It’s easy to make snide remarks like “yes- I do the opposite of what he says.” And in some respects I agree, but if you do that, this is just going to be taken down. So I’m asking a serious question. Has ASR actually changed your opinion on anything? For me, I would say 2 things. I am a conservatory-trained musician and I do trust my ears. But ASR has reminded me to double check my opinions on a piece of gear to make sure I’m not imagining improvements. Not to get into double blind testing, but just to keep in mind that the brain can be fooled and make doubly sure that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing. The second is power conditioning. I went from an expensive box back to my wiremold and I really don’t think I can hear a difference. I think that now that I understand the engineering behind AC use in an audio component, I am not convinced that power conditioning affects the component output. I think.
So please resist the urge to pile on. I think this could be a worthwhile discussion if that’s possible anymore. I hope it is.
Snake oil refer to any deception AND self deception, deception and self deception are TWINS... as Feynman said the easiest person to fool is ourself for this REASON... ..
Buying a 15,000 bucks piece that did not do the job intended is not less ridiculous that buying am amplifier who did not sound as we asked for ...
i dont see the difference Prof...
By the way i described how today i read on ASR attacks on a well known designer ( i will not name him because i dont want to drain him in the swamp of this debate ) because he used his knowledge about the non linear way the ears perceive sound to design his amplifier using harmonic distortion in a wise psycho-acoustical way... Few people as "wise" and less "wise" as amir attacked him about any aspects of his work, and i say attack , because they suggested multiple times that this "distortion" business is if it is not fraud it is for useless deluded ignorance of audiophiles..
The designer was a gentleman and answer them politely... I had the EXACT same discussion here with Amir about the way the ears hear, NON LINEARLY IN HIS OWN TIME DOMAIN... Then no one can equate a limited of linear measures in the time independfant domain with AUDIBLE MUSICAL PERCEIVED QUALITIES. Claiming otherwise is not psycho-acoustic knowledge but ignorance...
No set of measures about audible qualities can be reduced to measures about the linear well behaviour of circuits ... Oppenheim and Magnsco experiment demonstrated why... they even suggested why we do more experiments in the context of ecological hearing theory...
Amir answered with ad hominem attack against Van Maanen and reduce the lesson of Oppenheim and Magnasco to be trivial experiment about mere hearing acuity limits , forgetting how the experience illustrate non linear behaviour of the ears in his time domain... This is BAD FAITH motivated by his business : selling his set of measures as ABSOLUTE truth about musical qualities...
Now prof, if some of the ASR crowds treat a well respected designer this way, contesting him ,and asking for PROOF , and almost insulting him; imagine how they will treat me ?
they will never listen to me a second and they will not be polite at all..
I listened politely to Amir thanks him 15 times. oppose my arguments, but instead of answering, he use any means but NEGATE the central problem in hearing theory as it never existed..
i lost complete trust in Amir...
i am naive but one thing i know : i learned how to analyse any text scientific or not... i know what is a valid argument or when someone drown the fish..
That’s not the same and you know it.
You know very well that "snake oil" is a reference to products that do not do what they are claimed to do.
That TacT Amir owned did what it claims to do: perform audible corrections to the sound.
That something breaks doesn’t make it "snake oil."
That’s just a disingenuous attempt at some "gotcha."
Seriously...and you guys are up Amir’s butt for the style of HIS posts?
@profPretty sure when they said snake oil they were referring to the price tag and how it probably doesn’t do anything better and the fact that it bricked on a firmware upgrade. I’ve never even had any product do that, and if it did I could revert back to the old FW. Amir states snake oil are cables that claim to improve sound when they cost $1000. Now it's a hard pill to swallow that this eq piece works that much better than say a mini dsp or Dirac unit. Or even a Trinnov which can be had for 1/15th and 1/3 the price respectively.
Amir saying that room eq is valid but most acoustic treatment isnt is bogus!
Let me ask you, do you think everything he says is gospel? It seems you are up his butt for different reasons.
You don't even grasp the irony of your own gushing subjective words or spending $15K on an audio toy that ended up being useless. The very behavior routinely ridiculed on ASR.
That's not the same and you know it.
You know very well that "snake oil" is a reference to products that do not do what they are claimed to do.
That TacT Amir owned did what it claims to do: perform audible corrections to the sound.
That something breaks doesn't make it "snake oil."
That's just a disingenuous attempt at some "gotcha."
Seriously...and you guys are up Amir's butt for the style of HIS posts?
I have never claimed to know more than anyone on here, yet he has never, not one time, admitted to being wrong, or to knowing something to a lesser extent. That is by very definition bloviation. He attacks people by calling them audiophiles or subjectivists without knowing their true opinions. He continually says he answers a question and points to answers that sidestep really responding. That is gaslighting. You are obscuring the truth but omitting a lot of the stuff he does.
Amir has good ideas some of the time. He has good insight some of the time. He is right some of the time. He is hubristic all of the time. He said this just above "The luminaries not only say what I say, if you knew them personally as I do, but do as I say." WOW cool. He knows people and calls them luminaries. Just say experts in their field.
If I have learned one thing it's that people who claim to be one thing, and say they are the most of some form, and have the strongest ethics. Are usually the opposite. Look at Bill Cosby, Brian Williams, Ellen. They all portray one thing and do another. I am not saying Amir is a rapist. What I am saying is I do not believe him to be as ethical as he states nor do I think he operates a huge online forum out of the goodness of his nature. He does it for clout and money.
Snake oil? No way. Benefits of Room EQ is proven conclusively. There is no snake oil involved.
You don't even grasp the irony of your own gushing subjective words or spending $15K on an audio toy that ended up being useless. The very behavior routinely ridiculed on ASR.
This is all becoming hilarious reading the contortions you perform to always arrive at the same place - everything you do is right and nobody else knows anything.
Because of your attitude and attacks on anyone that disagrees with you.
Your elitist, snobby, insulting and personal attacks on people.
Amir came in to a thread in which there were already plenty of personal attacks on him and disparagement of his forum. He was very measured given how many other people could react. You seem to ge ignoring the amount of ad hominem and insults sent at Amir, as if HE is the egoist insulting people. Don't forget to look in your own backyard before casting stones, IMO.
Prof this is my post above reduced to the essential part :
«Then this quote means this : for being able to not fool himself a man must LEARN when it is right to trust himself and not others and vice versa when it is right to trust others not himself..Not knowing that TIMING MOMENT explain why we are the easiest person to fool... "
This is my exact sentence above...
Any hypothesis/experiment must be created by ourself and with trust in ourself to BEGIN WITH , then dont fool yourself, think if it is about time to go with your trust in yourself or to go with some trust in other advice, ideas, hypothesis or new experiment... The hard task is KNOWING if it is the time to trust you or others... If someone dont learn that he will always fool himself because we are the easiest to fool when we dont know better and never learn to listen the TIMING signs around us ...
I did not contradict Feynman claim AT ALL about the fact that human fool easily themselves...
You use this in a Barnum simplistic way to criticize Rodman about his ideas...
I dont like the way "objectivist" mind or tool obsessed people use this sentence OUT OF ANY CONTEXT...
Feynman never intended his public to doubt themselves or loose confidence in themselves or stop to trust themselves...He means that we fool ourselves any time if we dont LEARN if it is the time to trust only ourselves or the time trust an other... THIS TIMING MUST BE LEARNED THE HARD WAY...It is the reason why people fool themselves easily , they did not learn this timing lesson...Feynman dont means common place fact he means serious thinking by his sentence ..
Any other interpretation is meaningless because instead of being a serious advice it will be reduced to a simplistic evident common place fact as a Barnum motto : a sucker is born every day... A genius is born everyday too mr. Barnum ..
We can fool ourself in two way : trust only in ourself but also trust only in others... The difficulty is to learn if the moment is right to trust ourself only or right to trust instead another advice.. Anyway it takes more faith in ourself to listen other that to go always in our own way... But there is no creativity without absolute faith in ourself...
We are the easiest person to fool because we dont know why it is time to go alone or to listen others... Simple...
You cannot fool wise man... Why ?
And wise man dont fool themselves .. Why?
They had learned to listen to the MOMENT, but also to others and to themselves , what is this MOMENT about in my life, hypothesis, experiment etc is for, ?
Why are we the easiest to fool ourselves ?
Because we dont want to learn and listen the MOMENT ...What this moment is for ?
Any other interpretation is trivial... A common place fact...
Feynman was not in the gear debunking market and his advice is not for a customer 😊 and he learned how to trust himself or his fellow physicists when it was the right time to do as a bull or the time to listen as a owl...If you dont learn that your fool yourself ALL THE TIME...
i dont see how my interpretation diminish his sentence... Why wise men never fool themselves ? It is because they listen not only themselves and others they had learn how to listen and READ the MOMENT in time...
The best example ever of someone who never fooled himself and was never fooled by others is Salomon judgement about the two mothers and the only one baby... What did Salomon did ?
Instead of fooling himself in picking what seems to be the more trustful mother by questioning them but risking to be fooled by the most crafty of them; he decided suddenly to cut the baby in two and look at the mothers face and spontaneous reaction ..." Give him the baby Majesty said one "... The real mother for sure...
Salomon did not fool himself ever, he listen the MOMENT and acted the right way letting the moment speak instead of deciding the mothers quarelling speech..
Feynman is like Salomon character in physics not a Barnum character especially if we read the story of his path integrals ...
«Let not fool ourself, there is no difference between you and me, we must just pick the right one at the right time »--Groucho Marx 🤓
That’s literally NOT what Feynman said. He wasn’t saying "doubt others" and "trust yourself. His point was very specifically about YOU...the person with the hypothesis/experimenter.
Try actually addressing SPECIFICALLY what Feynman said in that quote:
FEYNMAN: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself
Why would that be the first principle? What are ways we can fool ourselves, mahgister?
and you are the easiest person to fool.
Why is Feynman so concerned to point out that YOU are the easiest person to fool (that is, fooling ourself)? WHY are we the easiest person to fool? What do you think Feynman means by that, and why it is so important to account for it in our method?
“Why these continued personal remarks? Why not stick to the technical topic and leave it at that? Every one of you is doing this. How do you not sit back and realize that is bad ...”
Because of your attitude and attacks on anyone that disagrees with you.
Your elitist, snobby, insulting and personal attacks on people.
As I said, this is how I perceive @amir_asr both from the way he runs his site and his, often lengthy and/or contemptuous posts:
“Insects have been measured to be superior to cattle for human consumption. {insert copy/pasted 2000 line post with “proof of claims” here}
If you don’t eat the Insects, it is because you have not “trained your palette ” to like what measures best. So your “opinion” of what is pleasing to your palette is not only vulgar, but dismissed. You are obviously nothing more than a plebe”
just the facts. That seems to be Amir.
And he will make 1000 line posts that are, maybe, tangentially, relevant. The old, “if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit” routine, coupled with his insulting, belittling and “excommunicate the bourgeois” postings attacking any who refuse his “wisdom from on high” just makes my skin crawl.
A living room is not a dedicated small acoustic room ... Toole dont need to experiment with acoustic in his living room, but that does not means that living room are ideal for musical soundfield... Some buy 15,000 costlier electronic piece... Some other experiment with room acoustic at no cost..
But how do you know that my acoustic room was screwed because it was only dedicated to my ears nothing else ? I dont need esthetic... for sure... i need immersiveness a good ratio between sound sources and my listening position..Speakers which disapear for ever and dont exist at all... We can tune a room for any relatively well design speakers of any type by the way and we can optimize them for our ears .. I cannot do that in a living room...😊 For sure we can have a good sound in a living room modulo some wise installation... but there is level of immersiveness...A living room cannot be a dedicated acoustic roomno more than a dedicated acoustic room could be an anechoic chamber..
You may be satisfy by a living room...i was not...my basic system is 600 bucks not 50,000 bucks...
And your claim reflected complete misunderstanding of acoustic : it is the ratio that matter, the ratio of reflected /absorbing /diffusing surfaces and volumes...This ratio exist already in ANY room ,but is different in any room , with or without acoustic tuning; the acoustic controls will only change it for the best and for your own ears filters...it is an INCREMENTAL process that take TIME... it is why a professional acoustician will charge you 100,000 bucks and it will be esthetical and more perfect than mine...but mine was astoundingly better after compared to before... At banana costs..
And this ratio between diffusion/absorbtion/reflection change from one room to another function of geometry, topology acoustic content and dimensions and time and timing and this ratio must be adapted to your ears..
I just go on ASR and read a discussion between a designer speaking about the non linear nature of the ears then he adressed that by the way he used second and third harmonics in his design , and ignorant and arrogant people attacked him immediately because as yourself they think that the ears process sound linearly ... It is incredible to be so ignorant about hearing theory and pretend to be a specialist...Their ears only like NO DISTORTION it seems ... very comical... the psycho-acoustic of their ears is different from us ordinary mortals...they have "golden ears" affected by distortion negatively... Us the great majority of human kind we are affected positively if the design is good... it was comical to read...
The soundfield we listen to for you come from gear with no distortion at all in a room with preferably no ACOUSTIC installation .... It is incredible for me it reflect ignorance about the psycho-acoustic basics, the soundfield is created mainly by the speakers/controlled Room/ ears acoustic TRINITY...And amplifier designer know that the ears listen non linearly then some harmonics matter more than others.. Consult non linear in wikipedia to guess why...
You are completely deluded by the gear design being so called "transparent" with no distortion, hypnotized by a set of linear measures who masked your complete ignorance of what human ears hears and how it decode it non linearly, meaning distortion at some levels are positive reinforcement at other level negative... And the fact that the ears live in a time dependant domain KILL all your pretense to reduce what we hear ONLY AND MAINLY to linear set of Fourier measures on the electronic chips...We need room acoustic too... Or a Choueri dac filtering system based on our personal ears filters measured to eliminate the room acoustic problem ... Guess why Choueri measure EACH PAIR OF EARS ?
i prefer Audiogon... Even if ASR is informative because all participants are not arrogant as many there ...
By the way:
Did i invent the ears non linearity working to win an argument ?
Did i invent the crucial observations about natural sounds qualities from ecological theory of hearings to complement Foourier theory of hearings and the advantage of this ecological theory suggesting different set of experiments in research about hearing impairment for example ?
Did i invent the concept that the laws of acoustic being the same UNIVERSALLY ; in Great Hall, audio studio, living room and small dedicated acoustic room, their APPLICATION differ completely ? They are specialized acoustic research field...Guess why ?
Did i invent that the way the ears process sound in his time dependant way had an impact on what we call "musical qualities" especially if by ignorance we reduce them to some narrow set of measures on some piece of gear ?
Did i invent the concept that there is only one center and one focus for audio design and audio experience : acoustic and psycho-acoustic, not ONLY AND MAINLY the gear market of those who measure it as you, or those who design it ( with wise level of distortion for the benefit of our hearings) ?
I invent nothing of that , they are facts...
Some people want to make it their life project to screw around with their room acoustics. That is not me. I have function and aesthetic needs that they do not have.
Claiming that people should go and absorb reflections as you claimed is simply wrong advice for huge swath of audiophiles. It is misinformation that leads to people agonizing the sound of their room, wasting a ton of money and often arrive at too dead of the room.
"Doubting is not self doubting first and using blind test as childish thinking from Amir indicate, it is doubting what is taught and experimenting with it to LEARN IT OR TO REFUTE IT by experience and trust in ourself ."
That’s literally NOT what Feynman said. He wasn’t saying "doubt others" and "trust yourself. His point was very specifically about YOU...the person with the hypothesis/experimenter.
Try actually addressing SPECIFICALLY what Feynman said in that quote:
FEYNMAN: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself
Why would that be the first principle? What are ways we can fool ourselves, mahgister?
and you are the easiest person to fool.
Why is Feynman so concerned to point out that YOU are the easiest person to fool (that is, fooling ourself)? WHY are we the easiest person to fool? What do you think Feynman means by that, and why it is so important to account for it in our method?
In terms of throwing out those "professionals", I would have to throw you out as well for your insistence on only your way when your luminaries don’t even say what you claim.
The luminaries not only say what I say, if you knew them personally as I do, but do as I say. Here is Dr. Toole’s California room (he is selling and moving to Canada):
Does this look like it has a bunch of crap acoustic products all over as you claimed people should put in their living spaces? It doesn’t right?It even has a TV in the middle!
Just like my room, standard furnishing is used to provide adequate overall absorption so that the room is not too live. That’s all. He uses multiple subs with advanced DSP (soundfield management) to get excellent bass across multiple seats. This is science. This is science in practice. This is science that doesn’t uglify your room to create great satisfaction.
The graph on its own cannot, but we also know the speakers and with enough accuracy the speaker placement as I noted we had your system image. Look at that graph, now go do a bunch of measurements on your speakers and their relationships to the walls and your room dimensions, calculate 1/2 and 1/4 wavelengths then start relating multiples of those numbers to your graphs. Science, not conjecture.
All of of that would be conjecture. Folks looked a picture without even those dimensions and declared this and that. Even if I gave you those measurements, walls are not built out of concrete so distances don’t automatically convert to modal frequencies. My ceiling is sloped making any such back of the envelop computation impossible. We measure because that is the proper science, not looking at a 1/3 octave smoothed graph meant for overall target curve and claiming you see the modal response there. You absolutely do not. You have to take into account perceptual effects of room reflections and that requires careful filtering of the results.
Regardless, I did not put forward my room as a laboratory or best example of a listening room. It was space I had, I put wonderful speakers in it, put in appropriate furnishings as to keep it nice looking and function, applied EQ and got wonderful sound and enjoyment out of it. Science backs all of this.
Some people want to make it their life project to screw around with their room acoustics. That is not me. I have function and aesthetic needs that they do not have.
Claiming that people should go and absorb reflections as you claimed is simply wrong advice for huge swath of audiophiles. It is misinformation that leads to people agonizing the sound of their room, wasting a ton of money and often arrive at too dead of the room.
For Amir with my dedicated room and my 600 bucks system i am a deluded audiophile...😊
Who is deluded here with a 15 000 bucks perhaps useless electronic piece ? because as someone said wisely :
Does that say more about the processor or more about your room?
And he want to advise me about audiophile fraudster designers ...😋
And he wanted to advise me about hearing theory too...😋
And he want to advise me about small room acoustic too and he never did one ...😋
He stop babbling to me because i cited too much papers contradicting his perspective which is using electronics measures of design to specificy psycho-acoustic qualitative experience or negating them if he cannot make them correspond to his techno babbling ...
I am naive, i thought he could discuss "objectively" about the difference and complementarity between Fourier hearing based theory and ecologically based hearing theory, he did not even understand the basic problem to begin with ...
You cannot discuss science and experience with someone who want to "market" you his products.., the poster who want me to shut my mouth and quit, was wrong to ask me that, but he had a point i must admit ... I am naive...
By the way the only serious people to discuss with are those ready to admit they were wrong when they are...And all begin with ourself limitations and our own admission...
I never pretend that my room was perfect... But it beat everything i listen to in any living room with any system.. At no cost it was enough for me even imperfect because i did not use measuring tools but ears.. Anyway i used 100 Helmholtz resonators manually adjusted , how do you do this electronically ? It did not work the same at all... And peanuts costs means there is no market fraud here, only acoustic learnings..
@texbychoiceDidn’t even really catch that. Good eye. It’s a very subjective statement and one that isn’t even backed by Amir’s precious data. How the heck do you buy a processor and then spend that much money only to brick it? I’ve never heard of a product or company being so crappy. He must really not be hurting if he just doesn’t care about a $15,000 loss. Time to ask for more donations.
Small room dedicated acoustic for specfic system/room/ears cannot be done and automatized by many DSP with no room passive treatment and no mechanical acoustic control... E.Q. is not enough at all... Correcting some specific frequency response is not enough ...
The only way to automatize this for an optimal result without adressing the hard task to tune the room, is using Dr. Choueri measuring tools and filters refined DSP BACCH for creating optimal virtual room...
Why these continued personal remarks? Why not stick to the technical topic and leave it at that? Every one of you is doing this. How do you not sit back and realize that is bad ...
If you think you're being treated unfairly, take your complaint to the moderators. They'll delete posts that don't meet the guidelines. You well know that because you've had so many of your own posts deleted in this thread.
@amir_asrjust stop with the holier than thou attitude. You’re not some all knowing savant.
I have a good understanding of acoustic treatments. Like eq they remove the room from the equation. Yes engineers and producers want a dead environment so they can isolate vocals etc. A psi avaa or minidsp or bass traps all have the same goal. They are just different paths to that goal. Room treatments are ugly but they aren’t some snake oil product. They work. I’ve seen them work just like I’ve see room equipment on Dutch and Dutch 7cs work.
Does that say more about the processor or more about your room?
Says it about everyone's room unless you have a massive space where transition frequencies get so low as to not matter. Few have such spaces. But partially yes. My listening room at the time was small so the effect was more dramatic than in my larger space now.
To expand, wavelengths of sound below 100 Hz get massive as to make any velocity based absorber to appear to not even be there. Yes, if you slapped 50 of them around your room, it will make some difference but you will not get neutral response. EQ is a must. No question about it.
Refreshing post with knowledge and common sense...
Thanks..
I could quote more and reference his book, but in summary, nothing is perfect, use what you want (at first lateral reflection). That use what you want is critical, as not all listeners, or even audiophiles listen with the same goals and may not even listen with the same goals all the time. In a music space targeted at casual listening or for the more casual listeners in the household, a space with more side wall reflections has a high likelihood of being preferred. For those who are into critical listening, muting the sidewall reflections can sharpen perceived imaging leading to a higher preference. Are you a casual or critical listener Amir?
but even if you are right about what you say here... In a good small room with balanced ratio between reflective/absorbing/and diffusive surfaces and volumes especially with a room under mechanical control with resonators ( i used them in specific location ) , the preference between musical casual listening and critical listening make no sense at all... We can distinguish these two categories of specfic characterized atmosphere, yes, but we can ALSO CREATED each one of THEM but more importantly we can make them converge in an OPTIMAL dedicated SMALL ROOM ACOUSTIC...This is the goal...Opposing them is erroneous even if it could exist as acoustic conditions...You know that for sure, i only add this precision for Amir... 😊
I learned that by experiments not only by reading Toole ... By the way the concept of a dedicated acoustic room do not coincide with acoustic treatment in a living room AT ALL...Small room acoustic of living room is not small room acoustuic of dedicated Sopeakers/room ....
A dedicated acoustic room , like an anechoic room, is a completely dedicated room too, but a non anechoic one, dedicated to some specfic audio system and to some specific speakers properties, dedicated to specific speakers/ears properties in a specific room with his specific , geometry or form, topology or apertures, and with his specific acoustic material content...This type of room is designed by a owner for his own structural ears filters by him...
No one teach a recipe to devise this dedicated acoustic room... There is no recipe... YOu do it by experiment and adressing all problems and solving them...
Small room acoustic is a very specific acoustic domain of studies which is relatively NEW...It does not really exist few decades ago save for acoustic recipe generalities...
What is unfortunate is I agree with you far more often than not, but you like so many here let your ego get the better of you and you let that drive a need to be right to the point that you make poor use of the available science, drawing conclusions that are beyond what the science is able to reliably claim.
Why these continued personal remarks? Why not stick to the technical topic and leave it at that? Every one of you is doing this. How do you not sit back and realize that is bad in the context of trying to prove a technical point? Who cares what you think of me personally? They can't use that to get better performance out of the system. State the technical point and don't keep getting personal this way. It is like you all copy each other's style.
If what I say is right and you agree with it, leave well enough alone. Don't detract from the technical point on which there is consensus between us with comments like this.
But no I did not "make poor use of available science." You did that by putting forward a research that had to do with ability of professionals getting their jobs accomplished, wanting people to think it had something to do with enjoyment of music. The study had nothing to do with the topic of interest in this forum. You either didn't know what the research was about, or if you did, misrepresented it as such.
It is clear you thought you knew more than me so by mere mention of the paper you expected me to fold. This is what I call "ego." After all, you would have quoted the paper if you wanted to have a proper discussion.
Nothing transformed my audio system and ideas more than that processor. My jaw fell on the floor in the way it seemingly removed the walls from my listening room!
What kind of subjective audio-foolery statement is that?
Does that say more about the processor or more about your room?
No. The graph cannot be used to determine modal response or SBR. It is absolutely the wrong presentation for that use. Again, it says so right on the graph what it is for. I only post it because that is the shot you were seeing on the computer monitor, not because it is suitable for the purpose you are asking about.
The graph on its own cannot, but we also know the speakers and with enough accuracy the speaker placement as I noted we had your system image. Look at that graph, now go do a bunch of measurements on your speakers and their relationships to the walls and your room dimensions, calculate 1/2 and 1/4 wavelengths then start relating multiples of those numbers to your graphs. Science, not conjecture.
Oh really now. You mean this graph? I know exactly what it is showing. Do you? There are clear room modes in the response. There are clear boundary effects in the response (and not low frequency reinforcement which can be corrected). Do you know which is which? Can room correction fix this? No. Can acoustic panels fix this? Absolutely.
No. The graph cannot be used to determine modal response or SBR. It is absolutely the wrong presentation for that use. Again, it says so right on the graph what it is for. I only post it because that is the shot you were seeing on the computer monitor, not because it is suitable for the purpose you are asking about.
The snake in snakeoil bit you in the butt. Wonder what kind of reception the above statements would receive over at ASR?
Snake oil? No way. Benefits of Room EQ is proven conclusively. There is no snake oil involved. Performing this across 8 channel 20 years ago was expensive. Fortunately it is not today. Here is a nice paper to read on power of EQ in fixing room response:
Three systems beat no EQ (dashed black) in controlled listening tests. Notice the peaking in bass response of the no-EQ system. If you care about high fidelity and you have that in your room, I don't know what to tell you. You can get variations as much as 25 dB in bass without equalization!
Above is not a surprise by any regular menbers and readers at ASR as many deploy EQ just the same. Yes, it took some explaining and repeating for even our crowd there to get it but it is the consensus view.
Bottom line: the first step in creating any performant audio system is to figure out how you are going to perform equalization.
Quick, tell me what frequencies in this graph are room modes, and which are boundary issues?
The mere question indicates you don’t know what you are looking at. Hint: look at the measurement again. It says right there.
Oh really now. You mean this graph? I know exactly what it is showing. Do you? There are clear room modes in the response. There are clear boundary effects in the response (and not low frequency reinforcement which can be corrected). Do you know which is which? Can room correction fix this? No. Can acoustic panels fix this? Absolutely.
The graph below shows that the total number who preferred absorption or diffusion exceeded the number who preferred reflective. The only other conclusion is those that preferred reflective used a higher volume. After adaptation (3rd trial) the diffuse group referenced to a lower volume and worked faster than the other two groups.
Here is the thing, though, referencing this paper was a bit of a intentional trap. The only condition in that paper that applies to your side wall situation well is the baseline. The relative path distance of your first reflection off the side wall (at least on left) is probably at best 2 msec (and looks like less) and those speakers have wide dispersion. I do commend you on using different left/right toe-in to balance the sides, made possible by a speaker with good dispersion.
The majority of the Brad thesis looks at a much different scenario, where "first" reflections are 4 and 8 msec, not to mention large reflections from both left and right speaker from the safe reflecting surface. Those times are more indicative of speakers far from a side wall and also would never occur in a home environment. The primarily lateral reflections would also not be a case for a home environment and would behave differently upon interaction with torso/head/pinna. This is the problem when trying to apply the result of experiments with drastically different conditions. The results of the experiments indicate the potential for preference in a more reflective environment when the first reflections are larger in time, but given the primarily lateral reflections, even that conclusion is suspect. You know, science.
I know you are a fan of Toole. Most of us are. Review specifically what he said,
Chapter 6 shows that in normal rooms the first lateral reflections in rectangular rooms of normal listening and control room dimensions are above the threshold of audibility. They can be heard, but are below the threshold at which the precedence effect breaks down, so there is still a single localized image. They fall into a region where there are varying amounts of "image shift" - the image is either perceived to move slightly or to be stretched slightly in the direction of the reflection. I, and others, spent hours in anechoic chamber simulations of direct and reflected sounds and can confidently state that the effects, while audible in direct A vs. B comparisons, are rather subtle. Was it ever unpleasant? No, the apparent size and/or location of the sound image was just slightly changed. The effect was smaller than tilting the head a small distance left or right of precise stereo center. The dramatic change happened when the precedence effect broke down and two images were perceived – that was a problem. The strength and spectrum of any reflection depends on the strength and spectrum of the sound radiated in that specific direction by the loudspeaker, and by the frequency-dependent acoustical performance of the reflecting surface
I could quote more and reference his book, but in summary, nothing is perfect, use what you want (at first lateral reflection). That use what you want is critical, as not all listeners, or even audiophiles listen with the same goals and may not even listen with the same goals all the time. In a music space targeted at casual listening or for the more casual listeners in the household, a space with more side wall reflections has a high likelihood of being preferred. For those who are into critical listening, muting the sidewall reflections can sharpen perceived imaging leading to a higher preference. Are you a casual or critical listener Amir?
In terms of throwing out those "professionals", I would have to throw you out as well for your insistence on only your way when your luminaries don’t even say what you claim.
What is unfortunate is I agree with you far more often than not, but you like so many here let your ego get the better of you and you let that drive a need to be right to the point that you make poor use of the available science, drawing conclusions that are beyond what the science is able to reliably claim.
Toole (with others) did do testing on reflections, but even those had limited scope, and they were done in anechoic conditions which may have either amplified the effect or muted it. I personally would lean towards the former, but I can only lean, not state, as the data is not there.
One thing is clear, there are not volumes of research on this very specific topic of acoustic panels of diverse properties with the diverse speakers, or even on speakers with good dispersion properties, in listening rooms of diverse proportions. There is some research, sometimes somewhat related, the rare bit closely related and some that is only loosely related.
See the title? "Estimated in-room response" which we formally call PIR (Predicted In-Room Response). This can even be used to predict listener preference although the formula can misfire.
- This is the steady state response
- This is a spatially average response, not the response at a particular spot, in a particular room, with a particular set of speakers, placed in a particular spot, and with the listener at a particular spot.
Bottom line, don't go slapping mattresses all of your everyday room. It is not necessary and will uglify your room and likely not have the effect you think it will have.
Bottom line few are recommending that. As well, carpets only treat the floor and are narrow in absorption no matter how thick
@amir_asr so room treatments do nothing? All of the producers and sound engineers who record with them to create less issues and surrounding booths with it so the vocals are clean don’t know what they are doing?? You can hear the difference. It’s night a day.
No, room treatments do something. Just not what you think. This idea of copying what "pros" do in the process of creating music is why we are in such a mess. They forget the fallacy of appealing to authority and jump right in both feet.
You are taking it even a step further. What a single microphone picks up in a tiny vocal booth has absolutely nothing with you sitting back to listen to music in a much larger space with two ears and a brain. I am not a recording engineer but I imagine they want a dry recording of that vocal as to then embellish it with as much reverb in post as they need. That has nothing to do with what we do in our listening spaces.
There is this assumption also that if pros do something, it must be right. A pro creating music has expertise in that field, not in science of acoustics. They haven't gone to school to learn acoustics, not have they read massive body of literature on effects of reflections in room. They hire joe acoustician which does what the poster said above: "we need to treat the room" or at least the front if in the form of LEDE or "Environmental Room." Acoustic products are put all of the walls making the room look special. This impresses the client resulting in higher billing per hour.
To be sure, at high level, an empty room is too live to be usable for enjoyable of a lot of music. In that case, if you have a dedicated room like that, you do need to "treat" it. That can be with acoustic products or in my case, ordinary furnishings that perform a similar job, are not ugly and often are much cheaper.
The research I post above shows that even when it comes to getting work done (recording/mixing), the notion that an absorptive room is right was shown to be false. People in that space would do well to rethink what they are doing.
All of this was extensively discussed in the thread I linked to. There is no point you can bring up that was not addressed there with volumes of research, not opinion based on stuff you have read online. This is what we do at ASR. We discuss the science contrary to people who think we only "measure."
BTW, if you were listening to that singer, there is a good chance you would want no absorption in that booth. This hits on the proverbial person's voice sounding best in a shower!
You literally use a tool that mimics an anechoic chamber. You really have your head up your rear end.
The tool is designed to characterize a speaker independent of the space it is placed in. Otherwise, its measurements will be specific to that location so not transportable to others. Research shows that we can use the anechoic measurements of frequency response in 3-D space, combine that with statistical mean of reflections in a number of listening rooms, and predict, with high accuracy, what happens in such a room (above transition frequencies). I post this already:
See the title? "Estimated in-room response" which we formally call PIR (Predicted In-Room Response). This can even be used to predict listener preference although the formula can misfire.
Bottom line, don't go slapping mattresses all of your everyday room. It is not necessary and will uglify your room and likely not have the effect you think it will have. Your "aunt's" furniture will do just fine in providing some diffusion and carpets and such (if thick) provide good bit of absorption. Just get it to the point where talking in there is comfortable and you are golden (if you like, you can measure using RT60 and get in the range of 0.25 to 0.6 second for typical small room).
Small room acoustic is not great Hall acoustic, or even studio recording acoustic.. These three are three completely different acoustic environtment for the goal we want to achieve...
These are completely different acoustical field of experience...You are wrong here, because you confuse small room acoustic and studio acoustic and great Hall acoustic ... Sorry .. Same physical acoustical Laws but completely different applications...Do you need a blind test to catch the deep difference in contextual applications ?
if i did not have adressed my small room by balance control of first reflection and diffusion and absorption, if i had not used a grid of Helmholtz resonators but only your DSP my room soundfield instead of being my greatest sound experience, so imperfect it was ,would have been horrible...
I am sure of two things just inspecting your room in a photo...Your sound potential clarity and transparency will be better than mine BECAUSE OF SUPERIOR COMPONENTS DESIGN at way higher cost , especially the speakers compared to mine...but your soundfield is probably not filling the room in a balanced way with for example in the opera recording of Kurt Weill TEST IT WITH HIS :
here the soundfield in my small room all along the album go from beside my ears as with headphone to all around me IN THE ROOM , behind and in front of the speakers, at different times , and distributed all around at some times, it is relative to each album moments...My SPEAKERS DISAPEARED TOTALLY... This recording is TOP recording for sure by a genius ... I know you dont listen classical but we must begin someday... 😊In my room the soundfield of my 600 bucks system will beat yours if i look at the atrocious way you treat your room acoustic ...And your speakers are better than mine with better frequencies responses.. bUt a soundfield is not created ONLY by frequencies responses, it is created by interaction with the room and the specific EARS of the owner... We dont have the same ears filters and structure and training history ,did you know that ? 😊
i am not an acoustician , i just experimented 7 days each week non stop for one year, because it was fun and it was my hobby being retired ..i learned a lot PRACTICALLY not only by reading equation by specialist and calling it done with a DSP , i experimented too ... By the way i used japanese research among books and papers,for example also Toole recommending using first reflection positively in SMALL ROOM about reflection and immersiveness to guide my experiments...
By the way it is related EXPERIMENTALLY , in each case differently, to the specific ACOUSTIC GEOMETRY (form) AND TOPOLOGY (doors+window) AND TO THE MATERIAL specific CONTENT OF THE ROOM and his acoustic properties (wood do not act as fabric clothes or animal skin etc) and it is then related after all that to TIME AND TIMING hearing and measures it is not related to your OPINION AT ALL and to your toys so useful it can be as a tool...
Contrary of what you said mocking those who informed themselves on the net ALL TOP RESEARCH PAPERS ARE ALL ACCESSIBLE FREE ON THE INTERNET for anybody with a brain...
I just argued with you about your ignorance in ecological hearing theory to balance Fourier theory and their relation to measures evaluation of qualities of sound reading among other papers an unpublished master thesis and papers i discover on the internet..
😊
In a nutshell, the most preferred treatment was no treatment
You are wrong here, because you confuse small room acoustic and studio acoustic and great Hall acoustic ... Sorry .. Same physical acoustical Laws completely different applications which must be discovered by some human ears of an acoustician and applied differently in each different acoustical environment...
If i had listened to you my small room would have been what it was in the beginning , horrible and atrocious, before i used my balance treatment with the right ratio and location between reflection/diffusion /absorption and before i used my MANY Helmholtz resonators mechanically adjustable and tuned resonators HOMEMADE distributed at critical location...... All that by my EARS..
No cost...I used garbage in my basement and i bought some tubes and cheap materials..
i am very proud of my room at the time...
i lost it...
And after 6 months of experiments and the right headphone i recreated a three D. room filling soundstage OUT OF THE HEAD, if the recording is good as in many CLASSICAL recording ... Studio recording did not gave the same spatial impressions..
Your friend is right and it is MY EXPERIENCE not by applying DSP but by experimenting:
The second issue not readily evident in the room response though there are some indications is the strong reflections from the very close side walls that will arrive both close in time and relatively high in power compared to the direct response. Yes it is correct that your speakers are well designed with smooth off axis response hence this won’t cause any weird tonal issues making assumptions about your wall materials, but back to the precedence effect, it will affect imaging, and while side wall reflections can make the image seem more expansive and the result pleasurable, when the wall is that close the result is invariably negative. You may not trust audiophile listening reports, but in similar situations, almost without exception where an audiophile was required to place their speakers near side walls, the addition of appropriate acoustic panels resulted in a significant perceived improvement. Anecdotally, you will not find a large professional studio with speakers placed that close to a side wall without use of acoustic treatments.
I won’t say it is universal, but it is almost universal that treatment of first reflections in a small rooms is recommended by professionals. Unfortunately, there has not been extensive research on this topic to draw on and what does exist is mainly around speech intelligibility, however, Brett Leonard in his PhD dissertation did some excellent work showing effects of a rather early intense reflections on perception and even the variability of that perception across music genres. Your position does not appear to be based on the fundamental science, available research, or professional recommendation.
@texbychoiceDidn’t even really catch that. Good eye. It’s a very subjective statement and one that isn’t even backed by Amir’s precious data. How the heck do you buy a processor and then spend that much money only to brick it? I’ve never heard of a product or company being so crappy. He must really not be hurting if he just doesn’t care about a $15,000 loss. Time to ask for more donations.
@amir_asrso room treatments do nothing? All of the producers and sound engineers who record with them to create less issues and surrounding booths with it so the vocals are clean don’t know what they are doing?? You can hear the difference. It’s night a day. You literally use a tool that mimics an anechoic chamber. You really have your head up your rear end.
FEYNMAN: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
as if an individual could fool himself everytime he trust himself and then must put his trust externally ...
The best way to fool himself for an individual and miss the Nobel prize is believing all that is taught everywhere ... Perhaps to Kuhn and Popper you must add Feyerabend for philosophy of science course...
Doubting is not self doubting first and using blind test as childish thinking from Amir indicate, it is doubting what is taught and experimenting with it to LEARN IT OR TO REFUTE IT by experience and trust in ourself ... We cannot do that all the time for sure , trust in others must be there as trust in ourself, but interpreting this quote out of context as never believing in our own ears and eyes is a more damaging attitude than trusting our ability to train ourself and trust ourself first not others even when we learn...
Tesla opposed his teachers at university who taught him that his electric motor idea was impossible... he did not trusted them but himself and created it after by solving all problems...
individuality and creativity is the root of science and philosophy NOT SELF DOUBT...Science is not the market arena of a circus...Barnum is not a genius in philosophy of science...And if a sucker is born everyday on earth, a genius is born everyday on earth too...
Loosing confidence in ourself and trusting others is the Key road to technocratic totalitarism, scientism, and any deep delusion created by the techno babbling people ...The death of thinking.,.
quote means something in a context :
when Feynmann created his solutions ad hoc to particules paths integrals...In spite of others advices ...
Then this quote means this : for being able to not fool himself a man must LEARN when it is right to trust himself and not others and vice versa when it is right to trust others not ouself...Not knowing that TIMING MOMENT explain why we are the easiest person to fool...
The quote is not a quote of a marketers as Amir or from a car or audio seller,or from Barnum saying a suckers is born everyday, A favorite quote of official "debunkers" sheeps objectivist crowds, it is from a scientist doubting himself and others BECAUSE he look for truth FOR HIMSELF first ...
Feynman for sure never recommend obedience to authorities as Amir or alleged authorities ask for , instead of trust in yourself...Thats is certain...
Prof you miss Feyerabend teachings in the philosophy of science course... 😊
Nothing transformed my audio system and ideas more than that processor. My jaw fell on the floor in the way it seemingly removed the walls from my listening room!
What kind of subjective audio-foolery statement is that?
Alas, the story did not end well. After spending $10K on the processor, I spent another $5K to upgrade it.
The snake in snakeoil bit you in the butt. Wonder what kind of reception the above statements would receive over at ASR?
The Church of the Naysayer Doctrine (Denyin'tology, like every other faith-based, religious cult) has as many dopes as it does Popes.
Bring up anything resembling SCIENCE/PHYSICS, dated later than the 1800’s and they become apoplectic, not having the formal education to comprehend the concepts, or- possible ramifications, as regards our components/systems/listening.
. THAT would be hilarious, were it not so pathetic!
(Gimme That Old Time Religion, Gimme That Old Time Religion, etc.)
I won’t say it is universal, but it is almost universal that treatment of first reflections in a small rooms is recommended by professionals.
Those are the professionals you want to stay the heck away from. That is old school thinking invalidated by a ton of research into what makes a pleasant listening environment.. The advice persists because people don't bother reading any research in this area and really learning the topic.
Unfortunately, there has not been extensive research on this topic to draw on and what does exist is mainly around speech intelligibility, however, Brett Leonard in his PhD dissertation did some excellent work showing effects of a rather early intense reflections on perception and even the variability of that perception across music genres.
His thesis is excellent but you are completely misrepresenting it. That work was completely focused on ability of professionals to get *work* done in different acoustic environments. It had zero to do with listening for enjoyment. If you had just looked at the abstract you would have realized that:
"This new methodology involved constant interaction with the test, and provided highly trained recording engineers a set of tasks and controls similar to their normal work."
Testers were given some common tasks in mixing content and they were timed in their ability to get them done. Subjective results were also captured on their preference. This subset was published in Journal of AES in paper, he Practical Effects of Lateral Energy in Critical Listening Environments
I cover a synopsis of it in this post. In a nutshell, the most preferred treatment was no treatment (reflective):
Back to thesis paper, in an experiment related to dialing in the right amount of reverb under different acoustic conditions, this was found:
"If consistency and repeatability are desirable characteristics for an engineer in a given environment (which they most assuredly are), the reflective environment may in fact be a better mixing environment. This could in turn contradict the idea that an acoustically untreated facility is inferior, at least in this one regard."
So even in conditions that "everyone thought" absorption was the answer, i.e. studio work, your own cited research indicates the assumption is false.
Quick, tell me what frequencies in this graph are room modes, and which are boundary issues? Hint, there are some obvious ones that the Lyngdorf was not able to do anything with that are the boundary issues and those absolutely can be improved significantly with proper use of acoustic panels. That is simple physics. You are correct that multiple subs won’t get rid of your room modes completely, but they will soften them considerably and present more consistent bass across a larger listening space whereas room correction improvements will be more localized.
As a point of information, what Ansi-CTA-2034 uses for Front Wall and Rear wall is opposite what most audiophiles will call the front and rear wall. In 2034, for instance, the front wall bounce is the spatially average 0º, ± 10º, ± 20º, ± 30º horizontal responses and 0 degrees is pointing forward from the speaker, so when looking at the speaker, it is what most would consider the back wall. The Rear Wall Bounce is what most audiophiles call the front wall reflection, hence why it declines rapidly at high frequencies due to the directional nature of the speaker at higher frequencies. The rear wall bounces is the spatially average horizontal responses at ± 90°, ± 100°, ± 110°, ± 120°, ± 130°, ± 140°, ± 150°, ± 160°, ± 170°, 180°.
Due to precedence effect, the on-axis sound, and not the reflections rule predominantly what you hear. And this is naturally not impacted by the room (above transition frequencies). What reflection there is, gets attenuated due to much longer path length of that front wall.
This is of course correct.
Also correct is that the early reflection graphs are spatially averaged over a large number of angles and hence both masks acoustic interference, both constructive and destructive and provides no weighting for angles that may be more or less relevant in a given room, speaker position, listener environment which can impact acoustic interference as well as timing and intensity as it relates to early arrival reflections that may interference with the precedence of the direct sound.
A case in point is the room response curve you posted which has clear boundary interference, however, that would not show in a 2034 report. Nevertheless it occurs, it is audible, and it can be addressed.
The second issue not readily evident in the room response though there are some indications is the strong reflections from the very close side walls that will arrive both close in time and relatively high in power compared to the direct response. Yes it is correct that your speakers are well designed with smooth off axis response hence this won’t cause any weird tonal issues making assumptions about your wall materials, but back to the precedence effect, it will affect imaging, and while side wall reflections can make the image seem more expansive and the result pleasurable, when the wall is that close the result is invariably negative. You may not trust audiophile listening reports, but in similar situations, almost without exception where an audiophile was required to place their speakers near side walls, the addition of appropriate acoustic panels resulted in a significant perceived improvement. Anecdotally, you will not find a large professional studio with speakers placed that close to a side wall without use of acoustic treatments.
I won’t say it is universal, but it is almost universal that treatment of first reflections in a small rooms is recommended by professionals. Unfortunately, there has not been extensive research on this topic to draw on and what does exist is mainly around speech intelligibility, however, Brett Leonard in his PhD dissertation did some excellent work showing effects of a rather early intense reflections on perception and even the variability of that perception across music genres. Your position does not appear to be based on the fundamental science, available research, or professional recommendation.
Your opinions on Richard Feynman's philosophies are irrelevant to me.
What are your objections to the references, facts and history, regarding electromagnetism and Physics/QED, posted by moi, that you've so easily dismissed, "prof"?
Just in the spirit of discussing things that might make our systems sound better.
Was that around the time that Peter and Boz were having their falling out?
Or, possibly: after Boz had TacT up and running (maybe didn't want to deal with their combined/older efforts)? Just guessing!
I required Boz's assistance a few times and always found him helpful, thankfully. Always with the software end of things though.
ie: Once bought a 64 bit laptop, that wouldn't run the 2.2.X program, written in 32 bit (no emulator, that model, year or something). Important info, not in TacT User Manual.
That was the short, sweet and easiest call.
Still have the dedicated, 32 bit, Toshiba laptop, that I bought for the TacT program.
Glad I've been able to keep up with maintenance on my own, since there's zero, anywhere else.
That's a pretty piece of gear.
re: flakey channels
Did you try cleaning all the internal pin connectors? Especially: the ones from the power supply to the boards?
They* were known to corrode, at the slightest provocation.
FEYNMAN: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
What do you think Feynman means by that, Rodman?
How might we fool ourselves? And what is he indicating in saying "and you are the easiest person to fool?"
What steps, would this suggest in a method of empirical inquiry? What variables might he be referencing? Are you aware of the long scientific literature on the subject that would bear on this question in terms of how human beings think? And what steps science often takes to minimize that variable?
Feynman wants us to learn from experience....but it is a *specific type of carefully controlled experience.* The type that separates scientifically gained knowledge from, say, dowsing, or astrology, or religion, or new age healing crystals etc.
"Try It For Yourself" does not capture the specific rigor of the scientific method.
I’ve given you all the pieces, I’m sure you can put it together in to answering what Feynman meant (and thus how your previous post had ignored Feynman’s warning).
Continually avoiding a major point made against your argument...
What, "major point" was that?
Are you referring to your Feynman quote? If so: had he lived by YOUR version of HIS philosophy: he'd never have won his Nobel.
The man was all about experimentation and observation.
He learned that from his father, who was often mentioned by Feynman, during lectures.
One anecdote that some may find interesting: their walks in the woods and how his father would encourage him to look beyond the fact that something in nature exists, but into why and how.
It saddened him, that while attending college, during a visit home and one of their walks: his dad asked what he was learning in college.
At that moment, he realized: if he tried to explain what he was learning, there was no way his dad could understand.
You can take a measurement all you want of this room, but room correction is not going to fix some glaring issues visible in this graph and system photo. No call to authority is going to change that but appropriate well placed panels will.
Wall panels will not do jack for those measurements. They won't even register on the graph! Go ahead and show the measurements before and after you hang a panel on the wall.
Here is the real image of that measurement:
We see bass response going down to 20 Hz which is great given the fact that there are no subs involved (the one in the picture is not used). I don't listen to the No-EQ graph. I turned off my own Room EQ to test Roomperfect. We see how the room created that large peak and dip -- both of which were mostly corrected by RoomPerfect EQ.
A system can sound wonderful if you have the right speakers, apply bass EQ, and have ordinary furnishings in your room. Do NOT let anyone shame you into slapping ugly panel on the room as to fit in the club. Folks advocating that have not read a single piece of research into acoustics of room. They are just repeating what they have read online...
As a follow up to above with respect to multiple subs, this is a computer (CFD) simulation used to optimize placement of multiple subs in our theater. Even with that optimization, response is still on even and requires EQ:
So the rule is simple: if you are not measuring your room and correcting for bass, you don't have an optimized system. Yes, you can reduce some of the impact by proper placement of speakers/subs and listening location but you cannot get the proper response without equalization.
@amir_asr You may notice that I did NOT call your system a ’lousy audio system’...I wonder why?? I could have stated that having a big screen TV between the speakers and having your gear placed on your auntie’s dining room side board cabinet is not exactly anything but...laughable! But, for some reason i did not say that before, however since you want to play that card....;0)
It is only laughable if you have gotten your knowledge of acoustics from stuff you read online and lay intuition. Due to precedence effect, the on-axis sound, and not the reflections rule predominantly what you hear. And this is naturally not impacted by the room (above transition frequencies). What reflection there is, gets attenuated due to much longer path length of that front wall.
Now, if you have a speaker that has screwed up directivity/off-axis response, these reflections than change the tonality of on-axis sound. This is why our speaker measurements include such information:
Notice how smooth the back-wall reflections are and how similar they are to on axis. The only ones that deviate are the ceiling and floor ones. For that reason, I have a special rug that is very thick and is designed to absorb down to that frequency. Yes, not every acoustic product needs to look like a child blanket hung on a wall!
Back to this speaker, see how nice the sum of early window reflections are (in blue) relative to on-axis response (in black):
This is nearly textbook perfect. You can see it in the predicted in-room response which includes all the reflections you think are "bad:"
This matches top class studio monitors used to produce content:
Perceptually, your brain adapts to the room above transition after a short period. It learns that the room reflections are a constant secondary data that adds little to the primary sound. So it starts to filter them. For this reason, a specific speaker sounds similar when placed in many different rooms. The speaker dominates, not the room.
If the speaker has really awful off-axis response however, the brain thinks that it is bringing more to the table so adaptation doesn't occur as much. For those speakers, which you should have avoided, you may want to put more absorption on the walls.
BTW, Amir, do you really think as an ex-pro musician and music teacher, plus being in the a’phile hobby for over forty years( dates me), that I cannot set up a couple of subwoofers in my system? Instead, i need to have an artificial tool to aid me...get a clue
As a musician, you hear sounds from a different vantage point than listeners. So that doesn't train you as an audiophile anyway. That aside, physics of sound don't stop in your room because you learned to play an instrument. That physics says that at frequencies below transition the modal density is low so you can get pretty narrow resonances at multiple frequencies. There is no way, no how you can just use your ears to tease them out let alone correcting them. Even the best acousticians in the world measure and then correct using DSP. No number of subs, or acoustic bandages is going to remove the need for this. Your room is ringing at some frequencies regardless of any manual tuning you have done.
Get a DSP and a measurement mike and be ready to transform the sound of your room and arrive at your next stage in audiophile life. Don't keep chasing the next cable, tube amp, etc. And oh, get speakers that have proper directivity or your acoustic life will be very difficult.
If I understood your last post correctly: you own Lyngdorf gear.
Nice stuff, not to mention: a good looking listening/media room.
Having been in the loop so long: you've got to remember Peter & Boz's TacT venture.
I'm still using the old Tact RCS 2.2Xaaa (with a number personally addressed mods/updates, of course).
The Lyngdrorf was a loaner from a member so got returned. I did however purchase the TacT TCS 8 channel system. Nothing transformed my audio system and ideas more than that processor. My jaw fell on the floor in the way it seemingly removed the walls from my listening room!
Alas, the story did not end well. After spending $10K on the processor, I spent another $5K to upgrade it. I didn't get to use it for a couple of years and when I went back to turn it on a couple of channels were flakey. As a last resort, I tried to update the firmware from the image on the website. The firmware completely bricked the system by causing it to get stuck in the start up screen!
I sent an email to Boz (or did I talk to him?). As soon as I told me I upgraded the firmware he demanded to know why! I told him the issue and he said you should not have upgraded the firmware. I told him that he had the firmware on his website. How was I supposed to know I was not going to use it?
I then asked him if there is a fix. He said no. I asked how that could be. Wouldn't he have a way to force a factory reset or something? He said no. That was that and to this day, I have this gorgeous looking but broken door stop. :(
It’s up to you how much you care to be taken seriously.
Continually avoiding a major point made against your argument to instead rant out insults, however good it makes you feel, won’t help you be taken seriously, though.
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