I own the Acoustics and Psycoacustics of Speakers in Rooms, and have had brief interactions with the man himself (he posts on another forum, or used to at least). I've also done the bulk of the hearing training regimen he created as part of his studies.
The take-away I have from double-blind testing he conducted at HK was that the major issue with a negative effect was non-flat off-axis performance. I have even experimented with [purchased] speakers built around that premise by someone perhaps well described as an true believer in that regard
You seem to be on a different subject. This is not about the speaker's performance. This is the statement I responded to
"Very few people would enjoy a system that measures flat in room at the listening position. "
Can you point me at something that indicates that a non-flat performance is preferable to one which exactly reproduces the source material at the listening position?
I also wonder if the anecdotal experience that might support that isn't training.
I know a lot of people who dislike classical recordings where the mics are near the instruments and then the orchestra is placed in mixing. They much prefer stereo (usually with head-shaped baffels) in listening positions in performance halls. I am quite the opposite. I often think that my experience being *in* the pit when the music was being performed compared to most other's experience being in the audience creates an expectation of what is "better".
Further: where I do listen to recordings with strong room influences (such as in a cathedral); I must prefer headphones or a heavily deadened room. I suspect I would very much like an anechoic chamber for listening; though I would not be surprised if flat would be an aquired taste. Too much time with non-flat changes the pallet.
This feels a bit like a straw-man. You are arguing the conclusion by simply rejecting the premise.
This seems to tie into your earlier post rather than the one you are responding to here.
But I'm worried that you've just changed the goalposts.
You had "Nope! That [frquencies above 500Hz] is not what you hear "
You've said that EQing above 500Hz is bad, which I've asked for the reasoning for.
As I understand your reasoning in your more recent post, it's because "people take bad measurements". Is that an accurate understanding?
Indeed: didn't Toole's DB testing show in many ways the exact opposite? That speakers putting (measured) flat responses off axis were preferred over speakers which put (measured) non-flat off-axis response? How is this not at least a partial validation of a relationship between measured response and subjective listening preferences?
There's a vast gulf between "most people EQ wrong" and "EQing is bad".
Has he actually made that argument? Has he actually stated that no tool can measure sound usefully?
Did he do blind studies I'm unaware of that said the results of such EQ were universally bad?
I fear this paragraph includes things I have too little background with to agree or disagree.
Hey Jerry, I tried to pack a multitude of ideas into a single post and it appears it just created confusion. Much of this is not what I intended for you to get out of my remarks. Rather than re-explaining it, since it’s very involved, I will instead mention that I have a highly relevant article coming out around this on Audioholics. The article will discuss the way in which the human war perceived sound, how a typical measurement mic pics up and processes sound, and why these measurements (while highly reliable) are not s good reflection of what we hear in a room. It lightly addresses the idea of why EQ above the transition zone is a bad idea. The article was peer reviewed by Toole and is receiving a second review as we speak by Gene. I think you will find the article interesting, even if you disagree with its premise.
I also discuss this idea in my YouTube video on REW. I explain a bit about the different zones and the issues with what the mic is picking up once you get into the stochastic zone. You mentioned that my argument seemed to be predicated on the idea that most people take bad measurements. I would say it’s more complicated than that. Calling them bad measurements assumes better ones are possible by experts. That isn’t the case. The approach used by consumers (even when used by the best pros) have the same problem. They are “dumb” measurements and thus incapable of separating the room from the direct sound for EQ purposes while maintaining appropriate resolution over a sizable spatial region. The kinds of processing used by something like DIRAC could only be recreated by custom programming in a software like Matlab.
As for the comment James stated, that too is complicated and I mixed the ideas together because they are in fact somewhat related. First idea: a speaker that has a flat amplitude response anechoicly will have a tilted response with a rise of 1db per octave in a room. To get rid of this natural tilt you would have to apply a reverse shelf filter at 1db per octave. However, Tooles work found people prefer this, on average. It certainly isn’t true of everyone. There is a technical reason for why an anechoicly flat speaker measures with a tilt in room and it’s related to the way the sound reflects and resonates in small rooms (and is a separate issue from a speakers polar response). As James noted, our brain expects this behavior and so it expects the speakers to behave that way. It’s an explanation for why we prefer it (but this too is attempting to apply an objective science to a somewhat unknowable subjective preference). You mentioned headphones. Research into headphone preferences by Harman, PSB, and Periodic Audio have all round that applying a similar response tilt increases a persons preference for the headphone. Dan Wiggins actually finds greater variability in this preference, including by region, but still finds there are preferences for certain curves. Dan and I discussed the idea that hike construction in China might cause different response shaping and that this might partly explain the preference differences (Chinese prefer an uptilt in the high frequencies and less bass boost creating a “u” shaped response curve).
Now don’t get me wrong. If you like to eq your system and it sounds better to you, don’t let me dissuade you. You should do what sounds best to you. Even Tooles work was based on testing what average listeners preferred on average. A preference is a preference and not an absolute. If you don’t like it, they is fine. You didn’t build your system to make me happy. The article I wrote concluded in a similar fashion. There are technical reasons for why these things are true, but in the end it’s srguably academic. What matters is what the listener likes.
