Why? Because acoustical treatments presented are in virtually empty rooms. Unrealistic.
my rooms have furniture and clutter. These rooms don’t really have a need for treatment. It’s snake oil, voodoo science. So why is accoustical panels gonna help? No one can answer this, most have no clue.
But no, i read a paper once, now my knowledge is superior to everyone else.
You only know how to bash and attack...
NEVER here i mention myself being superior, on the contrary i discuss with all friends here about many simple devices to help each other S.Q. improving method...
The ONLY ONE here bashing all audiophiles and being sperior is yourself...
You bash, a real pro musician explaining TIMBRE, another engineer discussing with you about imaging and drivers, all turntables lovers, and anyone who dare to try a "tweaks" or any device out of your narrow perspective window...
I created my last device trying to understand something you NEVER explain here, the " depth imaging" creation in audio, i read some article trying to improve my IGNORANCE, and that inspired me a new device, which i use at the time where i typed these words on my computer....
Call that the name you want, i never pretend to be knowleadgeable like you to all here all the time, i am creative tough, know how to read when someone has nothing for arguments, except all the logical fallacies in his bag like strawman argument and appeal to authority and all fallacies in between .... I could deconstruct all your posts if it was not for a waste of time....
You never read the article suggested by me to you, and you have never figure out how work my "mechanical Helmholtz equalizer"...Anyway i dont think that you even know that you dont understrand epistemology, and real acoustic out of the recording engineering window... Sorry.... I am ignorant too but i proved for myself that i tried to learn, my device is my exam....I dont need your superior knowledge, it is not useful to improve my S.Q. ....
You are listening to two rooms. The room where the sound was recorded, and your listening room. You have a choice. Listen to one, or both.
Your room is the more powerful one, when disapearing itself she can let emerge the acoustic atmosphere of the original recorded event, and more importantly when she compensate for what has been lost in the recording event in his own way AND increase the positive aspects of the original acoustical event...
This is how powerful your room acoustic controls could be....I know it first hand....Passive materials treatment by the way are only HALF of the story, unbeknownst to most... Activation of the room/speakers relation with Helmholtz science is the missing half....
Acoustic sellers of bass traps dont inform us about that part...A right balance between,reflection,absorption and diffusion is not enough... It is half the story especially in small room irregular geometry, or complicated topology and acoustic content....We must recreate a depth imaging space encompassing the listener in spite of the irregular obstacle in the small room and we must refine the speakers/room timing frequencies wavefront for that.......Helmholtz science here help a lot..
I use a homemade simple "mechanical equaliser" only made of tubes, pipes and straws with capacity to modulate the neck at will.... The location is crux of matter... I will explain my method in my thread "miracles in audio" in the week to come...I called my device "Helmholtz pipe meeting the first wave front"...An electronic equalizer is NOT a mechanical equalizer... One work with a microphone, mine with ears, one work with very narrow frequencies responses,mine with large dyssimetrical modified frequencies response different fom each speakers without modyifying the drivers responses of each speakers but instead their first wave front relation with one another in the room...I am not a scientist only a creative mind who gave to myself the right tool... It work even if my knowledge of acoustic is elementary ....Peanuts cost by the way...
A room is NOT a passive sets of walls only , it is an organized sets of different pressure zones...
All seems good when you think that upgrading electronic is enough, save for those ignoring acoustic which pay the price, unwilling it or not...
By the way i only used discarded materials and homemade devices THEN setting a room could cost nothing... Listening time is the price....
The greatest asset in audio is NOT a 100,000 speakers and amplifier but a room you can control....It is not a turntable or a dac either, nor a tube amplifier instead of a solid state one; it is a room you can learn how to control sound....
This is the myths and useless wars between audiophiles in all threads.... Simple acoustic is always the main player....All the others players are secondary choices with their positives or negatives...
Acoustic reign supreme, uncontested queen of musical and sound perception for millenia.... Not your dac or your vinyl so good they are....
I purchased 2 bass traps for the front wall behind my speakers. The difference was revelatory. Today the FedEx truck brought 5 more panels, and I spent the morning experimenting. Again, revelatory!
"These rooms don’t really have a need for treatment. It’s snake oil, voodoo science."
You are kidding us right?.. Trolling... The SCIENCE of Acoustics... voodoo.........
Skeater says, "Aunt Millie, she ain't right in the head."
Treatments are more important for Maggie owners IMHO. Planars radiate in both directions. It is important to have a diffuser behind the speakers. It makes a world of difference. I cannot cannot comment on box speakers as I have not owned one in the last 20 years.
What amazes me with these treads on acoustics on this forum is the dogma handed out.
The endless bragging that: "I have a rug and some drapes and my system sounds fine" just means you have never heard a properly treated room.
Stating that: "I use DSP and it's fantastic" just means that it is an improvement on what you had before, also means you have a very narrow listening area. Improvement from attenuating peaks works BUT what caused those peaks also caused nulls and no matter how much power you pump into the missing frequencies just cancels with the same power!
Yes, it's the BASS frequencies causing this problem which you did not know you had because instead of educating yourself on the most important area of achieving good sound, you waste your time and other poster's time who try and help. Those guilty know who you are.
All rooms need treatment, end of story.
@jumia ??? With your dogmatic stance don't expect much help, certainly not from me. Get a life man.
The balance between absorbers and diffusers, scattering vs avoidance of coliding sound waves. And then the focus should be an understanding of which frequencies are handled by each panel.
That's the problem, most people use a living room for their listening pleasure, so it can't look like a laboratory. I'm not trying to say all your ideas are bad, some are quite good, just seems like you have every tweak known to mankind in there. I don't know how every tweek you use can add up to a sonic benefit.
Thanks for your observation...
You seems a fine soul then i apologize for my rude and direct asnwer...
I perfectly understand that people cannot transform their living room like mine...
In the other hand we cannot erase the fact that an audio room is the best asset...
if only one of my suggestion is helpful i will be pleased thats all...
dont insult my audio room because this is a "laboratory" for me not a living room
That's the problem, most people use a living room for their listening pleasure, so it can't look like a laboratory. I'm not trying to say all your ideas are bad, some are quite good, just seems like you have every tweak known to mankind in there. I don't know how every tweek you use can add up to a sonic benefit.
The only mystery for me is whether some room treatment might dramatically improve imaging.
The stuff I've read so far sounds awfully complicated though.
This is simple acoustic law...
Yes it seems complicated... But it is not complicated at all with some basic principle in acoustic...
The only thing which was difficult but also it was all the fun, was the time it take me to did it right.... 2 years at turtle pace in the beginning, but a high speed in the last 3 months...
My room is now very good ... Peanuts cost and only fun.... But it is a dedicated room, it will cost me much more to install "esthetic " solutions, and efficient one in a common room...I dont even know if i could do it.....
The greatest asset for sound quality is not the costly gear, it is a room acoustically well set only for music....
"Room treatment can be tricky. Unless one can determine what and where specific (!) problems are occurring and apply treatments to treat those specific problems at those specific locations, one might make things worse."
Yes, to the point.
Just what are these problems that have been occurring?
I've never heard an obvious problem with any of the rooms (outside of a too small a hotel room during a show) that I've ever listened in.
Ok, some rooms seem to be more lively than others but I tend to prefer that. I'm more worried about a room being too dead and lifeless.
Since soft furnishings have always been recommended for too lively, so maybe less furniture would work with rooms too dead?
As for bass issues, I've never experienced any either, none that couldn't be cured by moving the speakers a little closer from the front wall (I've never liked the use of bungs for ported speakers because of what they do to the sound).
On the other hand I've never had any speakers that could reach down to subwoofer depths either.
If many room problems happen mainly at high volumes, then that won't really apply to me either. My system gets a little too noisy at those sort of volumes.
The only mystery for me is whether some room treatment might dramatically improve imaging.
The stuff I've read so far sounds awfully complicated though.
Correction...the full quote from the Dynaudio website is:
“the DSP engineer does not know the problem but has the solution. The acoustician knows the problem but can’t imagine the solution, so he doesn’t ask the DSP engineer.”
Know what, that one acoustic panel transformed my room into one of the best sounding rooms I’ve heard anywhere.
i understood you perfectly, a room could be transformed by ONE single straw...
For uneducated mind it is magic or snake oil...
For Helmholtz and me now, pure acoustic science, a science far more important for audio experience than electronic engineereing and in the worst case on par with electronic engineering....
For sure Helmholtz results are integrated in electronic design itself now, but i speak for those who could use his results like me at low cost in acoustic of room, like his famous sets of bottles....This experiment i go on with to reach new suprizing result for my speakers, cost me NOTHING... This is the gist of the journey i started....
Others will prefer to buy a costly equalizer without even knowing the limitations of this gear in acoustic settings....
I dont have the money to buy plug sit and boast.... 😁
But for you i offer my deepest respect and thanks for your observation useful for all.... 😊
@jumia For apps that can evaluate room acoustics, your own ears are pretty good. Once you hear a good sounding room it's easier to hear when a room doesn't sound right.
I don’t know that I have enough data to agree or disagree with the assertion of ’most rooms’, but my roughly hexagonal shaped room even with a bed in the room needed one acoustic panel on the 1st reflection point on the left to balance out the sound from the left and right speakers.
Know what, that one acoustic panel transformed my room into one of the best sounding rooms I’ve heard anywhere.
Provocative premise? He could have said "Mono always beats stereo!" Or 2+2=5. Regardless, I'd guess most who care about their sound would agree the premise is incorrect generally speaking.
Let's say most rooms will benefit from acoustic treatment. Not treating a room that sounds 'fine to me' will still probably always make it sound better. And big bass spikes are hard to dispel without treatment of some sort.
There are plenty of sneaky ways to treat a 'living room' system that don't wreck the esthetics. Or you live with a bit less; life does not end. With over 150 sq ft of window glass in a 21x17 room, and art on the walls, by necessity I use DSP room correction. With speakers on long wall and tweeters out 50" my 8ft triangle is somewhat near-field with a large opening behind the listening chair.
The DSP removes all bass spikes (room and speaker created). I use just a single EQ curve, only to reduce brightness due to reflection (although far off in arrival ms). The difference is more than noticeable; gone are the bass booms and louder treble. That and the untreated room give me near flat frequency response from 30-16k. Removing the correction makes one cringe. I like the sound of music with a flat system; others do not.
I have no doubt additional acoustical treatments would improve the room. Mahgister is dragging me into his camp mentally (thanks, I guess). If I was using a cave-like 12x20x8 basement room I could go wild experimenting but I'm totally unwilling to blow off my daytime rky mtn views since I'm retired.
Then there are the Squids the guys who buy cheap bikes, make them loud and ride like idiots in traffic.They are screaming for attention like the Poser but put others at risk in the way they ride.
All metaphors has the limit intended or unintended by their user...
For example myself, i bought cheap audio, i make listening experiment , with conventional scientific datas, for example Helmholtz acoustic, and sometimes taking my own way, for exemple investigating the effect of shungite on my electrical grid at low cost...
What do you call riding like idiot in the traffic? and putting others at risk in my case?
Communicating cheap way to experiment and improve the system is not putting others at risk, but limiting the illusion of consumerism and contesting with some fact the linear relation between price and S.Q.
Your metaphor is right for part, in any group, there exist poser, and squid and true pro....But also the solitary out of the crowd persona....The stranger...And you miss it... Why?
Anyway your metaphor is only a tool to simplify human relations in a group and classify very different humans in three categories FOR YOUR OWN PURPOSE AND AGENDA...I add here the category that was missing...The most important category for Hollywood...The stranger to any group....
I dont work with simplistic metaphors in my life simply because in your group i am the man who take his motorcycle solitary and i dont speak to group members but to human on a one to one basis always....
I hate groups and crowds...The group mentality, motorcycles or of any other mass mentality... I never had a boss in all my life... I go my way....I worked all my life without anyone beside me.... But understand me right i like people on a one to one basis...Any herd mentality will make me quit the game....I am a sorcerer not a sheep classified in your limited 3 categories list...
In a virtual audio thread we must take the risk to speak to many and be simplisticly categorized...
This post was just to correct for the more important missing category.... The most important one by the way....The stranger....Who is in any list you will make for your use but is truely in none....
The fact that precisely this category was lacking from your list indicate much about yourself no ?
And, if you watch, almost every new thread he is one of the first responders. So full of it. He doesn’t have a life or really listen to music, he just spends all of his time posting here.
This could be said of several members of this forum.
In the Motorcycle, Sportbike and Road Racing we call these people Posers. They are easy to spot, they have the latest gear and the expensive motorcycle but have no idea how to ride. The like to pull up to the mall and their 2 wheeled extension of their manhood and say “look at me”. As you look closer you see a bake with a 2 inch chicken stripe on there rear tire (afraid to lean into a corner) and when they ride away they never rev is over 3500 RPM.
We have a lot of Posers here. Then there are the Squids the guys who buy cheap bikes, make them loud and ride like idiots in traffic.They are screaming for attention like the Poser but put others at risk in the way they ride.
I have a saying “If you want to know how slow you are on the street, go spend a day on a race track”
Wow there are a lot of Posers and Squids here on this forum.
You may be able to get away without acoustical treatment in a living room where there is unorganized clutter, but in a dedicated room where you're dealing with parallel walls, sharp corners, flutter echos, bass bump, etc. room treatment is a must. It's likely that most living room will sound better than an untreated dedicated room but once you have the dedicated room treated properly, the sound is beyond anything you've achieved in the past.
I once saw the DIY PVC pipes in a room and thought there's no way it does anything, I guess it's time to look into what it does. You don't know what you don't know until you know.
But those who could beat my 2 listening positions in my room on some count like Stax Omega, or RAAL SR1 for example or some others,are way too costly for me...
And at the end a good room has the advantage to be without anything around my head limiting my movement for sure....more practical and easy....
I begin with headphones, 7 years ago, thinking it was the best solution if someone dont have the money for a very good speakers gear...
I was wrong, acoustic among other things is the key, not money itself necessarily...
I whole heartedly disagree. Unless your room has no parallel walls and the floor is not parallel with the floor, most rooms do need a certain amount of acoustical treatment. First point reflection absorbers, as well as diffusion will greatly improve your sound. Each to their own.
Helmholtz resonators aren’t something you can just add to a room willy billy, they are very hard to get right even with proper measurements.
FIRST, i never "add willy,billy" it is a process in the course of many weeks of listenings and adjusting volumes and neck...
SECOND Throwing the baby with the bath waters is not a very good idea, nor a valid argument...
What are the polluted waters?
It is the fact which is right that my tuning of my 21 Helmholtz tubes and pipes cannot be "mathematically perfect" and corresponding perfectly to the geometry, topology and content of the room, being set by my ears...
But the tubes and pipes are set also to correspond to the specific structure of my ears by feed back successive refinements....This is an advantage that compensate the imperfect mathematical tuning of the Helmholtz tubes and pipes by ears and listenings experiments instead of a complex processed mathematical tuning only with the room parameters and some tested frequencies corresponding to a very precise location each time only...
This is one thing....But what is the baby?
The HUGE improvement, in imaging, soundstage, and timbre perception, in spite of the absence of perfection, is the BABY.... why do you recommend me to throw it with the waters? I will replace it with what ? An equalizer?
Read about the limit of electronic equalization, about the cost of a good equalizer, and after that think again and put in your pipe the important fact that my homemade Helmholtz tubes and pipes COST ME NOTHING.... They are made with discarded tubes, pipes, or straws of various volumes and diameters... Add to this fact that Helmholtz tubes can correct bass in the room on a level which equalization cannot do because equalization work on the gear electronics not directly on the room pressures zones....
Then when you put an argument think about the premises you will use...
«Your result is imperfect, only perfection is aceptable, then your result are bulshitt....»
Guess what is wrong with your reasoning any logician could call a "sophism" ?
Your relative mathematical perfection in relation simultaneously to some specfic ears and to some specific room dont exist to begins with, then it is stupid to reject my relatively imperfect reasult on this basis....
Then, try to think with all factors in balance and without vicious circle....
Thinking like walking or tuning a room is something we must learn...Opinions dont replace thinking except in the "sunday skeptic boy club" and many others clubs....
Millercarbon- What does “As soon as we move from the hypothetical home of the scoundrel to the particular home of the individual then acoustic treatment can suddenly matter a lot.”
On what planet do you exist? Why was it important to include the word “scoundrel”? Are you trying to come off as some kind of “Audio Sage”
You hit the nail on the head with this one. MC does think he is an "Audio Sage". As a matter of fact he’s a blowhard know-it-all.He relishes putting people down with sarcasm. And, if you watch, almost every new thread he is one of the first responders. So full of it. He doesn’t have a life or really listen to music, he just spends all of his time posting here.
I was always under that assumption until I heard the difference a good well place sound diffuser made to the sound stage and presentation. I had a demonstration done to me and an audiophile group in a private home. The person that did the demonstration had no diffuser in the beginning and every one thought that it sounded great. All of a sudden, he mentions, "you guys want to hear something?" and he adds the diffuser on the front wall as the music was playing. The difference was knight and day. The depth, with, definition and stereo imaging was transformed for the better in a huge way. The minute he removed it, the stage fell back to it's former small self. Could be the way he made the diffuser that created all the difference. Materiel, design ext. I have some in my home but could not afford his asking price so I bought from a competitor. Because of that, I get just about 10% of the effect.
The state of the audiophile world is easily summed up in two threads. This one, with barely 2 pages, and the schumann resonator thread pushing 6 pages. One of these will make a difference. One will convince you that you made a difference, for a little while till you find something else wrong. Most audiophiles are lazy, this is the real problem.
What great character! Only insults to a complete group of unknown people mixed together for the self pleasure of insulting...
No facts, only half truth about timbre and imaging.... Have you read the article by the 3 japanese? No?
"The acoustician knows the problem but can’t imagine the solution, so he doesn’t ask the DSP engineer.”
Helmholtz did never own a dsp system but he created room acoustic with bottles...
I imitated him and my room with a 500 bucks system trash all my 7 headphones and rival any systen i had listen to...
You are right in your post about the great tool DSP integrated will be .... I just want to make a "nuance" that primitive methods using helmholtz tubes and pipes to set the room/speakers together using EARS could work... I did it at no cost...
The orchestra fill my room with each instruments in his tonal sphere...
and he told me that unless I wanted to get a much more significant number of bass traps that would heavily change the look of the room (and my marital status)
You could use Helmholtz tubes and pipes to transform the acoustic decresasing the bass traps to only a minimum level.... But it is all up to your wife acepting a set of 3 groups of tubes in the living room... 😊
For sure the biggest asset in audio is not the gear at all it is using a room ONLY for audio...
For 41 years, I lived in a 2000 sq ft loft in lower Manhattan. The 1200 square ft open area was the listening space, it had an irregular shape with tin ceilings, 60% of the eastern wall covered with huge windows, a brick wall behind the system, and hardwood for the floors. It was a lively listening room.
Three years ago I moved to a townhouse in Newburgh NY that we gutted and restored. My 500 sq ft office in the attic doubles as a listening area. Dormers on one side, a gable on the other. After 15” of rock wool insulation was put in the ceiling, and 6” in the walls, I covered it up with burlap instead of sheetrock.
Books and LPs line almost every wall. The sound in my Newburgh home is dramatically improved from my NYC home. Almost like buying a new stereo. And I got this improvement without hiring professionals (although our architect did have a background in acoustical science), just by using basic common sense with regard to what most of us know about how sound works.
Is it perfect? No. But it’s way more than good enough. I’d rather listen to music than worry and tinker.
Yeah, nothing really matters except just keeping on buying newer, more expensive gear to impress your friends. Don’t worry about cables or the AC mains either. And don’t be confused because some of the greatest studios and music halls in history utilized scientific processes together with some very brilliant craftsmanship to create a believable soundstage. It’s all an illusion. Well, that’s unless you care about your listening space reproducing beautiful realistic music. :)
jumia...Suspect this a "plant" to rile up the Forum. :)
Recently, in my little studio, I’ve upgraded monitor loudspeakers which sit atop a pair of sealed subwoofers, a well-known, proven tube amplifier, and a pro-gear DAC, serving double-duty as an active crossover. Twenty years of disciplined attention has been given to dedicated power sources, outlets, plugs, wire, isolation (surfaces and under the hood,) placement and room tuning to this studio.
This from Dynaudio's website (oh, btw, my monitors are not Dyns): "The acoustician knows the problem but can’t imagine the solution, so he doesn’t ask the DSP engineer.” My Tech is BOTH a 40+ year acoustician AND DSP engineer. Conversations after recent DSP work following upgrades to monitors and tube amplification:
“I'm listening to lots of tunes, attempting to find new verbiage to describe this new presentation and experience. Late last night, I scratched a note to myself, "gradations of dynamic nuance." Now, how do I convey its meaning? This is forcing me to redefine the same language with new insights. I have told chums that I have found some systems TOO dynamic for my liking, often powerful amps with horns, for example. As in zero to 110 decibels in a nanosecond.
This newer discovery certainly has to do with speed, however, more the timing of isolated events within the presentation...arrival times differing on the fly. Imagine an old-fashioned view master slide image enabling you to see the velocity of sounds individually radiating out from specific instruments in time and space as in real life, in all directions. Outdoors, for example, on a busy city street...the ability to identify the source creating the sound, its location, distance, and finally, whether it is still or moving. I don't know of ANY testing instruments that can possibly quantify the experience compared to our ability to listen. Our musical truth. The speed of the dynamics allows individual instrumental and vocal sounds to splay horizontally and vertically in a continuum, as in real life.” And, another:
“This is quite a trip. Last night I pulled out some old audio war-horse favorites such as the self-titled, ‘Joan Armatrading.’ I flat wore that vinyl album out, however, new stuff is being extracted by the DSP red book on TIDAL. I'm guessing room nodes and obstructions swallow up certain frequencies, obscuring or at least reducing the emphasis of sounds and overall portrayal in the mix. It is almost dizzying to now hear the entirety with a system this capable of stage, depth and imaging. Your extensive work done in the bass region has really adjusted the perception from listening to monitors with subs to a more full-range presentation from row 5 or 6, and more appropriate size. People talk about hearing stuff they hadn't heard before. I'm thinking it's more the changes of emphasis on specific frequencies that draws out a conductor's treatment, for example, with a full orchestra, exposing the intent.”
In closing, in my opinion, here lies the future of audio. DSP needs to be done with great expertise. 1/100dB changes are possible. DSP supplements great systems, challenging our older mindsets of anything added to the sound chain, a negative.
Star Trek Holodec next! More Peace, Pin (2nd Pfizer tomorrow, wife's 1st..onwards, Audio Soldiers!)
Not snake oil, but many people buy stuff that they may not need, blind and expect miracles.
The only way to really assess a listening room is to have someone with the gear and software they need come and test the room, preferably with all the furniture in it that you want already.
I lucked out - I had an arched false ceiling already, which solved some of the issues I might have had, and a live wall (glass doors) that we solved with some heavy acoustic curtains.
I could easily have spent many times as much on supposed 'improvements' if I hadn't actually had the room tested
My advice is to pay the money for testing and see whether you have any issues - many can be addressed relatively cheaply. There is probably a home theatre business near you that can do it, (though they'd rarely be called out for pure audio).
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