Nothing is more insulting to the music than some audiophile's listening room that is set up like some sterile audio lab with a lone chair centered in a room where nothing is allowed to "live" in it except for some aesthetically awful acoustical panels, all their high-end gear stacked on the floor, and speakers set up to imply the person doesn't actually listen to music. They hear it but they're not listening to it.
Some famous reviewers have atrocious listening rooms!
It’s almost sad, really. Some reviewers I’ve been reading for decades, when showing their rigs on YouTube, have absolutely horrible rooms. Weird shaped; too small w/o acoustic treatment; crap all over the place within the room or around the speakers; and on and on.
Had I known about the listening rooms they use to review gear in the past, I would not have placed such a value on what they were writing. I think reviewers should not just list the equipment they used in a given review, but be required to show their listening rooms, as well.
Turns out my listening room isn’t so bad, after all.
Showing 2 responses by bipod72
@prof maybe my irony didn't come off so well. The OP was making the point that someone whose listening room is a mess or absolute disaster clearly can't be relied upon to subjectively review equipment or music, so I was making the contrarian point that someone whose listening room looks like like nearly all the "audiophile" rooms I see clearly can't be relied upon either because their listening setup and equipment doesn't reflect real-world conditions. As you rightly point out, people create the room they want. Some "test" equipment by listening to "audiophile" tracks and some people listen to music on the best setup they can afford. I'm sure if some people saw my listening room they'd be aghast.. And while it's not Michael Fremer-boarding-on-horder messy, it's also not the audiophile ideal. |