Continue to marvel at No-Room

[gnarly]

Every spring/summer, I take at least one side of my speakers and sub outdoors onto the deck. Ran a little late this year, one of my three LCR stacks has been outdoors for a week now.

Every year for over 20 years, I've marveled at how much clarity, tonal richness, timbe, transients, and bass/sub bass are all improved outdoors.
It's been a number of different rigs over the years, but all have had strong linear SPL throughout the spectrum.

Other than having strong speakers/subs/amps, the ability to EQ overall tonality is the only other requirement.
Stereo summed to mono works great, if outdoor stereo is not an option. Try It !!!!!!

It's near profound how much better sound is outdoors.
Makes the idea of choosing DACs, amps, etc, and the paltry changes they make in comparison to indoors vs out, seem totally inconsequential to me.
Same for room correction....best correction is a bulldozer Lol. If only such were possible...in heaven maybe haha.

I've made a lot of strides with better sound indoors over the years too. Great progress with DIY multi-ways, and FIR based processing. I love my current LCR setup.
Each year, over the winter I work on indoor sound. Hoping someday to not hear such glorious goodness when first moving outdoors. That indoor is truly closing in.
Maybe next summer...cause not this one !!

Ps, I have some decent rooms ....it's not just cause my rooms suck.
Try it !!!!

 

[GD Fan]

Would be fun to see measurements of the same system indoors and out.

P.S. Jealous of having an outdoor setup.

 

[DVDdoug]

That does eliminate "room problems"!

It's also good for live (amplified) sound because they have full control of the (artificial) reverb.

On the other hand, I've had my speakers in a "dance hall" for a few DJ gigs and that big-room reverberation sounds wonderful coming from all directions!

At home I like to use a "hall" or "theater" setting on my AVR with regular stereo to get some delayed reverb in the rear speakers and the "feel" of a bigger space

 

[NTK]

Dr Toole seemed to have the opposite experience.

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/how-to-choose-a-loudspeaker-what-the-science-shows.3038828/page-5?post_id=57387326&nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#post-57387326

 

[Blumlein 88]

Would be fun to see measurements of the same system indoors and out.

P.S. Jealous of having an outdoor setup.

Yes some rew measurements please.
+1

 

[gnarly]

Dr Toole seemed to have the opposite experience.

Hi, I think this illustrates how our musical preference affect our "sonic" judgements.

Personally, I've never heard an acoustical (unamplified) large scale concert outdoors that I liked. Orchestras, ensembles...outdoors......ugh..
For me, I like pure acoustic instruments around a campfire at the beach or in the woods etc.

Outdoors give me powerful, individually amplified..... acoustic or electric instruments.

All this really doesn't address rooms vs none, in term of hearing what speakers are capable of. Which is the point of my post i guess.
Aren't we just talking preferences now, with the Toole quotes?

 

[gnarly]

That does eliminate "room problems"!

It's also good for live (amplified) sound because they have full control of the (artificial) reverb.

On the other hand, I've had my speakers in a "dance hall" for a few DJ gigs and that big-room reverberation sounds wonderful coming from all directions!

At home I like to use a "hall" or "theater" setting on my AVR with regular stereo to get some delayed reverb in the rear speakers and the "feel" of a bigger space

Oh man, I hate reverb...hate.... haha.
Preferences huh.
Glad we all have em !

 

[gnarly]

Would be fun to see measurements of the same system indoors and out.

P.S. Jealous of having an outdoor setup.

Will post some tomorrow...albeit they are quasi-anechoic measurements.
Having taken about a billion measurements, I personally don't think indoor meas are all that valid.....at least not with the purity often posted...

@Blumlein 88, I don't use REW much.....will post some meas from more prosound oriented software

 

[Tim Link]

I'm going to have to try this soon. I think I'll take my work system home and set it up outside. My experience is that room reverb in a recording is something I like from a good concert hall. Piling it on top of the reverb that's coming from my room, that's not necessarily so good. I prefer the sound when I can get closer to the speakers and get a higher direct to reflected ratio. Nuff said for now. I'm taking the work stereo home and trying it in a few days. Can't do it tonight because I'll be running the ridiculously loud chipper shredder until it's getting too late to make that kind of noise. Or until someone tells me to quit. Whichever comes first.

 

[gnarly]

I'm going to have to try this soon. I think I'll take my work system home and set it up outside. My experience is that room reverb in a recording is something I like from a good concert hall. Piling it on top of the reverb that's coming from my room, that's not necessarily so good. I prefer the sound when I can get closer to the speakers and get a higher direct to reflected ratio. Nuff said for now. I'm taking the work stereo home and trying it in a few days. Can't do it tonight because I'll be running the ridiculously loud chipper shredder until it's getting too late to make that kind of noise. Or until someone tells me to quit. Whichever comes first.

Good for you Tim. Hope you find it as enlightening as I have.
Do get tonality adjusted to accommodate the change, or it might seem like a waste of time. A little low and or high end shelving should be all it takes.

 

[gnarly]

Ok, tried to dig up some old REW measurements for the speakers I'm running right now.
Here is outdoors off a deck at 4m distance. Meant to be best quasi-anechoic tuning feasible to make for a backyard guy like me.

SPL and phase, then a waterfall. No gating.

That's what I listen to, outdoors or in.
Indoors, the only DSP "room correction" i apply is knocking down any sub modes given placement.

The above were with a different sub than I'm now using.
Using the same main speaker, a 4-way synergy/unity horn, on my new sub which goes about 5Hz lower (f-3 at25Hz),
this morning I made a quick indoor 1m tuning of the main, and 4" away from sub centered between drivers and port.
The sub measurement was spliced to the mains. No gating. 1/48th smooth.

Here's the individual sections for any interested.
Crossovers are at 100, 250, 750, and 4000Hz. All 96 dB/oct linear phase.
Note the impulse responses of each of the 5 sections....how peaks align, unlike for IIR sections where impulse initial rise's align. Aligning peaks makes tuning soo much easier.
No gating.

Anyway, there are a couple of measurement examples of what I listen to, indoors or out.

Other than EQ'ing down room modes, I rely on speaker placements and acoustic treatments/furniture etc, to solve acoustic problems.
Did try Dirac Live recently. It didn't change much if anything, looking at its electrical transfer functions. And I sure couldn't hear any change.
Guess Dirac like what it heard Lol

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Dr Toole seemed to have the opposite experience.

View attachment 377521

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/how-to-choose-a-loudspeaker-what-the-science-shows.3038828/page-5?post_id=57387326&nested_view=1&sortby=oldest#post-57387326

There is more to audio than frequency response.

Room reflections are added distortions. They won’t help you hear what’s on the recording more *accurately* key word, accurately.

If you like the results of adding listening room sound to your playback that’s fine. Preferences are inarguable. But if you are going to make accuracy your thing room reflections obviously are not accurate to what’s on the recording.

IME there are better ways to subjectively preferable sound than adding listening room reverb. And that is a dead end with a very low ceiling for subjective excellence

 

[dasdoing]

Once we hear our terrible rooms, we can't unhear them. the in and out is a great way to evaluate progress in the room

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Once we hear our terrible rooms, we can't unhear them. the in and out is a great way to evaluate progress in the room

You can also use measurements to gauge progress

 

[Ruhled]

Ok, tried to dig up some old REW measurements for the speakers I'm running right now.
Here is outdoors off a deck at 4m distance. Meant to be best quasi-anechoic tuning feasible to make for a backyard guy like me.

SPL and phase, then a waterfall. No gating.

View attachment 377645
View attachment 377646


That's what I listen to, outdoors or in.
Indoors, the only DSP "room correction" i apply is knocking down any sub modes given placement.

The above were with a different sub than I'm now using.
Using the same main speaker, a 4-way synergy/unity horn, on my new sub which goes about 5Hz lower (f-3 at25Hz),
this morning I made a quick indoor 1m tuning of the main, and 4" away from sub centered between drivers and port.
The sub measurement was spliced to the mains. No gating. 1/48th smooth.
View attachment 377650

Here's the individual sections for any interested.
Crossovers are at 100, 250, 750, and 4000Hz. All 96 dB/oct linear phase.
Note the impulse responses of each of the 5 sections....how peaks align, unlike for IIR sections where impulse initial rise's align. Aligning peaks makes tuning soo much easier.
No gating.
View attachment 377652

Anyway, there are a couple of measurement examples of what I listen to, indoors or out.

Other than EQ'ing down room modes, I rely on speaker placements and acoustic treatments/furniture etc, to solve acoustic problems.
Did try Dirac Live recently. It didn't change much if anything, looking at its electrical transfer functions. And I sure couldn't hear any change.
Guess Dirac like what it heard Lol

Your outdoor results seem questionably flat? Are you eq'ing this? Because I know from experience you need to get things way off the ground to even approach accurate measurements in the low frequencies.

 

[Sal1950]

Ps, I have some decent rooms ....it's not just cause my rooms suck.

All rooms suck, that's why headphones are so popular.
Beyond FR, the timing arrival distortions can't help to blur source.
DRC can help a lot, specially in the bottom octaves but so far that tech still has limited value.

 

[gnarly]

Your outdoor results seem questionably flat? Are you eq'ing this? Because I know from experience you need to get things way off the ground to even approach accurate measurements in the low frequencies.

Oh heck yes, EQ for sure. Total FIR based at that, other than an IIR system high-pass.
You saw the phase flat at zero degrees across the spectrum i hope ?........no way in hell that happens on a 5-way without FIR.

Here's the measurement setup. Second mic down is set for on-axis for the main which sits completely above the railing, when on top of sub.
That on-ax mic is probably about 16 ft off the ground.
Between the 4 mics that can be placed anywhere vertically on the mast, and a spinorama for horizontal rotations, a lot of off-axis measurements can be grabbed pretty quickly. More than I can interpret sometimes !
Sub can play through the pickets...subs don't care.

The sub tuning is not done off the deck. It's done ground plane on a driveway. Then I bring it out on the deck, to mate with main.
It will measure clean on the deck, other than longer decays from house wall behind deck and ground bounce.

 

[Tim Link]

Good for you Tim. Hope you find it as enlightening as I have.
Do get tonality adjusted to accommodate the change, or it might seem like a waste of time. A little low and or high end shelving should be all it takes.

Understood about the need for some shelving to compensate. Another thing I'm interested in is imaging. Some say the sound won't extend beyond the plane of the speakers without side wall reflections, unless there's out of phase information between the speakers. This would suggest that the speakers should be spread fairly wide apart to get a big sound stage. But then you get a hole in the middle, and without all the comb filtering from wall and ceiling reflections, the comb filtering of center panned images could be more noticeable. I've heard other reports of listening in anechoic chambers that demonstrated a very noticeable tonal shift between side panned and center panned sounds. Another thing I've heard said is that crosstalk reduction works especially well when there aren't so many room reflections disturbing it.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Understood about the need for some shelving to compensate. Another thing I'm interested in is imaging. Some say the sound won't extend beyond the plane of the speakers without side wall reflections, unless there's out of phase information between the speakers. This would suggest that the speakers should be spread fairly wide apart to get a big sound stage. But then you get a hole in the middle, and without all the comb filtering from wall and ceiling reflections, the comb filtering of center panned images could be more noticeable. I've heard other reports of listening in anechoic chambers that demonstrated a very noticeable tonal shift between side panned and center panned sounds. Another thing I've heard said is that crosstalk reduction works especially well when there aren't so many room reflections disturbing it.

After BACCH I have zero interest in hearing the room. Side wall reflections as a means to widen the sound stage seems down right primitive

 

[DWPress]

Very cool but not exactly convenient getting those mics in place lol. I wish my speakers were easily transportable for some outdoor measurements.