Abstract. Specialist bibliographies reveal that there are many parameters for fully describing the acoustics of a hall. Are all of these parameters absolutely necessary? Although hall acoustics is a complex discipline, we can nevertheless see that many parameters measure aspects that are very similar to musical perception. Our aim in this paper is to use factor analysis to find a small number of statistically independent parameters that will enable musical performance halls to be characterised using just a few parameters. At the same time, we aim to identify other parameters that will be useful to researchers as part of a lineal combination. To achieve this, we have measured impulse responses in 17 halls and determined the most common 18 parameters. By using factor analysis, we have identified the three key factors that satisfy the required characteristics. This result confirms those obtained in an earlier study [1] of nine halls. The factors obtained strongly correlate with other classic parameters. Factor 1 correlates with reverberation time; Factor 2 correlates with the objective parameters for the impression of space; and Factor 3 correlates with parameters of strength. This last factor also correlates strongly with objective parameters for listener envelopment (LEV) [2].

SummaryThe study of rooms devoted to sound transmission has become adiscipline in which all the fundamentals areas of current scientificr esearch in acoustics converge. To demonstrate howt his convergence arises in this work, we present acomplete and detailed acoustics study of the Sant Jaume Basilica in Algemesí (Valencia, Spain), a building which has been declared as ite of cultural interest. Starting from this overall perspective,t he first part of this paper describes the features of the room studied (chosen for its complexity), the usual parameters for the analysis of room acoustics, and twomeasurement methodologies and twosimulating methods widely used by the scientificc ommunity.B ased on the theoretical results (obtained from modelling)a nd measurements following the recommendations of ISO 3382 Standard [1], we study the errors in 'just noticeable differences' in acoustic parameters that al istener may perceive.T he aim of the study is to highlight the drawbacks and successes of the procedures used. From the perspective of comparing the results, the purpose of this study is not to assess the experimental procedures themselves or the modelling systems, butr ather to demonstrate, using the four possible measurement-calculation combinations, whether the differences obtained between the theoretical values and experimental values are within areasonable range of acceptability.

Wilhelm Heinrich Heraeus (*1900 – †1985), the founder of the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation, wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of Frankfurt in 1922–23 under the supervision of Richard Wachsmuth and Walther Gerlach. Thereby, he became a witness of the Stern-Gerlach experiment, completed in Frankfurt in 1922. In his thesis, Heraeus investigated “The dependence of the thermoelectrical force of iron on its structure” and was able to show that earlier measurements by G. Borelius were incorrect and irreproducible. On 23 July 1923, Heraeus passed his doctoral examination in Frankfurt under Wachsmuth’s auspices.

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