Acoustic Performance Diagnosis and Retrofit Prioritisation of Indoor Sports Halls: A Multi-Case Acoustic Building Performance Study in Amman, Jordan

Room-average reverberation time (RT) is commonly used to assess acoustic conditions in existing sports halls. Still, it provides limited guidance on where additional measurements or retrofit investigations should be prioritised. This study develops and demonstrates an auditable acoustic performance decision framework using measurements from four school sports halls in Amman, Jordan. The framework separates five decision dimensions: benchmark-relative performance deficit, receiver-level and octave-band heterogeneity, spectral behaviour, first-order intervention burden, and evidence quality. Octave-band RT and descriptive unoccupied sound pressure-level data were available at three receiver positions from 125 to 8000 Hz. Mid-frequency RT (Tmf; 500, 1000, and 2000 Hz) was compared with the BB93 refurbishment benchmark, with leave-one-receiver-out sensitivity and data-quality checks used to test the stability of the diagnosis. All four halls exceeded Tmf = 2.0 s (2.50–3.11 s). Case 1 showed the largest deficit (~56%) and Tmf receiver variability (~25%); Cases 2 and 3 showed moderate deficits with low variability; and Case 4 combined the smallest mean deficit with the highest mean bandwise variability (~15%). The framework converts measurement data into explicit case-specific next actions for measurement and retrofit development while making evidence quality visible.