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

[MattHooper]

All good info, but wondering about this..

Stereo is inherently flawed in this regard, as @Floyd Toole likes to remind us. The whole idea of "we need to kill room reflections so that we can accurately reproduce the acoustics captured in the recording" is based on a faulty premise - it's trying to reach an outcome that a stereo system cannot deliver. It's counter-productive because, as studies have shown, people prefer the presence of side reflections (the real kind, not the kind that stereo fails to reproduce).

There is only one case where eliminating reflections makes sense to properly reproduce the acoustics capture in the recording:

I think there could be a slight disconnect about what you may be speaking to, vs what some are looking for.

It's worth separating the two goals:

1. Producing a more "natural" sound from a recording (in which we can discuss whether certain reflections help or hinder, which make up for deficiencies in stereo)

vs

2. Accurately reproducing the recording (in which case the recorded acoustic may not play back as fully natural or realistic, but that's ok it's the nature of
recordings. We just want to hear how they sound, not augment them).

As for #2: As is often pointed out, we "hear through" a room to a degree because our brains filter out reflections in order to concentrate on the sound source.

But that isn't what is happening when playing back recordings.

Recordings, say of a symphony, have the particular acoustic as part of the sound source. We don't filter it out - we hear the acoustic as an element as we do with the individual instruments. In this way it's artificial...but essentially expected. So someone who wants to accurately reproduce what's on an orchestral recording may
not be desiring to add reflections for it to sound more natural or like he/she is 'there,' to make up for the deficiencies of stereo. They may want to simply experience the recording...as a recording. And hearing as much unmitigated direct sound as possible will allow them to hear the particular character captured of the recorded acoustic, as represented by a recording, balanced as it was by the recordist/mixers. Vs trying to augment it to sound "more real" than what the recording might provide.

At least, that's my take on how some of the conversation may be a bit talking past one another. Happy to be corrected.

(I go back and forth as to desiring more of 1 or 2...or a mix).

 

[amirm]

I strongly suspect the Advantageous check boxes for Intelligibility and Preference, simply came from increased SPL of reflections. Which would be bogus. Anybody know here?
I'll say it again, the studies saying early reflections add to speech intelligibility don't even pass the smell test, imo.

I hear you. That is the "in" thing these days in audio. Everything that makes sense to someone's belly goes. And the opposite, not.

An apple falls from the tree. You want to tell me that it makes sense to you that if you strap a clock on said apple, it will run slower than same clock on your wrist? And what's more, the apple will age more slowly than the same apple sitting on a table? It took Einstein to prove that despite every lay person's intuition and "smell test." Billions of years from now, if humans are around, they will look at the sky and see nothing. All the stars will be gone because of Universe expanding. You think someone not knowing about astrophysics would buy that? No, there was a time people thought that earth was at the center of the universe and if you said otherwise, you could be hung in the public square.

So no, I am not interested in what passes the smell test to some of you. The very thing is what prompted our youtuber to say to get rid of all the reflections with a single microphone measurement that is devoid of spectrum analysis. We are in the age of using psychoacoustics to analyze what is happening in our rooms and with respect to our hearing. What passes the smell test was before this era of enlightenment. It says that we have two ears and as a result, when frequencies get higher, each hears differentially with both level and frequency. From my article on room reflections: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/perceptual-effects-of-room-reflections.13/

You think what the brain does with those two differing signals is going to make simple sense to you? Answer is absolutely not. You better read and listen to research that says that reflections coming from sides have a very different effect and role than reflections coming elsewhere.

You are bothered by reflections combining with the direct sound and creating comb filtering? You better learn how your hearing resolution gets worse and worse as frequencies go up:

As a result the toughs in comb filters are not heard. The path to salvation here is to think where your current knowledge has come from. If if is from lay intuition or online content like the youtuber, then I suggest you throw them all out and start over. That is precisely what I did. That is what a student of science does. He doesn't continue to stick to what his belly says far after it has been explained enough to him that what he knows as a minimum may not be true.

Do otherwise and it tells me that what we claim audio science is good for, is only for the other guy. That when our own core beliefs are questioned, we are just as stubborn as the camp that believes in every nonsense that appeals to their smell test. Oh I must clean my AC power to get better sound. Oh I must put $300 footers under my gear because surely vibrations cause distortions in my audio gear. Oh I must burn in my audio gear because car companies used to say you have to do that with engines. They all appeal to our individual sense but science and engineering pounds on them so hard that they flatten out of existence. You need to do the same thing to statistical frequencies in audio. They do not act the way you think they do with respect to our perception.

So please, no more pleading that you must be right. Come with research that proves a certain point of view. And make sure you have read the full research. This is not something you are going to learn by grabbing on to a quote or two you have found online. It took me two years to read it all and fully understand and appreciate the topic.

 

[tuga]

All 3 of you (and others in this thread) are missing one important fact: a stereo system cannot accurately reproduce the reflections of the original venue in the way that you are describing. The reason for this is, again, documented in Toole's book, but it basically comes down to the fact that our auditory system is able to determine where reflections are coming from (using IID/ITD - i.e. the fact that we have two ears). Therefore it cannot be fooled by a pair of front speakers (or at least not in a satisfying way).

Stereo is an effect which uses two speakers to trick your brain into locating a phantom source in the space between and also to produce a sense of space where the musical event took place or a fabricated soundstage.
It's not the same as having an omni speaker reproducing an anechoic recording of a single instrument which would interact with the room boundaries as if it were playing live in the listening room.

 

[amirm]

I think you’ll be left waiting. The whole argument against room treatment has been littered with hyperbolic slurs, from “kill room reflections”, “dead room”, “anechoic chamber” to “padded cell”.

Oh really? What is this evidence put forward if not a padded cell?

Imagine sitting in that room and staring at all those panels when you are trying to enjoy your music. I guarantee you that person did not read an ounce of audio research to arrive at that solution. He followed what he had read online and thought he had nailed it. Yet a simple look at the frequency response showed massively uneven bass response.

I have seen countless people go this route once you get them started on ETC measurement. Eventually they go figuratively mad and cover all surfaces. After all, it passes the "smell test" as poster just said. If reflections are bad, then ideal room has none of it. Go ahead and prove to me this is not your position.

 

[amirm]

Stereo is an effect which uses two speakers to trick your brain into locating a phantom source in the space between and also to produce a sense of space where the musical event took place or a fabricated soundstage.
It's not the same as having an omni speaker reproducing an anechoic recording of a single instrument which would interact with the room boundaries as if it were playing live in the listening room.

Not a word he said is about this. He said and quoting Dr. Toole, that a real performance has reflections coming from you from all directions. That experience cannot be recorded and replicated in stereo. By allowing side reflections, you allow a bit of that experience to bleed through this limited system we have called stereo.

That after being told what is there you still misread it, it tells me that you have not read Dr. Toole's book.

 

[MacClintock]

OK. Here's what this all boils down for me. My little note may raise controversy, nevertheless, here 'tis:

I am pushing 77, a long life with lots of different experiences.

I don't know how many of you know about Hector Berlioz, but he wrote his "Symphony Phantastique" at the age of 30, only three years after Beethoven's death. He turned music upside down with his symphony.

If, of course, that is not enough, Einstein was 26 when he turned science upside down with his general theory of relativity. He was little known at the time. I could cite more cases, for they are quite a few (James Watt, if memory serves).

As for one, maybe I'd try the guy's method and then have an opinion. Needless to say, I am NOT talking about him for I am not involved in the controversy.

What I am trying to say is that youth has nothing to do with inventiveness, handiness or, above all, innate capabilities.

SOLELY my two cents. P.

Making a post where the names of Berlioz and Einstein are mentioned to make any point for GoldenSound is so ludicrous and absurd, no words. Of course all three of them went to the bathroom as well. And breathed air.
Edit: thinking about it, you are maybe right, Berlioz was at a young age a genious of music and turned it upside down, Einstein of physics and turned it upside down, and.... GoldenSound of room treatment and turned it upside down. Makes sense....

 

[amirm]

I'm sorry to point this out to you Amir. In this case, you are the stubborn one who seems to have a problem separating the creational side of music production from the reproduction side of playing back the art that was created.

While recording the music we want to capture the reverberative acoustics of that great-sounding concert hall that was built to highlight the live acoustic instruments in the best way possible. At home, with a great-sounding speaker system, the aim is to hear all that glory of those acoustic instruments in that great-sounding concert hall, the great acoustics that the recording engineers hopefully were able to capture in all its glory, we don't want our acoustically lousy-sounding small listening rooms dominating what is heard.

We are not the ones creating the music, we are the ones who strive for reproducing the intended sound of the creation in the highest possible fidelity.

The point of great concert halls was that reflections from many directions is what dominates that experience. You want to get there? The answer is multichannel, not stereo. A 5.1 system blows away any stereo system in creating a sense of space and spatial qualities you mention. Even a crappy one will outperform some of the best stereo systems!

Once you stuck with a pale copy of that, the question is what is the best you can do? The first answer is to not chase lay formulas as youtuber prescribed, which you are backing here. You must trust science when these concepts are examined and tested. That examination says there is no reason to fear reflections, up to a point. Once you understand this and the fact that measurements mislead you, then you realize how to design your room for best enjoyment.

 

[Axo1989]

Haha, reading the latest gish gallops, I temporarily lost the will to live.

Imagine sitting that room and staring at all those panels when you are trying to enjoy your music.

Imagine sitting in Dr Toole's room and staring at those life-size porcelain statues of ballerinas and trying to enjoy your music. Sorry mate, personal aesthetic taste is personal. One person's taste doesn't matter to other people, and shouldn't matter to you.

If reflections are bad, then ideal room has none of it. Go ahead and prove to me this is not your position.

As you (hopefully) know, this is reductio ad absurdum. But that technique often backfires (or collapses into a heap of straw).

 

[amirm]

When I see rooms like Amir's or Mr. Toole's, I think: Yes, in such a large room everything probably sounds great.

There really is no substitute for space and in that same vein, large speakers. I go to audio shows where high-end gear is shown in ballrooms. There, they produce a far superior experience to what I can create even with equipment that is not well designed.

The key to home audio enjoyment is to not have a target of perfection. Such target cannot be achieved due to lack of standards in audio and above factor. We just want to get to 90% and then sit back and enjoy the music. This is what I really dislike about the youtuber video. It will send the person down the path of constantly messing with the room, adding this and that acoustic product, chasing this and that reflection, etc. It will become an obsession eventually and hence, become frustrating.

This is why my rules for good acoustics is simple:
1. Get a good speaker (best you can possibly afford)
2. Measure the room and find the bass response errors
3. Use EQ to reduce the impact of most offensive ones in #2.

Anything beyond this is outside of the scope of what audiophiles should do. You will have great sound to enjoy. I know I do without a single acoustic product in my room.

 

[amirm]

Imagine sitting in Dr Toole's room and staring at those life-size porcelain statues of ballerinas and trying to enjoy your music. Sorry mate, personal aesthetic taste is personal. One person's taste doesn't matter to other people, and shouldn't matter to you.

Of course it matters to me when the listener is forced into that situation in the name of good sound, than what he thought was attractive in that room. The fact that the motivation for pushing him into that situation was wrong is the very topic of the discussion here.

And this is the beauty of not fearing early reflections. They save you money and allow your rooms to be as beautiful as you want them to be. This is why this topic is important on top of better sound you get.

 

[Axo1989]

Of course it matters to me when the listener is forced into that situation ...

Yes, after watching a video on YouTube I am forced ...

 

[bo_knows]

Still, where's the proof all room reflections ruin audio? This whole thread started from a video made by a known bad faith actor proclaiming all room reflections are undesirable. Many in this thread provide evidence to a contrary prescription for typical home rooms. We even have some discussion as to why a mixing or control room would want different than a home room.

Intuition about sound can be incredibly counterproductive and misleading. I understand why many here have reservations about evidence suggesting certain reflections can improve or not detriment sound. Yet, the evidence for unequivocally calling all reflections bad seems far too unapparent.

I'd be curious what people who say they prefer headphones would think if they were studied for any room preferences for speakers. Would they prefer reflection-deaded rooms like GoldenSound's or the regularly furnished rooms that get suggested by Amir? Getting the testing to be blind would require both rooms to appear identical, which might be prohibitive to proper blind AB. The test would still would be interesting if possible, I'd wager.

Please watch the video and understand what GIK products do.
His room CAN NOT be "reflection-dead" cause he uses hybrid panels, meaning absorber panels that have a scatter plate in front of it which reflect the sound back to the room. For your reference, mark 17:58.
Also, others that are saying that his bass panels will not do anything below 100hz, will need to get clarification as to what type of GIK product he's using in the back of his room (mark 17:36).

 

[amirm]

Yes, after watching a video on YouTube I am forced ...

Of course you are. It is called fear of being left out. "Oh you are supposed to have all those panels let me go and buy some." "Oh I need to measure ETC and stomp out all the reflections, let me do that as well." There are million page threads on AVS Forum exactly like this. Person after person is pulled into this thinking. So yes, there is a reason I am dedicating so much time to this topic here.

 

[Axo1989]

Of course you are. It is called fear of being left out. "Oh you are supposed to have all those panels let me go and buy some." "Oh I need to measure ETC and stomp out all the reflections, let me do that as well." There are million page threads on AVS Forum exactly like this. Person after person is pulled into this thinking. So yes, there is a reason I am dedicating so much time to this topic here.

But to me you appear to be hyperventilating.

How about I watch the offending video and think "interesting he did that and reckons he got that result" then go about my day?

Maybe later I read something here and think "that's an interesting counterpoint to the video I watched a while back" and then continue to go about my day.

And some time later I try an idea out, if it's convenient, fun and I actually get around to it. Maybe it works, maybe not.

If you provide your counterpoint without overdramatisation or condescension, I'm likely to assign you more credibility. That's probably the main thing I'd like to convey.

 

[Sokel]

Haha, reading the latest gish gallops, I temporarily lost the will to live.



Imagine sitting in Dr Toole's room and staring at those life-size porcelain statues of ballerinas and trying to enjoy your music. Sorry mate, personal aesthetic taste is personal. One person's taste doesn't matter to other people, and shouldn't matter to you.



As you (hopefully) know, this is reductio ad absurdum. But that technique often backfires (or collapses into a heap of straw).

Sometimes is not about taste,it's mere physical for some people.
I'm not exactly claustrophobic,I go into elevators and such without thought.

I just can't stand being in such a small room,i think something pushes my chest,I feel constrained.

My experience with my music (classical) is the bigger (everything,speakers,room,etc) the better.
I don't know if it's about reflections,reverb or what but the most enjoyable and enveloping systems I have listened too was in big rooms far-ish from walls.

Maybe it's a thing about my absolute favorite recordings coming from the same age 50's-60's and are made for such rooms?I don't know.
I only know what I enjoy and what makes me suffer.

 

[Axo1989]

Sometimes is not about taste,it's mere physical for some people.
I'm not exactly claustrophobic,I go into elevators and such without thought.

I just can't stand being in such a small room,i think something pushes my chest,I feel constrained.

My experience with my music (classical) is the bigger (everything,speakers,room,etc) the better.
I don't know if it's about reflections,reverb or what but the most enjoyable and enveloping systems I have listened too was in big rooms far-ish from walls.

Maybe it's a thing about my absolute favorite recordings coming from the same age 50's-60's and are made for such rooms?I don't know.
I only know what I enjoy and what makes me suffer.

Oh yes I agree I would not like that small room either. Once as a kid I was offered a ride in a US Navy submarine, exciting, but I couldn't even then: confined spaces don't work for me. But porcelain statues are almost as disturbing.

Edit: and further on the acoustic space thing, my room is not so large (5 x 7 metres, so medium). I have a friend (who also sells audio gear) and his space is larger (say 10 x 15 metres). I can never get a grip on how his various speakers sound in certain ways though. There is clean sound but no stereo holography. Maybe my ear/brain can't make sense—or makes different sense— of the space (it is concrete, lightly treated and the ceiling is a bit low, so many variables). Of course I have heard music in concert halls, a different thing again.

 

[bo_knows]

This is the "best" visual video that I found on YouTube that will visually try to explain how sounds propagate in the room. It's targeted to the home studio professionals but I found it interesting.

 

[amirm]

But to me you appear to be hyperventilating.

[...]

If you provide your counterpoint without overdramatisation or condescension, I'm likely to assign you more credibility. That's probably the main thing I'd like to convey.

You are dishing out advice you are not taking yourself. Hyperventilating???

This topic is very important. The level of knowledge among audiophiles is scant. I have explained it calmy many times yet protests continue. This was my original post:

----
1. Bass traps don't fix bass modes. As Dr. Toole says in one of his private presentations, "the only thing bass traps do is trap your money!" Wavelengths are way too large for any traditional velocity absorbers to do much good. Often people put a ton of them in there to get results and with it, make their room too dead. In general, few if any people are in a position to use velocity absorbers to make effective changes in their room. Pressure absorbers work better but they are expensive and require skill to design and use (they are very frequency selective).

2. He is optimizing for his eyes, not ears. Two ears and a brain don't work like a single microphone and a graph as Dr. Toole would again say. The notion that reflections are "bad" is folklore as comprehensive peer reviewed has repeatedly shown. Yet, it has become one of the "internet rules" to chase them using measurements. Doing so will lead to a completely dead room when you are done. Ask any high-end acoustician what the #1 problem with DIY acoustic is and they tell you people creating dead rooms because of this mistake.

2A. Use speakers with proper directivity and you will not need to fear reflections. Indeed, this is your #1 tool for good sound in a room.

3. Rooms are never ideal. The calculators for room modes and such for the most part generate incorrect results because your walls are not perfect reflectors. Ditto then for golden ratios, and this and that dimensions not being good. Read Dr. Toole's book for example measurements showing this. For this reason, you can actually fill nulls a bit because cancellation unlike what he claims are way away from ideal (or they would not be down just a few dB).

4. Reflectors need to be broadband. Those skyline diffusers are not. And neither are a lot of what you folks slap on walls. Minimum depth should be 4 inches.

5. DSP is extremely powerful. Get the right speakers, put them more or less where you like, and set your seating position the same. Then measure and apply DSP to pull down peaks. This is the formula which will give you 90% of the results with minimum expense and uglification factor (slapping panels everywhere in the room).

Sadly the folklore has gotten so bad that if you don't have a room full of acoustic panels, folks think something wrong with your room. What is really wrong is that people haven't spend $35 on Dr. Toole's book and a few days of reading and learning about real sound acoustics. Please, please do not follow the Internet consensus on this. They are just wrong.
----

 

[Axo1989]

You are dishing out advice you are not taking yourself. Hyperventilating???

You left out "to me you appear to be". I took care to frame it as my perspective, not a declaration of truth.

Then you skipped the part were I demonstrated that it's normal/possible (for me) to simply take in various information, and act on it or not. It's a process of integration/experience/reflection. Not fear-driven (you mention fear a lot).

I remember a while back you were trying to communicate with Darko, and I mentioned you risked coming across as a nutter. But you reckoned your urgency-of-mission thing was over-riding. Oddly enough Cameron was a part of that scenario.

Just my thinking/reaction and fyi. I don't expect you to tailor your style for me.

This topic is very important.

Not really. There are important things to be very urgent about. But our hobby isn't one of those things, I reckon. It's something for enjoyment that we can be relaxed about.

 

[MattHooper]

On purely subjective/aesthetic grounds, I have to say I generally dislike the look of room treatment. I don't know if it's having spent so many years in mixing theaters, reminding me of work, but in domestic rooms it strikes me as blocky, imposed on a room, and utilitarian. (I also don't care for the aesthetics of pro monitors, in home settings...mine anyway).

At the same time I did need some good balance to reflections in my room, and having an acoustician involved, we managed to mostly build-in and hide acoustic treatments so they weren't eye-sores.

It's funny because people routinely comment on the sound of the room! Most of my guests are non-audiophiles but most, even on entering the room and beginning to have a conversation stop and say "oh, it sounds so nice in here..." It's slightly on the deader side of an average room which is one thing that I think cues them "something is different," but there's this "low noise floor" sensation where voices sound smooth and clear. I think it's why I can also play movies at fairly low volumes and still easily hear details and dialogue remains clean and easy to hear. (Of course there are some reflections going on, it's not like it's an anechoic chamber...but the room "sounds nice" and everything in the room "sounds nice," from people to music coming through speakers).