In-Room responce measurement with Legacy Focus SE speakers

@erik_squires I the Earthworks Mic. It is not USB, but it does not require a calibration curve because it is dead flat and smoothly omnidirectional.

@erik_squires "Also worth noting that studies have shown that having meetings in highly reflective rooms is literally exhausting."  Yup, I think we have all experienced that first hand in bars and restaurants, and theaters.  That's why when my father said "I don't like listening to music above "X" setting----I don't need to listen loud---it's just too aggravating", but I thought 'man I can barely really hear it, and for sure can't FEEL music?!!?', then checked on the DB meter and it was at 64+ DB, I knew it was the room acoustics. 

I work in wildland fire, and one year we had to stay at a fire camp that was in a school.  The Incident Team thought it would be great to have everyone sleep in the gymnasium.  I told my crew "no way....we'll find a different spot outside, even if it rains a little".  Couple crew said 'no way, I'm not risking getting wet, I'm going in the gym!'  Well, shove 800 fire fighters in a gym, and SNORING, and NO ONE is sleeping.  One of the guys ended up coming outside.  Next morning he said it was like being in a zoo enclosure. 

@mark200mph I am really glad for your comment!  I was hoping enough folks would be able to chime in and make this educational.  I'm trying to learn what web site to use to host images that I can post in here so folks can see some of what is going on. 

@mijostyn  - That sounds like you are replying to something I said, but I'm not  sure what that was. 

Next morning he said it was like being in a zoo enclosure. 

Well, that's a little bit different.  Your brain isn't trying to separate the snoring from the words in this case, or the reflections from the music, but if you were trying to pick out 1 specific snore... 😂

@erik_squires 🤣🐴🐐🐘🦏!!!!

So: here is an RT60 plot of the room untreated for a quick reference:

Well, if I interpret this correctly it's exactly what we expected.  When you go looking for room treatments you want to focus on panels that are most effective from 700Hz upwards.  This should be (if my memory is correct) mostly the 2" type of panels.  It is worth including about 1/3rd of them as combination diffusion / absorbers so you don't end up with too dead of a room. 

Once these times come down it will be worth revisiting.

Also, don't forget the floor and ceiling!!!  The floor is easy to treat if not done already with carpeting and rugs.  The ceiling you might want to wait until you finish placing the speakers as the area between them and listening location deserves extra treatment.

OP:

Reputable makers like GIK and ATS (there’s a third brand that is often recommended to me which I’ve forgotten, but not ASC) have the absorption coefficients listed in Sabines or something like that. More Sabines = more absorption.

Also, given the strength of the 5 kHz time you might want to concentrate (but not exclusively) behind the listener and speakers. The reason is that speakers get directional by this frequency, and given the time is still so high it’s quite likely you have a back/forth reflection going on there.

If you felt like making some semi-circular diffusors behind the listening location those  would probably help a great deal.

@erik_squires great insights again.  I was just doing reading up on the specific frequencies and energy/directionality.  I have been diving into that AM Acoustics web site as well, which has been PERFECT for this exact exercise: everything I am even roughly measuring and hearing, it is show as well.  It mathematically predicts the RT60 in sync to what I measured, and it is also telling me the exact same higher energy frequencies with specific notes to test. 

Here is a photo of the empty room: no diffusion.  I'll post the full semi-arc at the speakers and it's corresponding measurements to show the difference (now that I finally figured out what I was doing wrong with posting images!!!!)
Of note but not obvious is the 18"x18" boxed beam overhead, just "in front" of the seating position.

I think the beam will be more or less OK. It’s too close to your head to reflect directly, but the ceiling above your head is ripe for treatment.

One radical listening approach is to toe the speakers in so they cross in front of your head. This minimizes the reflection against the side walls. They also seem to be too far out into the room to reinforce the bass well though, so, with an eye on the AM room simulator, consider pushing them backwards when you have that back wall treated.

Honestly though I'd move the speakers AND the couch forward as well.

@erik_squires Agree on all points.  I'll send you a message on a couple details, and a sketch of the room and dimensions, so you specifically have a better idea. 

Here is the room "treated" sort of over the top with utilizing what we have on hand, and making the largest change to hear/measure what is improved/worsened.  From the RT60 measurements, you can see that we dramatically reduced the echo/ringing from over 700ms to just around 500ms, which some state is around average/acceptable in most contexts. 

Also attaching measurement sheet to show where things are placement and distance wise. 

I have both of the mentioned speakers.  Legacy Focus SEs in my main listening area and the Studio HDs in my PC setup.  Studio HDs are very fine speakers, indeed.  But nowhere near what you should be hearing from the Focus SEs.  I've been fortunate to live in my home for nearly 22 years.  And I've been into audio and HT long before that.  When I first moved in, I had Legacy Classic speakers.  They sounded fantastic and 'hit' or slammed really hard.  Then I moved up to Focus (originals).  The bass all but left even though I went from (4)10" bass drivers to (6)12" bass drivers.  So I went to work on sound panels and a few bass traps.  Tons of experimentation on speaker positioning as well... I'm talking countless hours of moving (even by mere fractions of an inch), listening for a few days and then moving again.  It took a lot of time and effort between placing panels in the right places and speaker positioning.  But once I upgraded to the new Focus SEs, all I needed to do was find the sweet spot of positioning.  If I put on something like the Beastie Boys, I get a very nice, full body massage.  You should be getting gobs of deep bass from these things.

@audiom3 Oh that is awesome to hear!!  I -LOVE-    my Studio HDs in my small living room Home Theater 2.5 channel set up.  I had Epos ES12s for awhile, which were "nice", but man the upgrade to the Studios was DRAMATIC!!!

I think with my fathers system, his speakers are in an enormous cavern, and there is a lot of reverb and ringing that are masking a fair amount of bas, (as noted and instructed by @erik_squires )   For him, the lack of bass is perfectly fine (he doesn't hear it that way), but for me......if I were playing Sabotage....YOU BETTER BE BRINGING THAT BASS!!!!!!!

Out of curiousity @audiom3  have you ever used REW and would you be able/willing to do an in room measurement?  I'd just like to see the difference in the bass response and levels comparatively.

@amtprod man, it's been a long time since I've messed with REW.  I still have the UMIK-1 around here somewhere though.  Give me a bit of time and I'll try to do some measurements.  My Ayre power amp is away for a 'faulty' fault (blown fuse fault but never has it blown a fuse).  I should have it back in  a few weeks.  I'm also rearranging my media room due to buying a new LG 83" OLED (from a 65" OLED).  So my Focus SEs are going to be moved out 1.5-2' further to accommodate and I will need to dial-in the positioning....

Brass Monkey is the song I like to crank when I'm pissed at my neighbors!  That gets back at them every time! :D

@amtprod Here you go.  The chart shows L=R which isn't the best way to do it, but I wanted to show a Class D manufacturer the chart with his amp (green) being much hotter than my Ayre, even though they have the same gain (26dB). 

After moving the speakers much further apart to accommodate my new 83" OLED, I have work to do with my panels and traps to help tame all of that extra bass energy.  I am going to experiment this weekend and try to enable the bass switch on the back of the Focus.  It has a centered frequency of 60Hz which will also help.  The Ayre amp never sounds over-powering even when up over 100dBs.  It remains clean and fairly balanced even though the bass is too strong, I like feeling the impact.  So I don't want to tame it too much.  The bass toggle switch on the back of the speakers may do the trick.

@audiom3  - If the delta is exactly 6 dB I strongly suspect you were missing a channel.

@erik_squires I am sure the manufacturer was mistaken and these are in fact, the 32dB gain boards. He's going to send me the correct ones soon. Thanks for your feedback. 

@Audiom ...hah, funny coincidence