Modernists Unite, or: saying no to room treatment


My apologies if this is posted in the wrong section.

So far as I can discern here, modern architectural design and sound quality are almost completely at odds with each other. There are many nice systems posted that are in (to my eyes) gorgeous, clean, modern/contemporary homes, and generally speaking, the comments eventually get around to refuting the possibility that the sound in these rooms can really be very good.

Perhaps Digital Room Correction offers some hope, but I don't see it deployed overmuch.

So is it true? Are all the modernists suffering with 80th percentile sound?

It's not about WAF. I don't want to live in a rug-covered padded cell either. ;-)
soundgasm

Showing 1 response by martykl

Elizabeth,

I wish I still had photos of my old HT room and listening room. These were the result of a "gut" renovation, were starkly modern in design, and thoroughly treated behind the "wall" surfaces. Wall is "", because I used cloth on the upper half and light wood wainscoating on the lower half, with minamilist stainless steel moldings above, below, and in-between. All treatments were hidden behind the cloth.

Looked great, sounded great.

Now my HT room (a converted garage) is a (much cheaper, ah the economy) variant on the same idea as my old one. Cloth upper walls. In my listening room, I deploy colortful treatments on the conventional wall surfaces and use DRC on subwoofers. The HT room looks very nice and the listening room, well....probably not what you're talking about here.

The real point is that careful design (and yes a small to large pile of cash) can get you both form and function.

Marty

PS WAF was not an issue for me either - the listening rooms are/were my space. The HT rooms were driven by my desire to enjoy the environment visually as well as functionally.