Should Room Acoustics be an Audiogon ‘topic’?

@tcutter 

I have to say... I love the look of that floor and the entire room!! However, without question, the floor is acoustically the most reflective thing in that room and most of it remains untreated (possibly a good thing after all the treatments added) The area rug is certainly helpful.

I've done alot of attempted sound treatments that are always met with rejection... "NO! I'm not going to cover the floor!"  Do you know how much that floor costs?"

Once people spend that much on a beautiful floor they are very reluctant to cover it over with carpet no matter what acoustic benifits can be gained. The point being appearence wins over performance everytime.

This brings up the topic of measuring the reflective performance of a room to know what works and what doesn't.  The reverberation time RT-60 can be measured. How do you know when enough is enough? or too little? 

You need to click the link to my room and you will see an RT 60 and probably anything else you need to. The total surface area that should be treated in a room is anywhere, as I understand it, between 30 and 40 %. You don’t want any surface entirely covered because you need some reflections. At least that’s my understanding. My sound and my RT 60 support it. 

May I suggest to everyone interested in this subject that they take the time to investigate what is acoustics.  I would particularly like to point you to the work of Bruce Lindsay and his Wheel of Acoustics.  Forgive me if my nomenclature is slightly off, but I believe that information is enough to give direction.  You should discover that the field is far more variegated than has been presumed here.  In my background I have enough experience to know my limitations.  In my youth, growing up in the Boston area, my father was an RCA engineer and was on the periphery of BSO recordings at Symphony Hall.  A data point for good acoustics.  In college I was involved in revamping the sound reinforcement system as the Seatte Opera House.  A data point for not so good acoustics.  During those same college years and after graduation ~1970-1980 (with time out for Vietnam), I sold highend hifi and started setting up turntables, and learned a lot about setting up systems in the home.  Nothing like acoustics as mentioned above.  Side note, in the Navy I learned about sonar, an important subset of the field of acoustics.  Anyway, there it is.  Acoustics is complicated.  Even professionals get it wrong.  I do not believe it is a good topic for an Audiogon forum.  I do believe a lot of well meaning misinformation could cost needless harm.

@billstevenson 

You present yourself as an expert and imply that even at your level of experience and knowledge, acoustics is so fraught with failure that neither you nor anybody else should ever attempt it, even with the advice of other experts, such as Vicoustics, GIK and others. Pretty much guarantees the odds for success are zero. 

My attitude is nothing takes the place of persistence. If you break it, figure it out and fix it. Perhaps you have just not tried hard enough. 

Also, there are many conversations and suggestions on this board that can do more harm than good. Just peruse the digital threads. Trust but verify. And trust your ears.

"Out of difficulties grow miracles.” — Jean de La Bruyère