L’ESCALE Theater: Creating Memorable Sound Experiences!

L’ESCALE project was a great opportunity for our teams to transmit their passion for acoustics, into the design of this successful cultural center & theater.

The building opened its doors in 2012 and has since enjoyed a big success throughout the seasons! Hundreds of artists have appreciated its exceptional acoustics and the proximity to the public.

During the design phase of this project, our work focused on the internal room acoustics (reverberation times) for the most optimized sound quality possible, the insulation and soundproofing between different rooms, the façade and roof in order to avoid any noise coming from the outside to impact the on-going performance.

One of the features of the room is that it has a flexible area that varies depending on the show, ranging from 1,000 m² to 200 m² when the stands are unfolded.

Bonus Scope:

Once this project was finished, our team carried out some research on how humans perceive music, on how they determine the sound quality of a room.

Accompanied by the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, the Delhom Acoustique team traveled to different venues around France, where they recorded extracts of musical pieces using ambisonic microphones (microphones that record in all directions).

They then played back the music in laboratories and surveyed people to listen and vote for which extracts sounded best according to them.

The goal here was to take out subjective variables that could affect the perception of the listeners (such as artist name, theater name, etc.), and present to them only the audios, to achieve a more objective vote.

At the end of our research, the room that was voted for as best sound quality was… L’ESCALE!