How Important Is Proper Room Treatment For Audiophiles?

[SunnyOctopus]

In a typical American bedroom, how important would you say proper room treatment is for audiophiles?

 

[jostenmeat]

In a typical American bedroom, how important would you say proper room treatment is for audiophiles?

Um, probably not very, at all. Even for a dedicated room will even experts* give you different opinions. Most though would definitely advocate their use, at least if it could be helpful, but there are at least one or two AH experts who don't believe in them.

Also, I don't know how many people do their most critical listening in a BR, but I doubt that it's too many.

 

[just-some-guy]

what is a "typical American bedroom" ?

answer = it depends on who you ask.

 

[Norman Varney]

It doesn't matter what kind of room it is, acoustic treatments will be needed in order to make it sound more accurate. Noise control, room modes, first order reflections and reverberation times are all issues that probably need attention, but optimizing your speaker/listener positions within the room is step one.

 

[j_garcia]

IMO, treatments would be one of the top 3 things that will benefit every system, period. They are probably the last thing that most people do however.

 

[Tubamark]

In a typical American bedroom, how important would you say proper room treatment is for audiophiles?

Depends on who the "audiophile" is! I would say that if every 'audiophile' in the world were subjected to blind A-B testing of untreated vs. properly treated room, they would all agree that it's a no-brainer . . . particularly if you tell them that the A-B comparison is cables, or power conditioners.

However, in a world with eyes open and components known, an astounding number of self-proclaimed golden-ear "audiophiles" still continue to fiddle with exotic components and accessories, in photo-ready listening rooms that have the acoustics of a racquetball court.

Even in excellent rooms, room acoustics have greater impact on s/n ratio, imaging, power response, frequency response, noise floor, yadda, yadda than any other component in the signal chain except maybe the speakers.

So to answer you question: It's extremely important for audiophiles who listen with their ears. It's not important for those 'audiophiles' who are gifted enough to hear primarily through their eyes, egos, and wallets.

Sunny, you hit a nerve today . . . Thanks for 'listening' . . .

-- Mark

 

[digicidal]

I would have to agree with both Tubamark and J_Garcia on this - however, I would add that most bedrooms are already treated much better for audio than most audiophiles dedicated 'sound rooms' - now if you said 'home studios' and were referring to those of the amateur sound engineers it would be quite different. I've seen many home studio builds (here and on other sites) that would put some concert halls to shame.

However, when you consider the 'average American bedroom' you have something that's usually pretty well damped (or at the very least diffused) as it is. First of all you usually have all windows treated with at least blinds, but often with both blinds and heavy curtains (at least if you're like me and like to sleep in long after the sun is up). You also most likely have either wall-to-wall carpeting or an extremely large area rug since bare toes in the mornings don't tend to like tile or even hardwoods too much.

Although you may have some large, mostly blank walls - the majority of bedrooms have a plethora of bulky furniture (dressers, bookcases full of books, etc...) which may be reflective, but are also likely to have several varied surface depths and/or (depending on the 'neatness') dirty clothes in piles on or around them. And finally, you have the worlds largest sound absorber (albeit a poorly positioned one for audio) - a bed. Full of insulation, covered in multiple layers of fabric, often a combination of knits and more insulation (down,polyfill,etc..) - it's pretty good, just cover your head with only your comforter and see how much the sound changes.

In contrast, most audiophiles have a large, totally empty room with parallel walls, and many even scorn wall art and window coverings beyond perhaps simple shades - because this detracts from their impeccably presented racks of stainless-steel, copper, and wood components. Add to that the fact that cable-elevators have trouble standing up on deep pyle rugs, and they may have even left that out. Plus the hardwood floors look great in picures with their monolithic towers matching/constrasting their own glistening finishes.

If your bedroom is incredibly neat, very large, or very sparsely furnished - with hard wood/tile floors - or has large, naked panes of glass... then I think some treatments would definitely make the sound significantly better. If you're talking about the average American teenager's bedroom... there probably isn't a surface that isn't already covered by dirty clothes and food wrappers - so the reflections are going to have a fun time trying to reach your ears in time to even be noticed! I'd say with that - you're probably 80-90% there already - maybe with a tapestry added - however, speaker placement might not be as easy.

 

[Tubamark]

I just want to add--

Many folks hear "room acoustics" and immediately envision fabric panels and/or exotic diffusers. Very few persons pursuing these items have a complete understanding how/when/where these are required. This only perpetuates the mystique surrounding acoustics - the results are often unpredictable.

Room acoustics oughta be extremely important to all audiophiles. Duh.
The problem is that there is so much disagreement on what constitutes "good acoustics". So it continues to be written-off as a matter of taste, and not science.

Another problem: Very few audiophiles have actually experienced optimum acoustics! Switching speakers or components is easily tried, and takes very little time, and is fully reversable. Changing acoustics often requires a serious commitment and time, and does not respond well to the trial and error approach that is the accepted practice for all other other areas of our systems. Poor understanding-->poor application-->mixed results-->limited priority.

Individual tastes notwithstanding, I largely believe that disagreement is because so many are looking at old criteria (reverberation time, shape, dimensions etc), and trying to apply the same set of band-aids to every listening room, while ignoring criteria that can be universally applied.

Research in recent years has revealed the most useful criteria are about reflections--timing, frequency spectrum, density, and direction all reflections. These factors are more critical to fidelity / illusion of reality than (typical) reverberation, etc.

Very early reflections (<~5 ms) are bad. The brain can't seperate them from the original. The result is shifiting of image, loss of transients, etc. The source of these can be the speaker itself (cabinet, driver frames, etc), nearby objects & furnishings, walls, etc.

Early reflections (~5-10 ms) are hotly debated. I prefer to kill or redirect them whenever possible. 'Problem is that domestic size rooms make them unavoidable. The impact of these reflections depends on how they are presented to the brain in terms of spectrum, direction and level. They can add spaciousness to sound, but can also smear imaging, etc.

Late reflections (somewhere >15-50 ms) are generally useful, and are often diffused and attenuated enough by the stuff in our room to not be a problem. They can help widen sweet spot without hurting imaging, and give the illusion of envelopment.

Very late reflections (50+ ms) are only desireable if diffuse, and/or attenuated in level. This will happen naturally in most cases. Typically they don't exist at all in domestic size rooms, as they only result if a sound bounces several times before ever being "heard". Any of these that exist would be likely be buried in the reverberation or noise floor in a room.

Small rooms are the most challenging because the reflections that reach the listener are invariably too soon and too strong to be beneficial . . . unless your only need is "make it loud".

Recent research has shown that the brain can learn what to disregard from a system. That's all fine & dandy if I never have visitors, and I don't mind missing out on a lot of sonic information that's buried by the room sound, and if I don't mind listener fatigue that results from such an arrangement. That arrangement also is, by definition, not High Fidelity.

Wow . . . shoulda saved this rant for a new thread. 'Thanks for reading.

-- Mark

 

[thecarofmiki]

This was damn thorough