He buids his own speakers, go to all these Speakers conventions and shows, hangs out with all the big speaker designs gurus, reads up on all the speaker design papers, etc.
Okay, so AJinFLA makes great speakers. What do they measure like, ungated, in HIS room? Frequency response, decay, anything.
You KNOW I'm huge on great speakers and how they are least sensitive to reflections etc. You know I think good speakers are the most important thing and you know that I have an idea of what measurements make a good speaker that sounds great in many rooms.
But that's only true to the extent that your speaker is the bottleneck. In your case, ADTG, is the speaker the bottleneck anymore? You've seen the measurements of the Salons, now put it to the test. Measure the frequency response of your speakers in your room, gated to 6ms, then 20ms, then 500ms. Prove to us that you don't have any problems in your room. No bass peaks/valleys, no comb filtering in the first 20ms, no plenty of diffussed, frequency independant decay. Measure the ETC.
Because right now you're speaking similar to a total subjectivist about to buy $20,000 tube amps mated to $10000 B&W speakers, thinking that the speakers are the best in the world, and the amp is the only thing that can make them better.
- in your case you're saying the speakers are the best in the world, and there's no weak link in your setup anymore. You're at a point where you have, if not THE, one of the best measurable speakers in the world (Revel Salon2).
Show us that your room is not doing anything bad to the sound of the Salons, PERIOD.
With all that said, I mostly am ON your side, not FirstReflection's side, that for a 5k budget, most of it should be spent on speakers with outstanding polar response, not random acoustic panels, because to a point, the speakers are always the first bottleneck, even before the room. Sorry, the most treated room in the world WON'T make bad speakers sound good, although it'll make most hi-fi speakers sound less bad.
But when you hit a point of "speakers can barely get better" - it just seems silly to think that your room is getting the most out of those speakers. The room has to be a lot more thorough than a few acoustic panels IN MY OPINION. - but nor does that mean making it into a silly audiophile room with all reflections absorbed.
IIRC, even the harman double blind listening room, is custom designed just not padded down. I recall it has its share of diffusion.
Heck, treatments aren't just about speakers. I've been to university lecture rooms that have incognito absorption panels along the walls. I first noticed this walking by them and all of a sudden you feel like one of your ears is out of whack and it's an uncomfortable feeling. I think rooms are a problem for more than just speakers.
I just don't think that speakers should be treated.
Room treatments, not speaker treatments. Scientifically planned and thorough, not half-assed Hi-Fi B.S.
