There's a lot more bass in a 6.5" driver than most of you think

It's 2020, who on earth uses steady state measurements??

First, I used to work in cinema sound, so thanks for sending me something so interesting, but the paper does nothing to contradict the earlier posts I made.

Toole is questioning and providing data for measuring and calibrating theaters, while comparing home and cinema speakers.

The issue of taming bass modes via bass traps and EQ is not exactly what he’s pointing at here, so much as the trouble with using steady state measurements which had dominated cinema measurements, which I’m very much surprised is still being done.

Let me jump into a section you quoted here:

It is a bold assertion that a single steady-state measure-ment in a room—a room curve—can reliably anticipatehuman response to a complex sound field. Such measure-ments take no account of the direction or timing of reflec-tions within the sound field. Time-windowing the measure-ment is useful to separate events in the time domain, butthese too ignore the directions from which sounds arrive

100% True!! But again, he’s addressing the overall timbre balance, not the taming or elimination of room modes which others have written of, which is very cost effectively handled by bass traps and EQ. However, making that sound good is my hobby and pleasure. :) Do so with two dozen woofers if you’d like to do it that way for yourself.

So what are we left with? Personal taste to attempt to assess how to set things, and that IMHO is really what makes a great room correction system vs. not. The two companies I know do a great job at this, fire and forget, are JL Audio and Dirac. I haven’t heard Anthem’s, but given they and Dirac allow for hands on customization I’m sure they’ll do.

And while this is all rather technical, and therefore fun, for me, I also want to follow Toole’s lead and jump out of the techncial to the subjective. Properly set up, a single sub with EQ and bass traps is nothing short of glorious. So not only have I read up on this, experimented and measured, but I experience stunning life altering bass without more than 1 subwoofer. This is why I’m so confident that the science and practice works.

What does suck is I’m not really sure how many other audiophiles can take this approach without an automated system. In that sense, the simple formulas for using 4 subs seems a lot easier for most.

Best,

E

What is your definition of "steady state measurements"?
Please note, this paper is from 2015, what changed since then in the area we are discussing? Dirac and others were there. Toole is not talking specifically about bass. He discounts the claims made by the proponents of  so called "room EQ". And the inadequacy of "room" bass traps is self evident. How can you fit an elephant into a shoe box?

What is your definition of "steady state measurements"?

I’m using Dr. Toole’s, which is clear from his contrast with time-gated measurements.

Please note, this paper is from 2015, what changed since then in the area we are discussing?

My past experience in motion picture auditoriums goes back decades. I’m just utterly surprised RTAs are still used in a theater at all.

He discounts the claims made by the proponents of so called "room EQ". And the inadequacy of "room" bass traps is self evident.

You are missing the entire context of his paper. His paper is about how to set EQ, whether to use reference or house curves and if so why and how we could validate them. Essentially he’s asking how we get to neutral. He doesn’t say we can’t fix room modes.

It does not address small room bass modes, which are a catastrophic attack on anything like neutral. Again, others have covered this directly and precisely. He’s not talking about that at all.

His point if I may be allowed to paraphrase the good doctor:

"We don’t have a very good way of understanding how the ear brain mechanism perceives complex sound, so the idea of using either steady state or gated measurements to set the color is laughable."  The last part I think modern systems have started to get a little better at, at least for the bass and room gain, but as I said, it's basically personal taste converted to DSP code.

And again, I agree with everything he said. He’s brilliant and correct, and attempting to claim he discounts the use of bass traps, or EQ to fix problems is not in this paper. In fact, he’s asking HOW to use EQ.

And I want to let go of this subject with another point:

The multiple sound problems Toole is addressing in this paper is going to be exactly the same with a swarm.

Best,


Erik