I'm never going to hear a megaspeaker in a good room am I?
Was thinking about something. There’s a thread about good $40K speakers which made me think that honestly despite hearing a lot of them at shows, I’ve never heard one in a decent environment. Now, perhaps we can argue:
But let’s not go that route. But I am thinking to myself, in well treated rooms the best speakers I’ve heard were merely mid-range Wilsons and Magicos. I say "merely" because they were under $40k, not because of performance. The two best speakers I’ve heard, in medicore rooms were the SF Stradivari and Snell A/III, and top of the line Vandersteen.
All the $40K + speakers I’ve heard have been at shows, and either very badly treated rooms, or in halls so big the first reflection point was like a mountain echo. Am I ever going to get to listen to $40K+ speakers in great rooms anywhere again??
As a result, I’ve developed a severe bias against the performance of mega speakers, because I only ever hear them in terrible rooms and have not heard one I’d spend money for, and honestly that's unfair to them.
If it doesn’t sound good anywhere, including a hotel room, is it really that good a speaker?
But let’s not go that route. But I am thinking to myself, in well treated rooms the best speakers I’ve heard were merely mid-range Wilsons and Magicos. I say "merely" because they were under $40k, not because of performance. The two best speakers I’ve heard, in medicore rooms were the SF Stradivari and Snell A/III, and top of the line Vandersteen.
All the $40K + speakers I’ve heard have been at shows, and either very badly treated rooms, or in halls so big the first reflection point was like a mountain echo. Am I ever going to get to listen to $40K+ speakers in great rooms anywhere again??
As a result, I’ve developed a severe bias against the performance of mega speakers, because I only ever hear them in terrible rooms and have not heard one I’d spend money for, and honestly that's unfair to them.
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True dat--the Aerial 7T's that i bought sound great in my room but i guarantee the dealer's room treatments (and source/amps) were way better--still working on room treatment in mine as i believe this may be the single most important aspect of re-creating what i heard there. I'm guessing the dealer's set up for the Rockports was not as good as their listening room in Maine (bucket list?) but it was still better than anything i'd ever heard. |
It was my first listening experience in a well-treated room and it was jaw-dropping. I felt as if I was in a vacuum chamber where there was no echo/reflections whatsoever. The soundstage was so 3-dimensional and lifelike! My point is that it may be better to search for these room more than searching for $100k or whatever mega price speakers that are simply connected.Thanks for this very interesting experience... My experience is the same, except that not only acoustic, but mechanical and electrical embeddings controls are the way to go first.... My 500 bucks system gives me this "3-d and lifelike experience, ONLY because of the way i adressed these 3 embeddings controls priorities... But it is more easy for us sometimes to gives money instead of thinking, or to buy ready made, instead of working it ourself.... But sometimes working is fun when it is possible and stimulate our own creativity.... I bought NOTHING (tweaks or upgrade product) , and create many solutions from homemade simple experience....My post is for those who need to be confirm in their intruition and dont have big money but big wish for audiophile experience..... Contrary to most adivices mine is simple: dont upgrade, embed it rigthtfully and enjoy doing it.... The only problem is it was for me necessary, not to have money, but to have a room for my audio experiments.... It can be done in a living room only if your are not married.... :) If you are, it will be costly to have beautiful acoustical device controls and adequate controls at the same times.... :) Mine a cheap,homemade, ugly, (i am not very crafty) but very poweful indeed.... My speakers will astound anyone with their sound for the price paid..... All that comes less from the good speakers choice than the device controls i used to liberate their potential S.Q. Poor audiophile like me are not necessarily frustrated one.... Even with the money i dont know if i will upgrade, because if you can listen the Great Mass of Bruckner on your speakers without losing details, dynamical intermingling of brass,wood, choir and strings why paying for more? My dream is comes true.... That is enough.... Audio need less money power than a little creativity..... My best to all.... |
I haven't ever been to an audio show so my only listening experiences have been at dealers. They have been in modest markets such as St. Louis, Nashville and Memphis. The mainstream/larger dealers that also had Sony TVs along with the full suite of Sonos devices, etc. always leave me disappointed. They haven't had this mega level of speakers to offer, but it has been the top of the line B&W and Paradigm to name a couple. They were in medium to large rooms with 2 other systems arranged as well and possibly part of a home theater. It has always been a let-down. The one visit which wasn't was here in my hometown of Memphis. George Merrill, who builds his own high-end turntables, is a gracious audiophile and welcomes his customer to stop in the store. He has a single listening room for which I cannot remember all the electronics. The speakers were Aerial 7ts. His top of the line turntable along with some fairly exotic solid state electronics were all set up. His TT is around $10k and the 7ts around $12k. I looked up the other pieces and the system topped out with an MSRP of around $90k. His room was fairly small and well treated. It was my first listening experience in a well-treated room and it was jaw-dropping. I felt as if I was in a vacuum chamber where there was no echo/reflections whatsoever. The soundstage was so 3-dimensional and lifelike! My point is that it may be better to search for these room more than searching for $100k or whatever mega price speakers that are simply connected. One would expect speakers of this level to only be connected in such a room, but I suspect that is not the norm. Regardless of our own individual budgets and purchase intentions, I feel these experiences help us in our never-ending journey for audio nirvana. It planted a frame of reference in my brain that I use as I try different components in my system. |
@erik_squires I guess we haunt the same vicinity. Goodwinn's High End in Waltham is the area's most esoteric Hi Fi store. I have not been in a while. I always got good service because I drove up in a 911 Turbo. If you drive up in a Golf you couldn't get the time of day. Never bought anything from him. These store hang everything everywhere because they sell it and you need to buy it if you want your room to sound good. Total and complete BS (IMHO). You use enough to do the job and no more adding a one set at a time. This can be done inexpensively with acoustic tile. The stuff Goodwinn's sells is hopelessly overpriced but his clientele are extremely wealthy and they do not care or know enough to care. They are the set it and forget it crowd. |
Hi @wyoboy You got me a little curious, and I ran into this description of the Rockport listening room: A combination of RPG diffusers and B.A.D. panels provide the correct broadband reverberant field without coherent specular reflections, while a series of custom broadband and quarter wave bass traps insure bass linearity down to the first octave. This ultimate soundroom is an essential tool in the development of our high-performance, full range loudspeakers, and in conjuction with some of the industy’s finest associated equipment, enables us to elevate the design process to the highest level possible. In this room, the listener can fully experience the true capabilities of our entire product range. I have to say they said everything I’ve ever wanted in a listening room. :-) Linearity down to the first octave is a real challenge even for most high end stores, let alone most audiophiles and probably the cause of most disappointments. The Magico listening room is also an extravagant feat of acoustical engineering, as is the Goodwyn's room in Waltham, MA. Best, Erik |
Maybe it's a good thing you can't or you might experience what happened to me a several years ago. I went to a boutique dealer to hear some Aerial Acoustic speakers. He had an amazing listening room with movable walls, ceiling and room treatments that he could adjust to demo all of the speakers he rep'd. I bought the Aerials after listening to them in a room designed to be the equivalent of mine in size and shape but then saw a pair of Rockport Cygnus speakers (i didn't know the brand at the time) and asked about them. Of course way out of my price range but i wanted to hear them so he adjusted the room and away we went. I have regretted that curiousity ever since--best speaker i've heard to date and although i'm happy with the Aerials i still think about that Rockport and wonder...however, besides price being an issue my wife has made it clear our marriage would also be at stake ! |
I'm with Erik, I would love to hear really over the top expensive speakers just to hear them, just like I would love to drive say a Veyron but I would never buy one (nor could I afford either). It's our hobby so it is cool to know what the really expensive stuff is like. Conversely, I love reading posts about how good a $3000 system can sound. I draw the line at $50 speakers, mostly they are that price for a reason and that reason is not economy of scale. |
Are you really serious about purchasing such a mega-speaker if you heard it in the right environment and loved it ? No. I ask this question as an audiophile who likes to listen to all sorts of gear for the fun of it. My point was that for the average audiophile, the ability to experience these speakers, and feel they command the money is rare indeed. As a result, if we go only by my experience, megaspeakers are almost never worth the money. But what if I could hear them in great environments? Would I change my mind? That's kind of a similar and complementary question. Best, Erik |
Getting back to the original question the answer is you could but you'd have to be willing spend the time and money to search and travel. Are you really serious about purchasing such a mega-speaker if you heard it in the right environment and loved it ? or just looking for that experience? You could call Mike Pedero in the Phillippines--he designs listening rooms and designed Jack and Jim Duavit's two rooms which i've read are the two best listening rooms in the world--and Jack's a dealer but no showroom--just his basement in Quezon City...how far are you willing to go ? |
I like updates from Audiogon but most of the time pass them by anymore. However this one caught my eye and I have to say I find the audio worlds equivalent of "The Onion" as entertainment does not disappoint. Personally I think unless you have built a dedicated house with a real theater room with meticulous spare no expense attention to detail and stuffed some million dollar speakers in there you have no standing to determine what is good or not. You, OP, simply have plebeian tastes and budgets and as typical for that type of, ahem, discerning audio decision making crippled by lack of ability to choose or judge what is good correctly simply also lack the finances to ever even hear good things. Some like the Prius but a few with impeccable taste like the Rolls Royce and can afford the better things in life and the same is true with audio. Some have speakers, but we who know have life changing audio reality in pristine audiophile environments that immerse you into what you hear and we are the only ones qualified to speak on what is superior. |
Hello Erik, Thank you but there's no need to apologize. No harm, no foul. No big deal, I was just having a little fun. The truth is it was my mistake, not yours, and I do appreciate your attentiveness. I also try to pay close attention to posts, especially on posts about room acoustics and room treatments. Not only because the subject seems to merit close attention to details, but also because I'm relatively new to its practical application. Everything's cool. Thanks, Tim |
Erik: "Half a second?? Delay between direct and reflected? That's 550' long! :) How do you accomplish that? That's no longer going to be a reflection but a distinct echo. Like duke was suggesting, most think a 10-20 millisecond delay is ideal." Hello Erik. RED ALERT! RED ALERT! RED ALERT! QUICK! QUICK! STOP THE PRESSES! noble100/Tim made a mistake! And it's a HUGE one! COLLOSSAL EVEN! He typed half a second when he meant 10 milliseconds! WHAT A DOPE!!! QUICK, JUMP ALL OVER THAT IDIOT! BIGGEST MISTAKE SINCE THAT ORANGE DOPEY BABY GUY!! QUICK, CALL CHIEF O'HARA! HAVE HIM SEND UP THAT BIG BLACK BAT SILHOUETTEY THING IN THE SKY! OH MY! NOW I'M CLUTCHING MY PEARLS! OOPS! I WET'EM! Geez, C'mon Man, Tim |
@goose -- I have listened to systems from $100K to $800K in different and well designed rooms. My biggest take away has been, gee they sound really good but to me it's amazing how little you can spend and get really good, satisfying sound in a well designed system. Well put. A friend of mine the other day was reminded, when listening to an older stereo system at his father's widow, what had initially materialized as a forming factor for his set-ups to come and what is, to this day, still the essential sonic reference from which he works and seeks to achieve - albeit ever more cultivated and scaled-up; the 2-way original Snell J's (the org. K model applies as well), a Sugden A48 integrated amp and lastly, a bit anachronistically and reflecting the present day source evolvement, a digital streaming source. A beguilingly coherent, close to wide bander imprinting, tonally rather natural and, dare I say, inherently musical sound - that's what this older system is about. I would agree in this set-up to be my essential sonic template as well, and largely it's closely reflected, I believe, in both my friend and I's current set-ups with 2-way main speakers, though augmented in both cases with a pair of subs. It always comes down to that when listening to other speakers nowadays, whether they emulate the simplicity, coherency and natural, effortless musicality of those older systems (the Snell A II's were also great), and no multi-dollar or multi-way speaker will come close for costing that amount or exhibiting such complexity alone. The simple, sonic beauty of those older systems is hard to beat let alone come close to, and yet they didn't cost a fortune, nor would they today. By and large I don't get the craving for high-end stuff that's offered today. It's mostly posh, über-cultivated, over priced, skimpy speaker, marketing bloated and sonically downright uninspiring, not to say boring. Honestly, from what I've heard these latest years of expensive speakers (as well as the ones priced from cheap to moderately expensive), none of them gives me any pause or longing to replace what I currently have, in fact most of them fall short in vital areas. The total price of my set-up (incl. 2nd hand products) amounts to just about $17k, though the retail price of my DAC/preamp alone is over $10k. Go 2nd hand, go DIY, go pro and/or studio gear, go BIG and let physics have their say. Be an audio rebel and don't give a bleedin' hell about what the "hifi" industry would have us play along with; indeed, theirs is an agenda, sometimes even of false hierarchy, we should not assimilate. |
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So if 99.9 % of us will never hear these speakers or see them in a good
listening room, maybe Stereophile should stop reviewing them and let a
magazine like Oligarchs Monthly.
" As an amateur speaker designer and builder for over forty years I eagerly sought out reviews of mega speakers; looking for ideas and innovations to steal. |
Thank you Erik and Duke for a good discussion about speaker radiation patterns,direct sound, early reflections, RT60 reverberation times and room acoustics in general. I feel like I'm in school, in a good way. You guys have got me reevaluating my acoustic strategy and making sure I'm comprehending everything correctly. In my recent systems, Magnepan dipole speakers with their figure-8 radiation patterns have been a constant, previously with a pair of 2.7QR and currently a pair of 3.7i. I've always sort of forged my own path, based mainly on research and experimentation, with how to set up and handle room acoustics and reflections with the somewhat unique challenges of dipole planar-magnetic panel speakers. I've settled on relying on the rudimental guideline that it's important for the direct sound waves from the front of the panels to reach the listening position first, with any reflected sound waves not reaching the LP for at least a half a second later, in order to maintain good tonal accuracy and stereo imaging. Fortunately, I have no doubts about my system and room having the very difficult and very important bass frequency response levels performing at an extremely high level. This is due to the Audio Kinesis Debra 4-sub DBA system I utilize, which provides a near sota solid bass foundation, either with or without acoustic bass room treatment assistance. Then there's the eternal question of how to handle the out of phase sound waves constantly being emitted from the rear of both Magnepan panels. Is it best to absorb this back wave, diffuse it or a combination of both? After extensive research, professional advice and experimentation, I decided to deploy a combination of absorbing and diffusing acoustic panels along my front wall behind the Magnepans, with very good results. Overall, I was heavily influenced in my room acoustics treatment decisions and strategy by Anthony Grimani based on these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bbmWd00HYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFbqJkjfABQ&t=285s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raAyF5ksbkk I agree that the preferred starting point of a system is the loudspeakers chosen, and I definitely prefer the presentation characteristics of Magnepans thus far as my starting point. My current preferred strategy on room acoustic treatment is to control the early reflections through absorption, don't over absorb anywhere and use a general combination of absorption and sufficient diffusion elsewhere to strike a beneficial balance between them, especially at the front and back of the room to keep things lively. Most importantly, I'm very pleased with my perceptions of my current room treatment efforts and my system and room's overall sound quality. I'm just curious, based on both of your recent very relevant discussion topics on this thread, how you two would evaluate my room treatment efforts? I understand we don't typically know what we don't know. I welcome all constructive criticism and utilitarian advice. Thanks, Tim |
Duke, I think you explained it better than I could. I almost bought the Snells. I think I wet my pants the first time I heard them. I wound up buying the Sound Labs 845 immediate spiritual ancestor We are all stuck using residential size rooms. Choosing the right speaker is the most significant "room control" you can buy. It can also save you a lot in extraneous room treatment items. The problem with many of the most expensive speakers is that they are more omnidirectional which makes them sound worse in hotel rooms. But, they have exactly the same problems in residential settings. A speaker that can sound good in a hotel room can sound good anywhere. |
I, as well as many others, like the sound of music in rooms...not all rooms (is a dumpster a room?), but many of the ones I've lived in with furniture, fireplaces, books, windows (Oh NO...WINDOWS!), etc., as they can make your hifi rig sound like life and music in the real world. If you insist on Room Treatment and are afraid your leather couch is too "reflecty" and doesn't sound like a piece of sheet rock covered with astro turf, listen with a hat festooned with gerbil pelts...that should do it for you. And note that our dear Eric struggles with one note...just one. |
@erik_squires, likewise I thank you for the thoughtful engagement! Much more satisfying than a squabble. I'll try to avoid those in the future. "I don't see a reasonable model of room treatment where early reflections are not controlled, echoes removed, and reverberation is NOT naturally reduced." Nor do I! That's why, in my opinion, the preferred starting point is the loudspeaker, and specifically its radiation pattern. Of course if the speaker sucks who cares what its radiation pattern is, so this is just ONE aspect that imo is worth paying attention to. Best wishes, Duke |
Hi Duke, @audiokinesis Sorry, what i meant was, you raised some alternate hypothesis about what I have heard in the past and what the proper attribution is. Sadly I can neither go back in time, and measure, nor would it be easy to go forward and create a controlled experiment, unless I had a good room sound simulator. Best, Erik |
i guess i am lucky, i heard a then state of the art system in 1982 at definitive hifi in north seattle. it was a pair of maggie tympani IIIs in a well-treated room, powered by a pair of dorm fridge-sized class I monoblocks that doubled as room heaters, don't remember the cartridge and TT other than they were Koetsu and some linear tracking job that cost as much as a house then. it was a direct-disc recording of some pipe organ in some cathedral somewhere, and aside from the surface noise which seemed to float in mid-air between the speakers and me, it was like i was IN THAT CATHEDRAL hearing that organ! NEVER had i heard such pure music before. it was audio nirvana. since then i've not heard anything that charmed me more. |
Hi Duke, @audiokinesis Thanks so much for the thoughtful engagement. I have learned a great deal already. In a way I think that this will have to remain purely theoretical for me for a while. It's like lung cancer and trying to figure out which of it's effects on the body will cause you more pain sooner. I don't see a reasonable model of room treatment where early reflections are not controlled, echoes removed, and reverberation is NOT naturally reduced. It's rather hard to control one and not the other, like temperature and pressure. I'll have to defer to those who have experience measuring and treating many more rooms than I will get a chance to. Best, Erik |
Hi Duke, I can't say I can refute your claim. To do this I'd have to do controlled experimental testing to find out if the issue I'm having is excess reverb or excess early reflections. This is where having a simulation tool would be more useful. :) I'm sure one could be written, but that's beyond my level of energy right now. Best, Erik |
@erik_squires wrote: "So in a small room, I can’t imagine actually wanting to enhance the reverberant amplitude or timing per se. To my ears, the congestion in clarity, especially dialogue suffers too much." Might that "congestion" be due to an excess of early reflections? Quoting Dr. David Griesinger: "When presence [clarity and immediacy] is lacking, the early reflections are the most responsible." If Griesinger is correct, then chasing a reduced RT60 is like trimming the tail of the dragon... it helps, but your main problem is at the front end. I don’t doubt your observations, but unless I am mistaken, you are making them based on using speakers which have a wide enough radiation pattern that early reflections are virtually inevitable, and those reflections probably are not a particularly good spectral match with the direct sound. Please don’t take this as an insult of your speakers - their designer and I simply have different ideas about "what matters most", and he may be right and I may be wrong, or we may both be wrong. I would much rather make my adjustments to the direct-to-reverberant sound ratio at the loudspeaker, rather than by using room treatments. I’m NOT down on room treatments - diffusion can be delicious - but imo there are issues which are better addressed elsewhere in the chain. I probably should have make it clear that I’m coming at this from a very different and unorthodox direction, loudspeaker-wise: I’m starting with a narrow-pattern, controlled-directivity speaker which will sound overly dry (but have great clarity) in just about any room, then adding just enough reverberant energy to enrich the timbre and spatial qualities without degrading clarity. And in my experience "it sounds right" seems to be a fairly specific and consistent point on the continuum in a given room. Duke |
Ime there seems to be a "sweet spot" as far as how loud the reverberant sound is relative to the direct sound. The larger the room (the longer the time delay before the "center of gravity" of the reflections), the louder the reverberant energy can be before clarity suffers. And the complement to your point is the following, no? The smaller the room, the softer the reverberant energy should be before clarity suffers So in a small room, I can't imagine actually wanting to enhance the reverberant amplitude or timing per se. To my ears, the congestion in clarity, especially dialogue suffers too much. |
I have listened to systems from $100K to $800K in different and well designed rooms. My biggest take away has been, gee they sound really good but to me it’s amazing how little you can spend and get really good, satisfying sound in a well designed system.It is my experience to the point that upgrading my speakers seems ridiculous and they cost me 50 dollars used.... In my experience, there exist many ways to transform the acoustic of a small room.... I succeed with unorthodox device creation of my own... Audiophiles really think that UPGRADING is the only way to heaven.... This is totally false.... For sure we must begin with a relatively good pair of speakers....The rest is acoustic treatment but also active control....But dont forget that the mechanical and electrical embeddings are also very important.... All that cost me peanuts.... My post is for those who cannot afford costly gear, dont despair.... Creativity gives to you Hi-Fi, listening experiments is needed but it is not necessary at all to invest big money.... It is a myth linked to the unsufficient controls of the three embeddings in any audio system.... The test is simple, i dont use anymore any of my 7 pair of headphones Stax included because my speakers are now better.... The musical test is this one: can you distinguish in the great mass of Bruckner by Celibidache, all the strings, brass, wood instruments and the choral mass perfectly well in their interaction and dance? If so you have Hi-Fi....If not the speakers are not well chosen but it is probably a defect in the controls of one or 2 or the 3 embeddings... I apologize for my provocative post but many people dream about Hi-Fi and dont have big money , then i speak for them, keep hope, be creative, dont upgrade before embeddings everything.... And Use your ears because contrary to hall concert the acoustic of a small room must be designed for YOUR ears by your ears.....Ant no 2 ears perceive sounds the same way.... My best to all.... |
@erik_squires, in a big room like an auditorium, with listeners being far away from the speakers, the direct-to-reverberant sound ratio is MUCH lower than in a home audio setting, where we are much closer to the speakers. In a big room the reverberant field conveys so much more energy than the direct sound that intelligibility is an issue. The faster we can get that powerful reverberant field to die away, the less "noise floor" the direct sound has to overcome. Also, in a large room the reverberant sound field is "statistical" - that is, the level of reverberant energy is effectively identical throughout the room. There are SO MANY reflections coming from SO MANY directions that WHERE we place our acoustic panels makes little difference on their net effect. Concert halls, and larger ones in particular, have issues with excess reverberant energy, which makes seats near the back of the hall (where the direct-to-reverberant ratio is lowest) audibly inferior to seats near the front. The sound goes from "immediate and attention-grabbing" near the front of the hall to "muddled and less engaging" near the back of the hall. The cause is more complex than simply the direct-to-reverberant sound ratio (the earliest reflections are the worst even in a good concert hall!) but that’s still a major factor. In our small rooms, in the absence of obvious issues like slap-echo, we have the opposite situation: Our direct-to-reverberant sound ratio is typically MUCH higher than in any performance venue. This is largely because we are typically within maybe eight to twelve feet of the speakers. The reverberation times in our small rooms are also much shorter because the reflection path lengths are much shorter, meaning that within a given time interval the sound will have been attenuated by room boundaries or room furnishings many times more often. Ime there seems to be a "sweet spot" as far as how loud the reverberant sound is relative to the direct sound. The larger the room (the longer the time delay before the "center of gravity" of the reflections), the louder the reverberant energy can be before clarity suffers. Hence most good seats in a concert hall have a direct-to-reverberant sound ratio which would be WAY too low for home audio, but it’s okay because of the much later arrival times of the reflections. You mentioned uneven decay times - how are you going to find out whether your room has uneven decay times, so that you can figure out what to do about them? You have to make measurements. And if the measurement process INCLUDES your loudspeakers, then inevitably it INCLUDES their off-axis response. Yes there are omnidirectional loudspeakers designed specifically to measure decay rates in large halls, but I doubt very many audiophiles have access to such. Based on conversations with acousticians, it is much easier to fix the room with acoustic treatments than it is to fix the room AND the loudspeakers at the same time. Duke |
@audiokinesis The problem with a room acoustic approach which focuses on RT60 is that it does not target those reflections which are most likely to be detrimental (the early ones), but instead it has a heightened effect on the beneficial later reflections (assuming we’re talking about spectrally-correct reflections). I’m not that widely read on the subject, but I have never read anyone suggest you should do an either or approach. Maybe if I worked more in the field I’d have a better understanding of the theoretical camps being promoted. In my mind it was always both. Reduce early reflections, AND control the RT60. Now, here my experience is probably more biased towards motion picture auditoriums, as THX started promoting short RT60 times, so when I read about consumer listening rooms I’m probably assuming the same kind of thinking applies. What I meant by uneven was having the decay times be different at different frequencies, and of course, eliminating echoes. |
Erik wrote: "don’t most listening rooms have too long of an RT 60 to begin with, not to mention, it is usually pretty uneven.’ In general when we move into a larger listening room the RT60 will correspondingly tend to be longer, but the larger room STILL sounds better! So clearly RT60 is NOT telling us the whole story. Making the RT60 more EVEN is of course desirable, BUT I have a question about the unevenness you mention: Is it based on measurements using loudspeakers whose off-axis energy is uneven? If so, is that uneven off-axis energy what’s showing up as "uneven decay"? If that’s the case, then the problem originates with the speakers, not the room. The problem with a room acoustic approach which focuses on RT60 is that it does not target those reflections which are most likely to be detrimental (the early ones), but instead tends to have a heightened effect on the beneficial later reflections ("beneficial" assuming we’re talking about spectrally-correct reflections). This is because the early reflections will only be attenuated by the absorptive material ONE time, while the later reflections will bounce around the room enough that they may well strike the absorptive material MULTIPLE times, especially if there is a lot of it. Imo minimizing detrimental early reflections is best accomplished by loudspeaker design and set-up, and if we still need to address the in-room decay smoothness, we can do so without the additional challenge of trying to compensate for the speaker’s uneven off-axis response. Duke |
Therefore in my opinion we want to minimize the early reflections but encourage the late ones. @audiokinesis Well, hmmmmm, I think in the context of what you posted above this makes relative sense, but don't most listening rooms have too long of an RT 60 to begin with, not to mention, it is usually pretty uneven. So, you mean relative to early, coherent reflections, you'd rather have the energy come at the listener in the reverberant field time, but you are not suggesting the RT60 periods be made longer. Is that correct? Best, Erik |
Erik posted: " I don’t mean to nit pick but you listed this as beneficial: 1. Increased time delay between the first-arrival sound and the onset of the lateral reflections, and a generally increased decay time. "Did you mean the last part? I thought generally in home rooms we want to decrease the decay time? Maybe I’m not understanding what ideal is here." Excellent question! Reflections done right are your friends!! And "done right’ STARTS with the reflections having the same spectral balance as the direct sound, or nearly so... a little bit of rolloff in the highs is normal. But not too much - note that Peter Snell included a rear-firing tweeter in the Type A to fill some of the top-octave energy which would otherwise have been missing from the reverberant field. So everything I’m going to say in this reply is said with the ASSUMPTION that the off-axis energy’s spectral balance is essentially correct (which in practice tends to be the exception rather than the rule). This is not going to be an all-encompassing answer because this is a big subject. By way of background, in home audio, I consider the transition between detrimental "early" and beneficial "late" reflections to be about 10 milliseconds. This figure is not arbitrary. Researcher David Griesinger finds the ear to be especially sensitive to aberrations between 700 Hz and 7 kHz, and according to Earl Geddes the mechanism by which the cochlea perceives sounds within this region implies that "you need a 10 millisecond reflection-free window if you want no coloration or imaging effects.” (Early reflections are not entirely detrimental - they DO increase the soundstage width, or "Apparent Source Width" [ASW], to use Floyd Toole's term.) ALL reflections convey spaciousness, but the earliest ones do so at the expense of clarity and imaging precision. Early reflections may also cause coloration, with arrival angle playing a role (the closer to the same direction as the direct sound, the worse). This would seem to imply that the floor and ceiling bounces are especially detrimental, but in practice they are not (imo the reasons why may be fairly complex). Late reflections convey spaciousness without the detrimental effects which early reflections can have, so we want to preserve them as long as they are not too loud or last for too long, which is seldom the case in a normally-furnished home listening room. The wider the speakers’ radiation pattern, the greater the chance that we will indeed have too much in-room reverberant energy - but imo it’s probably more likely that too much reverberant energy is having its detrimental effects due to excess EARLY reflections rather than excess LATE reflections. Spectrally-correct late-arriving reflections also help to convey rich timbre. This is one of the things the MBL Radialstrahlers do exceptionally well, especially when positioned far enough from the walls to avoid significant horizontal-plane reflections within the first 10 milliseconds. Spectrally-correct reflections also help convey liveliness. So early reflections are a two-edged sword, but later reflections (done right) are virtually always beneficial. Therefore in my opinion we want to minimize the early reflections but encourage the late ones. And if we use a room treatment approach which is aggressively aimed at reducing the decay time, imo we are killing off some of our beneficial late reflections... that is, "beneficial" assuming they were "done right" (spectrally correct) in the first place. Duke |
I will never hear a great system in a great environment. Never. Nor do I want to, really! Because I will Never, Ever HAVE that great system in my little apartment environment. There will be Excuses. Compromises. Deal with. Limited Dollars. Thus Never Ever be satisfied with what I have. Ignorance IS bliss. |
Hi Duke, I don't mean to nit pick but you listed this as beneficial: 1. Increased time delay between the first-arrival sound and the onset of the lateral reflections, and a generally increased decay time. Did you mean the last part? I thought generally in home rooms we want to decrease the decay time? Maybe I'm not understanding what ideal is here. Thanks for the explanation. Erik |
Duke will be familiar with these. I have a pair of what I'd classify as megaspeakers, although not high tech. I bought these 20 years ago, (in storage) because of this crazy world circumstances (blah blah) I've been looking for a sizable room to move to. JBL 4676a two-way (4550 bottom cab) fully original top condition. I have Wavelength Cardinal XS (300B) and Wavelength 45 Silver amps. Recently got Marchand 2-way (tube, ext PS) crossover. I am very interested in any comments, ideas or feedback, etc. |