Should Room Acoustics be an Audiogon ‘topic’?

@wyoboy 

Looking at fellow 'Goners systems, it is clear that many have little clue where to best place their listening position, speakers, and furnishings, likely because they have no idea it even matters. Coffee tables in front, speakers right next to the wall, no rugs, listening with draperies open and not drawn, and listening right up against the back wall are all things that may be able to be changed without disrupting the primary cohabitant, at least for listening sessions. For those who wish to do more, it provides a dedicated resource.

Novices are drawn to this forum and as they review the "important" topics, it is clear that acoustics is not one of them, taking a back seat to things that are not nearly as impactful. If acoustics is not going to be a topic, what is the rationale for any of the others? I would rather see the next generation perseverating over room reflections than cables.

This topic is the biggest and the most important area in this hobby. I don’t care if you have a million $$$ system, if the room sucks, so will your system. There will be people that will state that the room doesn’t matter and they are probably the same audiophools that think cables don’t matter. Who cares, they don’t have to visit the forum.

I spent more money on building my custom audio room, almost 6 digits, than any single piece of audio gear. Well worth it. Plus, my room appreciated greatly when I sold the house. 

I agree, big YES , many times it interferes on the thread, like if someone is asking opinion on cables, components, speakers? Often they will recommend room treatments.Not only they did not answer correctly they hijack the thread. Why yes let’s put the room on its proper topic.

Well said Tcutter !

It has been my job & focus for over 2 decades now designing sound rooms & HT rooms. I’ve set up many systems in many environments and it seems most just don’t understand some basic guide lines.

Sound travels at approximately 1ft per millisecond, your brain cannot defferentiate time arrivals below 10 milliseconds; Therefore, any reflections arriving within 10 milliseconds from the direct sound of the speakers is indistinguishable and only blurrs the original direct sound. Detail, the true depth of a recording (if it’s in the recording to begin with), and stereo speration are lost. What a waste of equipment & money under these conditions.

So, even the space bewteen the speakers needs to follow suit for optimum stereo seperation. Hard to do if your room measures less then 12-14 ft wide. One would have to resort to nearfield listening to get over that to a limited degree.

Regarding hardwood floors & reflective surfaces; as a general rule only key spots need to be treated, and that doesn’t necessarily mean "absorption", redirection of reflections or diffusion are also ways to create what Studios have referred to as an "RFZ" aka, Reflection Free Zone. Most studios aim for an RFZ with a 15-20 millisecond window. This allows the listener to hear into the recording and extract detail & 3D imaging, in short. There’s far more like RT60 etc..., but that’s a basic explanation that gets you a long way. There’s plenty of information out there to learn from if you search for it. My acoustics journey started by reading Mix Magazine Studio Acoustics featured every August issue 30 years ago, then articles from the AES on same.. The first implemetation I did had such a profound effect on my sound room & system, I immediately realized this was half the game or more.... Look at studio designs, many of them and ALL the top studios spend fortunes on acoustics design, and for good reason, they need to hear the truth. As end listeners, I thought that was what the goal is ? !!

GdT

PS: What you will find with proper acoustic application is a huge difference between good & poor recordings, but the good ones will make it all worth the effort !

You'll also be in a much better position to judge components...

The problem with room acoustics is that they are specific to your room shape, materials and size.  I’m not sure that a separate Forum section would actually be of assistance to us, compared to say, having GIK look at your room and make recommendations.  Can you say that X’s bass trap is better than Y’s bass trap?  Not sure.  But what I can definitely say is that I have a cube shaped dedicated music room which is probably the worst for music.  Although GIK went wild and literally sent me a proposal that looked like it covered the entire room in room treatments, I opted for a more modest approach with bass traps in three corners, amplitude panels behind my chair and panels on the ceiling and I have to say that the sound quality of my system was improved by at least 40%!  A phenomenal change for about $3500!