Rives, Flat frequency response, great soundstaging & precise imaging are very important to me, but if I were planning a dedicated 2 channel listening room a would expect more from it. The space would have to take advantage of the property's natural views and light which means incorporating windows and doors into the design. I don't want to listen to music in a space isolated from my surroundings. The room should blend with the existing architecture. The listening room would be used for family & friend gatherings so this space would have to be safe,warm, very comfortable and inviting. It should be a place that could inspire the soul and relax the mind. The only audio equipment I would want visable would be the speakers and their cables. Electronically, the music's path would be as short as possible and as simple a configuration as possible (no electronic tone controls). All the room dimension ratios, acoustic treatments and tweaks would be there but seem effortless and unimportant and go unnoticed to the casual observer.
the Listening Room
Many of you may know us, we design listening rooms. While we offer fixed prices for different levels of consultation, no two listening rooms are the same and some vary wildly. I am interested in hearing what you all want to get out of your listening room. I have my own biased opinion, that the listening room is often the most important component of any system (and unfortunately frequently ignored to a large degree). Let's suppose that you could get an acoustical engineering group like ours for free, but you still had all other constraints. You could a great deal on materials to impliment the design but you still had whatever other considerations you have in your life (I don't have space for a dedicated listening room, I can't have ugly acoustical treatement in the room, I can't move walls in my house). Try to be qualitative rather than quantitative. I'm not really that interested in hearing about the specifics of rooms--I'm more interested in hearing about end result goals, such as: I need sound isolation (I like to listen loudly at night and don't want to wake up my wife), or my room sounds dead--I feel like I have a head cold when I walk into it. The other aspect that would be very helpful, at the end of the post, please put a percentage of 2 channel vs HT or multi-channel you listen to. You may even be in the camp: "the room doesn't matter much, I like buying new pieces of equipment instead" That okay too--I'd like to hear from you as well. Some people may not understand the importance of room interaction on the sound, that's okay too--if you had free consultation what would you do or ask in order to get a better listening room.