Back when I was an avid amateur speaker builder, I borrowed some test equipment from a technician so I could fine-tune a crossover design, my target being the "holy grail" of flat frequency response. As I got closer and closer to "flat", the sound got worse and worse. Still I persevered, firm in my faith that once I reached "the promised land" of flat measured frequency response, everything would fall into place and the angels would sing.
Well, that didn’t happen. When I finally arrived at "flat" response (plus or minus about .75 dB indicated at the microphone location except for the peaks and dips in the bass region), the sound was harsh and bright and imo unlistenable.
After this highly unsettling experience I started spending as much of my spare time as I could in the library of a nearby university, poring though audio industry journals trying to figure out what had gone wrong and what the solutions might be. Here are the conclusions I eventually arrived at:
1. The in-room response at the listening position dominates perceived tonal balance, and the most natural-sounding in-room response has a gently downward-sloping trend as we go up in frequency (the Harman Curve being an example of this).
2. The spectral discrepancy between the first-arrival sound and the in-room reflection field should be minimized.
3. This means that BOTH the first-arrival sound AND the in-room reflections should have approximately the same gentle downward-slope as we go up in frequency.
Therefore, in my opinion, “getting the basics right” includes getting the first-arrival sound right, and getting the reflection field right.
Duke
speaker manufacturer