What does a "great room" mean?

jkeny · Jun 21, 2016

In the "what's most important for 'believability'" thread, there's a kind of gentle & mannerly impasse where a number of members that state the room is the just as important an element in believability (depending on the speaker) as the source & electronics.

I've not had much experience with different room treatments as mostly the rooms I've listened to reproduction in were what I considered of a reasonable quality, acoustically.

Recently I've discovered DML speakers - distributed mode loudspeakers popularised by NXT speakers. I must admit that I never paid much attention to these as they were marketed more as PC speakers & "lifestyle" speakers rather than hiFi. Maybe it's because this speaker technology has evolved somewhat to address the shortcomings of DML & BMR (Balanced Mode Radiators) have developed from them?

But anyway, the point of this technology is that instead of the optimal goal of traditional speaker technology which was a point source radiator for all audible frequencies, DML has a different dispersive way of radiating sound. Traditional speakers use a pistonic driver attached to a cone to generate longitudinal sound waves (correlated between speakers) wheres DML use a panel on which resonances are created at the various frequencies - transverse sound waves.

Unfortunately, I don't have AES membership & this site (Tectonic) have many AES papers on DML & room interaction but this public paper is a good summary of the main ideas - summarised here:

In live performances:
· The sound sources are multidirectional, radiating sound in all directions, most of it away from individual listeners in the
audience.
· Perceptions of timbre, space, and envelopment created by reflections within the room are essential parts of the
performance.

In sound reproduction:
· Most loudspeakers have significant directivity and are aimed at listeners.
· Ideally, perceptions of timbre, direction, distance, space, and envelopment should be conveyed by multichannel audio
systems delivering specific kinds of sounds to loudspeakers in specific locations.
· Ideally, what listeners should hear should be independent of the room around them. In practice it is the required degree of
independence that is under investigation.

This makes sense to me & would seem to suggest that room treatment for this technology is both far less & essentially different to that used for traditional, directive speakers.

What do people make of this in the light of the idea that one can treat a room to achieve a "great" sounding room?

I have two questions (at the moment):
- how is this room treatment designed to achieve the "great" room as it appears that there isn't a consensus about this?
- Is this lack of consensus because it's not a "great room" that's being designed - it's actually dependent on the speakers being used in that room

jkeny · Jun 21, 2016

Some interesting extracts from that article:

The wave fronts from boundary reflections produced by pistonic class radiators are strongly phase correlated with the wave fronts from the direct radiation. This creates strong interference effects. Such effects can lead to loss of intelligibility and are a source of auditory confusion – particularly if they arrive within 100 – 200ms of the original sound set (the precedence effect).

This leads to an unfortunate conclusion when using narrow directivity, phase coherent sources:

Therefore when using pistonic class radiators for sound reinforcement systems it is necessary to immerse the audience
in a predominantly direct sound field to ensure intelligibility and a cohesive interpretation of the sound event.

This creates two main problems for the audience:

1. As the level of the direct sound field follows the inverse square law (doubling of distance causes a drop of 6dB) to ensure good sound reproduction for audience members at the rear of the seating area, it is often necessary to create a substantiallyhigher sound level for those members at the front seating area, which can be unpleasant and fatiguing.
2. The audience is immersed in a highly artificial sound field, very different from the natural sound field produced by live instruments in a concert hall or any other natural environmental listening space where the reverberant field contributes significantly more energy to the auditory experience.

The radiation from a DML can be characterised by two key attributes:

1. Wide directivity.
2. Diffuse radiation.
The radiation from a DML can be, to a degree, separated into two, overlapping regions; the initial pistonic transient followed by a diffuse tail.

The output that drives the diffuse tail predominantly comes from radiation by the panel modes. In modally dense panels the radiation sources consist of a large number of regions radiating in a highly complex, pseudo-random way. In effect each region is like a tiny piston speaker (with its own amplitude and phase) and the sum of these over the panel generates a diffuse acoustic output with wide directivity.

With a diffuse source there is a significantly reduced correlation between the directly radiated and reflected wave fronts. Therefore the output from a DML that contributes to the reverberant field does not do so in a way that obscures intelligibility (as is the case for a coherent source).

I hope these extracts entice people to read the article & find out more about phase correlated directivity Vs non-correlated, non-directive diffuse radiation speakers & the whole concept of room interactions?

pjwd · Jun 22, 2016

100ms is 34m if I am correct - pretty sure that figure should be 20ms for a concert hall and 8 or so in a listening room - that makes room treatments possible
Phil

JackD201 · Jun 22, 2016

Uh oh this might get sticky. Like a system, the room it is in must have a purpose it will be built around. In general terms however good rooms are first and foremost, quiet but not deafeningly so. If one can get the room silent without say one's own breathing becoming intrusive then one can be said to be at one great starting point. At the risk of stating the obvious, having a room in the 30dB to 40dB noisefloor range yields the benefit of being able to hear details in the recording with less output. Less strain, less distortion. After this, the decision process starts to take different angles. If one is after even coverage throughout a larger area in a room then one needs to take special attention to radiation patterns and use of diffusion. If the objective is pin point focus in a smaller listening zone then typically we are looking at radiation pattern and absorption. In both cases where the longest dimension of the room is less than the half wave of what the system can put out then more work needs to be done. Many ways to skin that cat. In any case managing RT60 throughout the spectrum has been very fruitful for me. I have speakers with very wide dispersion but I'm also fortunate that dimensions allow for fist reflection paths to be outside the Haas window. In my case the objective was to keep the room's reverberant properties/decay time low across the spectrum but not dead. A room that is too dead will give you that eerie feeling, requires more power to pressurize and given the logarithmic nature of loudness, that could mean LOTS of power and I'm not talking about headroom. You'll need even more for that! So somewhere in between Goldilocks is to be found. A choice needs to be made when it comes to the blend of direct and reflected energy.

In my case I needed to decide whether I wanted to consider the system as an instrument or simply as a delivery system. In the former case the room becomes part and parcel of the overall presentation offered, in the latter the objective is to take the room out of the equation. Why "instrument"? My analogy when designing the room with my acoustician is that I wanted a room that was more spec'd towards that of a recording space (live but controlled) as opposed to that of a control room (fairly dead). I chose the former and the considerations were not purely sonic either.

I've always found that good rooms have good vocal intelligibility. If you can understand what someone else in the room is saying from opposite corners, you can be pretty sure you're not having any midrange problems. In my room you can whisper at each other from over 30 feet away. It's kind of funny actually. It's a nice parlor trick. This is done by managing the RT60. Everything from management of slap echo (the hand clap test) to dealing with boominess can be considered reverberation management.

Steve Williams · Jun 22, 2016

JackD201 said:
Uh oh this might get sticky. Like a system, the room it is in must have a purpose it will be built around. In general terms however good rooms are first and foremost, quiet but not deafeningly so. If one can get the room silent without say one's own breathing becoming intrusive then one can be said to be at one great starting point. At the risk of stating the obvious, having a room in the 30dB to 40dB noisefloor range yields the benefit of being able to hear details in the recording with less output. Less strain, less distortion. After this, the decision process starts to take different angles. If one is after even coverage throughout a larger area in a room then one needs to take special attention to radiation patterns and use of diffusion. If the objective is pin point focus in a smaller listening zone then typically we are looking at radiation pattern and absorption. In both cases where the longest dimension of the room is less than the half wave of what the system can put out then more work needs to be done. Many ways to skin that cat. In any case managing RT60 throughout the spectrum has been very fruitful for me. I have speakers with very wide dispersion but I'm also fortunate that dimensions allow for fist reflection paths to be outside the Haas window. In my case the objective was to keep the room's reverberant properties/decay time low across the spectrum but not dead. A room that is too dead will give you that eerie feeling, requires more power to pressurize and given the logarithmic nature of loudness, that could mean LOTS of power and I'm not talking about headroom. You'll need even more for that! So somewhere in between Goldilocks is to be found. A choice needs to be made when it comes to the blend of direct and reflected energy.

In my case I needed to decide whether I wanted to consider the system as an instrument or simply as a delivery system. In the former case the room becomes part and parcel of the overall presentation offered, in the latter the objective is to take the room out of the equation. Why "instrument"? My analogy when designing the room with my acoustician is that I wanted a room that was more spec'd towards that of a recording space (live but controlled) as opposed to that of a control room (fairly dead). I chose the former and the considerations were not purely sonic either.

I've always found that good rooms have good vocal intelligibility. If you can understand what someone else in the room is saying from opposite corners, you can be pretty sure you're not having any midrange problems. In my room you can whisper at each other from over 30 feet away. It's kind of funny actually. It's a nice parlor trick. This is done by managing the RT60. Everything from management of slap echo (the hand clap test) to dealing with boominess can be considered reverberation management.

Terrific post Jack as I agree totally with your observations as they too were my focal points. My acoustician also places great value in the RT 60. With my room and relation to speaker size this was paramount in the instructions that I gave my acoustician. Her comments (which I have posted before) were always "we need to fool your speakers into thinking the room is larger than what it really is" and that was the success to my story

jkeny · Jun 22, 2016

Thanks Jack,
Seeing as this thread forked out of the "believability of the reproduction illusion" thread can I ask:
- is this room treatment specifically for certain speakers?
- would it be different for live music?

In other words if a room is intelligble for live music is it fine for audio playback or does something different have to be done because of the different nature of speakers Vs live. I'm thinking of different amounts of direct sound Vs 2 diffuse sound.

One reading I came across stated this which I hadn't seen before:

"Natural sound manifests two types of sound-waves: binaurally correlated and binaurally de-correlated waves. Binaurally correlated soundwaves are highly coherent, and among other things, permit us to determine where a sound source is located. Binaurally de-correlated soundwaves are highly incoherent, and among other things, permit us to estimate our distance from the source, or the nature and size of an acoustic space. The main problem with loudspeakers is their inability to propagate sound with both wave-types. This is an engineered limitation inherent in the mechanical nature of the devices themselves. Conventional cone loudspeakers propagate longitudinal waves. Longitudinal waves are highly coherent and binaurally correlated. Resonating DML type loudspeakers are transverse wave loudspeakers. Transverse sound waves are highly incoherent and binaurally decorrelated. It is simply impossible to propagate transverse waves with a conventional loudspeaker and conversely, it is impossible to propagate longitudinal waves with a resonating panel loudspeaker. No amount of DSP, loudspeaker placement, room treatment or other adjustments will change this simple fact. To reproduce natural sound, both types of loudspeakers are required."

jkeny · Jun 22, 2016

pjwd said:
100ms is 34m if I am correct - pretty sure that figure should be 20ms for a concert hall and 8 or so in a listening room - that makes room treatments possible
Phil

Thanks Phil, I believe you are correct in your calcs!

DaveC · Jun 22, 2016

I think this is the key point:

· Ideally, what listeners should hear should be independent of the room around them...

But in post #6 we have:

Binaurally de-correlated soundwaves are highly incoherent, and among other things, permit us to estimate our distance from the source, or the nature and size of an acoustic space.

But this isn't desirable imo, as it takes away from the first quote. We want the room to get out of the way so we can hear the recording venue.

OTOH, a directive speaker aimed at the listener can be a strange experience for some people because they are used to hearing more reflections. I've heard it described as "dry" or "sounds like headphones"... it is of course possible to add reflected sound back to the room, but it should ideally be done in a way that creates longer delay times so the reflected energy doesn't hurt intelligibility. AudioKenisis has been experimenting with some different ways of doing this with their horn speakers using a totally separate speaker that is made to bounce off the walls and ceiling. In my speaker the wide band midrange driver is in a box without a back, and layers of reticulated foam can be inserted into the box to attenuate the backwave, or a back can be installed to fully absorb the backwave.

And of course the room depends on the speaker and personal preference as well. The best I've heard Focal Utopia is in Boulder Amplifier's very damped room, but in the same room Wilsons sound far too dead. And dispersion patterns can be much different too... so I'd say there is not one idea of a "great room" but it really is dependent on the speaker and personal preferences.

jkeny · Jun 22, 2016

DaveC said:
I think this is the key point:

Ideally, what listeners should hear should be independent of the room around them...

Click to expand...

But I don't think this ideal is possible to reach - we have reflected sound - so it's a case of what compromises work best, no?

But in post #6 we have:

Binaurally de-correlated soundwaves are highly incoherent, and among other things, permit us to estimate our distance from the source, or the nature and size of an acoustic space.

Click to expand...

But this isn't desirable imo, as it takes away from the first quote. We want the room to get out of the way so we can hear the recording venue.

I wondered about this quote & was it correct i.e is it the decorrelated soundwaves that give us perceptual distance?

But in this quote, Dave, I read it differently to you - I read it that the decorelated soundwaves will give us the perception of the distance WITHIN the recording - maybe this is the wrong reading?

OTOH, a directive speaker aimed at the listener can be a strange experience for some people because they are used to hearing more reflections. I've heard it described as "dry" or "sounds like headphones"... it is of course possible to add reflected sound back to the room, but it should ideally be done in a way that creates longer delay times so the reflected energy doesn't hurt intelligibility. AudioKenisis has been experimenting with some different ways of doing this with their horn speakers using a totally separate speaker that is made to bounce off the walls and ceiling. In my speaker the wide band midrange driver is in a box without a back, and layers of reticulated foam can be inserted into the box to attenuate the backwave, or a back can be installed to fully absorb the backwave.

And of course the room depends on the speaker and personal preference as well. The best I've heard Focal Utopia is in Boulder Amplifier's very damped room, but in the same room Wilsons sound far too dead. And dispersion patterns can be much different too... so I'd say there is not one idea of a "great room" but it really is dependent on the speaker and personal preferences.

David Griesinger has researched room acoustics for large & small rooms & has come up with some interesting findings - see "Optimizing loudness, clarity, and engagement in large and small spaces"

The second slide in states:

Clarity in this talk is a HIGH FREQUENCY phenomenon – 800Hz and above.

- These frequencies carry information

Envelopment and reverberation are primarily beautiful at 500Hz and below,

- with frequencies below 150Hz particularly important.

Understanding this frequency dependence is vital for understanding human hearing.

It appears to me that what is being attempted in designing a great room is this combination of clarity & envelopment - directivity being the road to clarity & diffuse soundfields being the approach to envelopment?

Tectonics have an interesting hybrid speaker targeted towards larger halls - it's a DM panel speaker with a ATM HEIL ribbon, AFAIK - don;t know what the crossover freq is - youtube videos (yes those again) give an interesting insight into their performance

Just search for Tectonic panels

JackD201 · Jun 22, 2016

jkeny said:
Thanks Jack,
Seeing as this thread forked out of the "believability of the reproduction illusion" thread can I ask:
- is this room treatment specifically for certain speakers?
- would it be different for live music?

In other words if a room is intelligble for live music is it fine for audio playback or does something different have to be done because of the different nature of speakers Vs live. I'm thinking of different amounts of direct sound Vs 2 diffuse sound.

One reading I came across stated this which I hadn't seen before:

"Natural sound manifests two types of sound-waves: binaurally correlated and binaurally de-correlated waves. Binaurally correlated soundwaves are highly coherent, and among other things, permit us to determine where a sound source is located. Binaurally de-correlated soundwaves are highly incoherent, and among other things, permit us to estimate our distance from the source, or the nature and size of an acoustic space. The main problem with loudspeakers is their inability to propagate sound with both wave-types. This is an engineered limitation inherent in the mechanical nature of the devices themselves. Conventional cone loudspeakers propagate longitudinal waves. Longitudinal waves are highly coherent and binaurally correlated. Resonating DML type loudspeakers are transverse wave loudspeakers. Transverse sound waves are highly incoherent and binaurally decorrelated. It is simply impossible to propagate transverse waves with a conventional loudspeaker and conversely, it is impossible to propagate longitudinal waves with a resonating panel loudspeaker. No amount of DSP, loudspeaker placement, room treatment or other adjustments will change this simple fact. To reproduce natural sound, both types of loudspeakers are required."

Thanks Stevie

Hi John

As for the first question, no not really. In a space that is managed properly the only difference would be the placement of some of the acoustic features relative to the radiation pattern. The determination of the treatments are typically based on percentage of surface coverage. Now some features need to be placed to deal with reflection points, others placed in areas where build ups occur and some can be placed pretty much anywhere convenient. An example of the last is big bass traps (ceiling in my case).

As for live music, when we were (oh dear) rehearsing for our family reunion with the band we hired, the band sounded great. Acoustic guitar, a sax, an electric bass with a small amp and one of those box things that are used as drums. The band members were really tripping out and said they wished there were rehearsal studios available like my room.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that instead of asking "does it sound like a ______?" one must first ask "What can I hear?". It is IMO a better starting point for evaluation because the next questions come more easily. Am I hearing smearing? If so what is being smeared and what is causing it. Same goes for masking. Are parts being drowned out? If so in what range is there excessive overhang? So on and so forth. Suckouts, lumps? Where? If you get to the point that you're not straining to hear the small stuff while at the same time you aren't getting fatigued in the process because you aren't relying on amplitude then you can say, good job, time to have some fun

As for the NXT type stuff, I've only ever really experienced it once and the results were very underwhelming (original NXT installation in a bar, must have been around 2001 or 2002). I have no idea what the author is talking about when he says transverse waves. What I do know is that localization is not just about ITD, it is also about ILD. It is the combination of the two that allow us to determine direction/location and distance/depth. ILD is indeed uncorrelated since level difference is also accompanied by frequency deviations especially in higher frequencies as air is least efficient as a medium up top. You need only one ear to sense if a sound event is near or far away as we cross reference it with our internal aural mapping. Just as objects far away gain a bluish tint using sight, highs roll off objects making sound the farther away they get. As an extreme example you only need one ear to experience the doppler effect although you might not be able to tell in what direction the object was going when using half a set of headphones. Your outer ear will allow enough hints for an actual pass. I don't see how an excited panel is much better than a conventional driver in this regard.

DaveC · Jun 22, 2016

jkeny said:
But I don't think this ideal is possible to reach - we have reflected sound - so it's a case of what compromises work best, no?

It certainly is possible, that's what happens in my room and all other good systems... not all reflected sound is bad, it depends on where, how much and how long the delay is (see Haas effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedence_effect).

For the acoustics of the venue to come through in your listening room the room can't mangle the fine detail in the recording which requires the direct sound to be more prominent... otoh, too much direct sound can seem weird because that's just not what people are acclimated to. Reflected sound with a long enough delay, and in the right quantities, can relieve the sensation of too much direct sound seeming weird while not having any significant effect on the perception of fine detail. This is why I've been designing the open back mid/treble cabinet with layers of reticulated foam that can be added depending on how much reflected sound you want to add. As long as the speakers aren't too close to the front wall the reflections are delayed enough to not mask the fine detail. If the speakers are in a smaller room you might prefer more attenuation or to block the rear-firing sound entirely. AudioKenisis has totally separate speakers just for this purpose you can add to any system...

jkeny · Jun 22, 2016

JackD201 said:
Thanks Stevie

Hi John

As for the first question, no not really. In a space that is managed properly the only difference would be the placement of some of the acoustic features relative to the radiation pattern. The determination of the treatments are typically based on percentage of surface coverage. Now some features need to be placed to deal with reflection points, others placed in areas where build ups occur and some can be placed pretty much anywhere convenient. An example of the last is big bass traps (ceiling in my case).

As for live music, when we were (oh dear) rehearsing for our family reunion with the band we hired, the band sounded great. Acoustic guitar, a sax, an electric bass with a small amp and one of those box things that are used as drums. The band members were really tripping out and said they wished there were rehearsal studios available like my room.

OK, so it seems it suits live music too, thanks!

I suppose what I'm getting at is that instead of asking "does it sound like a ______?" one must first ask "What can I hear?". It is IMO a better starting point for evaluation because the next questions come more easily. Am I hearing smearing? If so what is being smeared and what is causing it. Same goes for masking. Are parts being drowned out? If so in what range is there excessive overhang? So on and so forth. Suckouts, lumps? Where? If you get to the point that you're not straining to hear the small stuff while at the same time you aren't getting fatigued in the process because you aren't relying on amplitude then you can say, good job, time to have some fun

Right, sounds like what Frank's approach on the electronics side

As for the NXT type stuff, I've only ever really experienced it once and the results were very underwhelming (original NXT installation in a bar, must have been around 2001 or 2002). I have no idea what the author is talking about when he says transverse waves. What I do know is that localization is not just about ITD, it is also about ILD. It is the combination of the two that allow us to determine direction/location and distance/depth. ILD is indeed uncorrelated since level difference is also accompanied by frequency deviations especially in higher frequencies as air is least efficient as a medium up top. You need only one ear to sense if a sound event is near or far away as we cross reference it with our internal aural mapping. Just as objects far away gain a bluish tint using sight, highs roll off objects making sound the farther away they get. As an extreme example you only need one ear to experience the doppler effect although you might not be able to tell in what direction the object was going when using half a set of headphones. Your outer ear will allow enough hints for an actual pass. I don't see how an excited panel is much better than a conventional driver in this regard.

Good explanation, Jack, thanks. Yes, I wasn't really sure either although the Youtube videos of the Tectonic panels do show something different happening as regards filling a room with sound & less of a drop off in loudness as one goes further back from the speakers but this is mainly related to diffuse Vs direct sound, I believe

jkeny · Jun 22, 2016

DaveC said:
It certainly is possible, that's what happens in my room and all other good systems... not all reflected sound is bad, it depends on where, how much and how long the delay is (see Haas effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedence_effect).

You make my point that reflections are a part of all rooms except anechoic chambers so your "ideal room" that you stated "Ideally, what listeners should hear should be independent of the room around them..." is only possible in an anechoic chamber & these sound "weird" because they are unnatural - we don't encounter such a lack of reflections in nature - our auditory perception expects to hear reflections along with direct sound.

For the acoustics of the venue to come through in your listening room the room can't mangle the fine detail in the recording which requires the direct sound to be more prominent... otoh, too much direct sound can seem weird because that's just not what people are acclimated to. Reflected sound with a long enough delay, and in the right quantities, can relieve the sensation of too much direct sound seeming weird while not having any significant effect on the perception of fine detail. This is why I've been designing the open back mid/treble cabinet with layers of reticulated foam that can be added depending on how much reflected sound you want to add. As long as the speakers aren't too close to the front wall the reflections are delayed enough to not mask the fine detail. If the speakers are in a smaller room you might prefer more attenuation or to block the rear-firing sound entirely. AudioKenisis has totally separate speakers just for this purpose you can add to any system...

OK, so you are really saying that we NEED the reflections of the room - we expect them - we just have to make sure that they don't interfere with the intelligibility of the room. That's what I've been saying from the start - when a room is intelligible for speech, I don't tend to find that there are noticeable problems in any other areas.

jkeny · Jun 22, 2016

So my question is - seeing as DML speakers produce a wall of room reflections due to their dispersion characteristics, are room treatments not so important for these?

It gets back to what was quoted earlier - live sound in a room is comprised of direct, correlated sound & diffuse, uncorrelated sound - both together are needed for a natural sound.
Is the problem with music reproduction is that traditional directive speakers only produce correlated phase soundwaves & reflections cause comb filtering whereas DML speakers only produce non-correlated sound & miss the direct correlated element of sound needed for "naturalness"?

Is it because of the correlated phase of traditional speakers & the resultant interference characteristics that room treatment is considered such a necessity?

jkeny · Jun 23, 2016

More on DML speakers which makes one think differently about speakers & room reflections [video]https://youtu.be/tWZdPkH9IgA[/video] and an interesting experiment carried out years ago about reverberation & intelligibility

The traditional thinking on room reflections, if they are excessive, is that they mangle the intelligibility of the sound from a speaker. There are two reasons for this - traditional speakers emit phase coherent waves & when these are reflected off a flat surface & interfere with the direct wave they form a comb filter & depending on the time lag, form a reverberation interfering with the intelligibility of the sound

DML speakers are known to be relatively immune to this problem because they emit many non-coherent waves in a highly dispersive way which cause many more reflections but these don't form a comb filter because there's very little coherency between the interfering wave & direct wave. Similarly the reverberation isn't perceived as a time-delayed version of the direct wave but rather just another reflection.

That's my understanding of it & the example given in the video of a test done in a highly reverberant church using 3 sources - one of which was a very low Q system surprised everybody with the result because the low Q source was shown to be the most intelligible to listeners.

Goes to show that nothing beats a real experiment - our auditory processing is still has many surprises & more learning to be done on it which can be non-intuitive.

fas42 · Jun 23, 2016

Also, how different are people's hearing? Part of the real value of ASA, at the moment, is that it's used for diagnostic purposes, in the medical sense - some people, for various reasons, can't interpret what they hear as well as "normal" people; because the processing in their heads is not as capable of doing the job. But then, what is "normal"? Are part of the arguments and debates we're having in this forum because there is a definite range of capability for the various members - some will, literally, never "hear" what someone else does?

jkeny · Jun 23, 2016

fas42 said:
Also, how different are people's hearing? Part of the real value of ASA, at the moment, is that it's used for diagnostic purposes, in the medical sense - some people, for various reasons, can't interpret what they hear as well as "normal" people; because the processing in their heads is not as capable of doing the job. But then, what is "normal"? Are part of the arguments and debates we're having in this forum because there is a definite range of capability for the various members - some will, literally, never "hear" what someone else does?

Don't know, Frank but I wanted to keep this thread about the speaker/room interaction as I find speaker/room issues are all being interwoven in the "believability" thread

Rodney Gold · Jun 23, 2016

Intelligibility of speech and the naturalness of your voice is a part of a great room , however speech is bandwidth limited , the room might be ideal for the spoken work and really suck in the low bass.. you cannot predict that with speech alone.

At any rate , part of what makes a great room is in the ear and expectations of the beholder.

You have to bear in mind that there is no such thing as a generic "great room" , all there is , is a space in a room in which there is minimal destructive room influence at listening position.

Furthermore , there is a divide between the room itself , and the room treatments.

Some aspects of a good room would include symmetry , soundproofing , dimensions etc .. this would apply to any system in the room , then there are various treatments , which take into account the room/speaker interaction and where the listening position is.

There has to be a goal in mind and the room must be fit for purpose. By that I mean it has to be treated in accordance with your tastes of music , how you like it reproduced, what levels you play back ,what type of music you use ..and the type of gear you have.

You furthermore have to take into account that what one can do in a dedicated room to optimise sonics is way more than you can do in a general space in a house that has some hifi in it.. with a dedicated room , one can go to town..with a general space..it's different.. you have to live with what you got and treat it as best you can in a way that satisfies yourself.

fas42 · Jun 24, 2016

jkeny said:
Don't know, Frank but I wanted to keep this thread about the speaker/room interaction as I find speaker/room issues are all being interwoven in the "believability" thread

John, it's relevant in the sense that perhaps a significant number of people are disturbed by room reflections much more than everyone else, and therefore they need a "great room" for listening; just having the system work well is never going to do it for the hearing of these people. I note comments by people at times that they listen to classical performances in halls and performance venues, and they are disturbed by the acoustics of the space and/or their listening position - it's unsatisfactory, even though it's live.

And if the hearing of these people who need to have the room work for them varies between individuals, then there be no one size fits all "great room" ...

I've been in a couple of heavily treated rooms, for audio listening, and they're not for me - far too dead, a somewhat disturbing space to be in ..

jkeny · Jun 24, 2016

Rodney Gold said:
Intelligibility of speech and the naturalness of your voice is a part of a great room , however speech is bandwidth limited , the room might be ideal for the spoken work and really suck in the low bass.. you cannot predict that with speech alone.

Yes but I'm not really that hung-up on low bass - most of the music is above this frequency

At any rate , part of what makes a great room is in the ear and expectations of the beholder.

You have to bear in mind that there is no such thing as a generic "great room" , all there is , is a space in a room in which there is minimal destructive room influence at listening position.

Furthermore , there is a divide between the room itself , and the room treatments.

Some aspects of a good room would include symmetry , soundproofing , dimensions etc .. this would apply to any system in the room , then there are various treatments , which take into account the room/speaker interaction and where the listening position is.

There has to be a goal in mind and the room must be fit for purpose. By that I mean it has to be treated in accordance with your tastes of music , how you like it reproduced, what levels you play back ,what type of music you use ..and the type of gear you have.

You furthermore have to take into account that what one can do in a dedicated room to optimise sonics is way more than you can do in a general space in a house that has some hifi in it.. with a dedicated room , one can go to town..with a general space..it's different.. you have to live with what you got and treat it as best you can in a way that satisfies yourself.

Sounds to me like it's just an indulgence - a place where one can show off how extravagant & rich one is & audio is just the vehicle for this - a bit like having a room built to stage your trophies?

Sorry if this sounds harsh - it's not directed at you personally, just the concept of a "Great Room" sounds a bit like the Wizard in Oz

What does a "great room" mean?

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