Asymmetric vs symmetric room

[xaviescacs]

As a newbie with some intuition about acoustics I have a question. Many times I've read along this site that asymmetric rooms are more challenging than symmetric ones in terms of acoustics. This was a bit striking to me at first glance, since, intuitively, in a completely symmetric room, as square room, sound waves will tend to "resonate" more than in a asymmetric room.

My room, where I play music and listen to music, is very asymmetric, with some round corners, and is the room in the house where it's more pleasant to listen to music or have a conversation, because the lack of reflections (more diffusion?), it's almost like speaking outside, which is very pleasant.

Next I figured out that what people refer when making this assertions is that in asymmetric rooms, equalization and other adjustments in sound reproduction must be different for each speaker, as each on of them will face different problems, and that makes this task more challenging. The "maths" of an asymmetric room are far more complicated, so to speak.

My question is the following: can one say in general terms that from scracth, meaning without EQ or DSP, an asymmetric room (a reasonable one) will sound better but it would be harder, given a set of speakers, to make it sound perfect, neutral, with EQ or DSP than a symmetric one?

Thanks!

 

[alex-z]

An asymmetric room is worse because the reflections from each channel arrive at different times, worsening the stereo imaging. EQ cannot fix that, acoustic treatment could, but the amount required usually renders the room "dead" sounding.

Symmetrical rooms aren't perfect either, room modes become concentrated on small frequency bands. However, this is easy to cure with EQ and multiple subwoofers.

 

[xaviescacs]

An asymmetric room is worse because the reflections from each channel arrive at different times, worsening the stereo imaging. EQ cannot fix that, acoustic treatment could, but the amount required usually renders the room "dead" sounding.

Symmetrical rooms aren't perfect either, room modes become concentrated on small frequency bands. However, this is easy to cure with EQ and multiple subwoofers.

Thanks for you answer. What's the difference then between an asymmetric room and a symmetric one with lots of diffusers? Is that in the asymmetric room the sound reflections are not random but simply uneven? What is the effect of the round corners? Intuitively on can think they act like diffusers, in the sense that the reflection angle is different at each point.

What I meant is that if I take the same system to a rectangular room with no treatment and with the walls nearly naked, the sound is horrible. Conversely, in the asymmetric room with round corners this does not happen, and the result is at least more pleasing, or less annoying, if you like.

 

[NTK]

Something I came across recently which is probably of interest to this thread. Below is from an article by Dr. David Griesinger, discussing envelopment as one important component of the spatial hearing (clip is from page 3).
http://www.davidgriesinger.com/overvw1.pdf

 

[xaviescacs]

Something I came across recently which is probably of interest to this thread. Below is from an article by Dr. David Griesenger, discussing envelopment as one important component of the spatial hearing (clip is from page 3).
http://www.davidgriesinger.com/overvw1.pdf

Thanks for sharing this!

I enjoy good stereo imaging, but I must say that pinpoint a music source on the stage it's not so important to me. When I listen to live unplugged music it's no so easy either, so I don't miss that in my system. Tonality, timber and dynamics are the most important aspects to me.

 

[NTK]

Griesinger's website is a treasure trove of information. However, much of it is highly advanced materials. Scroll down to near the bottom of the page is a list of his papers.
http://www.davidgriesinger.com/

 

[xaviescacs]

Griesenger's website is a treasure trove of information. However, much of it is highly advanced materials. Scroll down to near the bottom of the page is a list of his papers.
http://www.davidgriesinger.com/

I do not have any specific acoustics background but I do have some general physics background, so these waves and nodes issues are not completely alien to me. Thanks!