An Enticing Marketing Story, Theory Without Measurement?

[amirm]

If what you said was true, that would imply that there wouldn't be any need whatsever to treat control rooms or mastering rooms as long as used speakers with good power response, multiple subwoofers and EQ. Well, I don't think that would be a good choice.

This is classic way to sell consumers on acoustic products: "look, studios use them, so should you!" So many people have destroyed the acoustics of their room based on such tactic.

As Dr. Toole painfully explains, following them results in you falling a ditch for a number of reasons:

1. They are using a dedicated room. Of course if you have an empty box, it is going to sound too live and treatments should be there. Alternatively you can use furnishing and this is the preferred method for most people who are using a part of their living space.

2. Who says the pros who create these rooms understand psychoacoustics and modern sound reproduction? Their expertise is in producing music, not understanding sound reproduction research. So this kind of appeal to authority is totally misplaced.

3. Looks are important in production spaces. It goes fair bit toward the hourly rate they can charge. Inviting someone to a living room is not going to be a good sales too. But paper the walls with a ton of acoustic product, and now we are talking! I mean check out this Blackbird studio references earlier in the slides I post:

After the initial excitement wore off, they added curtains to the room for better sound! See them here:

You want to look up the acoustic properties of such curtains in front of diffusers?

 

[Guermantes]

3. Looks are important in production spaces. It goes fair bit toward the hourly rate they can charge. Inviting someone to a living room is not going to be a good sales too. But paper the walls with a ton of acoustic product, and now we are talking! I mean check out this Blackbird studio references earlier in the slides I post:

After the initial excitement wore off, they added curtains to the room for better sound! See them here:

I'm a bit perplexed why the video shows them recording in there as it appears it was never meant to be used for that. They appear to have plenty of dedicated recording rooms to choose from . . .
https://www.blackbirdstudio.com/studio-c

 

[DDF]

The level of delay required for envelopment is too small in a typical of small room. With multi-channel though, it is trivial to create that using rear/side channels.

Blauert (psychoacoustics professor) found that envelope fluctuations ~ 3 to 10Hz create spatial and enveloping perceptions and Griesinger shows how to achieve this in small rooms (start ~ 10 mins) with 2 speakers

It looks difficult to achieve but relies on antiphase signals exciting lateral modes at the listening location, and using front back in phase modes to fill in.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

Which means nothing in the context of strong room modes well below this frequency. And this is a whopping 8 inch thickness that most people will not use, nor tolerate in their listening rooms.

Here is my room which I measured during the Lyngdorf Room Perfect review: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...measurements-of-lyngdorf-roomperfect-eq.6799/

The variations at 200 Hz and above are very little compared to what comes before it. Notice how EQ has knocked down the variations below 200 Hz, as confirmed in listening tests.

This is the room. I can't imagine sticking an 8 inch absorber on the walls:

The message here is simple:

1. Get a great speaker that has similar off-axis response to on-axis and has smooth frequency response.

2. Use EQ to much reduce the impact of the room at low frequencies.

3. Use some furnishing to knock down too high of a reverberation time (my carpet there and furnishing you don't see).

Absolutely superb sound can be had without turning the room into a working studio.

A picture says more than a thousand words, they say. Or - for room acoustics - more than a thousand frequency response charts.

Point is, the frequency response as shown here does not say much about how the system performs, you need to look at what happens in time. With reasonably good speakers the frequency response usually looks good, with no severe dips or peaks, because the reflected energy obscures early and boundary reflections, as well as resonances. When the room is treated, there may very well be larger deviations, because the fewer reflections still left now stands out since they are no longer masked. A decay plot reveals what is really going on.

What matters is of course how you, the owner, like the sound, a matter of preference. But if you are serious about your sound and sound system, you owe yourself to experience how a good room sounds like, before making conclusions. May be you will still prefer your room like it is, but you never know until you hear the difference.

And please see my comment as an attempt to give some friendly advice. Yes, you have heard all those rooms and systems, you have lots of experience and knowledge about sound and sound systems. But if my short-term memory still works, I seem to remember a comment about the mbl omni-speakers, somewhere in this thread - you did not like them very much. And that is a clue. What if you are actually missing out.. what if..

 

[amirm]

Blauert (psychoacoustics professor) found that envelope fluctuations ~ 3 to 10Hz create spatial and enveloping perceptions and Griesinger shows how to achieve this in small rooms (start ~ 10 mins) with 2 speakers

I am familiar with work of both and have quoted Blauert many times. The topic is orthogonal to the discussion at hand which is how much reflection you need in a small room to get a envelopment in general (not in the corner case of modulating bass). Here is Griesinger himself:

80 msec is 80 feet. We are not going to have a reflection path which is that long in a typical listening room.

Surround sound on the other hand, can deliver this with ease.

BTW, from that video, we see Griesinger's listening room:

No 8 inch absorbers. No diffusers. Curtains, furnishings, etc. provide the acoustic material.

And oh, the side speakers he has are the same Revels I use in our living room for TV sound.

 

[amirm]

Point is, the frequency response as shown here does not say much about how the system performs, you need to look at what happens in time. With reasonably good speakers the frequency response usually looks good, with no severe dips or peaks, because the reflected energy obscures early and boundary reflections, as well as resonances. When the room is treated, there may very well be larger deviations, because the fewer reflections still left now stands out since they are no longer masked. A decay plot reveals what is really going on.

No it doesn't. More crimes have been committed to listening spaces in the process of dealing with "time." Again, please read Dr. Toole's book. All of this has been exhaustively researched and cross referenced.

Your hearing is exceptionally sensitive to frequency response variations. It is trivial for all of us to hear it. So no, you don't get a pass for uneven frequency response because the acoustic products are not that effective in bass, and then hang your hat on "time domain is better."

Equalization on the other hand will absolutely deal with decay if you know how to use the instrumentation. Here is a tutorial I wrote on that: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...urements-understanding-time-and-frequency.25/

 

[amirm]

And please see my comment as an attempt to give some friendly advice. Yes, you have heard all those rooms and systems, you have lots of experience and knowledge about sound and sound systems. But if my short-term memory still works, I seem to remember a comment about the mbl omni-speakers, somewhere in this thread - you did not like them very much. And that is a clue. What if you are actually missing out.. what if..

I am not interested friendly advice. I am interested as are the members in research and data. I see none from MBL on efficacy of their speaker designs. Nor in this post.

You seem to be saying if one doesn't like MBL sound, they must not understand sound reproduction. I must say this is so extreme that I have not heard such an argument in all my years online.

 

[DDF]

I am familiar with work of both and have quoted Blauert many times. The topic is orthogonal to the discussion at hand which is how much reflection you need in a small room to get a envelopment in general (not in the corner case of modulating bass).
80 msec is 80 feet. We are not going to have a reflection path which is that long in a typical listening room.
No 8 inch absorbers. No diffusers. Curtains, furnishings, etc. provide the acoustic material.
And oh, the side speakers he has are the same Revels I use in our living room for TV sound.

I know you know them (as do I), but please watch the video, you don't need 80 feet, just nulls and anti nulls. So the concept isn't orthogonal. he even provides specific examples for small rooms.

Griesinger himself points out that his old papers didn't focus on these newer concepts. I've been thinking about how to actually reproduce that situation and its not quite clear. His own examples show the nulls and peaks at different frequencies for the suggested set ups, so it appears like spatiality will be imparted at the cost of tonal balance (but I need to think on it more). He also has a very interesting slide showing that bass spaiality isn't a corner case, its the dominant one.

Sorry to hijack your conversation, I agree 8" absorbers is nuts, but I though some folks (or you) might be interested in this concept. I've read double digits into Griesinger's papers but this was sort of new and exciting to me.

 

[amirm]

I'm a bit perplexed why the video shows them recording in there as it appears it was never meant to be used for that.

My guess is that the room looks fancy so they can charge more for it. This nice recording of Dawn Langstroth shows you how much performers like the sound of that room given how much damping they have put everywhere:

 

[j_j]

My guess is that the room looks fancy so they can charge more for it. This nice recording of Dawn Langstroth shows you how much performers like the sound of that room given how much damping they have put everywhere:

That's a lot of diffusion, less absorption.

 

[svart-hvitt]

No it doesn't. More crimes have been committed to listening spaces in the process of dealing with "time." Again, please read Dr. Toole's book. All of this has been exhaustively researched and cross referenced.

Your hearing is exceptionally sensitive to frequency response variations. It is trivial for all of us to hear it. So no, you don't get a pass for uneven frequency response because the acoustic products are not that effective in bass, and then hang your hat on "time domain is better."

Equalization on the other hand will absolutely deal with decay if you know how to use the instrumentation. Here is a tutorial I wrote on that: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...urements-understanding-time-and-frequency.25/

@amirm , I think the point you are making here is an important one. It reminds me of the Hippocratic oath (see full text below). And this excerpt from the oath is often overlooked:

«I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein».​

One should read the above sentence once more, and then again (or look it up to see how the sentence can be read and understood in modern society).

The above advice is - in my experience - the most important advice one can give and live by. Lives are ruined every day because people don’t live by this advice. Audio is a triviality, but the concept holds here as well.

There is so much FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) on the internet. FUD that arose and was nourished - not because of «craftsmen» in action but because people tried to perform like a craftsman without having had the proper training and practical experience. Time per se (i.e. age alone) is no replacement for proper training and experience.

If people have strong opinions - but no data, facts - to support their opinions, they should be more careful giving advice. On the issue of «time» and acoustics products there is a lot of advice being given without any references to research. So people should tread more carefully in absence of evidence to support their beliefs.


- - - - - - -
I swear by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the physician’s oath, but to nobody else.
I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion. But I will keep pure and holy both my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even, verily, on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.
Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.[7] – Translation by W.H.S. Jones (from Wikipedia)

 

[Juhazi]

That Dawn Langsroth recording session is not a typical scenario in any way! Huge mess of piano, drums, cello, vocal etc. in same room leaking to other mics etc. , lots of random furmiture and items scattered around etc. But it sounded nice yes. The first video of girl and boy sounds obtrusively close and unnatural in it's dryness, to me.

Blackbird studios have many rooms and take a look at the walls in these drum rooms!

 

[Kvalsvoll]

No it doesn't. More crimes have been committed to listening spaces in the process of dealing with "time." Again, please read Dr. Toole's book. All of this has been exhaustively researched and cross referenced.

Your hearing is exceptionally sensitive to frequency response variations. It is trivial for all of us to hear it. So no, you don't get a pass for uneven frequency response because the acoustic products are not that effective in bass, and then hang your hat on "time domain is better."

Equalization on the other hand will absolutely deal with decay if you know how to use the instrumentation. Here is a tutorial I wrote on that: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...urements-understanding-time-and-frequency.25/

What you see on the frequency response will change if you change the time gating of the measurement. Your frequency response depends on the time interval, you can see it with frequency-dependent gating. In an acoustic environment with less strong reflections, the response tend to be very similar with different gating. Simply said; what you think you see on your frequency response chart, does not necessarily correlate to reality.

The type of eq you describe here (IIR/minimum phase filtering) works at lower frequencies because the system (speakers+room) is close to minimum phase at low frequencies. And it works. Both practical experiments, simulations and theory can show that this works. How good it works, that depends, because the system is strictly speaking not minimum phase, it is only close, in typical practical situations a very significant reduction of resonances can be achieved, but it will not be perfect, some signature of the resonance remains. At higher frequencies, where the system no longer is minimum phase, this type of eq will do nothing for decay or resonances. FIR/phase-corrective filters are something entirely different, and can at least in theory remove reflections and fix non-minimum phase errors, one major limitation that occurs as we move upwards in frequency is accuracy.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

I am not interested friendly advice. I am interested as are the members in research and data. I see none from MBL on efficacy of their speaker designs. Nor in this post.

You seem to be saying if one doesn't like MBL sound, they must not understand sound reproduction. I must say this is so extreme that I have not heard such an argument in all my years online.

I did not choose my words well here, so the meaning was misunderstood, and I apologize for that. The point was, that since you did not favor the omni speakers, that could indicate you may prefer a sound presentation that is less diffuse and more toward precise.

I wish you good luck with your web site in the future.

 

[Juhazi]

Kvalsvoll wrote: "At higher frequencies, where the system no longer is minimum phase, this type of eq will do nothing for decay or resonances. FIR/phase-corrective filters are something entirely different, and can at least in theory remove reflections and fix non-minimum phase errors, one major limitation that occurs as we move upwards in frequency is accuracy. "

I bolded the argument that I just don't accept/understand. It is totally impossible to eliminate/remove reflections with even FIR, period. What you can do, is to compensate for the effects of reflections, ie. the arrival time/phase and spl of that frequency range of impulse. But only to the specific spot in space where the measurement microhopone stands. All other directions and spots in space then get that manipulated/distorted signal to radiate in the room. For high freq one problem is that we have two ears separated 10cm and isolated with the head and torso which also add diffractions. So what's the point of doing FIR-eq to one point?

I accept FIR corrections only for nearfield-measured phase anomalies/group delay correction, that are typical for multiway speakers.

I must say that I have tried and heard only IIR-based room-eq done by programs or manually.

 

[amirm]

What you see on the frequency response will change if you change the time gating of the measurement. Your frequency response depends on the time interval, you can see it with frequency-dependent gating.

Where? There was no gating. Frequency response went down to 20 Hz.

The time interval used clearly included countless reflections so it is not "gated" in that manner.

In an acoustic environment with less strong reflections, the response tend to be very similar with different gating. Simply said; what you think you see on your frequency response chart, does not necessarily correlate to reality.

??? Absorbers most definitely change the frequency response. If they did not, they would be of no value in low frequencies. Even in high frequencies they would change the shape of the response if high enough FFT resolution was used.

The type of eq you describe here (IIR/minimum phase filtering) works at lower frequencies because the system (speakers+room) is close to minimum phase at low frequencies. And it works. Both practical experiments, simulations and theory can show that this works. How good it works, that depends, because the system is strictly speaking not minimum phase, it is only close, in typical practical situations a very significant reduction of resonances can be achieved, but it will not be perfect, some signature of the resonance remains.

When it comes to sound reproduction in rooms, "perfection" is not word that can remotely be used. Even excellent rooms will have deviations far, far above any electronic audio equipment.

That doesn't mean we have to have a defeatist attitude here. Start with excellent speaker and what is above transition frequencies of a few hundred hertz will be far more to our liking: both objectively and subjectively.

Below that, knocking down just a couple of peaks with whatever filtering method you want to use will make an incredible difference. You can see that effect in what Lyngdorf produced. Again, this is both objectively as we see in the graph and subjectively as I reported in my review. Same can be accomplished, albeit, we more manual labor by using parametric EQ. Just a couple of narrow band filters will make bass sound a lot more tight and correct. But it doesn't stop there. By reducing time domain ringing, more detail in higher frequencies will be heard. In other words, fixing the bass resonances results in better clarity in higher frequencies where no change was made! Bass energy is quite high and you don't want it to spill over (in time) over detail in the rest of the music.

At higher frequencies, where the system no longer is minimum phase, this type of eq will do nothing for decay or resonances. FIR/phase-corrective filters are something entirely different, and can at least in theory remove reflections and fix non-minimum phase errors, one major limitation that occurs as we move upwards in frequency is accuracy.

Your starting statement is absolutely correct. For this reason, we want to filter the FFT response as to not chase these things. And at any rate, once frequencies go up and the wavelength of the audio becomes close to the distance between our ears, then all bets are off in using single microphone measurements. Dr. Toole talks about this at length in his book and is the core thesis for his total position as is mine. You can see that reflected in my article: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...al-effects-of-room-reflections.13/#post-61332

As much as you see me emphasize measurements in audio electronics, it is absolutely essential that we use our ears in verifying any change to sound reproduction in rooms. This is why I am not a big fan of all or nothing EQ systems. I like to be able to selectively enable and disable what is being corrected. In my home system for example I have disabled DIRAC correction above 200 Hz.

The second part of your statement is simply not correct. Reflections in rooms occur and there is no way upstream of a speaker you can impact that sound but not the direct sound. And as such, it also can't do anything about non-minimum-phase aberrations in frequency response.

You can, as shown in Dr. Olive test of EQ systems, sometimes subjectively improve system performance for mid-frequency dips as is common in some speakers. The Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Room Correction Products

So it doesn't hurt to try as long as you use your ears to determine if there was more good than harm in any filtering above transition.

BTW, the above paper conclusively shows the benefit of Room Equalization.

 

[amirm]

I did not choose my words well here, so the meaning was misunderstood, and I apologize for that. The point was, that since you did not favor the omni speakers, that could indicate you may prefer a sound presentation that is less diffuse and more toward precise.

And that would be an incorrect assumption. I have explained already that real world music is not that way (pin-point imaging).

What I dislike about MBLs is that they have specific sound signature that it lays on top of everything you play. While this can sound tremendous on some content, on other types of music (e.g. rock and pop) it is unwanted. Some music needs to feel close and not feel like you are sitting inside of an orchestra.

Audiophiles tend to gush over such sounds as one aspect of fidelity and I used to be that way. Then I grew tired of the effect because it is an effect. I won't deny the superbly attractive aspect of that on some music.

I suggest getting an invite to Harman's double blind speaker listening test and listen to some such speakers when you don't know the identity of such. Then you may realize as I did that a) you may not prefer the same when not using your eyes and other senses and b) may very well be like majority of listeners who vote just as well as you.

Ultimately you can't convince me of anything with just arguments. Put forward research papers, objective data, controlled testing, etc. and then we can talk. A passive aggressive opinion as expressed here is not the way forward.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

Kvalsvoll wrote: "At higher frequencies, where the system no longer is minimum phase, this type of eq will do nothing for decay or resonances. FIR/phase-corrective filters are something entirely different, and can at least in theory remove reflections and fix non-minimum phase errors, one major limitation that occurs as we move upwards in frequency is accuracy. "

I bolded the argument that I just don't accept/understand. It is totally impossible to eliminate/remove reflections with even FIR, period. What you can do, is to compensate for the effects of reflections, ie. the arrival time/phase and spl of that frequency range of impulse. But only to the specific spot in space where the measurement microhopone stands. All other directions and spots in space then get that manipulated/distorted signal to radiate in the room. For high freq one problem is that we have two ears separated 10cm and isolated with the head and torso which also add diffractions. So what's the point of doing FIR-eq to one point?

I accept FIR corrections only for nearfield-measured phase anomalies/group delay correction, that are typical for multiway speakers.

I must say that I have tried and heard only IIR-based room-eq done by programs or manually.

I tend to agree on what you say here, but I decided to add this comment because everyone may not be aware of the difference between ordinary eq filters and FIR filter algorithms used in room-correction software, and it can be difficult to see how they can possibly work.

You can reduce reflections down to a level where they are practically eliminated. In theory. Here is my very simplified attempt to show how this can work:

A speaker with one reflective surface nearby play a signal A, which we observe as O, the reflection is delayed d and attenuated by a gain = 0.5:

O(t)=A(t)+0.5*A(t+d)

If we add the inverted signal at the right time to the input signal, we get:

O(t)=A(t)+0.5*A(t+d)-0.5*A(t+d)-0.25*A(t+2d) = A(t)-0.25(t+2d)

The reflection was removed, but since we added this time-delayed inverse of the signal, we get a new reflection from this addition, but this one is now reduced in level. If we repeat this process endlessly, the remaining error will be infinitely small.

Since the filter must have a finite length, and there are inaccuracies, the result can be more or less good.

Now I had some measurements of the frequency response of the filters from two different Audyssey versions, both using an algorithm of this type, which I intended to show here. Unfortunately I can not find them, this is something I did a long time ago.

But I remember one difference between the older version - one of the early Audyssey versions, and a later one. The older applied FIR filtering across the whole frequency range, while in the newer version they had changed the algorithm so that FIR was not applied at higher frequencies. That should be a clue.

I did find measurements of systems with Audyssey correction, and those show no reduction in decay.

Different room correction systems use their own signal processing algorithms, and they differ in how the user can configure the system. There is a huge difference between the Audyssey implemented in AV-receivers up to such as Audiolense.

I do not use any such room correction software in my systems now, but I always use eq on the bass-system, ordinary parametric filters (IIR) implemented in a dsp. That does not necessarily mean I think they are not useful, especially in upper-bass to lower midrange, there may be potential for improvement using such systems.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

Where? There was no gating. Frequency response went down to 20 Hz.

The time interval used clearly included countless reflections so it is not "gated" in that manner.


??? Absorbers most definitely change the frequency response. If they did not, they would be of no value in low frequencies. Even in high frequencies they would change the shape of the response if high enough FFT resolution was used.


When it comes to sound reproduction in rooms, "perfection" is not word that can remotely be used. Even excellent rooms will have deviations far, far above any electronic audio equipment.

That doesn't mean we have to have a defeatist attitude here. Start with excellent speaker and what is above transition frequencies of a few hundred hertz will be far more to our liking: both objectively and subjectively.

Below that, knocking down just a couple of peaks with whatever filtering method you want to use will make an incredible difference. You can see that effect in what Lyngdorf produced. Again, this is both objectively as we see in the graph and subjectively as I reported in my review. Same can be accomplished, albeit, we more manual labor by using parametric EQ. Just a couple of narrow band filters will make bass sound a lot more tight and correct. But it doesn't stop there. By reducing time domain ringing, more detail in higher frequencies will be heard. In other words, fixing the bass resonances results in better clarity in higher frequencies where no change was made! Bass energy is quite high and you don't want it to spill over (in time) over detail in the rest of the music.


Your starting statement is absolutely correct. For this reason, we want to filter the FFT response as to not chase these things. And at any rate, once frequencies go up and the wavelength of the audio becomes close to the distance between our ears, then all bets are off in using single microphone measurements. Dr. Toole talks about this at length in his book and is the core thesis for his total position as is mine. You can see that reflected in my article: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...al-effects-of-room-reflections.13/#post-61332

As much as you see me emphasize measurements in audio electronics, it is absolutely essential that we use our ears in verifying any change to sound reproduction in rooms. This is why I am not a big fan of all or nothing EQ systems. I like to be able to selectively enable and disable what is being corrected. In my home system for example I have disabled DIRAC correction above 200 Hz.

The second part of your statement is simply not correct. Reflections in rooms occur and there is no way upstream of a speaker you can impact that sound but not the direct sound. And as such, it also can't do anything about non-minimum-phase aberrations in frequency response.

You can, as shown in Dr. Olive test of EQ systems, sometimes subjectively improve system performance for mid-frequency dips as is common in some speakers. The Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Room Correction Products

View attachment 25588
View attachment 25589

So it doesn't hurt to try as long as you use your ears to determine if there was more good than harm in any filtering above transition.

BTW, the above paper conclusively shows the benefit of Room Equalization.

Since you have put in the effort to write this reply, I will try to fill in with some more, if for nothing else, to clarify my thoughts.

I also agree on much of what you say here, such as using eq in the bass range, and how this improves not only the bass but also clarity in the midrange. It looks like I have made myself look like a proponent of room correction software, but that is not exactly the case, I do not use any room correction other than eq (with ordinary parametric filters) on the bass-systems.

The first I wanted to show, is how steady-state frequency response is related to gated response, in a very live room compared to a more controlled environment.

Here is a speaker in a rather live room - bare walls, barely any furniture. Lt red no smoothing, Green 1/6 smoothing, Dk Red frequency-dependent gating 1/8 periods. Observe how the gated frequency response is different from the non-gated:

Then in a room with much more controlled acoustic environment:

The gated response now follows the non-gated much closer. (Ignore the low-freqs, obviously someone has added a bass-system, main speakers are nearly similar). This means there will be a difference between the two speaker-room combinations in how they respond to transient signals compared to steady-state.

The other thing I wanted to show, is the same that you linked to in an earlier post, about how bass resonances actually are reduced using eq on peaks. I wanted to show this one, because it is especially good. Look at this decay:

Now, if we look at group delay, and compare to excess group delay, we see that the peak is minimum-phase (grey line does not follow brown peak), and thus we should be able to correct it using a peak cut filter:

And, indeed:

We see that the resonance ringing is reduced much more than the amplitude cut at the peak.

This is what I use eq for. The resonance is not totally gone, the blue peak you see is part of the remaining ridge, which can be seen with different scaling or on a waterfall - early time improves more than later. If this was fixed using bass absorption instead, it is likely that the later time would be better, but that would not be so easy to achieve.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

And that would be an incorrect assumption. I have explained already that real world music is not that way (pin-point imaging).

What I dislike about MBLs is that they have specific sound signature that it lays on top of everything you play. While this can sound tremendous on some content, on other types of music (e.g. rock and pop) it is unwanted. Some music needs to feel close and not feel like you are sitting inside of an orchestra.

Audiophiles tend to gush over such sounds as one aspect of fidelity and I used to be that way. Then I grew tired of the effect because it is an effect. I won't deny the superbly attractive aspect of that on some music.

I suggest getting an invite to Harman's double blind speaker listening test and listen to some such speakers when you don't know the identity of such. Then you may realize as I did that a) you may not prefer the same when not using your eyes and other senses and b) may very well be like majority of listeners who vote just as well as you.

Ultimately you can't convince me of anything with just arguments. Put forward research papers, objective data, controlled testing, etc. and then we can talk. A passive aggressive opinion as expressed here is not the way forward.

Unfortunately it is too large a distance to travel. And I must admit I have some trouble seeing just why they should bother inviting someone that has no relations to the company, to such an event.

I agree that real-world is not pin-point as in small, extremely precise located. But I also do not believe a good (acoustically) room sounds like that.