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

[tmtomh]

A lot of missinfo on this thread…

Simply put, there is no replacement for a proper room treatmeat and even a small effort is vastly better than none at all.

DSP will absolutely not correct nulls, reflections, phasing and a bunch of other anomalies from bad acoustics.
Its meant to smooth things out on top of the treatment.

Even the best systems on the market, W371 and trinnov work properly only when the basics are right.

For home listening, I would hope we could all roughly agree on a few points:

1. As a practical matter, few home listening spaces are going to be able to be perfect given the limits of how much treatment can be done.

2. As you and others have noted, you can’t DSP your way out of a major null. You’ve got to treat the room and/or move the speakers or listening position.

3. DSP has a positive but limited capacity to smooth response below about 300Hz - but then again, so do room treatments, given how long/thick the wavelength (or heck, even a 1/4 wavelength) of the frequencies in the lowest couple of octaves are. I have always been struck by how little the measured effect is of bass traps. I’ve seen evidence of their impact in measurements, but usually the changes they create are dwarfed by the magnitude of the peaks and nulls we’re trying to deal with.

Personally I just hope for high-Q peaks and nulls in the in-room low-end performance, so the nonlinearities aren’t so noticeable.

Finally, I will say that if one has audible flutter echo in one’s listening space, it’s silly not to treat the room for it - DSP won’t fix that, and it’s the cheapest and easiest kind of room problem to fix with treatments since almost any kind of panel, upholstered furniture, wall hanging, or whatever will help.

 

[NTK]

...
Simply put, there is no replacement for a proper room treatmeat and even a small effort is vastly better than none at all.

DSP will absolutely not correct nulls, reflections, phasing and a bunch of other anomalies from bad acoustics.
Its meant to smooth things out on top of the treatment.
...

This is what Dr Toole said about the setup in his California home. (source)

 

[isostasy]

This is not how NOT to setup speakers and room treatment. Not even close. He is recommending UMIK and REW and EQ. "Go buy bunch of expensive absorbers, change all your cables and judge with your ears - after all that is all that matters" would be how NOT to setup speakers.

I am glad the new generation of audio reviewers are recommending measurement mics and software and not ears and money.

One would think a community such as ASR would be glad to see such a review. One would be mistaken it seems.

I think some of us are simply far more sceptical.

goldensounds' credentials from my perspective:

1. Can afford to have his own listening room
2. Can afford expensive speakers and other audio equipment
3. Sounds posh and speaks with confidence
4. Has 'golden' and 'sound' in name
5. High production quality
6. Lots of views, positive comments and likes on YouTube

Positive comments from this thread are that the video looks good/presented well, some people have set up their space in a similar fashion, and isn't it good such a young person has an interest in this hobby.

As a 'young person' I actually find the latter viewpoint slightly condescending and insulting. I want to be judged on more than my ability to plunge money into an interest and produce slick-looking videos about it.

The bar seems to be set pretty low.

 

[dfuller]

I don’t think one should make blanket statements, DSP will not correct low bass nulls but neither will the stuff many manufacturers sell as ‘bass’ traps, partial FR traps may actually make constant directivity designs worse, so case by case is best.
Keith

There seems to be a constant misunderstanding of what a bass trap actually is, both by acoustic product manufacturers and by the average person in this thread. Probably not by accident.

Velocity absorbers (the kind of treatment that uses fiberglass or rockwool as absorption) need to be enormously thick to actually do much of anything sub-transition. I'm talking feet thick absorbers made of the pink fluffy insulation - the denser stuff starts acting like a reflective surface at these kinds of thicknesses. Needless to say in the vast majority of rooms, studios included, this is not a good solution.

Pressure absorbers (tuned and limp mass membranes, Helmholtz resonator traps) actually work well below transition and are very good at knocking down narrow band resonances - this makes them perfect for dealing with modal problems once you've figured out what they are. However they are quite narrow band and require careful placement to be their most effective, and contrary to popular belief this is not in corners. They in combination with DSP EQ can more or less solve modal problems.

 

[Vuki]

This is what Dr Toole said about the setup in his California home. (source)

View attachment 289002

A picture is worth a thousand words

 

[Mart68]

The bar seems to be set pretty low.

The bar is very low - major competitors are Darko, Guttenberg, British Audiophile, GR Research, Pursuit Perfect Systems, and that American bloke who's always telling you what his girlfriend thought.

Oh and Hans Beekhuyzen.

In the country of the blind...

 

[youngho]

Speaking of mixing rooms, formal study was done to see if there is preference for side wall absorption, diffusion or reflection when creating a mix in a controlled environment. Result was that it did not matter but when the testers were asked to express an opinion, most preferred a reflective side (painted drywall). From peer reviewed journal of AES paper, The Practical Effects of Lateral Energy in Critical Listening Environments

"2.1.1 Main Effects
The only statistically significant effect was Music F (2, 123) = 5.71, p = 0.0034. However, the main factor for this experiment, Treatment, was not found to be statistically significant F (2, 7.6) = 0.35, p = 0.7."

"2.3 Subjects’ Preference
After the experiment each subject was asked which acoustic treatment created the best listening condition for mixing. Eight (8) subjects decided it is Diffusion, seven (7) decided Absorption, and eleven (11) decided Reflection. We decided to test subjects’ level preference and variance performance based on that information (Fig. 11)."

View attachment 288953

So once again, we need to operate from the position that sidewalls are beneficial unless proven otherwise (in the case of listener). Instructing people to blindly absorb them is just wrong. What seems intuitive is just wrong here. Two ears and brain don't work in the way people imagine....

Hi @amirm, I have some questions about this study, which I have not read but did look at the parts you pasted above and here (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...eptual-effects-of-room-reflections.13/page-16), as well as the discussion here (https://users.aalto.fi/~ktlokki/Publs/mst_laukkanen.pdf):
"King, Leonard and Sikora have conducted several studies related to the effect of room reflections in critical listening [32] [34]. In [32], King et al. explored sound engineer performance when lateral first reflections were, minimized, maximized and diffused. Sound engineers were asked to adjust the level of a female soprano to the orchestral backing track in all these three conditions. The results shows that there were slight differences in the time needed for completing the task depending on the order in which different treatments were tested. However, after adaptation to the test procedure, normal performance was achieved. No significant difference was noticed in accuracy between different treatments. Conclusion was that due to the adaptation, no prominent difference in sound engineer performance occurred between three alternative side wall treatments."

1. The abstract says "To what extent does the mixing engineer’s listening environment influence the final experience of the home listener, especially regarding the role of reflections? A pilot study explores the effect of specular and diffuse lateral reflection on the perception of trained listeners. Reflections may strongly influence balance, equalization, dynamics, and reverberation. In contrast to earlier studies that used normal listeners, this study uses trained audio engineers to perform selected tasks in a variety of acoustic settings. A correlation was observed between the presence of strong lateral energy and an initial reduction of speed for performing a task. However, adaptation soon occurs, thereby restoring the subjects to normal accuracy and response time" (emphasis mine). Doesn't that suggest that the primary purpose of the study was to explore the effect of preserving or reducing lateral energy (through absorption or diffusion) on certain tasks? Then, "after the experiment," subjects' preferences were used to re-examine their performance in a post-hoc analysis, but this implies to me that exploring preference was not the primary purpose of the study. tlso, The abstract makes it seem like the authors' primary conclusion was about performance, not preference.
2. Since both absorption and diffusion (many mathematical forms of which actually result in some degree of high frequency absorption) reduce the delivery of "strong lateral energy" to the listening position, could the results also be restated as "most subjects expressed preference for some form of sidewall treatment as part of best conditions for mixing"? It's a coincidence, but the numbers reminded me of a 2016 study exploring concert hall preference (https://users.aalto.fi/~ktlokki/Publs/JASMAN_vol_140_iss_1_551_1.pdf), where the total number was the same, and 12/28 subjects "love strong, reverberant and wide sound" while 16/28 "prefer clarity over reverberance.” This would be similar to this study's 11/28 preferring strong and 17/28 preferring reduced lateral energy delivered to the listening position.
3. Can you explain figure 11 to me? It looks like those preferring absorption performed similarly to those preferring reflection, while those preferring diffusion performed differently--better or worse? Were the differences statistically significant? The abstract and above discussion make it seem to me like the main takeaway was that sidewall treatment or not didn't really matter in the long run in terms of performance on this task.

Thanks,

Young-Ho

 

[Yuhasz01]

That kind of agressiveness towards the 'kid's' video comes trough as religious fervour and hatred.
Typical XXI Century narrowmindedness...

Your aggressive claim here is way over shooting the evidence/data.

 

[Purité Audio]

There seems to be a constant misunderstanding of what a bass trap actually is, both by acoustic product manufacturers and by the average person in this thread. Probably not by accident.

Velocity absorbers (the kind of treatment that uses fiberglass or rockwool as absorption) need to be enormously thick to actually do much of anything sub-transition. I'm talking feet thick absorbers made of the pink fluffy insulation - the denser stuff starts acting like a reflective surface at these kind of thicknesses. Needless to say in the vast majority of rooms this is not a good solution.

Pressure absorbers (tuned and limp mass membranes, Helmholtz resonator traps) actually work well below transition and are very good at knocking down narrow band resonances - this makes them perfect for dealing with modal problems once you've figured out what they are. However they are quite narrow band and require careful placement to be their most effective, and contrary to popular belief this is not in corners. They in combination with DSP EQ can more or less solve modal problems.

I agree, I use rpg modex membrane traps, which were tuned to the particular problem frequency of my room and they do work, as does PSI’s AVAA , I have three and they reduce by a worthwhile 5dB, but to completely solve my issue the room would have to be covered with them, EQ, makes far more sense.
Keith

 

[Yuhasz01]

Haha, so you're what 50 (who knows) and you've never seen a YouTube title before? Should I attach the oldmanyellsatcloud.gif to settle things down?

credibility , or level possessed, is an important variable for internet/ YouTube material.
Platform is so full of pontificating shit-heads and sales people pretending to help people.

 

[dfuller]

I agree, I use rpg modex membrane traps, which were tuned to the particular problem frequency of my room and they do work, as does PSI’s AVAA , I have three and they reduce by a worthwhile 5dB, but to completely solve my issue the room would have to be covered with them, EQ, makes far more sense.
Keith

Yeah there's a reason it's a combination that is most often used, EQ on its own isn't effective and pressure traps on their own aren't enough without covering a wall with them. Possible in a studio control room build, not possible in a domestic environment.

Nice to hear the AVAA actually does work, though!

 

[kma100]

did you see me post a video with others who do it as work?

no. And you still aren’t seeing what I wrote.

Toole isn’t gospel.
I didn’t point that out.
I pointed out that a 24 year old kid with one room is DEFINITELY not gospel.

Why this obsession with his age? What’s the threshold….26? 33?

 

[IAtaman]

I think some of us are simply far more sceptical.

goldensounds' credentials from my perspective:

1. Can afford to have his own listening room
2. Can afford expensive speakers and other audio equipment
3. Sounds posh and speaks with confidence
4. Has 'golden' and 'sound' in name
5. High production quality
6. Lots of views, positive comments and likes on YouTube

Positive comments from this thread are that the video looks good/presented well, some people have set up their space in a similar fashion, and isn't it good such a young person has an interest in this hobby.

As a 'young person' I actually find the latter viewpoint slightly condescending and insulting. I want to be judged on more than my ability to plunge money into an interest and produce slick-looking videos about it.

The bar seems to be set pretty low.

Well, that sounds like the skepticism is more about the reviewer than the review itself. Plus, you seem to be evaluating him on his apparent wealth, nickname he has chosen for himself, his accent and the production quality of his videos. Coming from someone who is complaining about people condescending others based on age, I find that a bit conflicting.

I do not know what credentials you have, but I do read your posts here from time to time, and do find them informative and sensible, so I suppose it is possible to evaluate the input someone brings on the table without paying much attention to their credentials.

 

[Vini darko]

Promo video getting a lot of views and online discussion -GIK happy money noises-

 

[isostasy]

Well, that sounds like the skepticism is more about the reviewer than the review itself. Plus, you seem to be evaluating him on his apparent wealth, nickname he has chosen for himself, his accent and the production quality of his videos. Coming from someone who is complaining about people condescending others based on age, I find that a bit conflicting.

I do not know what credentials you have, but I do read your posts here from time to time, and do find them informative and sensible, so I suppose it is possible to evaluate the input someone brings on the table without paying much attention to their credentials.

It's not a review though, it's a 'how to' video. I'd argue you can't distinguish the creator from the content in the context of audio anyway, and in fact most subjects that have a review culture around them. In this sense, yes, of course my scepticism around the video is around the reviewer, and that was my earlier point: whether he's said anything worthwhile or not in this particular video is besides the point when he's spouted such complete nonsense previously.

Part of the point of having reviewers is to reduce the burden of effort on you as a consumer to assess all the available options yourself. You should still rely on more than one source, but this is still more efficient than learning about and testing all the equipment yourself. If you have an unreliable reviewer this completely defeats the purpose, because then you have to expend energy assessing the reliability of their output. Essentially you add the step of reviewing the review each time which is plainly absurd.

It's unreasonable to expect someone to be correct all the time, but the reason I value the content of people like Amir is they are transparent, have credentials beyond just time, interest, and money, and most importantly are at least consistent. Regardless of my level of agreement with Amir, I know he's not going to jump between making some measurements one minute then spouting complete bull about holographic presentation of a DAC the next. I do think he can occasionally take a bit of a hard stance on some subjects but, given what he's up against sometimes, I find it hard to blame him for this.

My credentials are also limited, but are you not proving my point by saying you usually find my posts 'informative and sensible'? You're judging me on your overall perceived quality of my input, which makes sense. If I mostly posted crap but you could identify a couple of things I've said that aren't, you're still going to conclude it's not worth your time separating the wheat from the chaff: you're going to, rightly, be highly dubious of everything I say. Moreover, I certainly wouldn't expect you to rally around me the one time I say something that sounds vaguely useful just because I seem to be trying so hard for one so young and naive.

r.e. my evaluations of those features. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. I'm not necessarily saying those are my evaluations, I'm making the point that those are things people might likely make note of and judge his credibility on. As is clear from some of the comments here, it does seem to tick enough boxes for some people to simply be putting some effort in, being able to afford these things, and making a good looking video out of it. Condescension may be the wrong word, I struggled to think of a better one. My pov is those things are not enough.

 

[Axo1989]

It's unreasonable to expect someone to be correct all the time, but the reason I value the content of people like Amir is they are transparent, have credentials beyond just time, interest, and money, and most importantly are at least consistent. Regardless of my level of agreement with Amir, I know he's not going to jump between making some measurements one minute then spouting complete bull about holographic presentation of a DAC the next. I do think he can occasionally take a bit of a hard stance on some subjects but, given what he's up against sometimes, I find it hard to blame him for this.

Cameron is also known for demonstrating that MQA was basically flawed BS, an area where Amir is notably inconsistent with his usual MO, preferring not to diss a mate. That's life for us humans.

 

[goat76]

This is not how NOT to setup speakers and room treatment. Not even close. He is recommending UMIK and REW and EQ. "Go buy bunch of expensive absorbers, change all your cables and judge with your ears - after all that is all that matters" would be how NOT to setup speakers.

I am glad the new generation of audio reviewers are recommending measurement mics and software and not ears and money.

One would think a community such as ASR would be glad to see such a review. One would be mistaken it seems.

I watched the video now and didn't find many faults with the information he gave, he has obviously done his homework for the most part. And he was also showing what every added treatment did with measurements, and it was clear that he got the result he was aiming for.

The video is good, I don't get why OP is so upset as he seems to be. Maybe the video had been even better if the guy was older and had done this many times before, but it still contains a lot of good information for people who like to treat their room acoustics.

A few points as I see them:

• I believe he has watched Acoustic Insider's "Bass Hunter Technique" to find the best listening spot. If that was the source he should have given some credit to the guy Jesco.
• Finding the best possible listening spot with the fewest compromises is good advice, and after that the best possible position of the loudspeakers.
• I think the type of corner "bass traps" he's using serves more to the overall absorption of the room than actual bass traps. Looking at the waterfall measurements, before and after, they clearly show good things happening to the decay times from 150 Hz and up.
• He could have left some spaces between the panels on the sidewalls, that way the sides of the panels will also add to the overall absorption area of the room.

I hope he makes more videos like this in the future. He should not be seen as an enemy.

 

[amirm]

Cameron is also known for demonstrating that MQA was basically flawed BS, an area where Amir is notably inconsistent with his usual MO, preferring not to diss a mate. That's life for us humans.

What? My motivation on MQA was not that at all. It was simply that it was unimportant/niche technology that would never have the potential people who hated it including our OP youtuber thought it did (i.e. take over the world, make music DRMed again, etc.). And that the person behind it had superb qualifications. Both of these things were true and have proven to be such. Cameron on the other hand, didn't know how the technology worked and created black box tests that failed for that reason, not for what he thought.

I have taken opposite position to work of Sean Olive on preference scores. And importance of distortion in transducers. Or even sighted listening tests being totally invalid in the context of speakers. I have my views and if they are in conflict with major luminaries in the industry, I will state them.

Back on this topic, around 2005 I read everything I could and arrived at the consensus as Cameron states in his video. Then I met and listened to Dr. Toole. It turned my world upside down! I then went and read 50 to 100 references in Dr. Toole's book and realized the view he is stating is not just his own but culmination of ton of research over decades by countless researchers. Combined, they presented an elegant view of sound reproduction in rooms that no one else had remotely been able to stich together that way. So I threw out everything I knew and started over.

So excuse me when I get annoyed, just as Dr. Toole does, when I read/watch what Cameron says in his videos. I can recognize it from a mile away being what people say on forums who do not have the proper qualifications in this field to understand what they are talking about. No video about any room acoustics should be devoid of references to Dr. Toole's work and his book. To not list that and pretend self-knowledge and expertise is just wrong. Making it slick and marketing it under headphones .com makes it dangerous in the reach it has, propagating myths that Dr. Toole, I and top acousticians in the world try to so hard to dismiss.

 

[napfkuchen]

I don't get the hate. In my small room there was reverb all over the place with all frequencies even with nearfield monitors. Placed as many absorbers as possible (5 cm, 10 cm and 40 cm deep) - with regards to the room layout / aesthetics. RT60 before room treatment was unbearable even with loudspeaker calibration ranging from 0,6s to more than a second. Now it's below 0,3s at least for 63 Hz upwards. Imaging is much more focused and (kick)bass enjoyable. Once my financial situation settles maybe in a week moment a pair of Psi Audio AVAA will be ordered as a final step.

 

[tuga]

Speaking from experience here: EQ can't do crap about nulls. Putting more energy into a null just makes it deeper.

Further, EQ can help reduce the level of a modal peak, but cannot do anything about its ringing.

Again - do whatever you want in a home environment. That's all taste. Studios can't have that.

If I understand you correctly, when the peak level is lowered the ringing will be brought more in line with the normal decay: