Mike Lavigne’s room and neutrality

[Ron Resnick]

I’ve reformatted my thread text.
Maybe people other than me can now understand it.

It is now much easier to read, Marc!

 

[Folsom]

Not for me. I can't stand when you press return instead of letting the forum text wrap itself. I literally don't read Marc's posts because of that. Once in a great while I might, but usually I just pass over replies that have hit return and skipped to the next line prematurely.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I am grateful that Marc has stopped using his completely made-up abbreviations!

 

[PeterA]

Not for me. I can't stand when you press return instead of letting the forum text wrap itself. I literally don't read Marc's posts because of that. Once in a great while I might, but usually I just pass over replies that have hit return and skipped to the next line prematurely.

I agree that it is better if the text goes to the end of the line and wraps. However, I think the earlier suggestions were about Marc using paragraphs and spaces, not about the length of the written line.

 

[BruceD]

I am grateful that Marc has stopped using his completely made-up abbreviations!

Yes I think he got that trait from The Sunday Times Flats to Let Columns!

Sorry Marc--back in my Box

BruceD

 

[andromedaaudio]

I m sure i didnt have the nicest room back in Amsterdam.
But neutral freq response yes , im sure they re not a lot of audiophiles, who actually know what the response is of their speakers at the listening spot

 

[spiritofmusic]

You guys are missing SO much.
My messages are SO full of hidden meaning since you can’t follow them.
Like the Tears For Fears song “Is This The Start Of The Breakdown?”.

 

[bonzo75]

I actually read it in reverse and it had the devil's message

 

[kodomo]

Is there a rt60 graph for Mike Lavigne's room? That gives a clue about the rooms neutrality.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Well Ked, the devil has all the best tunes, whether in reverse or not.

 

[spiritofmusic]

I’m regretting the word “neutral” in my thread title, it’s thrown the debate before it’s even started.

 

[cjfrbw]

There are lots of articles about the madness of acoustical science, and there are many critics of almost ALL venues no matter how expensive. I don't really know how the architects are selected for these enormous projects, but very few of them (including Disney Hall @ 274 million in 2003, possibly more than half a billion in today's dollars) ever have gotten universal praise. They have many detractors, although Disney did make adjustments possible with it's huge floating panel technology.

Mikel's room, professionally designed and built, has been extensively altered from it's original vision.

Over the years, I think I have read countless tales of professionally built audio rooms that were, often but not always, bitter disappointments to the clients. I have also heard great high end systems in modestly treated rooms that did not seem ideal, and yet the sound was great. It is really a crap shoot. A "professionally" designed and built room is no guarantee of positive results for various audiophile clients.

I am fortunate that my listening room is inherently "good sounding". However, that is one of the reasons I wanted this house. The room is trapezoidal cross section, with the speakers on the short wall, and a dog leg that acts as kind of an ambient mixing chamber. It seems to work out very well with my dipoles, but was no brainstorm on my part except identifying the internal shape of the space.

Boston Symphony Hall is cited as having has some mysterious magic acoustic alchemy with its plaster walls, that just about all listeners like. I think they have had some trouble in renovations, because they don't really want to do anything that detracts from the original recipe while updating.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/09/29/good-vibrations

 

[spiritofmusic]

CJ, like you I got “lucky” on my room. I realised in a flash things were going to be good when even before I set up the system, speech was so intelligible up there.

What I’ve found fascinating is that upon hitting my final stride on system optimisation last week, my system is displaying a dramatic extra level of transparency, evenness, consistency.

Indeed a certain cloying colouration that I’ve struggled for a decade with my Zus has just gone.

My system is primarily the same as it’s ever been, only the room and the way I set the Zus up within the room have changed.

So if I revisit the topic of my thread, I do believe my room is solely responsible for the opening up in performance of my components, things indeed do sound more “neutral” yet there is no absence of the character unique to the gear/gear combination.

And Ron likely might have come to the same conclusions as he did had Mike in his selfsame room been listening to an alternative big spkr system eg Zellaton Statements or VS Universe, or big Apogee Full Ranges, or big AG Trios.

Maybe even with a different tt, Garrard 301.

The point I’m making, and I may very well be incorrect is that Mike’s room will make the most of any component, but I’m not sure if this has truly dictated Mike’s final choice because his exposure to those components and initial like for them is in places other than that room.

 

[kodomo]

Just get REW and a calibrated mic (even a umik-1, a usb mic) and start measuring! You can tune your room by ear, but you need references that you can build upon. Here is an article from gearslutz to show you what to look for in your measurments: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/469574-measuring-room-acoustics.html

 

[thedudeabides]

"Neutral" means what you think it should sound like in real life.

The word is by its very nature, subjective.

In real life? I assume you mean live music.

Amplified or not? What venue? Where are you sitting? What are the acoustics? How acute is your hearing? etc., etc., etc.

 

[Bruce B]

Is there a rt60 graph for Mike Lavigne's room? That gives a clue about the rooms neutrality.

Mine is 0.31s from 250Hz - 4k

 

[Hi-FiGuy]

Just get REW and a calibrated mic (even a umik-1, a usb mic) and start measuring! You can tune your room by ear, but you need references that you can build upon. Here is an article from gearslutz to show you what to look for in your measurments: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/469574-measuring-room-acoustics.html

You said "just" ......

 

[morricab]

CJ, like you I got “lucky” on my room. I realised in a flash things were going to be good when even before I set up the system, speech was so intelligible up there.

What I’ve found fascinating is that upon hitting my final stride on system optimisation last week, my system is displaying a dramatic extra level of transparency, evenness, consistency.

Indeed a certain cloying colouration that I’ve struggled for a decade with my Zus has just gone.

My system is primarily the same as it’s ever been, only the room and the way I set the Zus up within the room have changed.

So if I revisit the topic of my thread, I do believe my room is solely responsible for the opening up in performance of my components, things indeed do sound more “neutral” yet there is no absence of the character unique to the gear/gear combination.

And Ron likely might have come to the same conclusions as he did had Mike in his selfsame room been listening to an alternative big spkr system eg Zellaton Statements or VS Universe, or big Apogee Full Ranges, or big AG Trios.

Maybe even with a different tt, Garrard 301.

The point I’m making, and I may very well be incorrect is that Mike’s room will make the most of any component, but I’m not sure if this has truly dictated Mike’s final choice because his exposure to those components and initial like for them is in places other than that room.

I too have been "lucky" with my rooms...although I am beginning to suspect that a decent room is not as rare as people think...at least here in Europe where we tend to have brick or concrete walls.

 

[dcathro]

I too have been "lucky" with my rooms...although I am beginning to suspect that a decent room is not as rare as people think...at least here in Europe where we tend to have brick or concrete walls.

I lived in the UK for 16 years, and have been back in Australia the last 11 years. 90% of houses built in Australia are lightweight stud construction, and in my opinion suck for audio compared with solid brick construction.

 

[spiritofmusic]

My room will never amount to Mike’s room, and I can only imagine the step up his environment provides.

But I do feel at the next level down ie my “here’s a potential space, here’s £x0000, give me a room”, I have indeed got extremely lucky.

Indeed, I cannot imagine the same sum spent on gear for my old room being anywhere near as optimal as the sound I’m currently getting.

Mike of course has had the additional bonus of gear that’s both been tested together, and tested in his room, so that it’s four intersecting epiphanies, ie sounds exemplary, sounds exemplary together, sounds exemplary together in his room, sounds exemplary together in his room to his ears.

Whether his self same system would knock everyone else’s socks off in their particular rooms is another question.