Another case of bad room acoustics

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Okay, I just wanted to report on yet another case of poor room acoustics.

I went to a Paradigm dealer in Edmond, OK. Their highest dollar speakers were the Studio 100s hooked to a Yamaha 1800 AVR & 2000 DVD.

I had them pull the speakers about 2' feet from the back wall and 8' apart. The room was big, so they were far, far away from any side walls. The ceiling was about 10'. I listened to my usual 20 songs of compiled CD (make vocals, female vocals, acoustic piano, acoustic guitar, heavy bass, etc.). I was sitting about 8' away. It was in Pure Direct mode, connected by Optical digital cable. No acoustic panels.

Every song sounded terrible! The bass was pretty "adequate", but it sounded very "muffed" or "congested" and unclear. Everything (treble, midrange, bass) sounded bad IMO. The guy who worked there thought it sounded fine when I asked him what he thought. But to me, they sounded terrible.

My conclusion: Yet another case of bad, bad room acoustics. I just don't understand some of these dealers!

 

[mtrycrafts]

Okay, I just wanted to report on yet another case of poor room acoustics.

I went to a Paradigm dealer in Edmond, OK. Their highest dollar speakers were the Studio 100s hooked to a Yamaha 1800 AVR & 2000 DVD.

I had them pull the speakers about 2' feet from the back wall and 8' apart. The room was big, so they were far, far away from any side walls. The ceiling was about 10'. I listened to my usual 20 songs of compiled CD (make vocals, female vocals, acoustic piano, acoustic guitar, heavy bass, etc.). I was sitting about 8' away. It was in Pure Direct mode, connected by Optical digital cable. No acoustic panels.

Every song sounded terrible! The bass was pretty "adequate", but it sounded very "muffed" or "congested" and unclear. Everything (treble, midrange, bass) sounded bad IMO. The guy who worked there thought it sounded fine when I asked him what he thought. But to me, they sounded terrible.

My conclusion: Yet another case of bad, bad room acoustics. I just don't understand some of these dealers!

Me neither
Perhaps they just don't understand acoustics and the need to have the listening room set up correctly? They just don't want to bring in an acoustics consultant?

 

[chadnliz]

Far too many are just that......... "Dealers" and not true music lovers because I doubt that would happen, at my dealers it may not be a SOTA looking store that looks slick as it has treatments as varied as plants, Diffuser panels and even welcome mats hung on wall for echo control but it gives a good sound, they also have I would estimate 2000+ Lp's and CD'S for the choosing. It is too bad more dealers are not like this because these guys remind you how key a good dealer can truely be, something we have lost sight of in the internet trading age.

 

[jostenmeat]

I'm pretty sure I've shared this story, but I checked out some BW 802Ds in a dedicated room, powered by Krell monoblocks. I honestly thought the tweeters were blown or something. I asked the dealer, and he said they f'd up the room, and didn't come out anything like they were planning on. Sheesh. Tweeters were fine, or so he said.

I checked out a bunch of stores for the first time when hunting my first pair of audiophile speakers, and I'd say only half, at best, had good acoustical rooms. Though sometimes a store might have one good room, and another terrible room...

Its hard for me to get too upset about it though. They have to find a place, make space for a bunch of merchandise, and do their best. They are usually leasing the place, and its not like they had a place built to spec or anything. Though lack of treatments is harder to forgive, I'd agree there ADTG.

 

[fmw]

I quit "auditioning" speakers 20 years ago. How they sound in a dealer showroom compared to my listening room has no relationship. I'm not sure there is a good answer besides taking them home and listening to them there, if you can. I think that, if you want to listen to speakers in a dealer showroom, you should listen near field. That doesn't solve the problem but at least it will provide some consistency from showroom to showroom.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I get the feeling that a lot of these dealers actually believe that people buy just based on word of mouth or reputation or good magazine review.

I went to this store and I had to actually help him move these speakers around to get at least a decent placement. They had these speakers about 4' apart and 6" from the back wall. The guy looked SHOCKED when I asked him if we could move the speakers around to get proper placement!

But the SAD thing is, MOST people rely on auditioning speakers at their local stores and base their BUYING DECISIONS on this!

The best world of advice has to be to make sure they offer a FREE HOME AUDITION (30 day return policy).

In the mean time, I'll wait for that B&W store to finish building their new place, which is probably another year. I'll see if they have better conditions this time!

My wife was saying that people who ACTUALLY spend $23K on speakers DON'T audition. They just buy them. So these dealers probably bet that people who audition are not the actual buyers.

I have to disagree with her.

 

[gus6464]

My wife was saying that people who ACTUALLY spend $23K on speakers DON'T audition. They just buy them. So these dealers probably bet that people who audition are not the actual buyers.

I have to disagree with her.

Actually that is somewhat true. My friend bought his B&W 68x series speakers from The Home Theater Store and started a good relationship with a salesguy. After he bought his 685's the salesguy let us listen to the B&W 800D hooked up to Classe and he was telling us that most of the people that bought them would either buy them without ever listening or just hear them for less than 5 minutes. Most rich guys just come in and have the store do everything for them and could really care less about the auditioning. I mean you pay a store over $100k to build you a theatre room, it must sound good.

Ohh and if it's a Home Theater Store that you will be getting soon just know that they have some exceptional demo rooms. They are all treated to hell and sound better than most people will ever have in their house.

 

[mtrycrafts]

My wife was saying that people who ACTUALLY spend $23K on speakers DON'T audition. They just buy them. So these dealers probably bet that people who audition are not the actual buyers.

I have to disagree with her.

I would tend to agree with her
They may give a casual listen or pretend to give it a thorough listen, but that would be it.