Didn't play anything today...still working on cause … Reverberation in the music ?
Room size information
Attached
Room is completely decoupled; soundproof
Front loudspeakers Focal Aria 936
AVR Anthem MRX 720
Front speakers powered by Anthem PA-7
Room correction by ARC Genesis
ARC settings and results
Attached
No room treatments.
I think I'm going to run REW and see what's up.
I hope this helps
Thank you for supplying so much information! Yes this is quite helpful.
To bring in a bit more imo relevant information, here are Stereophile's measurements for the Focal Aria 936:
Sidebar 4: Measurements
www.stereophile.com
Notice how smooth the quasi-anechoic on-axis curve is. It's very good in my opinion (ignore the low-end rise; that's an artifact of the close-mic measurement technique used for the low end).
Next, notice that the off-axis curves have some excess energy in the region from about 3.5 kHz to just about 8 kHz. This means that the spectral balance of the reflections will have excess energy in this region. Here is why I think this could contribute to listening fatigue:
The ear/brain system is constantly looking at incoming sounds to determine whether they are new sounds or reflections (repetitions of a recent sound). The ear/brain system compares the spectral balance of incoming sounds to the spectral balance of recent new sounds to make this determination. I hypothesize that when there is a significant spectral discrepancy between the two, the ear/brain system has to work harder to correctly classify reflections as such, and over time this can tire out that part of the brain and result in listening fatigue. I'm not saying this is definitely what's happening, but imo it's a possibility.
One possible solution would be to increase the direct-to-reflected sound ratio, which would decrease the relative contribution of the reflections. This could be accomplished by listening up closer to the speakers, such that the direct sound becomes louder but the reflections don't get any louder.
Something else I noticed is that the equalization applied to your Focals is boosting the region from about 1.5 kHz to about 5 kHz. I assume the EQ is based on in-room measurements, which tend to be generally downward-sloping because most speakers have a radiation pattern that generally decreases in width as we go up in frequency. So if my assumptions are correct, and if Stereophile's measurements are good, then imo arguably the EQ is degrading that really nice first-arrival sound that we see in Stereophile's on-axis curves by boosting the output in the 1.5 kHz to 5kHz region. If it is possible to disable the EQ north of 500 Hz or so, imo that might make an improvement in long-term listening enjoyment.
Again thank you for providing so much information, and I hope you find the cause(s) and a workable solution.
