I'm never going to hear a megaspeaker in a good room am I?

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.

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.

I would never argue otherwise.

@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

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

Hi Erik,  

I certainly don't expect you to simply accept my claims, and I thank you for hearing me out. 

Best wishes, 

Duke