Dome sound effect in the church of San Luis de los Franceses

The church of San Luis de los Franceses in Seville (Spain), built in the 18th century, is one of the most impressive examples of the Spanish Baroque architecture by the architect Leonardo de Figueroa. Its most characteristic features are its great dome and Greek cross plan, while most of the other churches built by de Figueroa and other contemporaries in the city of Seville were based on a rectangular plan, possibly influenced by the guidelines set by the Company of Jesus. The role of the source position on the perception of sound has been investigated, showing that significant variations appeared in reverberation time and other acoustic parameters. After its desacralization the church is now used as a multipurpose site, hosting different types of performances mostly revolving around speech and music. The events where the sound source is located under the dome, with the audience located around it, are especially important. The behaviour of this source position was analysed in greater detail, due to the inherently complex acoustics of this type of surface, and the impulse responses were analysed using the Bayesian parameter estimation. Double slopes were found in the energy time decays for the receivers under the dome, confirming the complexity of the sound field in this space.