Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@thespeakerdude That's why groups like the AES exists to set up standards and practices so the music industry and the film industry will be sustainable. it really is amazing how consistent music and films actually are. To audiophiles with expensive systems it's amazing any music sounds good at all. In a perfect world the studios would use perfect equipment with perfectly consistent practices but we all know that is impossible. Studios do spend millions on equipment and hopefully will keep quality as high as possible and that will translate all the way down to us. There is nothing creative about standard practices but both can live together.

@ghdprentice Wow that is an amazing headphone setup, I lived 14 hrs a day with my headphones on working on films for 35 years and came to the conclusion that your brain fills in so much of the gaps in just a few hours of listening. I have the Stellia because I wanted closed back but I think I regret that choice also. Please tell me about your DAC and amp setup. Thank you so much.

@kota1 You have such a good attitude toward sound, the limitations are personal prejudice and being willing to change. I disagree with the people who say just enjoy the music. Audiophiles do have a place in the sound world they are the people who are obsessed with the pursuit of perfection in sound. Mixers don't mix for common fans, I use the Francine model (my wife) someone who cares more than the normal person about sound but not for myself or the person who really wants perfection, that is to expensive for any producer. If there were no audiophiles or people trying to reach the unattainable sound would deflate to mp3 and the lowest common denominator.

 

@kota1 talking to people like that is such a gift, they have no reason to do anything but help you, wonderful. What treatment did you perform acoustic or electronic? I don’t know if you read my note about “revealing” speakers sounding bad but it’s true and no one thinks like that. In acoustics flat rooms sound bad for different reasons I spoke to John Storyk, this guy ruled studio design world in the 80/90s he said they don’t design flat studios because they sound bad. So what should you do? Capitol Records sounds weird, Sony sounds strange because it’s so big, Warner Brothers sounds good, but nearly all the smaller rooms to show clients movies sound great. So when you mix the movie and record the music you do it in an odd sounding rooms and when you play it back it’s done in a great room. Error on the dark side for playback in recording it’s a bit like tube amps you want a little ring a little echo, but in playback less big reflections. The floor #1 the ceiling #2, imagine yourself in your listening position then everything except your speakers imagine  a mirror whenever you can see your speakers in a reflection work on those areas. Acoustics is often another area of willful denial in physics, huge flat sound consoles right in front of the speakers could you set up a better phase problem if you tried for the original recording engineer then the mix engineer, then the mastering engineer (they usually have a different room). The acoustics company I worked for put in a sound system into the crystal cathedral in Southern California it was a nightmare everything was glass. The answer was small speakers in the back of every seat but that was to expensive the other answer was very directive speakers using the people as absorption looking down. Reflections are your rooms enemy phasing is everything.

@kota1 Really impressive, your commitment to acoustics. There is art in music playback rooms that is very personal and that is if you do have the means and the knowledge to design your system and acoustics how do you want it to sound? Studios used to have a dead end and live end rooms, many were adjustable depending on the kind of music, this was in studios and control rooms I’m not sure this is the norm anymore. If you can design your acoustics in your listening room how much RT-60 do you use (decay). It is a conundrum looking at it from the end user point of view, the recording engineer should put the right amount of room in the original recording based on the type of music but then you are listening in a room with a set amount of room reverb. This is where headphones win. If you make your room to dead just like in the studio dead rooms sound bad, room acoustics need to have a normal decay about 2 seconds and that is around where many vocal reverb settings end up. The pre delay on a reverb unit is most important it tells your mind how big the first reflection is, this is a total electronic trick to the mind. I could ramble on and on about how the entire industry has no really good science behind it. Acoustics is boring but perhaps the most important part of recording and listening. 

I changed my speaker around a bit to align the tweeters, ever since your comment I thought I should have made a better effort to do something so obvious. Thanks I added the picture in my system profile
 

@secretguy Please tell me more about why the OP is confused about powered speakers, I could give you 2 dozen incontrovertible design advantage for designing the driver for each amp synergistically without a crossover in between. Look at it this way audiophiles like myself have spent millions on sound equipment over the years why would anyone buy an expensive speaker and connect an amp to it that wasn’t designed for that speaker let alone driver in the speaker? Think of impedance mismatch, think of the fact that crossovers have to be designed with speaker level signals adding load, who knows how much, between the amp and the driver. Simple basic things like this show that audiophiles are sill buying such expensive systems with basic design flaws, at best they are playing darts. The note about vibration system was simply about how everyone should know active speakers are a superior design but there will always be vibration in the speaker cabinet although active speakers can have amps apart from the cabinet but then you have speaker cables and can’t use the perfect dampening effect of the amp connected to the driver giving better transient response and reliability. 

@mijostyn I understand why you would be surprised about reliability. I'm not talking about cheep speakers with amps in them, not at all. I'm talking about what practically all professionals are using in concerts and more and more in studios. When the amp is designed with the driver in mind the end result is a perfect match in impedance and power handling the drivers will last much longer. Also when the amp is directly connected to the driver the driver is dampened perfectly the voice coil will extend and rebound according to the amp, this is only a few reasons why powered speakers are more reliable, do you think live concert companies would use these speakers if they were unreliable. Nope. Also there is the added value of not worrying about speaker cables and saving the cost of the crossover designed with speaker level components not line lever as they should be designed.

@mijostyn 

Advantages of Powered speakers

1. Each driver is optimized by t’s own amp
2. Better transient response
3. No speaker cables
4. No crossovers after the amp
5. No speaker level crossover design problems
6. Amps designed for impedance of the driver
7. Amps designed for proper power handling of driver
8. Amps are more efficient designed for a smaller power window
9.  
10. Amp is directly connected to the driver
11. Amp dampens the voice coil perfectly
12. Amps can be up to ½ the power (lest cost more reliability)
13. No loss between amp and driver
14. Better size vs. output ratio
15. Speakers are tuned by the designer
16. More accurate than random amp / driver combos
17. Better frequency response
18. Better phase response

These are just what I can think of off the top of my head, arguing against powered speakers is saying a random amp and speaker can sound better than a synergisticly designed amp driver system.

Powered speakers used at concerts.

Meyer Sound (first hand experience with them, great)

JBL (great, but not as good as Meyer)

QSC (have always been good)

Again I’m talking about best practices not cheep speakers.

@mijostyn Thank you for the wonderful piano music. Oscar Peterson is of course on of my favorites and I liked the recording, the Maurizio Pollini recording is as you said as if you were in the concert hall from a further distance. Like modern music I guess I prefer close mixing this is because of the multitrack recorder and close miking with proximity effect, I do prefer that sound. The Oscar Peterson recording kept making me think of George Winston so I played GW after I listened to Oscar and the miking technique was nearly the same. December is the biggest solo piano album ever and the imaging is harder to pin down because GW keeps his foot on the sustain peddle so much but the time. The left side sounds farther than the right side just like the Oscar Peterson recording. Oscars recording was from the perspective of the player the panning was 180 degrees. Oscar is the most effortless player ever in my mind, I really enjoyed the deep listen. Thank you.

@kota1 Great example, when I hear my active Genelec system it is always striking when the first note hits the transient quickness of even a soft note is odd compared to a normal system. Also in the article they mentioned current amplifiers not "class D" funny. Class D has some obvious advantages over class A but the potential for class D is higher than any other format and I think everyone would admit class D is getting better faster than any other amplifier type. 

@mijostyn I'm talking about best practices in speaker design I don't care about a speaker someone bought at Walmart. As an audiophile you want to buy the system with the best sound quality, when you consider a speaker / amp designed for each other there is no question.

Consider the question, is it better to buy an expensive speaker then power it with an amp that was not made for that speaker no matter what the cost? Clearly the answer is no. Are you saying the answer is yes? 

@mijostyn I'm not marketing at all I don't care what anyone thinks of any of my systems (I have 4 Dolby Atmos systems in my home) I'm retired after 35 years in sound recording and mixing but I do care about what experienced people in the audiophile world think. I don't know that world so much. I do know physics and have studied all aspects of sound my entire life. This OP started by me pointing out what I thought everyone else already knew but they didn't, powered speakers are the "best practice" in building hi fidelity speakers, who cares how much they cost. Every speaker and amp manufacture who is gouging people for hundreds of thousands of dollars (my self included) for expensive systems knows that sound systems being designed synergistically are best. That is not a generalized opinion it is logical, the converse is what most everyone buys now believing that sound systems should not be designed synergistically. When someone asked how does this amp sound with this speaker now you know by reading this thread that the answer is maybe good maybe bad but it would be much better if the amp didn't have to push through the dozens of objective electronic design problems that happen when speakers and amps aren't made for each other. 

One simple example other than the obvious crossover problems after the amp in the signal path is how efficient the amp can be when it is directly connect to 1 driver the needed power drops by about ½ and the throw and pull of the driver is perfectly dampened by the amplifier meaning the voice coil lasts a lot longer. It is impossible for normal voice coils to be perfectly dampened because of the unknown loads created by the crossover, connectors, speaker lines, in common in designed speaker amp combinations today. 

If you say well I like tube amps, ok fine have a company design you a tube amp and a speaker in separate cabinets that are made for each other, fine. You probably can't get a company to do that today but if audiophiles would demand best practices it would happen sooner than you think. The amps are there the crossovers are there and the speakers are there make entire systems that are made for every other component. I have the PS Audio BHK components and I think they work together ok but when they finally made a speaker they didn't make an amp for it they would rather make more money and sell them separately.

@mijostyn another note you can use non class D amps in powered speakers my little Elac Navis powered speakers use BASH amps (hybrid) for the low and mid frequencies and an A/B for the high frequency, (300W total). These speakers sound great for my computer along with a JL sub under my desk for $4k you can have a very nice little powered system, plus a small DAC.

@kenjit no crossover between the amp and speaker is a big deal, you didn't say what frequency you were talking about 20hz or 20khz it makes a big difference in impedance. Also you didn't mention that  the cross over was made designed at speaker level not line level like other electronic circuits, you also didn't mention how complicated that crossover was, perhaps you didn't know that today there are some very complicated crossovers for speakers, when was the last time you looked at a speaker ad in TAS and it didn't mention is wow wow wow crossover technology. Wait maybe you forgot to mention the other parts of the speaker, you did mention low frequency, there are other frequencies also thousands of other frequencies if we were to design a speaker with an amp with perfect driver matching it would have an amp for each driver but then you would have 20k amps and a bit of a phase problem. When companies design speakers they add components after the original design to fine tune the overall tone of the speaker this is now done like it was 100 years ago with individual components set in the circuit after the amplifier before the signal gets to the speaker. If this could be done at line level the tuning can be done with a programable chip, yes DSP. Huge amps can sound great in undesigned amp / speaker systems but designed amp / speaker system is a much better way to strive for the best sound. Hope that is clear. Do you realize you are arguing for getting lucky when putting together the two most important parts of a sound system. BTW it is impossible for a undesigned amplifier to be as efficient as a designed speaker if you have more than one driver. 

@kenjit Sorry I’m really not communicating well at all, my fault. I’m only talking about the engineering design of the speaker amp combination and when you use powered speakers in which the amp is literally connected with no speaker cable to the amp the crossover is in the circuit before the amp. This gives many benefits one of the many benefits is perfect speaker dampening and transient response. Being able to design the crossover and other circuits that are 600 ohms not 8 ohms allows you to do many things to more perfectly tune the amp to the single speaker driver. Every driver in the speaker needs it’s own amp that is designed for the particular drivers and frequencies that driver will produce. To be more clear in this system there really isn’t a crossover at all it’s simply a simple circuit that only allows frequencies in which the driver is designed for. Hope that’s clear

@secretguy Honest question do you feel like audiophiles should demand accurate designs in a synergistic way or do you feel it is more important to having "fun" with putting together systems at random not designed for each other.

@thespeakerdude Something we haven't mentioned is the nature of class D amps when they can be designed for a particular impedance of speaker they can be very good, this is why a class D Subs are not so much of a compromise it acts basically like an AB amp. With class D amps being designed for a smaller frequency window of driver the normal problem with class D amps is helped because impedance changes with frequency so the filter circuit can be much simpler. Thoughts?

@kota1 I have been searching for scripts but haven't found one that is just right, also I lost a ton of money in the market last year so my big movie planes are paused for now. I'll get it back and get things going again soon enough, I hope all my equipment isn't obsolete when I do. Even though I don't do sound professionally anymore It is still a real rush to have the mixing equipment in my listening room, I still have bad dreams about doing something wrong on the movie set so I guess my heart is still thinking about sound and it's a good feeling to be connected to people in the audiophile world and the professional sound world just for my post retirement emotional life.

@kota1 @thespeakerdude @mijostyn

Yaaaa! After 4 months and many hours on the phone with the tech support my mixing system is all working. I still have weeks of testing to do but I’m so happy. I put on my reference music Katherine McPhee "I Fall in Love To Easily", I worked with her and was in the studio for some of the recording and mixing at Capitol Records in LA , I also worked with her as an actress on the TV show Scorpion for four years, she also sat at the sound cart every day on the shooting stage, I know her voice perfectly. My other song is Diana Krall "Some one in love" strangely both albums were recorded by Al Schmidt. Anyway when I played back a few songs I could hear much more texture of both of the women’s voices on the Genelec -The Ones- powered speakers than I heard on any of my systems, I also definitely didn’t hear that kind of resolution in the control room at Capitol. Not saying better I am saying more accurate, the vocal microphone was a tube U87, same one Nat King Cole used and Frank Sinatra.

There will never be another time when I can have such a good voice reference and a unique experience to evaluate the end product of a recording.

@kota1 Oh man Avid tech support was very professional, kind, understanding, and they didn't have any experience with my system. I bought Pro Tools Ultimate, a MTRX Studio, an HDX system and an S4 Control surface. Everything is networked and my house has a big network multiple roughers hard line big WiFi 6e transmitters. When networks get that complicated the tech support is just guessing. What happened 90% of the time is after 5 hours talking to the Philippines I just gave up and tried everything I could think of sooner or later I'd get it right. Did you see how I lowered my center channel speaker in your honor, my Genelec system not the home system?

I have so much time alignment to do now, all the speakers are networkable and hook up to the computer and a system called SAM but that means running more network cable everywhere but then the system will time align and frequency align everything just right it is a brute force way of setting up a system not an elegant acoustic room fix system like my Lyngdorf theater processor. Next I have to switch all the Genelecs to run AES rather than analog signals, they take both and I need to send the Pro Tools system to the Lyngdorf system so I can play Dolby Atmos on the Lyngdorf setup as a monitor switch using Dante, kinda the ultimate luxury to have a good home system as a test for the movie mix. Probably 2 more months.

@kota1 Also I wanted to send you this about the new Genelec speakers, I was not a fan of Genelec for 30 years I thought they were very harsh and poor low end. these new speakers are totally rethought. They make some amazing claims like "The new flagship of The Ones range, the 8361A offers the most advanced acoustic performance of any studio monitor on the planet." I have the model just below this one but they are made the same. Last night when I was panning the front speakers I literally had to reach my hand out and touch the center speaker to make sure it was off the imaging was nothing like I’ve ever heard before, I thought there was something wrong with my speaker patching. The first note of music is still getting me I don’t really know why, I think the transient response is so fast it plays with your brain, but that could be imaging also the high and midrange is point source with plenty of power the low frequency comes out of these strange outlets on each side of the speaker, this is the first time I’ve really seen High and mid frequency drivers work so well together.

When you look down the grocery store isle and the first thing that comes to your mind is wow that is a beautiful woman then you notice that it’s your wife, that’s a really good and honest reaction. This is happening to me all the time when it comes to this system, I know it doesn’t have strange and boutique parts but all the parts are designed to go together from the start of the signal to the end so they seem to work synergistically in a surprising way. Design from start to finish is so paramount that’s why I hope powered speakers are discovered by audiophiles, in a few years of acceptance they will take off in very beautiful ways.

@thespeakerdude Very well said, my center speaker is horizontal not vertical but it doesn’t matter because the speakers are point source the way things are in real life. Speaker imaging is more important than I thought, I thought it was phasing especially near field reflections, perhaps I’m wrong about that. With microphones it is always a compromise choosing between directionality and off axis coloration. Omnis have perfect off axis response but poor rejection to unwanted sound. I always use the widest polar pattern possible to keep off axis coloration to a minimum and to not pull in unwanted sound. Amazing how speaker and microphones mirror each other. 

@mijostyn I didn’t buy that Sub because of exactly the reasons you said. These are the subs I got they are still a bit odd looking. That speaker is not a sub it is a woofer. 50 to 500hz

@mijostyn Seems like you have so many different digital systems don’t your worry about simple latency? 

@thespeakerdude I wanted to ask you about WMTMW it seems to not make sense but as you mentioned there are many great speakers that use this. Seems like the low and mid frequencies would interact a few feet out. no one would ever use a microphone setup in that form there would be to much phasing.

@rick2000 Dynaudio is really on to something, I listened to a set of them and instantly it sounded warm and happy, to me speaker evaluation takes about 5 seconds or in a system between components and speakers about 1 second, just after the first note. Dynaudio speakers do that for me. 

@kota1 Wow, I think you will be so happy with the Sony, Sony like Yamaha and other big companies can make very good equipment if they want to it's only a matter of approving the budget. Yamaha makes some of the best professional mixers ever. Why didn't you get a tube amp for your headphones, I have Focal and Naim but my headphones seem to accurate and cold not so fun to listen to. I hope you don't have the same problem, please let me know when you get that rig, congrats.

@thespeakerdude When I started in sound we got to use a new technology called TEF (Time Energy Frequency) an acoustic computer made by Crown. It would show the acoustic reflections on the screen, we found that unless the speaker was next to a wall the main reflections are from the floor then the ceiling. We did discover that there were some walls that were very reflective, in fact reflected more energy than they were receiving which is impossible turned out if the wall was vibrating sympathetically with the frequency it could push out more energy, this was a new finding in acoustics at the time. 

In a WMTMW speaker design the midrange drivers could be 1 foot from each other that is roughly a 1k frequency very important for vocals There is an old rule in recording called the 3 to 1 rule and it means the distance between the source and first mic is 1 the next mic should be 3 times that distance if you want less phasing. Looking at speakers this rule isn't followed at all especially in the WMTMW design. Physics is a tough competitor it always wins. Perhaps to audiophiles it's like not understanding that synergistically designed amps and speaker drivers are best practices, maybe they will never get it.

@mijostyn Very good points, especially about the AES inputs, I'll look into that.

So I finally got everything working with my Genelec (analog speaker inputs) system and I was very happy even though the speakers have not been time aligned, I was playing test tracks and different surround sound formats for about 6 hours. Then I listened to my 2.2 system and there was no comparison the 2.2 was so much better, I mean better in a way that was not more accurate but better in a way that was nice to listen to and magical. Subs make all the difference I was very unhappy with my Paradigm 9hs until I bought the separate subs. The 9hs do have balanced Sub drivers but somehow on mine they were very unimpressive even with an adequate 700W amp in each cabinet. The external subs have a 3kW amp and shake the house that's important good base needs to be felt, I spent another 15k on nearly 40k speakers to get the bass right I'm so glad I did.

I think subs can be used in a square cabinet because the length of the frequencies are so long there will be no interference internally. Of course there are the old formulas that are ratios of speaker volume SPL of Frequency and volume the smaller the box the more power you need. 

Also, about diminishing returns when it comes to low frequency. The best system I ever heard was at Harmon headquarters in LA when I was doing playback for a music video and the location person who was an employee of Harmon showed me there big concert system inside the room we were doing the music video in, it took a few minuets to set up but wow I didn’t expect huge speakers could sound so good. There was so much physical movement of low frequency sound that it stunned me. It wasn’t amplitude volume it felt like thunder that even at low amplitude you can feel how huge it was. Bigger is better, this Harmon (JBL etc. ) was a demo to show big concert companies how good sound can be if you want to pay for it and it was amazing. Of course all powered speakers.

I fully agree with @mijostyn.

I used to work for a church doing sound that had the biggest electronic organ in the world. There were 4x 30 inch subs in separate cabinets on both the left and right sides of the main sanctuary the cabinets were not facing the same direction. The organ sounded wonderful and could keep up with the biggest real organs in the world. The speakers for the organ were not set up like a concert but looked like someone had randomly designed them, definitely more of an art than science.

My room is wonderful because it's fairly large and is not square or rectangle and doesn't have any flat parallel walls it has a 10 foot ceiling. Just last night I moved my expensive Lyngdorf 60-2 processor to my Dolby Atmos mixing system simply for it's acoustic room fixing system "Room Perfect", until now I didn't have to use any acoustic processing it simply didn't help even with powdered subs built into my main speakers and 6k watt separate subs next to the speakers. I nearly bought very expensive speakers but realized I only need very good high and mid frequencies and the low frequencies if done right will make everything smooth out. Low frequency is an art, ears are the most part of tuning the system, play a 60hz or 80hz tone and roll the phasing where it's most pleasing musically. Don't forget any latency if you have any digital devices you have latency no way around it.

My Atmos system speakers distances are not spec, newer thinking in acoustics is tending toward non symmetrical speaker placement I fully agree. Ultimately a mixing room needs above all to be standard but this room is personal and I want to experiment, a lot. In the future even 2 channel speakers will be object based and won't need to be symmetrically based. 

@kota1 phasing sub and full range speakers is not difficult, just put you head exactly between the sub and the speakers, play and 80hz tone with all your equipment on and slowly turn the phase knob until you hear the null point and the strongest point. Go back and forth to be sure you are not 180 degrees off, stop at the strongest tone. 

@kota1 I need your help. I have 2x JL Audio Fathom f113v2 Subs and they hum, this is the worst thing about powered speakers. They have 3000W amps, I have spent a fortune in power 2x P20 power regenerators from PS Audio. The subs hum doesn't change when I unplug the audio. Both speakers sound the same and I didn't buy them at the same time, I can be stupidly picky but have you ever heard of these subs or perhaps big amps in small boxes being noisy? 

@mijostyn, @thespeakerdude 
I was a part some of the original acoustic research on line arrays when I worked with the new computer system that Crown made called TEF (Time, Energy, Frequency) our findings were just as thespeakerdude said. At first we thought all our readings were messed up because we didn't know how sound in a line array would become so additive, we also didn't realize how poorly they worked inside small rooms, line arrays work best in open spaces and large rooms. In small rooms the material the room is made of and the rigidity of the walls play a very strong roll. We kept getting impossible readings because of the drum like effect so many walls made at particular frequencies, we were getting 1+ gain meaning we got more gain than we sent out the speakers, impossible, turned out this was because of the drum effect the interior walls gave, the main engineer coined a term for it that was new to acoustics. This effect we thought was impossible so it caused a long pause in the research we were doing for Crown and later JBL. I was only in college when we were doing this so many things could have change since then but it was fun to be able to use the TEF and actually see the ray tracing models of sound for the first time. Later I got to write some of the math for the ray tracing algorithms, my very very small contribution to the world of acoustics. 

@invalid i understand what you are saying but look at it this way, if you have a standard strawberry pie that everyone agrees that is how a strawberry pie should taste then you put extra strawberry flavor in your new pie that pie may taste better and everyone may eventually buy your new strawberry pie but it will not be accurate to the original. I worked with Tom Cruze, Anthony Hopkins, Jack Nicholson, etc they were making in the neighborhood of 20M for the movies I was recording sound on. There voices were a known commodity and I had to bring the most accurate recording equipment the most accurate microphones or I wouldn’t have a job after the director and producers watched dailies.

The audiophile world is a fake world that is searching for something that is unscientific but using the language of science to find their way. Accuracy is not reaching for the EQ it is not fixing phasing and acoustics, accuracy is what Anthony Hopkins voice sounds like when your are eating lunch with him.

For the last 4 days I've stayed up two nights rewiring and rearranging 3 sound systems in my home, my theater and both systems in my listening room. You guys have inspired me to make everything sound better. 

I've come to the conclusion that I don't care about being accurate with my systems that are for enjoyment but I do want the most accurate system I can get for my professional mixing system. There is such a big difference between the two in terms of sound it's startling. You can't have both accurate and magical for now because the technology doesn't exist yet IMO.

Yesterday I herd a choral group from a local high school sing Carol of the Bells with only piano the singers were positioned around the auditorium no PA system, the sound was perfect. It was so beautiful, of course I was thinking about the acoustics and the phasing between the singer that were close to me and the ones that were farther away, it was beautiful and so far above anything I've ever heard coming from microphones or speakers. 

My entertainment listening systems are hissy run by tube amps and sound magical there is no question about the depth the warmth and the enjoyment. My professional system is quiet sounds articulate edgy and naked, very few things look good naked. 

This idea does have to do with powered speakers and technologies that make playing back music more accurate, until we can get microphones, speakers, electronics, and the processes that your brain goes through when translating sound to music there will be a detachment between playing back sound and music. OMG maybe I'll totally give up and go out and buy a record player.

Small room acoustics is not science it’s an art when you consider the amount of refinement audiophiles expect in there finished product.

This is a perfect example of the OP. There is so much myth and knowledge that is totally baseless in any sort of audiophile knowledge foundations that there is no way audiophiles can claw their way up the hills of acoustics, electronics, material physics, and psychoacoustics, as well as psychology to reach the relativistic goal of audio nirvana at your listening position.

I use a Lyngdorf MC 60-2 with their program called "Room Perfect" these guys are really on to something including psychoacoustics. Trinnov is trying to linearize the room, impossible when you understand how much we don’t know. I went with Lyngdorf because of this exact issue.

Also, I’ve only seen sound a couple of times both in about 2000 seat rooms for indoor concerts, a little to small for big systems but you have to set them up anyway because that’s what is in the trucks. When you have this situation sound checks are very dangerous the mixer comes in and has a 500hp engine in a Volkswagen bug and lets it rip. When this happens and you are looking at the lights on the mixing console you see the density waves go through your vision it looks just like a mirage on a hot day. All this to say hard lens diffusion is obviously wrong it gives you phasing by adding an accordion of smaller out of phase waves that falsely smooth out the problem wave. Sound doesn’t come as verticals sign waves it comes as horizontal pressure waves. Understanding sound in terms of frequency (length) and amplitude (density) makes you realize most of acoustics is psychological not physical.

I finely used Room Perfect on my ProTools system, It came out much better than I ever expected, those new Genelec speakers are much better than I ever expected, nice when that happens.

When you set up your system then run  acoustic programs that fix the room to show a perfectly flat graph don’t think your room is perfect or even good sounding that’s not the goal in fact if your room is flat your room will not sound good, as I said earlier a famous acoustic designer and studio architect John Storyk said it’s very easy to make a flat studio but they sound bad. When the goal of most acoustic room fixing programs is to give you a flat line well logically that gives you a room that sounds bad, any other line gives you an argument for what may sound great but a flat line is the only one that you know for sure sounds bad. Room perfect by Lyngdorf is the only one that I know of that doesn’t conform the speaker to create a flat room. 
 

Small room acoustics are not hard to do correctly but impossible, sound is 3D the materials it bounces off of are all different and change with angle of the sound hitting the material and the absorption of the particular frequency hitting that boundary, and the amplitude of that sound hitting that boundary material. Acoustics and fluid dynamics are cousins in mathematics and both are done never in real world environments but in theoretical perfect boundaries and environments only hoping to get an average. DSP is great for surround sound systems but only adds latency for 2 channel systems, if you want your system to sound the same loud and quiet your brain will not understand, the Fetcher Munsen curve has been there all your life, it’s also different for everyone and especially different between men and women, how do they get low level loudness right, they can’t. 

@thespeakerdude A question about your audio philosophy. Speakers should be like microphones they should record and playback flat if there is an audio character to the microphone sometimes that's great and it helps the happiness of the final product just like speakers. There isn's an exact right or wrong I remember in a recording studio I worked at we had an old EV microphone cable that added just the right amount of warmness (lack of high end) to the vocals of some people. To me microphones and speakers should record and playback in the most accurate way possible. Using room correction that changes the speakers is in general wrong, we should change the room, clearly that's the right way to do things but it is difficult, expensive and takes a lot of skill and luck. Fixing surround sound speakers with room correction makes sense because of the timing issues but also in that case the correct solution is again putting the speakers at the right distances physically. Flat rooms are awful and never work because phasing and wobbling sound is part of why we understand what sound is. Speakers should be flat if they're not the room may not work with the speakers in the same way if room correction software flattens the room with the speakers we have the same problem. Reason no #335 why audiophiles are on a slippery slope concerning proper sound reproduction. There seems to be several groups like the AES that want to standardize surround sound playback systems which is a great idea, after that standard is realized we can color our system the way we want but if there is no foundation our feet are firmly planted in mid air. Do you agree?

@mijostyn i was at a wireless mic workshop and the equipment manufacturer of the new digital transmitters was getting criticized because his microphones didn't transmit over 16k hz. They set this demonstration up in a theater that was rated to 20k hz when the manufacturer said he was playing a 16k hz tone through the transmitter he asked who could hear it, several of the hands of the sound engineers in front slowly went up then quickly more raised there hands as the per pressure behind them grew. Then the manufacturer said oops I forgot to turn on this switch nothing was coming out, hands quickly when down, he said how about now a few hands went up then changed their mind then no hands, he said is this working no one could answer except the video guy in the back said he could see the 16k hz audio tone on his monitor. It just showed even in a room full of people who made their living with their ears adults typically can't hear 16khz.

@kota1 that is the best set up I've screen, I know you don't want equal angles from front and back as most layouts have. I realize it us much better to have the speakers in the proper physical places but how do you feel about using DSP to time align the speakers? Delay is the easiest DSP action but what about angle in an Atmos configuration? Since panning is object based is it still so important to have the speakers physically in standard positions around your head?

@kota1 thanks a lot, do you have any idea how much time and effort

you are about to put me through, ( I knew

that would be the answer) thank you. Merry Christmas

@mijostyn I very much feel the future is multiple speakers. However when I spend hours listening to surround sound mixes then go back to the 2 channel original it is always the same the 2 channel is better. I don't know why but it is clear 2 channel music is best now. I would say Atmos is best for movies, I don't understand the reason why music now is best in 2 channel and movies are best in multi channel. 

Also dumb question I don't understand using line array speakers in small rooms, I do understand the advantages in efficiency of line arrays but why embrace a phase problem by definition in a small room. I'm sure your speakers sound wonderful I just don't know why someone who is such a careful listener would pick line arrays, this is not a critical note I simply don't know it is my own experience that brings the question I've never seen line arrays in a studio only large room concerts. Thanks

@kota1 Great YouTube video, Thanks. Last time I was in studio C at Capitol John Mayor had easily 2 dozen amps in the mix room testing them all out, amazing. The speakers they are using don't look very good, square, not point source, not heavy, they can choose any speaker they want they didn't go for super turbos. This is why Capitol, Abby Road, who has done the same thing, not putting in expensive speakers, are the best.

@kota1 absolutely true, I’ve never been in a studio that sounded better than my 2 channel system. I’ve listened to many more pro systems than audiophiles but the audiophiles care so much more the have much more sophisticated systems, they have more expensive systems, they care about the sound more. This makes me think how can the final product be more than the original. it is also absolutely true that the ears of the great engineers like Al Schmitt had experience they knew what great bands voices and pianos sounded like through their speakers they used for years that sounded horrible, they knew what great sound was through their own ringing and dimmed hearing.
Audiophiles listen and describe music in a way that is usually far above the detail that engineers and mixers create. I heard things on my new Genelecs that I’m sure the mixer didn’t hear or else they would have fixed it, there are always limitations in the real world there are none as an audiophile maybe just money, knowledge, and self delusion, like thinking that amps and speakers shouldn’t be made for each other.

@pcrhkr Look at it this way if you spent 500k on your system buying an amp and speakers from different companies one thing you know for sure is that those speakers and that amp aren't made for each other and could sound much better and be made more efficient if they designed synergistically. Audiophiles like to play around more than they want to own the best sound systems, no engineer thinks speakers/drivers and amps shouldn't be made for each other, so why isn't this the case, answer because audiophiles like to play with gear more than listen to it, I think.

@thespeakerdude When we speak at low levels our voices don't sound the same as when we speak louder as does a saxophone that plays softly doesn't sound like one playing loudly. When someone has automatic loudness DSP they are fooling themselves in more ways than one. As you said speakers and amps don't perform the same, the Fletcher Munsen curve is not the same, and the physics of the acoustic waveform are not the same in real life. I think part of audiophiles confusion is of course #1 marketing to rich people based on arrogance, but a close #2 is living in 2 worlds of music. If an audiophile wants to recreate an analog orchestra there are much different considerations than recreating a modern music group with computer based information. 

My Spiro Steinway grand that plays by its self is the perfect example of high end audio it sounds nearly perfect. There is so much difference between high end audio systems and the real thing it's not even worth talking about. When we see live music it's usually run through a PA and take it from me there are huge compromises when it comes to fidelity in every PA system and operator. I believe the answer to this problem is to understand the differences in our goals.

@lonemountain Well said, marketing is the guiding force in high end audio. I understand cutting edge equipment is important but DACs that go way beyond what any human will ever hear, $25k anti vibration equipment racks colored fuses in which the PC circuits start and end in traces, marketing to the most gullible. Maybe it's time to form an audiophile society along with the AES or something like that because this is getting really silly.

@kota1 If I may answer for @thespeakerdude transparency is when you have a band setting up in the studio and before you start recording from the control room you walk into the studio and listen to each musician play their instrument to see how it sounds with your ears, and listen the guitar, bass, and drums. When you get back to the control room and put up some faders you have what the real sound is and if that sound is coming through the speakers in the control room. That is transparency and you usually never want it to sound like it did in the studio because you can make it sound so much better. A better description of transparency is recording Tom Cruse or Anthony Hopkins on a movie set, you better get their voices just like you were standing there in the movie or else they will have to loop the scene loose performance and sound quality. 

@Kota1

LOL I actually been to the Oscars twice for Titanic (we won) and Pearl Harbor (we didn't win, but we should of) the first time was the best my wife and I walked up on the red carpet and since Sinney Poitier (who was getting a lifetime achievement award that night) was in front of us and Will Smith was behind us so all the photographers took pictures that included my wife and I. I was not the department head of the sound crew, I was 2nd, so I didn't get to go up on stage, oh well, I didn't get a statue I got a certificate, oh well. We got to see Paul McCartney, and Sting sing it was a special night because all the previous Oscar winners were invited because it was the 75th Oscars and I was sitting on the isle so I saw everyone who was anyone in Hollywood history, a great night. 

Also the Emmys are nothing like the Oscars, it's fun to go but not nearly as fun.