How NOT to set up speakers and room treatment ( Goldensound)

[Nkam]

What? My motivation on MQA was not that at all. It was simply that it was unimportant/niche technology that would never have the potential people who hated it including our OP youtuber thought it did (i.e. take over the world, make music DRMed again, etc.). And that the person behind it had superb qualifications. Both of these things were true and have proven to be such. Cameron on the other hand, didn't know how the technology worked and created black box tests that failed for that reason, not for what he thought.

I have taken opposite position to work of Sean Olive on preference scores. And importance of distortion in transducers. Or even sighted listening tests being totally invalid in the context of speakers. I have my views and if they are in conflict with major luminaries in the industry, I will state them.

Back on this topic, around 2005 I read everything I could and arrived at the consensus as Cameron states in his video. Then I met and listened to Dr. Toole. It turned my world upside down! I then went and read 50 to 100 references in Dr. Toole's book and realized the view he is stating is not just his own but culmination of ton of research over decades by countless researchers. Combined, they presented an elegant view of sound reproduction in rooms that no one else had remotely been able to stich together that way. So I threw out everything I knew and started over.

So excuse me when I get annoyed, just as Dr. Toole does, when I read/watch what Cameron says in his videos. I can recognize it from a mile away being what people say on forums who do not have the proper qualifications in this field to understand what they are talking about. No video about any room acoustics should be devoid of references to Dr. Toole's work and his book. To not list that and pretend self-knowledge and expertise is just wrong. Making it slick and marketing it under headphones .com makes it dangerous in the reach it has, propagating myths that Dr. Toole, I and top acousticians in the world try to so hard to dismiss.

THIS^


Qualifications are everything and not a single reference is quite pompous on his part.
also not the way research is done. In the academic world we call this plagiarism.
I just think it is pompous after making ONE room in your life , your first speaker system to come out with a video on HOW TO.

Just share you experience.
you don’t have to come off as the bastion of acoustic knowledge.
my reference to age, is simply ‘ Time’. So dont everyone young get your panties in a bunch About it.
time is what is needed to pass for all of us to accumulate experience and knowledge.
that all. nothing more and nothing less.

no one is hating on young people. Heck they are our future.

Again. It’s not just Floyd Toole

here is a video with people who do this for a living. if you want a different context

https://www.youtube.com/live/G0ekssXX7rE?feature=share


these are people who have done hundreds of rooms.
not one

 

[Nkam]

I don't get the hate. In my small room there was reverb all over the place with all frequencies even with nearfield monitors. Placed as many absorbers as possible (5 cm, 10 cm and 40 cm deep) - with regards to the room layout / aesthetics. RT60 before room treatment was unbearable even with loudspeaker calibration ranging from 0,6s to more than a second. Now it's below 0,3s at least for 63 Hz upwards. Imaging is much more focused and (kick)bass enjoyable. Once my financial situation settles maybe in a week moment a pair of Psi Audio AVAA will be ordered as a final step.

there is no hate.

I just think there should be an ounce of humility when making a how to video when you don’t know , how to.

 

[GaryH]

This is not how NOT to setup speakers and room treatment. Not even close. He is recommending UMIK and REW and EQ. "Go buy bunch of expensive absorbers, change all your cables and judge with your ears - after all that is all that matters" would be how NOT to setup speakers.

I am glad the new generation of audio reviewers are recommending measurement mics and software and not ears and money.

One would think a community such as ASR would be glad to see such a review. One would be mistaken it seems.

Pseudoscience is even worse than no science at all, because at least the latter is clearly recognisable as to just what it is by everyone. The former however with its fake veneer of science and measurement fools a lot of people, even those on a scientifically-minded forum, as is patently evident in this thread.

 

[dfuller]

If I understand you correctly, when the peak level is lowered the ringing will be brought more in line with the normal decay:

It will, but it still propagates at a low level

 

[Thomas_A]

This subject (again).

I agree with Toole in that the room should be filled with furniture, thick carpets, drawings, pillows and blankets in sofa, etc. This makes it a comfy room to be in, both conversation, movie watching and music listening. The rest can be fixed by EQ, especially reducing those nasty room modes. That said, I use panels behind the speakers which are close to wall but mostly to reduce reflections above 300-400 Hz. (My speakers are toed in almost 45°.)

 

[napfkuchen]

4. Reflectors need to be broadband. Those skyline diffusers are not. And neither are a lot of what you folks slap on walls. Minimum depth should be 4 inches.

The panels used are either these (3,6") or these (4"). There are also thicker corner absorbers.

 

[holdingpants01]

The panels used are either these (3,6") or these (4"). There are also thicker corner absorbers.

You're confusing diffusers with absorbers

 

[Nkam]

What? My motivation on MQA was not that at all. It was simply that it was unimportant/niche technology that would never have the potential people who hated it including our OP youtuber thought it did (i.e. take over the world, make music DRMed again, etc.). And that the person behind it had superb qualifications. Both of these things were true and have proven to be such. Cameron on the other hand, didn't know how the technology worked and created black box tests that failed for that reason, not for what he thought.

I have taken opposite position to work of Sean Olive on preference scores. And importance of distortion in transducers. Or even sighted listening tests being totally invalid in the context of speakers. I have my views and if they are in conflict with major luminaries in the industry, I will state them.

Back on this topic, around 2005 I read everything I could and arrived at the consensus as Cameron states in his video. Then I met and listened to Dr. Toole. It turned my world upside down! I then went and read 50 to 100 references in Dr. Toole's book and realized the view he is stating is not just his own but culmination of ton of research over decades by countless researchers. Combined, they presented an elegant view of sound reproduction in rooms that no one else had remotely been able to stich together that way. So I threw out everything I knew and started over.

So excuse me when I get annoyed, just as Dr. Toole does, when I read/watch what Cameron says in his videos. I can recognize it from a mile away being what people say on forums who do not have the proper qualifications in this field to understand what they are talking about. No video about any room acoustics should be devoid of references to Dr. Toole's work and his book. To not list that and pretend self-knowledge and expertise is just wrong. Making it slick and marketing it under headphones .com makes it dangerous in the reach it has, propagating myths that Dr. Toole, I and top acousticians in the world try to so hard to dismiss.

THIS^


Qualifications are everything and not a single reference is quite pompous on his part.
also not the way research is done. In the academic world we call this plagiarism.
I just think it is pompous after making ONE room in your life , your first speaker system to come out with a video on HOW TO.

Just share you experience.
you don’t have to come off as the bastion of acoustic knowledge.
my reference to age, is simply ‘ Time’. So dont everyone young get your panties in a bunch About it.
time is what is needed to pass for all of us to accumulate experience and knowledge.
that all. nothing more and nothing less.

no one is hating on young people. Heck they are our future.

 

[napfkuchen]

You're confusing diffusers with absorbers

Well actually not. There are no diffusers in this room which is also stated in the video so Amir started the confusion. According to Grimani from audioholics in a typical listening room there is a certain wall coverage for absorbtion which is recommended. Also Diffusers should be added. So this could be improved. But absorbtion should be priority. Otherwise the room layout does not look that different from Grimani's example listening room where also 4" or at most 5" absorbers were placed along the walls.
You insinuate this room is a total mess where the walls and ceiling are covered with empty egg boxes.... Just dial down your hysteria a bit.

 

[Axo1989]

Looks like GIK do offer tuned membrane absorbers, with three centre frequencies, interesting:

 

[Axo1989]

Well actually not. There are no diffusers in this room which is also stated in the video so Amir started the confusion. According to Grimani from audioholics in a typical listening room there is a certain wall coverage for absorbtion which is recommended. Also Diffusers should be added. So this could be improved. But absorbtion should be priority. Otherwise the room layout does not look that different from Grimani's example listening room where also 4" or at most 5" absorbers were placed along the walls.
You insinuate this room is a total mess where the walls and ceiling are covered with empty egg boxes.... Just dial down your hysteria a bit.

I think Cameron does show a small number of skyline diffusers? But says the same thing, more for larger rooms.

 

[dfuller]

Looks like GIK do offer tuned membrane absorbers, with three centre frequencies, interesting:

View attachment 289095

Indeed. GIK and Music City sell prefab tuned membranes, and they can tune them to any frequency you need. Not cheap, but at least they actually do something.

 

[Axo1989]

I agree with Toole in that the room should be filled with furniture, thick carpets, drawings, pillows and blankets in sofa, etc. This makes it a comfy room to be in, both conversation, movie watching and music listening. ...

We don't all have old white dude taste in furnishings/decor though. Happily there are a number of approaches that work for a more zen aesthetic.

 

[Axo1989]

If I understand you correctly, when the peak level is lowered the ringing will be brought more in line with the normal decay:

Correcting the FR via DSP will of course attenuate peaks for the relevant frequency range (whether used full-range or not) and give a better result at the listening position. But it won't change RT60 at all. Depending on actual room, music and levels used, such DSP may obviate problems presented by longer RT60 characteristics adequately for the listener. That's a cause of some confusion in this thread I think.

 

[thecheapseats]

my expertise in room acoustics is quite high in one area... long ago I was told I didn't know squat about it, so I hired experts that understood what I needed... would have been cheap at twice the price...

 

[boxerfan88]

If I understand you correctly, when the peak level is lowered the ringing will be brought more in line with the normal decay:

In my room, after PEQ to pull down the room mode peak, in the waterfall chart, I can see that after the initial decay, somehow some new energy is found and rings (the decay slope is less and rings longer than other frequencies)...

My conclusion is PEQ can help tame room mode, but cannot eliminate the ringing...

 

[PowerSerge]

Our listening rooms are too small to create real echoes. That aside, putting foam on the walls will create an EQ that is biased toward high frequencies, damaging the response of an otherwise good speaker you may have bought.

Maybe its not called echo maybe its called reverberation or reflections and the acoustic foam I hung up did just that. On axis frequency sweep showed no change in the frequency response before and after the foam treatment however my room did sound more "dead" after the drapes on my window and foam treatment.

I dont agree 100 percent with toole about having a live sounding room just like I dont agree with 99 percent of people who like to place their speakers a few feet out into the room.

Edit: Yes one of my goals was to tame some of the off axis high frequency response since Im so sensitive to it and the treatment has helped. I have those shelves on each side as well as no treatment on the ceiling so my room is not totally dead but I am happy with the result and have not had to use any eq.

Here is what my room looks like:

 

[amirm]

I dont agree 100 percent with toole about having a live sounding room just like I dont agree with 99 percent of people who like to place their speakers a few feet out into the room.

No one is advocating for a "live room." The advice is to not automatically think *side* reflections are bad. And that any and all reflections need to be absorbed. An empty room with hard surfaces will indeed be too live for all but orchestral/big band music. You need to get the level of reverberations down which you can do either with acoustic material or everyday furnishing. Just don't overdo it if you are playing in stereo. For multi-channel, you can go to pretty dead region (RT60 of 0.2 seconds) and still be OK since spatial cues are provided by other channels.

 

[amirm]

have not had to use any eq.

Well, you need to do that. Nothing in your room addresses low frequencies. Your room also seems small which means the modal region goes way up to a few hundred hertz. Measuring and knocking down 2 to 3 loudest peaks will tighten the bass, increase clarify and overall improve the sound. You can also dial in whatever tonality you like.

 

[raif71]

Not saying goldensound or anyone here giving bad example or being bad... don't get me wrong