Strong, exciting, and engaging sound is perceived in the best concert halls. Here, it is shown
that wideband early reflections that preserve the temporal envelope of sound contribute to
the clear and open acoustics with strong bass. Such reflections are fused with the direct
sound due to the precedence effect. In contrast, reflections that distort the temporal envelope
render the sound weak and muddy because they partially break down the precedence. The
presented findings are based on the earlier psychoacoustics research, and confirmed by a …

The visualization of the reflections on the demonstration video is based on the hall
simulation data which consists of the arrival times, amplitudes, and directions of the direct
sound and reflections. When the exact reflection points are known the surface is drawn
around them by utilizing the plane equation. The texture of the surface is determined by the
property of the reflection; light surfaces visualize the temporal envelope preserving (TEP)
reflections and the dark green surfaces illustrate the temporal envelope distorting (TED) …