Bright High End Speakers = Bad Room?


Long time lurker, new poster and diving right in.
I have noticed on the threads, a lot of what are considered high spend speakers, high end B&W's particularly, but not exclusively, being faulted for being "bright", a viewpoint typically garnered from "heard them at a show", etc.
I would posit that the reason this is, not exclusively of course, but in many cases, is due to a conscious decision in how these speaker companies balance on/off axis energy  (or an unconscious decision due to the space they were voiced in).

Whether it is assumed you are going to have more off-axis energy due to reflection/diffusion and/or assumed you are going to have less off axis energy due to absorption, if you don't implement your room accordingly, you are going to find the speaker bright or dark versus a speaker, even a low end one, that is voiced in a room more like the typical partially or poorly treated room.
Thoughts?


atdavid

Showing 6 responses by kenjit

Most speakers aim for a ruler flat reponse which is too bright for most folk. This is why speakers must be custom tuned to the customers ears. You wouldn't walk into a store and buy a pair of shoes in any old size would you? If you did it would probably be too big or small. Speakers that are not custom tuned are likewise too bright more often than not. You can either buy whats available in the market or have a pair custom tuned or modified. 
especially since it is the room response they respond to, not the anechoic measured on-axis.
The room response is obviously related to the anechoic response. 
But there was one group who consistently preferred a flat response: Recording engineers. To them, speakers are a tool, and in general the more revealing the better.  
Do you have a link to the study that mentions this? Thanks
Toole conducted extensive double-blind listening tests and found that most listeners prefer a gently downward-sloping response trend,
what was the explanation?
A speaker that is ruler-flat on-axis, anechoic chamber, will have a typical room response that slopes off at high frequencies
why would it slope off in a room that is less absorbent than an anechoic chamber?
@teo_audio

This means you should never think that a studio monitor speaker is even remotely suitable for neutral and balanced home use. They are emphatically not.
B&w, pmc, atc, kii audio, etc many are used for both.