Electronic enhancement can raise hall reverberation dramatically without audibly compromising speech or acting.

Evidence

Like many other opera houses, the Staatsoper in Berlin had minimal funds available for any improvements to the hall acoustics, which had been judged good enough for many years. … During rehearsals for Das Rheingold we learned that the … frequencies that convey the most information in speech and singing lie between about 700 Hz and 4000 Hz, and the majority of the orchestral energy lies in the fundamentals of the musical tones. These fundamentals lie chiefly below 500 Hz. Thus in theory it is possible to increase the envelopment for the orchestra without compromising the acting…. The measured reverberation time rose from 1 second to 1.7 seconds at 500 Hz, somewhat less above and somewhat more below. Compared to the original house these changes are enormous but to an untrained listener the sound was completely normal. The following performances brought critical praise particularly for the orchestral sound, and no complaints. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 2535

Categorization

• QUESTION: The speech-information band (700-4000 Hz) versus orchestral fundamental band (below 500 Hz) separation is intriguing — how was the artificial reverberation targeted to only the lower band without spectral coloration?
• XREF: Connects to the earlier chapters on the Haas effect and precedence (Chapter 23-24 era on sound localization) and to echo perception discussions.
• ADDENDUM: Relevant to the ‘immodesty’ style of technical reading — this is a case of engineering targeted at a perceptual-masking problem, similar to how the Pritzker Pavilion passage works.