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Perceptual Effects of Room Reflections

Kal Rubinson

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In listening room generaly loudspeakersstrereo or multichanel toe'ed in.

If Harman room cannot do that it's not very good ?
Of course, it can do that. All it takes is for the operator to walk over and to reposition the speakers. OTOH, the Gem 1 speakers shown are very effective w/o any toe-in.
 

JoachimStrobel

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Only once. I have hundreds of music/concert BDs but, after one play, I prefer to ignore the video or just play the ripped audio from my server.
I agree, one play might be enough to grasp the musicians, after that audio suffices.
 

Igor Kirkwood

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Of course, it can do that. All it takes is for the operator to walk over and to reposition the speakers. OTOH, the Gem 1 speakers shown are very effective w/o any toe-in.
Thank you Kal, it's very important than toe-in is always possible
 

tuga

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Of course, it can do that. All it takes is for the operator to walk over and to reposition the speakers. OTOH, the Gem 1 speakers shown are very effective w/o any toe-in.

I you look at the photo, it appears that there's no toe-in for practical reasons (strapping the speaker orthogonally to the base) as well as simplification (it requires less work than optimising an angle for each pair of speakers).
Not toe-in benefits Harman speakers which might be an advantage.
 

Igor Kirkwood

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This question is very important.
If a toe-in is really not possible. The battle between JBL M2 and Revel Ultima2 salon was not fair ?
 

tuga

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This question is very important.
If a toe-in is really not possible. The battle between JBL M2 and Revel Ultima2 salon was not fair ?

If I'm not mistaken the battle did not take place at one of Harman's auditoriums but somehwere else (dealer?). Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

These were the results:

We had 11 critical listeners over the last two days, plus myself and my crew, for a total of 15 scores. Out of the 15, three people consistently preferred the M2s over the Salons2, while the rest preferred the Salon2s generally. We also had three people who consistently preferred the Salon2s down the line, track by track, while the "middle group" tended to prefer the Salon2s, tilting the results in their favor.

https://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-s...iewed-speakers-ever-made-13.html#post54628948
 

thewas

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tuga

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Igor Kirkwood

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But is it possible to know in the session of North Colorado Spring if JBL M2 /Revel SalonUltima2 was toes-in or not ?
 

tuga

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Kal Rubinson

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I you look at the photo, it appears that there's no toe-in for practical reasons (strapping the speaker orthogonally to the base) as well as simplification (it requires less work than optimising an angle for each pair of speakers).
I am sure this is possible but the issue of why it was not done remains.
 

krabapple

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But in the end we shoudn't correct album mixes with our rooms reflections.

1) your purist view that 'if it isn't what was originally heard it's not Hi Fi' is of course impossible to attain. We can't know what was heard in the control room or performance space

2) We can correct subjectively perceived deficiencies in album EQ, in fact Floyd Toole advocates it ...why stop there?
 

DonH56

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But is it possible to know in the session of North Colorado Spring if JBL M2 /Revel SalonUltima2 was toes-in or not ?

John is my dealer, though he is working on a film score and handed off day-to-day dealings for now. The original M2/Salon2 shootout is described on The Screening Room website and the linked AVS threads. They built a custom speaker dolly contraption to emulate the Harman procedure using a single speaker.
 
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If there is one thing I learned in this forum it is that people can actually enjoy room reflections. This was new to me as I used to read in forums like Gearslutz only, where noone would prefer reflections ever. I can totally except this, though I personaly can't agree.
I think there exists a brain barrier in accepting the sound of reflection corrected because we are so used to the room sound. We want to hear what we see (the room). let's take an extreme example; a big church. If I play a sax there I expect a extreme reverberation, because my brains knows that this will happen. If I somehow cancel this reverberation it will sound strange; "out of the world". I think you need to get used to reflection treated sound. You will start to hear/feel the ambience in the recording. If I play a orchestra recording in my treated room for example, it will acoustically take me into that huge space.
I can totally understand the "charm" of the reflections. When listening to my own sound example my brain needs a few seconds before it prefers the treated version, but my brain will always end up preferring it



when I take my bluetooth speaker playing music in bathroom to my treated room the following impression happens: sound gets lower volume. the sound is suddenly coming directly from the device. for a single source I actually prefer the reflections. the treated room requires a stereo triangle

Sorry to bump an old thread but I've been reading a lot about the how a room effects sound recently which lead me to here and I have to agree with you 110%, I believe a room should be completely inert/dead, I can hear the room in my sound, it really bothers me.

I think a good comparison for those who like their room to be 'live' is the same people that don't like their TV to be calibrated to reference levels as it doesn't 'pop' as they believe it should, many people like their displays to be vivid and overly saturated, and in particular the whites set way too cold, they believe it 'enhances' the experience, gives it that extra zing. Personally I really dislike the TV getting in the way of my viewing experience, just as I don't like my room getting in the way of my audible experience, the only ambiance I want to hear is what is included on the recording, not my walls, if you listen to a track like this on headphones for example,


You can clearly feel the ambiance and scale of the Notre-Dame Cathedral through the recorded reverb, I don't need reflections for that, headphones are a prime example of that, otherwise they would also sound 'dead', in my humble opinion a heavily treated room and speaker toed in towards the listener will provide you with a much closer sound to the original recording with the reverb or ambiance in the track being more empathised rather than being de-empathised by your room.

For example,

https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-why-does-reverb-sound-different-headphones

This gentleman is explaining why people tend to hear reverb more when listening to music on headphones as opposed to speakers, but he also makes an interesting observation regarding treated rooms and reverb,

"I’ve also found a similar effect (enhanced reverb) with some monitoring speakers combined with over-damped listening rooms"

.
 
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JoachimStrobel

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Sorry to bump an old thread but I've been reading a lot about the how a room effects sound recently which lead me to here and I have to agree with you 110%, I believe a room should be completely inert/dead, I can hear the room in my sound I it really bothers me.

I think a good comparison for those who like their room to be 'live' is the same people that don't like their TV to be calibrated to reference levels as it doesn't 'pop' as they believe it should, many people like their displays to be vivid and overly saturated, and in particular the whites set way too cold, they believe it 'enhances' the experience, gives it that extra zing. Personally I really dislike the TV getting in the way of my viewing experience, just as I don't like my room getting in the way of my audible experience, the only ambiance I want to hear is what is included on the recording, not my walls, if you listen to a track like this on headphones for example,


You can clearly feel the ambiance and scale of the Notre-Dame Cathedral through the recorded reverb, I don't need reflections for that, headphones are a prime example of that, otherwise they would also sound 'dead', imo humble opinion a heavily treated room and speaker toed in towards the listener will provide you with a much closer sound to the original recording with the reverb or ambiance in the track being more empathised rather than being de-empathised by your room.

For example,

https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-why-does-reverb-sound-different-headphones

This gentleman is explaining why people tend to hear reverb more when listening to music on headphones as opposed to speakers, but he also makes an interesting observation regarding treated rooms and reverb,

"I’ve also found a similar effect (enhanced reverb) with some monitoring speakers combined with over-damped listening rooms"

.
There are color calibration devices for screens the same way as there is Rew and an Umik for audio. The problem is as involved as audio calibration. There is the question of the color space, temperature, gamma. So, the idea of a dead room, as a source for a true audio experience is as complicated as the quest for a true color display. The only difference being, that looking out of the window gives you a master calibration for video.
 

dasdoing

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There are color calibration devices for screens the same way as there is Rew and an Umik for audio. The problem is as involved as audio calibration. There is the question of the color space, temperature, gamma. So, the idea of a dead room, as a source for a true audio experience is as complicated as the quest for a true color display. The only difference being, that looking out of the window gives you a master calibration for video.

I use this...it wont take you to professional editing levels, but good enough for me http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/
 

krabapple

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Sorry to bump an old thread but I've been reading a lot about the how a room effects sound recently which lead me to here and I have to agree with you 110%, I believe a room should be completely inert/dead, I can hear the room in my sound, it really bothers me.

You would not like listening a room that is "completely inert/dead" -- an anaechoic chamber.

May I suggest reading Floyd Toole's summaries of research on preference for reflections? His book is a great place to start.
 
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