I remember running into an audiophile who refused to consider anything about room acoustics. He bought speakers specifically for live, untreated rooms.
You are right, I've measured some of the same issues, and I wouldn't move without my speakers AND my acoustic supplies. :)
This audiophile's view was that speakers should be made for untreated living rooms or they should not be purchased. That the maker of the speaker should already have dealt with those "issues."
The entire premise of this thread and its responses exhibits the snarky, esoteric attitude of too many audiophiles. The solution is to enjoy the music where it happens. I daresay that there is more music happening on streets, in bars, around campfires, in gymnasiums, (etc ad infinitum) than on stages or in concert halls. If you are unable to enjoy it in less that 'perfect environs you cannot really be a music lover.
I get the entire room treatment thingie but if your components cannot product the correct tone (such as piano, sax, violin), dynamics, dimension, clarity, details, etc, then IMO the room has less of an impact. For example, old 70's box speakers may have less interaction with a room as they are usually sweet in the mids, slightly boomy in the bass region and slightly less open in the top end.
That audiophile might had some bad experience with damping materials/panels since lot of them have not full-range damping character so they will affect frequency spectrum like a badly used equaliser or for example DSPs can cause audible ringing, "euphoria" or loss of low frequency details in the music without proper use.
I don’t think he is right when refuse room correction, no other way to solve acoustic problems because of the following reasons, IMO.
If you measure acoustic of a room you will find 12-15 dB amplification/attenuation on some low frequencies coming from the speaker position and the size of the room. You can use bass traps (looks not too pretty in a living room) or digital equaliser like Allo USBridge Signature which is a streamer/DSP for 300$. It can solve bad room problem at low frequencies but a good speaker itself does not, since room self frequencies coming from the room size, for example the average 2.7m room height cause a standing wave around 63Hz. (voice speed in air about 340m/s, 2.7m is the half size of the 63Hz wave).
Other problem is speakers are not linear in full range, it is true for the best designs as well, so digital equaliser improve performance for all speakers. With good speakers it is possible to equalise flat sound character between 20-20000Hz, if you give up some power.
Third is the room ringing time/reflections. It is something what you can might solve with directional speakers partially, but for good result you need some (full range, except low frequencies) damping material. Damping panels will not destroy the audio quality if they have proper characteristic. I have only 4+1 nice looking panels (plus carpet) for very few money and it solves most of the problems. If I move speakers from the damping panels (reflection) area, vocals become "singing in a bathroom", difference is clear and huge.
Theoretically Kii Audio speakers can be a way against "bad rooms" but they use internal DSP as well and they are not cheap.
....and I lived in Corte Madera for awhile...and was totally clueless at the time....
Missed opportunities.....
Hell, he may have been the guy yelling at me from his car that my 2 stroke Yamaha RD-350 was too loud!
(....the fact that we were approaching a right turn with a merge, with him on the 'inside' and next to me was more of a concern at the time....and a tight left after.... Survival supersedes Subtleness, frankly.... )
I am very sad to say I never met the man in person. As I noted elsewhere, his work has been with me in some form or another for a very long time. More recently I liked going to his website, trying to understand his views of a Duelund crossover, as well as his work on measuring just how quickly thermal compression happens in a tweeter, and then he was retired, and soon after gone.
+mauriceminor Erik. A very detailed and well-thought-out answer to your question is provided at http://www.linkwitzlab.com/. Like many, I have found my LX-mini’s, Orion’s and LX521.4’s fussy and time-consuming to get ’just right’. But I enjoy all that fussing. Did you ever get over the bridge to Corte Madera or up to Sea Ranch to hear Sigfried Linkwitz’s systems set up in his own spaces? I did. What did you think?
@erik_squires ...I've got a heater to contend with, so I hear your pain. ;)
..and then the ambient temp goes up...AC racket, yay..."It's always Something...."
@jsandman...Well, Walsh (and Ohms) do respond better to 'carefully treated spaces' because they're omnis..and depend on the room but in a different fashion.
Played loudly in a small space isn't something to recommend....unless you're not 'playing for nuance', *G*
At that point, you may as well put a dog door on the speaker enclosure and get in....;)
Just going to say give these guy's a shot. Dumped my Sonus Faber Olymlica II for the the Celest and zero regrets and this is an American Company that is run by musicians.
I unfortunatwly have no personal experience with Ohm Walsh speakers (yet,) but I'm surprised no one else has mentioned them. (At least I didn't spot anyone mentioning them during a quick skim of the responses.) One of the most commonly praised aspects of the Ohm speakers is that not only are they one of the few speakers that sound good in live/untreated rooms, but they are actually meant for such rooms!
Smaller is often better with speakers in rooms with bad acoustics.
My wife's sunroom is pretty bad. I've tried a lot of speakers in there but the tiny Vanatoo Transparent 1 Encore speakers on Isoacoustic stands in there really shine. I think the built in signal processing helps.
Listening "nearfield" within a couple of feet of the speakers can help overcome room issues. Small, good quality speakers played at low to medium, levels can create a huge soundstage and incredible imaging.
The way a speaker interacts with the room is a big part of how it sounds, for better or for worse. Imo it is possible to design a speaker to interact favorably with a very wide variety of rooms, including "terrible" ones. Several basic principles come into play:
1. The earlier and stronger a reflection is, the worse it is. So we want a radiation pattern that minimizes early reflections, which implies a fairly narrow pattern. Then ideally we want to aim that pattern in the horizontal plane such that it avoids early sidewall reflections. There are several different approaches to radiation pattern control which are viable, and it is up to the user to analyze his room and make an intelligent estimation of which radiation pattern(s) would minimize early reflections in his room.
2. The direct sound should be what sets the tone for how the speakers sound, which means we want the reflections to have the same spectral balance as the direct sound, or at least come close. (When there is a significant spectral discrepancy between the direct and reflected sound, the timbre can be degraded and/or listening fatigue can arise.) So we want the off-axis response to be smooth; that is, it should not start out emphasizing some frequency regions more than others. Given that a "terrible room" may be one which is overly reflective or overly absorptive, we might want the ability to adjust the spectral balance of the off-axis radiation without affecting the direct sound.
3. For all practical purposes there is no such thing as "the direct sound" in the bass region. It takes time for the ear to recognize those long wavelengths such that by the time the ears actually perceive bass energy, it has already reflected off the room boundaries multiple times. So in the bass region we want to take this inevitable room interaction into account as much as possible. Viable approaches include level-adjustable powered bass sections, user-selectable port tuning, EQ, a distributed multi-sub system, and some combination thereof.
Imo amp + speaker + room = "a system within a system". The speaker should interact favorably with both the amp and the room... even if the room is "terrible".
Ime fullrange controlled-pattern dipoles and horn systems designed to have very low coloration tend to work well in "terrible" rooms when set up correctly because their radiation patterns largely taking the room out of the equation, at least over most of the spectrum. In the bass region, which approach(es) make the most sense depends on the specifics of that particular room’s "terribleness".
Erik wrote: "
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?"
I have at times built custom speaker systems for very live, totally untreated rooms, using the principles described above. I can go into specifics if you'd like.
The terrible speakers that sound great in good room ? or the terrible speakers that sound terrible in good room ? or the terrible speakers that sound terrible in terrible room
11 bands of analog EQ below 120 hz, also available in a $3K Model 3 subwoofer. since 1977 = Vandersteen
To answer the fuller range question the Larson are unobtrusive, wall close coupled and are quite musical. I have heard them in three untreated but highly livable spaces and they are quite engaging and musical.
Speakers with controlled directivity will interact less with the room. Some I can think of are from Kii, Dutch & Dutch, Janszen. There are others that slip my mind now.
The Janszens I use, besides their other virtues, do not interact with the ceiling or sidewalls much, which is great in my room, smaller than ideal.
Bass boom is separate issue. I don't know what speaker designs can mitigate that, if any. I use large corner traps to address bass reverb time.
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?
Solution to what? You never met anyone who was happy with the way their room looked and wanted to keep it that way? Or was living with someone who didn't share your obsession with fabric covered fiberglass?
Sounds like your imaginary audiophile already found his solution. Seems to me you're the one unhappy with his solution. But that's your problem. Not his. Let it go. Problem solved. That's my solution.
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