What Do Listeners Prefer for Small Room Acoustics?

[Purité Audio]

Yea the speakers sound best there, bring them forward and they are too close. They like width, but have them wide apart but closer and this empties out the sound plus you lose bass impact. I like a kick drum to feel like a kick drum. I used to have them on the edges of that rug but then they have to be closer together and suffer from congestion. With the panels on the walls behind the speakers I suffer no ill effects from there proximity to the front wall in respect to the speakers. I have of course tried them everywhere. Periodically move them about.

Simple ic length is why it's all stacked now( it's pre to amp that's the problem as both channels from the pre come out from the same side so one ic is ok but other is too short to reach amp if spread like you say) but originally I had it all low like you say but hifi dealer said it would be better in a rack.. Lol I will end up with it spread out low again, I don't like the shrine. Oh and I will need to buy footers for the shelf as they will be direct to the floor and audiophile base charge silly amounts for these. I just can't be arsed to give them anymore money at the moment.

Strictly speaking it's the wrong way round, should be set up on the narrow wall but due to the wall construction this works best.. Again it's been all ways at one time or another.

I have also had absorbers on the ceiling and diffusion too but this sounded... Weird, dead and wrong to me. The shag is enough Imo. Also on the floor too... Nurse

HiFi dealers !
You don't need footers, nothing is going to change in terms of sound quality if you place the components on the floor.
I didn't know that you have met my mother?
Keith.

 

[Ethan Winer]

I hope Ethan is sitting down when he reads this, maybe cuddling his cat. Much of what he believes/espouses contradicts badly here, with the usual assortment of real data.

LOL, I found a number of things worthy of rebuttal in his article. I don't expect you to be convinced because, well, you know. But I don't write for you.

As always, I'm a huge fan of Dr. Toole and have nothing but respect. When we disagree it's mostly about matters of taste.

I'm off to produce a recording session this afternoon, so I'll post some comments tomorrow or this weekend. Much of what I have to say can be expressed logically and need not rely on opinion.

 

[AJ Soundfield]

When we disagree it's mostly about matters of taste.

Well, that and all the missing reliable objective listening tests.

I'll post some comments tomorrow or this weekend.

I'll probably need to be sitting with my cat(s) before reading.
Now remember Ethan, Amir and I are AES members and can access all the papers you will reference....so looking forward to it.

cheers,

AJ

 

[AJ Soundfield]

HiFi dealers !
You don't need footers, nothing is going to change in terms of sound quality if you place the components on the floor.

No need to go to that extreme, a wide low rack is suffice. Then again, if one goes active, then the shrine need only contain a preamp and source(s). But I suppose that isn't manly cool to some...

 

[Thomas savage]

HiFi dealers !

No need to go to that extreme, a wide low rack is suffice. Then again, if one goes active, then the shrine need only contain a preamp and source(s). But I suppose that isn't manly cool to some...

am going wide and low, I would like active vivid speakers and to get rid of all the boxes I have to look at.

 

[Purité Audio]

Easy peaty lemon squeeze, it's rip out your crossovers, after all we have already determined the parts are pretty crappy, then you just need an amp per channel , and a MiniDSP processor and away you go.
AJ will help!
BW Keith.

 

[AJ Soundfield]

Actually if he's happy with his setup, he needs nothing at all..

 

[Purité Audio]

The audiophile by definition can never be happy.
Keith

 

[Ethan Winer]

As with all of Dr. Toole's writings, I agree with most of what he says. Huge respect. I'll also mention that he was very nice to me when I was writing my Audio Expert book. He reviewed my Loudspeakers chapter and gave me many suggestions and some important corrections. So I'm quite grateful for his help and certainly have no animosity against him. If anyone would like to invite Floyd here to chime in that'd be great. If my understanding of any of his points is in error he can clarify. I have only a few points to make about his recent article, with his words in quotes followed by my comments:

https://www.audioholics.com/room-acoustics/room-reflections-human-adaptation

One general comment about this article is nowhere does Dr. Toole mention the sizes of the rooms he's addressing, or distinguish how treatment strategies or ideal target room behavior might change with room size. Reflections from a side wall five feet away are very different from a side wall 15 feet away! Yet it's all lumped together as "people prefer" with no further explanation.

Anyone claiming that a phantom center image is superior to a real center loudspeaker has some persuading to do. The phantom-image situation is significantly muddled, and most listening situations are not perfectly symmetrical.

Imaging is muddled by the reflections! Remove the reflections and all of a sudden imaging is pinpoint accurate and also perfectly stable. I'm not arguing against a center channel, and I'm not arguing that a phantom center is better because I don't think it is either. I'm just pointing out the flawed logic in this argument. In my properly treated home theater, it's impossible to tell whether sound is coming from the center speaker or from a phantom center. Anyone who'd like to hear this for themselves is welcome to arrange a visit. It's common for visitors to get off the couch and put their ear next to the center speaker because they can't believe it's not playing.

As for symmetry, if someone's listening room is not symmetrical they should address that first. But when that's not possible, adding symmetrical absorption can force symmetry. Simply placing acoustic panels on stands at the reflection points helps to force symmetry, even if what's behind the panels is different left and right.

... in normal rooms the first lateral reflections in rectangular rooms of normal listening and control room dimensions ... fall into a region where there are varying amounts of "image shift" - the image is either perceived to move slightly or to be stretched slightly in the direction of the reflection.

Again, image shifting is solved by adding absorption to eliminate the reflections. The reason imaging shifts when early reflections are allowed is because the left and right comb filter frequencies are different. When comb filtering is present what we hear are the peak frequencies that come through, and those frequencies change dramatically even with small head movements. Floyd doesn't mention the change in frequency response from untamed reflections, yet that's the most audible result!

... this illustration ... shows the random-incidence absorption coefficient of 2-inch, 6 pcf rigid fiberglass board ... we need to know what happens to a sound from a loudspeaker that reflects from this material when ... a sound that arrives from, say, 45° is reflected towards the listener.

First, Owens-Corning 705 (6 pcf) is the wrong material to use for absorbing side-wall reflections. OC 703 (3 pcf) is better because it's less dense and has a "looser" front surface. Fluffy fiberglass or good quality sculpted acoustic foam are also better than 705 in this application for the same reason.

Further, his graph conflicts with what I've measured, probably because his graph is for 705 which is the wrong material. Here's what I measured in my living room (one side only) using 703:

The HF response falls off because this was measured with a Radio Shack SPL meter, before I bought a high-end DPA "tiny diaphragm" measuring microphone. But the enormous reduction in comb filtering is quite apparent.

Figure 8.2 in my book shows some results from Kishinaga et al.(1979) in which acoustical engineers expressed a preference for reduced sidewall reflections for evaluating audio products, but normal sidewall reflections for "fully enjoying the music". Kuhl and Plantz (1978) reported that audio professionals had a preference for a strong direct sound field for mixing, but for more reflections when listening at home.

I see several problems here. One is that the Kashinaga tests were done using impulse sounds, not music. I'm not sure how anyone could express a preference for allowing reflections when listening to a bunch of clicks. (Is that really what they did?) The other tests referenced in this figure, by Ando, used music but added reflections to only one side wall in an anechoic chamber. So it's impossibly to assess "image muddling" because the requisite left-right comb filter differences were not present.

Another problem with the Kashinaga tests is they absorbed only the side-wall reflections but not the floor and ceiling, so it wasn't a true RFZ environment. Adding absorption might have improved imaging when moving your head side to side, but not when moving forward and back.

Yet another problem is I don't see mentioned how many "professionals preferred" side-wall reflections when listening at home. Was it 2 of 4 people asked? Or 9 out of 10? Or 1 out of 100? That's relevent, no?

Related, of the research Dr. Toole reports where people claim to prefer early reflections, how many other research articles came to the opposite conclusion? I have no idea, so this is an honest question. But it's absolutely relevant. If five tests conclude that "trained listeners and professional audio engineers" prefer reflections, but 75 other tests concluded the opposite, that's pretty important to know!

The argument that recording engineers are greatly experienced professionals, and therefore can compensate for these unfortunate afflictions, does not hold water. Electron microscope photographs of the innards of damaged ears show large areas of dead and crippled hair cells and synapses between the hair cells and the cochlear nerve that communicates to the auditory cortex.

Well that's just silly. If currently successful professional mix engineers are able to create mixes that are universally acknowledged as being excellent, that's all that matters. That vindicates their hearing and their musical taste. Further, just because someone is older than 50 or 60 doesn't automatically mean their hearing is so damaged that their opinions are invalid. A well known NYC mastering engineer is a customer and good friend of mine. He's about my age, and he always wears ear plugs when he goes outside to prevent hearing damage from the noise of passing buses etc. He's been doing that for many years, and I believe him when he says his hearing is fine. That he still has many important repeat clients proves the point. I'm not a professional mix engineer, but the mixes I've made since turning 60 are some of the best I've ever done.

In conclusion I don't mind if Floyd Toole prefers early reflections in a small room, or if he believes that makes music sound larger. I don't mind if many or even most people prefer early reflections. Most people probably think Neil Young is an excellent lead guitar player. So I stand by all of the points made in my Early Reflections article, and I'm glad to discuss specific points of logic about Floyd's article or mine. Unrelated brickbats will be ignored.

 

[amirm]

I see several problems here. One is that the Kashinaga tests were done using impulse sounds, not music. I'm not sure how anyone could express a preference for allowing reflections when listening to a bunch of clicks. (Is that really what they did?)

I have the paper. There are two parts to it. One is the listening tests. There, music selections were used:

The results were the following:

The second part of the paper uses synthetic pulses and such to measure the strength of reflections, computing subjective channel differential, etc.

 

[Dynamix]

The audiophile by definition can never be happy.
Keith

Crap. That means I utterly fail as an audiophile. How am I going to live with myself?

 

[Thomas savage]

Crap. That means I utterly fail as an audiophile. How am I going to live with myself?

Just open another jar of pickled herrings and basked in your self proclaimed happiness...,

That feeling of self satisfaction, that's very audiophile

 

[Dynamix]

Just open another jar of pickled herrings and basked in your self proclaimed happiness...,

That feeling of self satisfaction, that's very audiophile

Oh, right...

 

[Thomas savage]

Oh, right...

Umm sexy! Home made... Umm... Happy but wait! Washed down with this...

Heaven!

 

[Dynamix]

View attachment 967

Umm sexy! Home made... Umm... Happy but wait! Washed down with this...

View attachment 968

Heaven!

Look's good to me.

Dead herring in a jar+hard liquor? Where I'm from, that smells like Christmas.

 

[Ethan Winer]

I have the paper. There are two parts to it. One is the listening tests. There, music selections were used:

Thanks for clarifying Amir. Dr. Toole implied only impulses were used in that section of his book.

Many other questions still remain.

 

[Ron Party]

Imaging is muddled by the reflections! Remove the reflections and all of a sudden imaging is pinpoint accurate and also perfectly stable. I'm not arguing against a center channel, and I'm not arguing that a phantom center is better because I don't think it is either. I'm just pointing out the flawed logic in this argument. In my properly treated home theater, it's impossible to tell whether sound is coming from the center speaker or from a phantom center. Anyone who'd like to hear this for themselves is welcome to arrange a visit. It's common for visitors to get off the couch and put their ear next to the center speaker because they can't believe it's not playing.

Ethan, one day I hope to take you up on this offer. In all of my years, I have never, ever, been deceived as you describe, even though I've heard people in the same room listening at the same time as me describe their impressions just as you have it stated. Plus, it'd be fun just to hang for an afternoon or evening, sipping on some fine spirits and listening to some fine tunes.

 

[fas42]

In all of my years, I have never, ever, been deceived as you describe, even though I've heard people in the same room listening at the same time as me describe their impressions just as you have it stated.

That's actually very interesting - it implies that some people may find it difficult or even impossible to achieve "invisible" speakers; the way the brain works for some individuals could mean that they don't build a strong sound picture in their mind - which would go some way towards explaining the differing experiences.

Nothing "right" or "wrong" about any of this - but may help to understand why one side never "gets" what the other is talking about ...

 

[AJ Soundfield]

In conclusion I don't mind if Floyd Toole prefers early reflections in a small room, or if he believes that makes music sound larger. I don't mind if many or even most people prefer early reflections.

So as expected, complete evasion/dismissal of a mountain of reliable perceptual evidence, Toole prefers/believes again, zero AES references, blind listening tests or anything remotely objective about your "rebuttal", other than "Ethan saw this, heard that, said so about reflections" and a freaking Rat Shack SPL meter measurement.
Terrific. Not sure why that wouldn't have taken more than 5 mins, tops.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Can't say I've ever listened to my system with a center channel speaker, so I have no point of comparison, but when I had my small actives in a near field set up, raising the direct to reflected sound ratio, the phantom center was pretty convincing. Yes, that's the technical term, "pretty convincing." So I don't find it at all hard to believe people thought the center channel speaker was playing. But I'd also bet that given an ABX of phantom center vs. real center, they'd have no trouble differentiating between them. Scientifically speaking.

Tim