collected with an equipment called Blue Solo from 01-dB, had its analysis effectively checked by computational program dBBati. Interviews with followers and Mass leaders such as priests, musicians and commentators indicated that people perceive sound irregularities in the premisses, however can not identify where are the aggravators of this particular situation. This analysis meets the answers of objective parameters, where is noticed that the premisses show lacking of sound quality, making it rather difficult the understanding of either the speech or the music.