Spend less on speakers, more on acoustic treatment?

[DukeL]

Highfigh, it may well be the mind rather than the ear which does the overlooking. I'm not sure that makes a great deal of difference from a perceptual standpoint.

JerryLove, apparently I have done a poor job of communicating. Let me try again from a different angle:

A live instrument produces a direct sound and a reverberant field, the latter having a spectral balance very closely related to the direct sound. The instrument doesn't need to have the reverberant field manipulated in a particular way via room treatments in order to sound natural, though in general a strong, fairly diffuse reverberant field is subjectively preferred.

A loudspeaker also produces a direct sound and a reverberant field, and if the latter has a spectral balance closely related to that of the direct sound, it too should sound natural in a wide variety of acoustic settings.

If the naturally-occuring reverberant energy in a decent room (no slap-echo) with well set-up speakers (not too close to the walls or corner) is detrimental to sound quality, then the speaker is failing to do its job in my opinion. The reverberant field should be subjectively beneficial. That is not to say room treatments have no place, but their job is made much easier if the speakers are well-behaved to begin with.

AJinFLA, good to see you again, unfortunately I don't have any speakers in Florida yet.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Here is another view from the legend Linkwitz himself:

"The best rooms are at least 15 feet wide, 20 feet long and have a ceiling height of 8 feet or more. This allows the two loudspeakers of a stereo system to be placed symmetrically and with their tweeters at least 3 feet from side and rear walls. With the loudspeaker tweeters 8 feet apart the sweet spot is located on the room symmetry line and at 8 feet from left and right loudspeakers. This leaves more than 9 feet behind the listeners for the sound to travel before it is reflected back. It is very important for balanced phantom image creation that the immediate vicinity around the two loudspeakers is symmetrical.

Rooms can, of course, be much larger than 15 x 20 x 8 feet and with the loudspeakers much further than 3 feet from the walls, but the optimum listening distance for phantom imaging remains equal to the loudspeaker left-right separation or up to 1.5 times that value.

Room construction can vary widely, which tends to affect low frequency reproduction and sound transmission to and from the neighbors. You take what you get and try to correct one or two frequencies if necessary. But, if the room is pleasing to live in, to have a conversation or to relax, is neither a dungeon nor a stuffed pillow, then it is also suited for accurate sound playback. The room should be furnished, have irregular hard surfaces, books and shelves for sound diffusion, rugs, pillows and soft surfaces for sound absorption at higher frequencies. Just keep it lively. The best loudspeakers will make you forget the room, if the room talks back from all directions in the same familiar voice.

The room is usually considered to be the problem when a loudspeaker does not sound right. Actually, the loudspeaker is the problem, because it illuminates the room unevenly with sound at different frequencies. The room merely talks back and the listener's brain cannot withdraw attention from it. Room correction will make the loudspeaker sound different but it cannot fix its off-axis frequency response, which is heard via the room."

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/rooms.htm

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I'm donating my 4 acoustic panels...

...to AMVETS.

I've been thinking for a long time that they are degrading the sound quality of my speakers, but no one seems to believe me.

 

[Seth=L]

...to AMVETS.

I've been thinking for a long time that they are degrading the sound quality of my speakers, but no one seems to believe me.

I believe you. As I said before, your speakers rely on reflections to sound good/right.

 

[AJinFLA]

apparently I have done a poor job of communicating.

Or you may be saying what conflicts with deep held beliefs, your statements being gated out by the brain, much like room effects .

AJinFLA, good to see you again, unfortunately I don't have any speakers in Florida yet.

I travel occasionally (when not working 70+ hrs/wk). I'll check the next time I do so, to see if the travel area might coincide with Audiokinesis ownership.

.Actually, the loudspeaker is the problem, because it illuminates the room unevenly with sound at different frequencies.

Exactly. Look at the "problems" Jerry was describing. Look at his speakers. Bingo . (btw, note also that he requires no treatment in his room....confirming (inadvertently) exactly as I said...rare, if ever, is "treatment" needed).
There are actually speakers that can be placed against the wall, or physically in a corner (though not under the couch), but they look nothing like any of Jerry's (same design) speakers.

I've been thinking for a long time that they are degrading the sound quality of my speakers, but no one seems to believe me.

Well, it seem like at least 3 heretics are here now .
For how long, I do not know....the burning pitchforks are gathering....in screaming, violent opposition .

cheers,

AJ

 

[AJinFLA]

I believe you. As I said before, your speakers rely on reflections to sound good/right.

Yours don't?

 

[Loren42]

....confirming (inadvertently) exactly as I said...rare, if ever, is "treatment" needed)...
cheers,

AJ

Come on! And you live in Florida, too! Land of ceramic tile!

My room is so live that you can hear it breathing.

Anyway, just had to say that.

 

[highfigh]

...to AMVETS.

I've been thinking for a long time that they are degrading the sound quality of my speakers, but no one seems to believe me.

Some of us already posted that we think it's possible and if it happened in your case, I'd like to have your room. Mine is small and has several issues that were helped.

 

[AJinFLA]

Come on! And you live in Florida, too! Land of ceramic tile!

Yep. The new home has just that. Very odd layout too. No problem, I'll solve it at the source .

My room is so live that you can hear it breathing.

As long as you don't have to pass notes to your friends on a string, you should be ok .
Now head for Ikea

cheers,

AJ

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I believe you. As I said before, your speakers rely on reflections to sound good/right.

Seth, for the records, yes, you have been telling me that for the last 2 years.

It's about time I donate them.

 

[DukeL]

I finally took the time to read this thread and one sentence in particular stands out to me, articulating a belief that is widely held but which we now have grounds to question:

you know what happens when you hear reverberated sounds? it destroys inteligibility of individual notes.

Yep, I would have agreed with you up until quite recently, as I think most people would. Then along came Toole.

Chapter 9 of Toole's book is entitled, "The Effects of Reflections on Sound Quality/Timbre" and chapter 10 is "Reflections and Speech Intelligibility". Let me do a bit of quoting:

"Repetition [is] the audible effect of the same sound being repeated many times at the ear of the listeners. Reflections create new sound events, changing the temporal pattern of the original sound. This could be construed as an error, but in Chapter 8 we found that people like reflections - music in rooms is preferable to music outdoors. Repetition has another aspect, a more subtle one, in that it gives the auditory system more time to examine a sound, more individual "looks", making some aspects fo complex sound more audible, and, as will be shown in the following chapter, early reflections make speech more intelligible."

"The most distinctive timbral cues in the sounds of many instruments have been found to be in the onset transients, not in the harmonic structure or vibrato of sustained portions.... This being so, it is reasonable that repetitions of these transient onsets give the auditory system more opportunities to "look" at them and to extract more information."

"In the audio community, it is popular to claim that reflected sounds within small listening rooms contribute to degraded dialog intelligibility. This concept has an instinctive rightness, and it has probably been good for the acoustical materials industry. However, as with several perceptual phenomena, when they are rigorously examined, the results are not quite as expected."

"...nvestigations showed that natural reflections in small rooms are too low in amplitude and occur too soon to create problems of this kind ("disturbance" of speech)."

"In the field of architectural acoustics, it has long been recognized that early reflections improve speech intelligibility."

"In small listening rooms some individual reflections have a negligible effect on speech intelligibility, and others improve it, with the improvement increasing as the delay is reduced."

Toole doesn't address every question that can be raised on the subject (I have a few of my own), but he does indicate that reflections in home listening rooms are far more beneficial to both timbre and clarity than we are accustomed to thinking.

Yepimonfire, I do not mean to single you out for disagreement. What you have done is to home right in on a core issue, and one where the research that has recently been translated from Engineerese into English by Toole is particularly enlightening.

 

[Alex2507]

Yepimonfire, I do not mean to single you out for disagreement.

It's okay, he's use to it and probably deserves it.

 

[Loren42]

Yep. The new home has just that. Very odd layout too. No problem, I'll solve it at the source .

As long as you don't have to pass notes to your friends on a string, you should be ok .
Now head for Ikea

cheers,

AJ

Nice little bungalow. Looks new. The reflections on ceiling, are they from the front door?

 

[Seth=L]

Yours don't?

You know, just because I don't mention something in my post doesn't mean I don't know or believe it. There are far too many factors at work to dismiss any single one indefinitely. I only argue that room treatments are more significant than you deem them to be.

The following words are specifically directed at AJinFLA and having nothing to do with the context of room treatments.

Stop turning people's words on them. I think the majority of us here are tired of your attitude towards other members on this forum. You treat those that don't agree with you as if they are ignorant fools with your smart *** remarks. You are extremely disrespectful.

 

[Seth=L]

Seth, for the records, yes, you have been telling me that for the last 2 years.

It's about time I donate them.

I don't get it. I am not implying there's something wrong with your speakers or how they are designed.

Well, it seem like at least 3 heretics are here now .
For how long, I do not know....the burning pitchforks are gathering....in screaming, violent opposition

I'm not so much concerned or apposed to listening/reading other people's views. I have a problem with your negativity towards other people that don't agree with your point of view.

 

[AJinFLA]

The reflections on ceiling, are they from the front door?

Yes they are ("Yes" was too short an answer for the forum software )

 

[AJinFLA]

The following words are specifically directed at AJinFLA and having nothing to do with the context of room treatments.

I know.
If you stuck to that subject, you're lost. Much better to focus on me personally, to draw the spotlight away from your room treatment knowledge. Smokescreen, over here, over here!! Bravo, well done .

You know.....
....I have a problem with your.....

Simmer down Seth. Try to stick to the subject and learn something for a change.
So you don't think your speakers also benefit from reflections, despite all the (real) evidence presented?
Did you read what Duke quoted from Toole's research?

 

[DukeL]

To AcuDefTechGuy,

I'm a dealer for a line of large dipole speakers, and about ten years ago did some experimenting with several large home-made acoustically absorbent panels. Their effect was not what I expected at all; subjectively, they sucked the life out of the sound. My analysis is that the panels quickly attenuated the shorter wavelengths in the reverberant field, and the beneficial effects of full-spectrum reflections were lost.

If your speakers are bipolars, conceptually they are similar to dipoles in that they do a better than average job of creating a spectrally balanced reverberant field. Therefore, the high frequencies in that reverberant field are more likely to be missed because they would play a larger role in the speaker's presentation that is the case with most monopoles. In my opinion anyway.

 

[GO-NAD!]

I know.
If you stuck to that subject, you're lost. Much better to focus on me personally, to draw the spotlight away from your room treatment knowledge. Smokescreen, over here, over here!! Bravo, well done .

Simmer down Seth. Try to stick to the subject and learn something for a change.
So you don't think your speakers also benefit from reflections, despite all the (real) evidence presented?
Did you read what Duke quoted from Toole's research?

Holy crow! Arrogant much? Seth makes a completely valid point about your attitude and you then pour it on all the more!? You've made some credible points, but they are being overshadowed by your imperious manner. You may want to reply that others have treated you the same way, but don't bother. As we were told when we were kids - two wrongs don't make a right.

I've been following this thread with interest, as I've read Dr. Toole's book and it makes sense to me (the portions I can understand, at least). One thing I remember from it is that he is not againstroom treatment. He is against its excessive use. Are you against treatment completely?

You've stated (I'm paraphrasing - I apologize for any inaccuracy) that when utilizing room treatments/equalizing in order to improve FR at a particular position, that said FR can/will be degraded in other positions. I would expect that anyone taking such measures would understand that and that they are doing it for the listening position only. How that affects the reverberant field, and which is more important, is a separate, but related question.

You've also insisted that speaker positioning is very important and I don't think you'll get any argument on that point. What do you say to someone who cannot position his speakers ideally? Should he use treatment or equalizing to compensate?

 

[Loren42]

I know.
If you stuck to that subject, you're lost. Much better to focus on me personally, to draw the spotlight away from your room treatment knowledge. Smokescreen, over here, over here!! Bravo, well done .

Simmer down Seth. Try to stick to the subject and learn something for a change.
So you don't think your speakers also benefit from reflections, despite all the (real) evidence presented?
Did you read what Duke quoted from Toole's research?

Frankly, there is a balance for every room that includes, in part, room size, reflectivity, absorption, shape, and placement as attributes to producing a good environment.

Loudspeakers do not exist in a vacuum either. There are different types of loudspeakers and they all have their benefits and tradeoffs. Consequently, they each manage the room environment differently.

Some will be more tolerant to a wider spectrum of room issues, others are not.

However, a room that has few or no ills in the form of acoustics will more easily accept a broader range of loudspeakers than a room with a lot of problems.

This tells me that there is some benefit to making the environment reasonably acoustically friendly.