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

[dfuller]

creating content is not the same as using it.

Correct, home audio is all preference and if you prefer a more spacious response from lateral reflections, that's totally fine.

Unfortunately that doesn't work great in a studio environment where the goal is to have it sound good in most environments (anywhere from a dedicated listening room to somebody's phone to a car etc). That extra spaciousness you get from the side wall reflections ends up being somewhat detrimental on the creative end of things as it can essentially "fool you" into making decisions based on masking from the room. I personally prefer the non-environment approach over LEDE and RFZ, as they tend to cause more issues than they solve.

 

[Doodski]

No central heat or A/C in this house so no fans. Original room (my lab) was a basement room having concrete walls with paneling, some furniture (chairs, desks, worktables), and an "acoustic tile" ceiling.

It's got to be those shelves of books absorbing energy in the room and maybe breaking up reflections too.

 

[SIY]

It's got to be those shelves of books absorbing energy in the room and maybe breaking up reflections too.

I'm sure it's both. The books are, of course, uneven in size, which makes for very diffuse reflections.

 

[Bjorn]

Empirical observation:

I just moved my system to a different room, similar dimensions to my lab. It sounds significantly better in here. Why?

Here's why there's some advantage to my age compared to you kids- I have books. Not Kindle or eBooks, actual books. Thousands of them. The new room has eight or nine bookcases in it. Maybe there's some magic to the mix of absorption and diffuse reflectance that large bookcases provide.

Books don't really offer diffusion in the strict sense. But a bookshelv filled with books absorbs decently and can do it fairly low in frequency as well.

 

[juliangst]

Just watched the video and I think 4 subwoofers would do a lot more to improve the bass and overall sound in his room than his stack of holo audio gear next to the PS audio power plant.

The RT60 also looks a bit too low for a room of this size imho but taste obviously differs.
He also portrayed first reflections as something bad that you want to absorb which just isn't always the case.

Is acoustic treatment a new trend on youtube? A lot of audio channels seem to get into it lately

 

[tuga]

If some prefer a fully padded room with a straight jacket, who am I to argue?

People like Tom Waits?

 

[thecheapseats]

great post along with the D'Antonio's brief chronological history of acoustic design approaches (with basic attendant construction) for control rooms and other purpose-built listening rooms...

two things real quick...

...When challenged on why people are doing these things, e.g. getting rid of every reflection, they point to studios doing that. If it is good for them they say, they must definitely be good for listening. And that is where the problem is. Even if studios were better in this regard -- and there is little research that indicates this is so -- creating content is not the same as using it. Much of the practices in studios comes from using speakers with lousy off-axis response. Not what we advocate people to get today....

first - this ^^^ is a great point... as home recording spaces have increased dramatically in the last 20+ years - so has the application of after-market room treatments (well intentioned - but not always well implemented)...

in far too many cases, in the last several years - the stems (l+r sub mixes) I receive from these home facilities are very different from stems received from large commercial studios or scoring stages...

instantly recognizable are stem mixes (because of too much top-end attenuation in these rooms) with exaggerated top-end (compensating for the defect - oops!)... to make a point - it's symptomatic, it seems, of the over use of 'room treatments'... (it's also annoying to me, but that's my problem)...

in many cases I don't say anything, unless I have a personal relationship with the studio owner... hopefully they are recording/tracking flat - but who knows?... if not, the mastering engineer will know (long after the damage is done)...

...what you state is the old understanding of acoustics. Much has changed in our understanding today. You reference RPG products. Here is what Dr. D'Antonio has to say about history of room acoustics:

second great point ^^^ - yes the change has been dramatic over the last five decades... reflections are NOT the devil... the control room I'm in today (twenty+ years old) has an RT60 appx 50% greater than the first ctrl room I had built over forty years ago in L.A... I may be the only guy that 'added' reflective treatments to a ctrl room (in the early 90s to that first ctrl room)...

and just an impression - both ctrl rooms seemed more live than I expected after each one was constructed - a good pro acoustics firm is a valuable asset...

 

[TheZebraKilledDarwin]

Of course it can. The math forces it to be the case. Again, covered in Dr. Toole's book:

View attachment 288932

You can hear the effect so well. Bass becomes tight without hanging in the air as would be the case without EQ. The peaks are minimum phase so the outcome is preordained.

A cool bonus is that by taking advantage of the free amplification you get out of these peaks, you lower the distortion in the speaker and amplifier by using negative gain in the filter. The result is much cleaner sound. An absorber is doing this after the fact so can't do this.

Amirm, I think this interpretation is not correct. If Toole is suggesting that, then it would be highly misleading.
The time domain after EQ in the picture above after EQ shows a smaller amplitude, simply because the room becomes less stimulated: because the EQ removed the signal energy before it is being amplified and sent to the speaker. Less power is emitted from the speaker, it stays equally long in the room, therefore the energy in the SPL graph is less.

In contrast absorption would result in a faster decay of the sonic energy, therefore allowing a stronger attack, the speaker would emit more power, but the absorber catches the indirect soundwave and removes it from the room (by turning it into heat).

The difference in the time domain is, that the full transient can be injected, but it disappears much quicker. The result is a much powerful bass response. And for the mids the result is, if the listening room influence is reduced, that the ERs and the room in the mix become audible.

 

[Axo1989]

Amirm, I think this interpretation is not correct. If Toole is suggesting that, then it would be highly misleading.
The time domain after EQ in the picture above after EQ shows a smaller amplitude, simply because the room becomes less stimulated: because the EQ removed the signal energy before it is being amplified and sent to the speaker. Less power is emitted from the speaker, it stays equally long in the room, therefore the energy in the SPL graph is less.

In contrast absorption would result in a faster decay of the sonic energy, therefore allowing a stronger attack, the speaker would emit more power, but the absorber catches the indirect soundwave and removes it from the room (by turning it into heat).

The difference in the time domain is, that the full transient can be injected, but it disappears much quicker. The result is a much powerful bass response. And for the mids the result is, if the listening room influence is reduced, that the ERs and the room in the mix become audible.

Yes. I mentioned a couple of times that attenuating those peaks doesn't alter the room's RT60. You've given a great explanation of limitations of that approach.

 

[amirm]

The time domain after EQ in the picture above after EQ shows a smaller amplitude, simply because the room becomes less stimulated: because the EQ removed the signal energy before it is being amplified and sent to the speaker. Less power is emitted from the speaker, it stays equally long in the room, therefore the energy in the SPL graph is less.

I already explained this. The peaking due to modal response is what needs to be fixed. So you pull it down with EQ to where it needs to be. And with it, the ringing is also reduced. Both goals accomplished. What is there to complain about? The energy must be reduced. Same thing happens with absorbers by the way. They are converting sound energy to heat.

 

[Axo1989]

I already explained this. The peaking due to modal response is what needs to be fixed. So you pull it down with EQ to where it needs to be. And with it, the ringing is also reduced. Both goals accomplished. What is there to complain about? The energy must be reduced. Same thing happens with absorbers by the way. They are converting sound energy to heat.

Accurate FR and listening room decay time are separate factors. Ideally you deal with both. Sometimes serendipitously via the one intervention (as noted) but that also depends on the desired result.

There are various approaches and combinations. And preferences, often based on preferred musical genres. There's also preference in acceptable decor. Some will get there with just furnishings and sub-Schroeder EQ, see upthread from @Keith_W but his reverb time in the 400-500 ms range isn't dry enough for me.

 

[CtheArgie]

I doubt that you'd get a new drug approved with a 26no. or even 260no. sample...

Actually, infliximab (Remicade) received its first approval by the FDA for Crohn’s disease based on a study of 27 patients per group. (Targan et Al.)

 

[Andysu]

I’ve met 24 year olds with masters and PhDs, who I would absolutely trust in their fields, as well as 25 year olds with on the job experience.

I don’t believe age really comes into this: experience does.

do you have idea how much it cost get and wave phd certificate around ? i looked it up a lot of money
i just got a phd for free m there i have now phd for free , called automatic free common sense its been around for thousands of years

 

[Keith_W]

He and I have discussed that many times online. He thinks that lowering the peaks to also lowering the ringing is cheating as the level is now lower. Well, you do want the level to be lower as you had
Lets remember that most anechoic chambers stop being anechoic below 80 Hz or so. And this is with giant wedges in them. No way you can get there with products like this. At best you are going to get half-way there. EQ however, can stomp on peaks to absolute certainty. On dips, you can leave them be because they won't cause ringing and boominess. They can also be partially repaired by trading headroom. Pull the entire level down to the bottom of the dip or somewhere in between.

Thank you for your response. I would like to clarify whether this is true for all types of bass traps (foam, Helmholtz, membrane). Also, if you lower the entire level down to the level of the dip, isn't it overall volume you are sacrificing, rather than headroom? If you play loud then wouldn't the dip re-appear?

 

[amirm]

Accurate FR and listening room decay time are separate factors. Ideally you deal with both.

Once more, you are dealing with them simultaneously. The mathematics mandate it. So to user your terminology, it is the ideal technique!

 

[amirm]

Thank you for your response. I would like to clarify whether this is true for all types of bass traps (foam, Helmholtz, membrane). Also, if you lower the entire level down to the level of the dip, isn't it overall volume you are sacrificing, rather than headroom? If you play loud then wouldn't the dip re-appear?

Answering backward, you turn the volume back up to compensate. Now you are pushing both amp and speakers harder so there is less headroom left. The dip won't come back.

On bass traps, if you know what you are doing you can use other types to target narrower regions. You will be spending a lot of money as these are not cheap. And even if you deploy them, you still need to use EQ. Here is Ethan's measurements of this: https://ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

See how the response is still uneven in the bottom graph. The peak is still 24 dB higher than the dip! So you are having to use EQ anyway.

 

[amirm]

BTW, as I noted earlier, dips are not very audible. Here is a recent study by Dolby&HP on audibility thresholds of dips:
Equalization of Spectral Dips Using Detection Thresholds Sunil Bharitkar1 , Charles Robinson2 , and Andrew Poulain2 1HP Labs., Inc. 2Dolby Laboratories., Inc.

The dips are usually very narrow and hence high Q. We see that at say, Q=10 at 65 Hz, you can tolerate up to -13 dB before you can even detect them. As such, if you have a dip, you don't have to fill it all in. Or at all.

 

[Keith_W]

Answering backward, you turn the volume back up to compensate. Now you are pushing both amp and speakers harder so there is less headroom left. The dip won't come back.

On bass traps, if you know what you are doing you can use other types to target narrower regions. You will be spending a lot of money as these are not cheap. And even if you deploy them, you still need to use EQ. Here is Ethan's measurements of this: https://ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

See how the response is still uneven in the bottom graph. The peak is still 24 dB higher than the dip! So you are having to use EQ anyway.

Yes, but it has also improved the dip at about 100Hz. If you are sacrificing headroom to improve the dip, then you will end up sacrificing less headroom if you used his method. Ethan's position is that a combination of bass trapping and EQ is needed. If it wasn't for the expense and the intrusiveness (and the fact that my bass is already dry in my living room) I would consider it if circumstances were different.

 

[Andysu]

@amirm show results in video with doing it with bass traps mic and RTA i want see actuality in video

 

[theREALdotnet]

At his age I was listening to my own music made by banging a tin can full of rice - and I bloody well enjoyed it.

You had rice?? Man, you had it made. My tin can was empty…