Modernists Unite, or: saying no to room treatment

In spite of several decades in this hobby, I won't claim to be an expert on room acoustics (or any other aspect for that matter). This is not false modesty but due to the simple fact that I continue to learn new things almost every day.

So let me offer one example of "room sound". At one time I had four friends who owned the same model speaker as I did. We also owned the same or similar amplifier models. Our source components were not identical but at least similar and included both analog and digital. Yet each one of these systems sounded distinctly different from the others. The most common variable was the rooms. Those differed in size, layout, materials, furnishings, etc. That taught me a valuable lesson that rooms, treatments, and system set up (beginning with speaker placement) must be an important consideration.

Now, one question for Elizabeth. You said "most of the best systems have NO room correction at all". How can you tell they are "the best systems" based on a picture or listing of components?

I agree we should all be free to do as we chose with our systems, but to lump room treatments in the same category as stones and clocks seems to be a little extreme to me.

The biggest thing one can do to a room without impacting it too much visually is to treat the corners for echoslap. I own a bunch of Roomtunes corner traps, and a number of years ago, before adding Realtraps - which are amazing but intrusive - just treating the corners with those tiny Corner Tunes made even talking in the room much better.

That being said, I personally love bare hardwood floors with no rugs. I am now thinking I may try a rug just to see the effect.

70% of the final sound will be highly dependent on room setup, speaker reaction, position etc... So that being said this does not mean all rooms will be horrible with no room treatment.

However this also does not say a non-treated room will be better ultimately than one that is. So I think both sides have some points, but ultimately you would be totally doing a dis-service to yourself not believing if you already are UN-satisfied with your sound that you cannot improve it with proper room treatment, isolation, or just simply putting things in the best positions you already have, vs. replacing equipment or speakers 3 times a year.

Some already have great acoustics by accident and don't know it, this is for sure! Believe me I have experienced that as well, RARELY but I have. And generally these people never buy new stuff for good reason, they don't hear anything they don't like about it!

But those that find themselves never getting where they want, and cannot figure out the real things causing the issues can always be persuaded with the revelation of room acoustics if they simply do finally experience it once all else failed. Problem is this by nature is the exact backwards way to find out, most systems and money these guys spend at multiple thousands on that new amp and still don't find the end, they are the ones that unfortunately might have found their room with the money applied years ago would have sounded great with the 500 dollar amp they have replaced 4 times since!

Just part of the game, either way it might work out on one side or the other for some.

Remember every single case will have a different need.

On one hand, there are indeed many homes with really wretched acoustics! Many of them are simply unpleaseant to be in with any kind of noise whatsoever, let alone trying to make music . . . either from a recorded or a live source . . .

But on the other hand, typical domestic "high-end" loudspeakers are as a group REALLY behind the curve on being well-engineered for the type of acoustic situations in which they're likely to be placed -- this is a key area where professional sound-reinforcement systems are decades ahead of consumer audio, or even professional studio control-room monitors. Beginning in the mid-1980s, constant-directivity and controlled-directivity horns and arrays completely revolutionized the industry, based largely on improvements in computer-based acoustic modeling. So what's possible today in terms of high-quality sound (with excellent speech intelligability) in very large, reverberant spaces is hugely, vastly improved in the past twenty-five years or so.

There are precious few examples of this technology trickling into high-end audio, or even any attention toward the necessity for good directivity performance among "high-end" speaker designers. The Audiokinesis and Geddes horn designs are an exception to this, with excellent off-axis response and directivity characteristics . . . I'm guessing that that's why he feels that room treatment is less important than many others. Another example is David Moulton's "acoustic lens" as used in many of the B&O speakers, or the big 100x100 butt-cheek horns used on older JBL 44xx studio monitors.

To hear a good constant-directivity speaker design in a reverberant or undampened space can definately change one's opinion about what's "necessary" for room treatment. And it's not a matter of the room making the presentation "imprecise" or "colored" . . . it's more like hearing a singer or instrumentalist perform that really knows how to adapt their tone-production and projection for the space they're in. That is . . . like music, in the room with you . . .

Is there some agreement on

04-12-10: Emailists
The biggest thing one can do to a room without impacting it too much visually is to treat the corners for echoslap. I own a bunch of Roomtunes corner traps, and a number of years ago, before adding Realtraps

Not necessarily the particular product, but the idea of it? I take it these are not bass traps, which do visually affect the room, but seem to allow for better bass definition (not depth) in my room than not having them.