Evaluation Experiment on the Listening Experience of Classical Music with Varying Reverberation: A Case Study of Piano Music

Reverberation directly influences the perception of spatial sound. With advancements in electroacoustic technology, the development of electroacoustic technology has made it possible to synchronously change the virtual sound space with music performance. This paper proposes a music composition approach that allows reverberation to change synchronously with the progression of music. By recording and producing seven piano pieces with different musical emotions, and using subjective evaluation experiments, we compared the listening experiences of varying reverberation music signals, constant reverberation music signals, and dry music signals. The results show that music signals rendered with varying reverberation possess superior “atmosphere,” “layering,” “vividness,” and “spatial elasticity” compared to the other two types of music signals.