Do YOU have a flat frequency response in your room?

@kota1   You're quite welcome...  I believe you'll enjoy the book.  It goes about the basics and is easy to understand.  It's been a huge help to me.  

Happy Listening !  

@liquidsound +10, you articulated the entire point of why I started this thread in your post, thank-you. I will order that book too, first I heard of it, thanks!

I may have a very simplistic view on this topic, however getting your listening-space "right" to get the best representation of what you're listening to is more important than chasing component upgrades without it.  A great book in my opinion is "Get Better Sound" by Jim Smith.  I have used it to set-up my large listening-room 14 years ago and recently in my new smaller space in retirement.  Up until I really considered the room being the issue, I swapped-out a number of different components including speakers, preamps and amps chasing improved sound.  I found that while the sound did change some for the better, I never really enjoyed it as much until I worked on the room.  Once I got the room "right", when I changed components and speakers, I felt that I could really flesh-out the differences/improvements much better than prior to that.  I bought my audiophile friend a copy of that book and it too changed his whole perspective on how the room affects the sound.  Most of us mere mortals have to live with the physical dimensions of our listening-spaces.  It's what you can do within those confines to minimize the effects of the room on the music that makes a great difference in anything you do component wise in the future.  This has been my experience.  

Amplitude at frequency is one piece of the puzzle. The real question is where the dip or bump is. From 1.5k to 3k a bump will create a bright speaker and a dip will create a polite speaker. 
 

Having said that measurements can be misleading as microphones include the direct and indirect sound…microphones are stupid compared to our brains.

As long as the reflections are delayed a bit, our brains can separate out the direct and indirect sound. 

When people make manual adjustments to frequency response based off a microphone, mids and treble can sound off as the direct sound is being altered, potentially making things worse. 

'Absolute flat' is still a target, given the spaces we have to fill as best one may.

I'm pleased enough to get 'relatively flat', but still tweak to taste and the occasional recording.  And most being a work in progress anyway doesn't help much. *L*

Of course not.  No-one does.

Thank you @wturkey 

@kota1, thanks for the compliment. The layout above looks like it will provide a good environment for our fine art of audio appreciation. 😁

@lemonhaze , you articulated that very well, the key is a "smooth" in room response which combines with both direct sound and reflected sound. This was the strategy I used in treating my room, I pretty much followed the panel distribution laid out in this diagram:

@lordrootman, the nice thing about ’online’ is that no one can twist your arm to buy. ;) I’ll read/listen, but that doesn’t mean a sale or commitment to do so. *S*

Never heard of or have heard Audyssey, but no reason to ignore either...*shrug* See which way the tech is drifting...

Flat on-axis frequency response is clearly the engineering objective for most of these systems. Those that deviate significantly earn lower ratings in double-blind subjective evaluations. Although there is more to be considered, a flat direct sound delivered to listeners is the basis for most reproduced soun

The important takeaway here is 'flat direct sound',  in other words flat when reverberating sound is not combining with the direct sound, as in an anechoic state or a free field, meaning no reflected signal or measured in room with gating employed during capture.

I personally strive for a smooth response, which is to say I avoid peaks and nulls by careful driver choice, crossover design and room treatment. Using 2 or more subs will also reduce the lumpy response.

@ghasley
I am sorry that you found my comment Snarky or... But YOU brought up the devices Boomboxes and earplugs, which didn't even exist till the turn of the century. And except for the dollar two ninety-five wired earphones given away with Japanese transistor radios your comment didn’t’ fit what I was talking about, but then you say it was. Colour me confused.
Yes some of it was modified to fit certain formats, as L:Ps still are, but I find that MOST of the music from the 50s, 60,s 70,s 80.s was mostly just what the sound Eng decided that he himself liked or the dictates of the studio. The later you can find that many label’s ’HAD A SOUND’! and that sound often made or broke many a musician. AND that this sound had little to noting to do with the LP, 8-trac, Cassette, Am, or FM industries. It was also a huge period of experimentation in SOUND and sound engineering. I only wish to be a straight shooter and if yo see other comments I make on this site I don't vilify company names or store names if at all possible. I try not to make personal comments other than to point out definite decencies in a comment made to me.

@esarhaddon 

No, I was talking about recorded music for which the mixes were tailored for the intended audience and how they might play it back. Alot of music was compromised because they made certain that it was optimized for AM or FM rebroadcast.

You are correct, I was born after the middle of the last century so I haven't had time yet to become snarky or bitter. Just pointing out that EVERYONE is likely aware that production values of many recordings has been compromised as a result of distribution/playback decision making.

@ghasley
You seem to be assuming that the sound techniques I was talking about were from CHILDREN that listened to Boomboxes and earbuds. No I was talking about the Mid 1900s You know before you most likely were born.

If you’re using the ability to replicate live music as a measure of success in Hi-Fi sound, then a flat frequency is almost irrelevant as the sound of music in any venue will depend entirely on the sound characteristics of that venue. And every venue sounds different.

I am afraid I do not buy into the need for a flat, or other, prescribed frequency response. I tested numerous combinations of amps and speakers in my room till I found the sweet spot for me. I have measured it and it’s all over the place but it sounds absolutely incredible. I used Roon DSP to produce a slightly tailing off frequency curve but it did not sound as good as my natural frequency bumpy curve and it flattened my soundstage. Room treatments are not possible in the family room where I listen so fortunately I have no choice but to enjoy the wobbly curve I have.

@Kota1
To start wiht, If you haven’t seen my responses before, I have been designing speakers since about 1975, so I have a definite advantage that many don’t have. BUT, that doesn’t meant that people can’t take clues from what I discuss and improve on what they have. The first place is to see what your system is producing. and I will say it again the Decibel-X Ap on a phne with or without a high quality mic can give you an idea of what you are producing. Yo can use static tones generated my a machine or a span of frequencies recorded, or some colour of generated Noise, or MUSIC.
I will always start with the idea that any SYSTTEM can only produce what your SPEAKERS are capable of. SO, possibly I am prejudiced, but that is where I always Start. If your speakers can Faithfully reproduce RAWE tones across the entire band with equal response, You have achieved the First step. Then look into the tonal quality, approach, attack etc. of the speaker. My current towers (that I built) I broke many of the basic rules on purpose. Like the crossover. Most of your high end speakers use higher order of crossovers and if you look at the individual response of most drivers. they roll off very gently. That makes me want to AVOID the higher order crossovers with their sharp roll off, This allows the frequency response of a driver to keep the crossover point level where often if you look at a graphic of a speaker, you will see definite dips at the crossover point. Then I of course use high quality components and things like a ’Foil Ribbon Coil’ (Continuous wind)instead of a wire wound coil (Fishing real wind) and this provides a much more accurate response and faster response in my speakers.
After you have a good speaker then you can play around with all of your other components to find a sound that you want.
Then there is a recent event in my life that provides a perfect example of what not to do. I was looking at a new AV unit and went to a local (So Called) high end store. i should have known something was amiss when I was introduced to the sales person as the Expert on that particular brand of machine. Now I had called ahead and told them EXACTLY what I was looking for and what I expected. What I have currently to work with and that I would be bringing my own materials that I was intimately familiar with. They immediately show me a system that on the surface seemed to have good quality Cord & Cables. what I had hoped ewer adequate components, but then he took my disk and put it into an X-Box to play. You can’t get any more Audiophile than an X-box now can you (SIC). The disk was a DVD audio of Chinese drums, which can produce some Very clear Low notes and resonances. His system couldn’t even reproduce the notes and he started backpedaling by telling me how the DiracLive setup originally was tuned with a Sub Woofer and he had just pulled the Sub from the system. I have a serious problem if Your system has defeated the low end of your towers in favor of Subs. Also that this sales person would present anything like this as I had previously told them that I didn’t use a Sub in my system. Also I will never believe that the Minnie towers he had with 4.5 inch bass drivers could EVER equal my system with 8 inch drivers o full towers. Bottom line this was the Worst possible disaster of a sales pitch I have ever heard. Also the store had paper thin walls and the only bass that I heard that day was from the next room over. Noting I don’t identify the store. So now I will NEVER know if the brand of machine I was trying to audition is any good or of any quality. I actually wrote the manufacturer and told them about this in hopes they would pull this store license to sell their product line. I don't think it will be rude to say that the system I wanted to interview was an Anthem and that the Store was somewhere in Metro Denver.

@kota1 if anyone  praises a speaker that Floyd  o Toole and the national research  councils  anicocic  chamber was involved with the development  of that said speaker I know what there system  sounds like! 💩

I think OP is on the mission to sell something 😂😁🤣

@esarhaddon , let me say I don’t know how to get the sound of live musicians in my room, I likely need to start all over with a purpose built studio and a generous budget to achieve that.

However, I can share the most enjoyable way I have found to listen to live recordings. If you see my system you’ll notice a BIG screen in front. Plex now has about 10 live TV stations that play various types of concerts 24/7. I fire up one of those channels with content I enjoy and listen with an upmixer called Audyssey DSX. The emphasis today in multichannel listening seems to be height channels. For reproducing music wide channels are more important than height channels according to studies by Tomlinson Holman (THX). The wide channels seem to be an afterthought with Atmos and DTS-X. Read more about it here:

@esarhaddon , you make a great point. Are you hearing what the engineer heard when they mixed it. That is called the "circle of confusion" and is one of the topics that paper attempts to address. Check out the diagram (Fig. 1) on the second page and then the author states:

Significant uniformity throughout the process is needed if customers are to hear what the artists created. This is the “circle of confusion” shown in Fig. 1. For the system to function sensibly, mixing and mastering engineers need to experience sound that resembles what their customers will hear. Acknowledging that audio systems in widespread use are not necessarily very good, audio professionals in the music side of the business have often used “bad” loudspeakers to check their mixes. The problem is that loudspeakers can be “bad” in countless ways. The dominant characteristics of small low cost audio devices are a lack of bass and reduced sound output capability—a high-pass filter in the playback signal path is a practical way to simulate that. The author’s book [1] (chapters 2 and 18) illustrates the past and present situation in consumer and professional-monitor loudspeakers. Flat on-axis frequency response is clearly the engineering objective for most of these systems

@retiredfarmer , that is a little harsh to dis the whole country because of one anechoic chamber

Flat frequency response at the listening position is not desirable.  What most people want is a smooth frequency response curve with varying degrees of downward sloping as frequencies increase.  Room decay times are actually just as important as frequency response.

@esarhaddon 

Your premise is potentially fallable. You assume engineering and production for best sound quality may have been the goal…which isn’t always the case. More than a few productions may have been mixed to optimize sound from a boombox …or an automobile system…or earbuds.

Ideally I would love to hear what the original intent was provided they each shared sound quality as a goal. But alas, no two do to the same level or degree of honesty.

@duckworp , I agree that that once you have a flat frequency response component upgrades can provide many benefits you simply can't measure with one microphone and a computer. We listen with two ears so things like soundstage can't be measured. My premise is to dial in whatever your preferred FR is before trying to change other parameters.

DSP is very limited in what it can correct. According to the paper I posted in section 2.4 Room Equalization is a Misnomer:

Equalization is very limited in what it can “correct,” yet the notion that changing the signal supplied to a sound system consisting of an unknown loudspeaker in an unknown room can “equalize” or “calibrate” a system is widespread. In the context of a practical application where there is an audience of several listeners conventional equalization cannot: • Add or remove reflections • Change reverberation time • Reduce seat-to-seat variations in bass • Correct frequency dependent directivity in loudspeakers • Compensate for frequency dependent absorption in acoustical materials and furnishings. The exception is in the highly reflective sound field at very low frequencies.

@asvjerry @nonoise Thanks for catching my typo, that should read.

There is no "wrong" way to do this hobby

@asvjerry You obviously get the point, congrats on the speaker build, must be nice to have the satisfaction of being able to literally build the speaker to fit your room. Most of us have to change the room to fit the speaker, nice job!

I agree with the OP’s premise.  Plus or minus a couple of decibels.

Flat+ faithful reproduction of what the Sound Eng. and studio meant you to hear. I want to hear a trumpet or a pianie sound like they are live. Anything else is a muddied up mess that we have become used to over the years. I get up around live music and also participated multiple times and aspects of semi-pro music and trying to say that something less that a faithful sound form your speaker is desired is silly.

Now I like using my DiracLive Mic plugged into my Celliophone and then using the Decibel-X App to see both the instantaneous and average response of my system. I was initially amazed at how true my speakers did the job I built them to do. If yo hear something you consider TOO BRIGHT, yo need to get your ears cleaned out or just learn what LIVE music actually sounds like. I don’t know why ANYONE would desire their system to produce something adulterated and not realistic.
 

This takes me back to the days when everyone was getting a Graphic equalizer plugged into their system. I even did it for a short time, till I realized that it was the studio Eng and producers that made all of the music NOT realistic. We were trying to make up for what they had produced, forgetting that in most cases the SOUND that they created was in most cases what made or Broke an artist. SO in a sense we were all trying to find that flat response or what we saw as too much or Missing, but forgetting that the studio had some ulterior motive. Now a days we see a greater effort to make a realistic sounding musical presentation and now that we had gotten used to some distorted sound, we want to make what we hear now actually distorted. I do have an appreciation for both. The old sound was intentionally meant to sound a certain way and now I want to hear the TRUTH. It is as bad as corrupted politics.

First off many of the Canadian  speakers are designed  in the national reaseach councils anicocic chamber.  Every one of them sounds terrible because  people don't listen to them in the same anicocic  chamber  in there home. But if someone aspires to build there room into that no problem you might want to try out a cheap Canadian  speaker  in your room when you get done. Perhaps  they will sound ok in your room. 

That being  said I do know one fellow who has an anicocic chamber  in his house but that is not his listening  room  that is for measurements of speakers. He is a writer for an offshore hifi magazine.  

My hifi room is uncorrected by any digital nannies (I use a Loki EQ for my headphones only) and my system sounds astoundingly good in its room with a what I suppose is called a "room sound." Music generally takes place in rooms if it's played by actual non digital instruments (as opposed to a synth played through headphones), and that sounds like real life in my earballs. I have some vibration pods here (they keep things from slipping around) and there but I really don't think vibration is such an enemy (my powered subs have the amps in the box with the speakers...horrifying!). If you live in a metal water tower or a shipping container with no furniture,  you could have room issues...otherwise, room treatment obsession seems unnecessary...get some furniture maybe...a rug...sheep...

@duckworp, yup and the pursuit of one's personal nirvana is pretty much the other name of the game. *G*

And, of course, enthusiasm and budget to float ones' boat. ;)  I've just grown relaxed about it....

I do believe that there are other more important elements to your sound than a flat frequency response.  Yes, boomy bass or harsh top-end is intolerable, but I would put soundstage, timing, coherence, dynamics, and musicality way above a flat frequency response in terms of desirability.  
 

The attraction of aiming for a flat (or bespoke) frequency response is that it is entirely measurable and achievable for anyone via DSP, and largely component-independent if done electronically or through room correction. Fine-tuning it to perfection appeals particularly to those who like to measure stuff.   The other audio nirvanas (soundstage, timing etc.) listed in my paragraph above are more component-dependent and not measurable and explain precisely why upgrading or changing equipment is the route most travelled.  

 

kota, I do hope there was a 'no' well-placed in that first sentence to nonoise.... ;)  Otherwise, it reads more like we've been wasting our time chasing a chimera instead of sirens....😏  And totally clueless as to the proper means....

I've pursued flat, gotten close to something that resembles that in some way.  "Bright' yes, but my personal perception of the world about us it that mostly.  The pursuit of 'proper' bass is imho up to ones' preference of the experience and the 'feel' of it within that being reproduced.

I know that there are the various 'curves' one can follow, but that tweaking speakers of various sorts to properly track them within rooms of dubious qualities can make you crazy.  Auto-eq takes the bulk of that pursuit out of your hands, but generally one will make adjustments to taste anyway....

I have or get what I want for the most part, having pursued 'flat' since the '80s'.  You can split hairs only so much for so long that eventually all you've got to show for it is dust.... ;)

Anyway...cheers.

@nonoise +1, hey, there is "wrong" way to do this hobby as long as you get what you want.

My post was directed at the members posting that they don't have what they want, and asking what to buy/try next. I think that this is what people who are not feeling satisfied should try first. 

@mrskeptic , that statement is based on the research paper I posted on page 1:

Flat on-axis frequency response is clearly the engineering objective for most of these systems. Those that deviate significantly earn lower ratings in double-blind subjective evaluations.

And in section 3.6

Double-blind subjective evaluations of loudspeakers conducted by the author and his colleagues for 35 years have shown consistent preference for those having flat and smooth on-axis frequency response, accompanied by wellbehaved off-axis response—i.e., a smoothly changing or constant directivity index ([1] chapter 18)

• I don't think I do
• I don't care that I don't
• As of now, I revel in the sound that I get
• Having said that, I don't think I ever want to know

All the best,
Nonoise

The most basic truth of audio for the last 30 years is listeners prefer a flat frequency response.

Says who? No concert I've ever attended had a flat frequency response and even if there was one of those out there, we ALL hear differently and some people (I'd guess most) prefer to hear some parts of the music boosted just a smidge, or maybe a lot. 

above that i am much more concerned about RT60…… but overly treated rooms ….are sterile and lifeless….

I don’t think I would know the difference. I set my system up in a way that sounds good to me and let it ride. 

@wturkey , I am not a quant, we had quants in another thread, that take it to the ridiculous,

You heard the man. Let’s have a lookie-loo at his measurements…..

Let’s talk about below 120 hz at the listening position and at 20 hz , I am down a db….

@tomic601 , to answer your question see the white paper I posted earlier in this thread.

From "The Measurement and Calibration of Sound Reproducing Systems-1. Introduction"

@wturkey and , you can check the measurements of my room in my profile.

@jeffrey75 , please post any links you would like to house curves. I think @mikelavigne rephrased the question properly, it is to get the FQ that is desired, but that doesn't mean it has to be flat.

I am saying that listeners are better off getting the FQ in the room they want (flat, or otherwise) by measuring and dialing it in before making new investments in gear.

Does ANYONE truly have flat frequency response in their room?

what is flat ? 

Nope..!

Flat frequency response is desirable but I don't believe it's the most important factor in sounding live. Dynamic linearity(linear changes in loudnes from micro to macro) is absolutely necessary. Change a seat in a live concert and frequency response changes but both seats sound alive. Or stand by a door outside a room and it's far from flat response but if it's live in the room you know it and it it's reproduced sound you know it too. Flat response is wonderful but secondary.

There are a few articles explaining "house curves" that are readily accessible the OP may wish to investigate.

@erik_squires , wow +10, nice article. I hope the other people reading this thread benefit from your wisdom here. 

This proves a point I keep repeating: You have no idea what the lower cutoff of a speaker in a room actually is until you measure it. Because most audiophiles don’t do this critical step they usually get misled about what their next steps should be. The average audiophile needs to reset what they think they know about speaker specifications and what it means.