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

[Thomas_A]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but this thread can be summarized as: we are arguing between the upper limits and the lower limits of this graph:

... and whether we should employ room treatment to achieve it?

Perhaps we need to move forward and state some things we can all agree on. For example, foam panels only attenuate shorter wavelengths, so it would unbalance that curve (i.e. make upper frequencies more dry whilst leaving the bass reverberant). Or, a dry or a wet room is a matter of preference.

That is just part of the discussion. The other part relates to lateral reflections, delay-level, and their spectral content.

 

[hemiutut]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but this thread can be summarized as: we are arguing between the upper limits and the lower limits of this graph:

... and whether we should employ room treatment to achieve it?

Perhaps we need to move forward and state some things we can all agree on. For example, foam panels only attenuate shorter wavelengths, so it would unbalance that curve (i.e. make upper frequencies more dry whilst leaving the bass reverberant). Or, a dry or a wet room is a matter of preference.

Are these conditions only found in huge rooms where the deep bass is within the reverberation
domain and where there can really be a diffuse field by definition
and where there can actually be a diffuse field by definition


In domestic rooms, especially in Europe, the deepest bass is in the modal domain and not in the reverberation domain.
That's why a small room with well placed absorbing panels together with a little EQ support
or a well configured multi-subwoofer system can sound dynamic,
clear, focused, alive at the top and controlled at the bottom without the bass sounding fattened and masking the rest of the frequencies.
Reverberation has a very different behavior than the modal zone; they are totally different phenomena.

The problem is that the current regulations do not comply for rooms of average European size,
such as a one-story room or living room.
In a small room there is no RT (RT60), the time decay slope is too steep to have a reverberation tail.
not only is there no reverberant field by definition, there is no reverberant field at all.

I insist on watching Ron Sauro's videos.

Written with translator

Greetings

 

[Vuki]

The point of great concert halls was that reflections from many directions is what dominates that experience. You want to get there? The answer is multichannel, not stereo. A 5.1 system blows away any stereo system in creating a sense of space and spatial qualities you mention. Even a crappy one will outperform some of the best stereo systems!

Once you stuck with a pale copy of that, the question is what is the best you can do? The first answer is to not chase lay formulas as youtuber prescribed, which you are backing here. You must trust science when these concepts are examined and tested. That examination says there is no reason to fear reflections, up to a point. Once you understand this and the fact that measurements mislead you, then you realize how to design your room for best enjoyment.

2 audiophiles 4 ears
Either you never listened to good stereo system (I know you did) or every mch system I listened to was subcrappy (I know it wasn't).

 

[amirm]

Forgive me if I have misinterpreted your statement but id say that the majority of listeners (myself as one) do not/have not ever listened to classical music, I fully understand the data that shows classical music recorded by multiple mic placements would benefit from reflected sounds reaching the listening position but this does not apply to my choice of electronic/techno music with a BPM of anywhere from 100BPM to 130BPM+ consisting of entirely synthesised sounds created in the box so to speak - god bless the Roland 303/606/909, Juno, Moog's etc whether they be software or physical equipment.

We were discussing classical music because that was the topic. Research includes multiple genres. In your case, I agree that you want a much less reverberant room for dry recordings of rock/pop music. Such is also stated in Dr. Toole's paper I quoted:

 

[amirm]

Either you never listened to good stereo system (I know you did) or every mch system I listened to was subcrappy (I know it wasn't).

The system was crappy or the recording? The ability of a multichannel system to create envelopment is hugely ahead of stereo. That is the reason it is used as primary soundtrack for music. Research shows that the more channels in the music, the less critical the listeners become to its flaws. The reason is what I just stated: we become captivated by the realism that more channels bring.

My experience with multichannel music was with DVD and DVD audio/SACD. I found most mixes to NOT be to my liking, putting instruments behind me and such. So if that is what you mean, we are in agreement.

 

[amirm]

So what if you don't want image shift or spreading?

Then don't. The point being that don't go and create a video online, implying you are an expert and tell people to get rid of all reflections in the room because of course that is the universal truth.

When my middle son was young, he decided he didn't like tomatoes. So while 99.99% of the world likes tomatoes, he was absolutely fine in not liking them. Interestingly enough, now as an adult, he eats them. I find that many people who go the route of reflections are bad, convince themselves after putting tons of absorbers on the wall that they like said sound. Then one day they take them all down (or have an acoustician do that for them) and they realize the sound is better. But sure, if it that is your absolute preference, by all means, opt for it.

 

[Vuki]

The system was crappy or the recording? The ability of a multichannel system to create envelopment is hugely ahead of stereo. That is the reason it is used as primary soundtrack for music. Research shows that the more channels in the music, the less critical the listeners become to its flaws. The reason is what I just stated: we become captivated by the realism that more channels bring.

My experience with multichannel music was with DVD and DVD audio/SACD. I found most mixes to NOT be to my liking, putting instruments behind me and such. So if that is what you mean, we are in agreement.

Probably I'm crappy, because I listened to many and some of them were meant as presentations of mch excellence. But I really never heard enjoyable mch system.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

I had to go back to my teenage years to remember but if we're talking about strange live recordings take a listen to Rainbow's On Stage.

(Tested it with the Jap. SHM CD with the second track,Man on the Silver Mountain,which has silent parts involving the audience)

HARD panned in L-R front instruments,drums in the middle and back,voice dead front and crowd surrounding all of them at times.

So,treated or untreated for this one?

This became the short listening session of the evening. It is a decent recording, a bit bright perhaps and bass can be lifted a bit, but that's why there is a trim level on the bass-system, right? Just turn it up, and then a little bit more, to experience that massive slam!!! of a live concert, hits you right in the chest and belly.

And it's the slam that does it for me here, and to experience this it is necessary to have at least some control of acoustics. Transient response is crucial to get this slam! properly reproduced, and the room needs to be dry enough to enable loud volume and still sound reasonably pleasant.

But the audience is up front, it does not appear around me and back into the listening room. I find this is not important for the experience. It is still a live concert, and it sounds quite good.

 

[thewas]

Mr. Toole would not consider this directivity as good, there is too much ringing, lack of parallelism as we move away from the axis,
Partly because of the lousy front end in the face of diffraction.
But after the equalization applied to the whole band it was only 2 tenths of a neumann KH80,
which according to the Harman group standards should have given a score well above
and this was not the case.

I don't want to speculate about how Dr. Toole would judge it, so just some remarks.
Ringing/resonances are a different phenomenon then directivity mismatch.
And finally those Edifiers have quite some very decent ERDI which is mirrored on their quite high score with EQ:

 

[gnarly]

So please, no more pleading that you must be right. Come with research that proves a certain point of view. And make sure you have read the full research. This is not something you are going to learn by grabbing on to a quote or two you have found online. It took me two years to read it all and fully understand and appreciate the topic.

Amir, thank you for taking the time give me a full response (which I snipped simply for brevity)....and may I say i have a great deal of respect and gratitude for the site and the discussions you facilitate.


I honestly don't care about proving I'm right...one of the few benefits of getting old Lol.
I do care about plain honest discussions, that correspond with reality as we believe it to be.
Hey, we learn more when we see our mistakes, than we see we are correct..eh?

Here's the nuts of the problem I have, with what your say about early reflections aiding speech intelligibility....
...and please note I've never questioned anything else, like envelopment, or plain preference, or stereo, yada, etc..
...or talked about how rooms work, treated or untreated, small or large.....

What I've said is...... outdoors with as few reflections as possible other than ground bounce...
greatly increases speech intelligibility/clarity compared to any in-room experience I've ever had.

I'll expand speech intelligibility to resolving lyrics, to make it more in line with a musical experience.
My test is stupid simple....listen to a song and then go see how many lines/words I got right, after I google the song's lyrics.

Outdoors absolutely rules this test, no matter the speaker or the room. It's not close.


So what am I to believe/trust? My ears and experiences, or other's studies and graphs?
Personally, I think I'd be a damn fool not to trust what is blatantly obvious to me...no matter what anyone says...

If you can give a logical reason why an outdoors relatively reflection free comparison of intelligibility/clarity, doesn't hold water to make a valid assessment about lateral reflections, I'm all ears and of open mind.
thx, mark

 

[Sokel]

This became the short listening session of the evening. It is a decent recording, a bit bright perhaps and bass can be lifted a bit, but that's why there is a trim level on the bass-system, right? Just turn it up, and then a little bit more, to experience that massive slam!!! of a live concert, hits you right in the chest and belly.

And it's the slam that does it for me here, and to experience this it is necessary to have at least some control of acoustics. Transient response is crucial to get this slam! properly reproduced, and the room needs to be dry enough to enable loud volume and still sound reasonably pleasant.

But the audience is up front, it does not appear around me and back into the listening room. I find this is not important for the experience. It is still a live concert, and it sounds quite good.

If slam and dry does it for you go to the start of the 4th track ,Mistreated (what a suitable title for the thread!) ,it has one of the cleanest (strangely for live) thumbs.
Enjoy it!

 

[CtheArgie]

Amir, thank you for taking the time give me a full response (which I snipped simply for brevity)....and may I say i have a great deal of respect and gratitude for the site and the discussions you facilitate.


I honestly don't care about proving I'm right...one of the few benefits of getting old Lol.
I do care about plain honest discussions, that correspond with reality as we believe it to be.
Hey, we learn more when we see our mistakes, than we see we are correct..eh?

Here's the nuts of the problem I have, with what your say about early reflections aiding speech intelligibility....
...and please note I've never questioned anything else, like envelopment, or plain preference, or stereo, yada, etc..
...or talked about how rooms work, treated or untreated, small or large.....

What I've said is...... outdoors with as few reflections as possible other than ground bounce...
greatly increases speech intelligibility/clarity compared to any in-room experience I've ever had.

I'll expand speech intelligibility to resolving lyrics, to make it more in line with a musical experience.
My test is stupid simple....listen to a song and then go see how many lines/words I got right, after I google the song's lyrics.

Outdoors absolutely rules this test, no matter the speaker or the room. It's not close.


So what am I to believe/trust? My ears and experiences, or other's studies and graphs?
Personally, I think I'd be a damn fool not to trust what is blatantly obvious to me...no matter what anyone says...

If you can give a logical reason why an outdoors relatively reflection free comparison of intelligibility/clarity, doesn't hold water to make a valid assessment about lateral reflections, I'm all ears and of open mind.
thx, mark

You do realize that with age many people lose the ability to understand speech in a noisy environment? It is a type of hearing loss that is relatively hard to deal with. Are you sure that at your age, your current hearing is not affecting your preferences?

 

[gnarly]

You do realize that with age many people lose the ability to understand speech in a noisy environment? It is a type of hearing loss that is relatively hard to deal with. Are you sure that at your age, your current hearing is not affecting your preferences?

Good question /good point. My hearing definitely rolls off around 14kHz.

The simple observation outdoors with fewer reflections improves clarity vs any indoors , has been around for 30-40 years...so I can't see how it's age dependent.

Hey, try outdoors for yourself...it's a no brainer, plain to see what you think, experiment.

 

[fpitas]

Good question /good point. My hearing definitely rolls off around 14kHz.

The simple observation outdoors with fewer reflections improves clarity vs any indoors , has been around for 30-40 years...so I can't see how it's age dependent.

Hey, try outdoors for yourself...it's a no brainer, plain to see what you think, experiment.

It's a curious argument, anyways. Us old guys buy the expensive speakers and build listening rooms. You would think our preference would be golden lol!

 

[CtheArgie]

Good question /good point. My hearing definitely rolls off around 14kHz.

The simple observation outdoors with fewer reflections improves clarity vs any indoors , has been around for 30-40 years...so I can't see how it's age dependent.

Hey, try outdoors for yourself...it's a no brainer, plain to see what you think, experiment.

I know the point of listening outdoors. We have been going to the Hollywood Bowl for years, many times per season. We even like the PA sound there. I've also once rented some big QSC speakers to play outside (for our wedding), and the sound was clearly different.

Interestingly, I have been recently to a King Crimson concert and got some of their live CDs. Robert Fripp is very particular about the sound quality live and recorded, and his CDs have extremely realistic sound, whether I listen in my office system or in the bigger one in the music/reading room. I find that it is recordings that seem to make the biggest difference more than the rooms reverberations. Modern electronic music seems to fare a little better in my office (which is "drier"), while more "old fashioned" music appears a little better in the bigger system. Though, I'm sure my mind plays tricks.

It seems to me that the mind "knows" that electronic music tends to be recorded in "bedrooms"....

 

[fpitas]

It seems to me that the mind "knows" that electronic music tends to be recorded in "bedrooms"....

As to that...the old school rave I listen to was probably mastered on headphones. Most of those guys couldn't afford decent speakers.

 

[maverickronin]

Then don't. The point being that don't go and create a video online, implying you are an expert and tell people to get rid of all reflections in the room because of course that is the universal truth.

When my middle son was young, he decided he didn't like tomatoes. So while 99.99% of the world likes tomatoes, he was absolutely fine in not liking them. Interestingly enough, now as an adult, he eats them. I find that many people who go the route of reflections are bad, convince themselves after putting tons of absorbers on the wall that they like said sound. Then one day they take them all down (or have an acoustician do that for them) and they realize the sound is better. But sure, if it that is your absolute preference, by all means, opt for it.

Well judging by the response in this thread, plenty of other people prefer imaging to envelopment as well.

I'm more interested in your opinions on the subject that GoldenSound's room though.

 

[CtheArgie]

As to that...the old school rave I listen to was probably mastered on headphones. Most of those guys couldn't afford decent speakers.

Exactly!

There is a Peter Gabriel song, called the Barry Williams Show, that I find it sounds "completely different" when you hear it on speakers (loud) and with headphones. A spooky mind game. And he is another quirky recording guy. But with a giant studio.

 

[fpitas]

Exactly!

There is a Peter Gabriel song, called the Barry Williams Show, that I find it sounds "completely different" when you hear it on speakers (loud) and with headphones. A spooky mind game. And he is another quirky recording guy. But with a giant studio.

Some people master with both. I can see that, if your fans are likely to have headphones.

 

[krabapple]

I tried this too, like i wrote. I used the Penteo upmixing plugin. Interesting for some albums, but in most cases i still prefer the stereo, despite the flaws. YMMV.

Keep tryimg, it's worth it.