Speakers that sound great in terrible rooms


I remember running into an audiophile who refused to consider anything about room acoustics. He bought speakers specifically for live, untreated rooms.

Anyone else? What was your solution?
erik_squires

Showing 4 responses by br3098

Interesting thread. I would say that there are basically two ways to deal with a problematic room (but aren't they all problematic, to some degree?). First is by passive or active treatment. The former is classic room treatments, as little or as much as is needed. The second are active crossover networks and/or DSP, which includes source-based correction such as Dirac and others.

Second, you can minimize speaker/room interactions by using speakers with omnidirectional or dipolar designs. These may not overcome all the problems with your room but there are other advantages to these designs; namely soundstage and imaging. mapman mentioned Ohm Walsh speakers and alymere mentioned Linkwitz, both good solutions. I sold the Larsen line for several years and setup several pairs in absolutely dreadful rooms, mostly to the satisfaction of the buyer.

Myself, I have happily rediscovered Shahinian's great Obelisk speakers for my difficult living room and I love them, although they did necessitate a change from tube amplification to SS. But they do sound great!

Duke and heaudio both make good points. But without hijacking this thread I will simply say that there are some folks (including me) that find omnidirectional speakers better mimic the music we prefer in the venues we typically listen live. I listen mostly to acoustic music; jazz, classical and small venue recordings. I don't find that typical unidirectional dynamic drivers do as good a job of reproducing complex music and full dynamic range as do omnis. Different strokes.

But I do agree with Duke's point about good/vs bad rooms: most rooms are not universally bad but are just bad for the specific speaker/design, speaker position, listening position and volume level from which you want to listen.

Thanks Duke! I always enjoy (and more importantly, learn something from) your posts.

The best speakers for bad rooms IMO are the Bose 901's.  Those things can be set up darn near anywhere and still sound pretty good.
Agreed. Except for the "sound pretty good" part.