This paper presents a subjective study conducted on the perception of auditory attributes depending on listener position and head orientation in an enclosed space. Two elicitation experiments were carried out using the repertory grid technique—in-situ and laboratory experiments—which aimed to identify perceptual attributes among 10 different combinations of the listener’s positions and head orientations in a concert hall. It was found that, between the in-situ and laboratory experiments, the listening positions and head orientations were clustered identically. Ten salient perceptual attributes were identified from the data obtained from the laboratory experiment. Whilst these included conventional attributes such as ASW (apparent source width) and LEV (listener envelopment), new attributes such as PRL (perceived reverb loudness), ARW (apparent reverb width) and Reverb Direction were identified, and they are hypothesised to be sub-attributes of LEV (listener envelopment). Timbral characteristics such as Reverb Brightness and Echo Brightness were also identified as salient attributes, which are considered to potentially contribute to the overall perceived clarity.

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Spatial impression is a widely researched topic in concert hall acoustics and spatial audio display. In order to provide the listener with plausible spatial impression in virtual and augmented reality applications, especially in the 6 Degrees of Freedom (6DOF) context, it is first important to understand how humans perceive various acoustical cues from different listening perspectives in a real space. This paper presents a fundamental subjective study conducted on the perception of spatial impression for multiple listener positions and orientations. An in-situ elicitation test was carried out using the repertory grid technique in a reverberant concert hall. Cluster analysis revealed a number of conventional spatial attributes such as source width, environmental width and envelopment. However, reverb directionality and echo perception were also found to be salient spatial properties associated with changes in the listener’s position and head orientation.

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