Jim,
Check out this Standing Waves
If the speakers are 53" from the back wall then you will get a first dip at around 64 Hz followed by another at 128 Hz and another at 256 Hz...
This is a common problem for all freestanding speakers. Of course, your ACTUAL room response will include all kinds of other standing waves; but rear wall quarter wavelengh cancellations will dominate the omnidirectional upper bass and lower mid range frequencies up to roughly 500 Hz, as it is the closest wall to the speakers, the surface is roughly equidistant to the listener, and therefore the wall produces the strongest and broadest coherent signal that aligns and either reinforces or cancels the primary speaker signal reaching the listener across the room.
This effect is well known. Being a detrimental first order effect it is worth worrying about as it dominates. Therefore most studios (who can afford and need to do it right or the mix will not transalate) will mount main speakers into a wall and completely eliminate this first order problem and leaving only third order effects from side walls/ceiling and a second order effect from rear wall (behind the listener). So the rear wall behind the listener is the NEXT biggest problem after fixing the quarter wave front wall nulls (Studios often put plenty of rear wall absorption to counter the effect or they try to ensure the listening postion is far enough away from the rear wall for this effect to remain small enough, or they will mix in a nearfield configuration far from all walls and where primary signal is very strong due to the proximity of the speaker to the listener).
You can ignore sharp eratic 2,3 or 4 Hz nulls above 172 Hz. The half wavelength of 172 Hz is roughly 3 feet so moving your microphone a foot or so will make likely make a significant difference at these frequencies (as you approach one side reflection or another the null shifts around...so trying to fix these kind of nulls may only shift the problem somewhere else by a foot or two or several hertz).
This is all high school acoutsic physics - no rocket science. I use "order" in a liberal fashion first order is the worst detrimental effect, second order is the next bad effect, third order is even less of a problem etc.
It often makes me wonder why megabuck systems make little effort to deal with this well known, easily understood, and well documented problem.
The above is not the same as Room Modes. Room Modes is a similar problem of standing waves but is much more complex. Room modes tend to dominate the ultra LF below 100 Hz but odd things can sometimes happen at higher frequencies in peculiar circumstances where dimensions happen to couple with eachother at certain frequencies at the listener position.
Check out this Standing Waves
If the speakers are 53" from the back wall then you will get a first dip at around 64 Hz followed by another at 128 Hz and another at 256 Hz...
This is a common problem for all freestanding speakers. Of course, your ACTUAL room response will include all kinds of other standing waves; but rear wall quarter wavelengh cancellations will dominate the omnidirectional upper bass and lower mid range frequencies up to roughly 500 Hz, as it is the closest wall to the speakers, the surface is roughly equidistant to the listener, and therefore the wall produces the strongest and broadest coherent signal that aligns and either reinforces or cancels the primary speaker signal reaching the listener across the room.
This effect is well known. Being a detrimental first order effect it is worth worrying about as it dominates. Therefore most studios (who can afford and need to do it right or the mix will not transalate) will mount main speakers into a wall and completely eliminate this first order problem and leaving only third order effects from side walls/ceiling and a second order effect from rear wall (behind the listener). So the rear wall behind the listener is the NEXT biggest problem after fixing the quarter wave front wall nulls (Studios often put plenty of rear wall absorption to counter the effect or they try to ensure the listening postion is far enough away from the rear wall for this effect to remain small enough, or they will mix in a nearfield configuration far from all walls and where primary signal is very strong due to the proximity of the speaker to the listener).
You can ignore sharp eratic 2,3 or 4 Hz nulls above 172 Hz. The half wavelength of 172 Hz is roughly 3 feet so moving your microphone a foot or so will make likely make a significant difference at these frequencies (as you approach one side reflection or another the null shifts around...so trying to fix these kind of nulls may only shift the problem somewhere else by a foot or two or several hertz).
This is all high school acoutsic physics - no rocket science. I use "order" in a liberal fashion first order is the worst detrimental effect, second order is the next bad effect, third order is even less of a problem etc.
It often makes me wonder why megabuck systems make little effort to deal with this well known, easily understood, and well documented problem.
The above is not the same as Room Modes. Room Modes is a similar problem of standing waves but is much more complex. Room modes tend to dominate the ultra LF below 100 Hz but odd things can sometimes happen at higher frequencies in peculiar circumstances where dimensions happen to couple with eachother at certain frequencies at the listener position.