Abstract:
Remote real-time communication typified by online conferencing has become one of the dominant modes of professional interaction. In such systems, the acoustic environment of the transmitting room and the configuration of the communication devices critically determine speech intelligibility at the receiving end. A reverberation chamber equipped with a sound source simulated the transmitting space, while a multimedia classroom served as the receiving space; Tencent Meeting was used as the communication platform. Subjective listening tests conducted at the receiving end examined how reverberation time, microphone directivity, source-to-microphone distance, and the conferencing platform’s noise-reduction algorithm affected intelligibility. The results identify reverberation time in the transmitting room and the platform’s noise-reduction algorithm as the two principal factors, together accounting for 96.4 % of the variance in perceived intelligibility. These findings provide guidance for the architectural-acoustic design of spaces used for remote meetings.