Reviewer rooms

[bonzo75]

I just measured mine and am 14 Db

WOW!

Does door open and close change this, if so by how much

 

[andromedaaudio]

I just measured mine and am 14 Db

I think my room is around 20-25 db on average although i have higher noise in the low freq , my clio gear shows a db versus freq graph over the whole audible bandwith , i assume most simpler measuring gear only state a certain db noise level at a certain freq ,still usable off course.
Next question do you hear transformerhum from the power amp / noise coming from the tweeter / midranges , i know i do amps powered on with no music playing

 

[KeithR]

I think criticizing reviewers for not having man caves is silly.

Many of us want to have hifi in our living rooms to share with others. And yes, there are good sounding living rooms (see Albert Porter). I often find that dedicated rooms are over damped like studios as audiophiles become addicted to black backgrounds, lack of noise, etc.

 

[KeithR]

fwiw - Disney Hall has a 24-28dbs ambient noise level.

 

[rbbert]

I just measured mine and am 14 Db

weighted (and if so, how) or unweighted? I would think weighting the background noise level to one's hearing is most appropriate?

 

[microstrip]

I think my room is around 20-25 db on average although i have higher noise in the low freq , my clio gear shows a db versus freq graph over the whole audible bandwith , i assume most simpler measuring gear only state a certain db noise level at a certain freq ,still usable off course.
Next question do you hear transformerhum / noise coming from the tweeter / midranges , i know i do

Soundmeters usually give you results in dBA, that uses an weighting factor derived from the relative loudness perceived by the human ear, and frequently used for audio purposes. However the ITU-R 468 weighting would be better suited to check audiophile rooms - IMHO it would be much more sensitive to tube hiss!

The bare results shown by spectral analyzers do not display any weighting and can not be compared with these measurements.

 

[Steve Williams]

weighted (and if so, how) or unweighted? I would think weighting the background noise level to one's hearing is most appropriate?

Dba

 

[asiufy]

I think criticizing reviewers for not having man caves is silly.

Many of us want to have hifi in our living rooms to share with others. And yes, there are good sounding living rooms (see Albert Porter). I often find that dedicated rooms are over damped like studios as audiophiles become addicted to black backgrounds, lack of noise, etc.

+1

Specially with electronics, gear is gear, and should sound good regardless. If you can improve things by tweaking, fine, but it should sound good in a normal room.

 

[Rodney Gold]

Treating and dedicating a room and making it silent does not mean it has to be dead.. I too hate dead rooms .. they suck the life out of music and rob it of ambient scale and grandeur. You tune a room to taste in this arena with a combination of absorption and diffusion. Clutter is not the way to do this , apart from which it does nothing for bass..(except make a whole lot of stuff resonate in sympathy .. you have a chorus of clutter humming its merry tune in tune with your music)

 

[Bruce B]

**Time taken for sound to decay 60dB (T60) should be between 0.2s and 0.5s from 250Hz to 4kHz.

**T20 and T30 should be within +/- 25% from 250Hz to 4kHz when using one third octave smoothed bands.

(Taken from Acoustic Frontiers)

 

[Steve Williams]

My T60 is 0.4

 

[bonzo75]

Joel's room (6 moon) is pretty nice with RT of 0.3

 

[Al M.]

+1

Specially with electronics, gear is gear, and should sound good regardless. If you can improve things by tweaking, fine, but it should sound good in a normal room.

Not necessarily. In my previously untreated room I had a hard time hearing any significant difference between a Wadia 12 DAC (from 1993) and my current Berkeley Alpha DAC 2. After the first round of room treatments, differences in resolution and soundstaging were easily evident, which led me to purchase the Berkeley DAC. Further gains in resolution were closely related with additional room treatment, including suppressing plate resonances of the many glass windows in my room with window plugs.

 

[Jim Smith]

IMO, the dBA scale is relatively useless if you want to find out how isolated your room is to outside noise. dBA intentionally rolls off the bass sensitivity.

If you use dBC, now you will be measuring how much low frequency sound is entering your room. This can be especially important in areas where traffic noise can can intrude.

Warning - your measurements won't be nearly as low...

 

[audioblazer]

http://www.hifinews.co.uk/news/article/meet-the-team;-ken-kessler/9827

http://www.hifinews.co.uk/news/article/meet-the-team;-paul-miller/9952

http://gizmodo.com/5213042/why-we-need-audiophiles

Borrowed from Mike B's thread on Audioshark

http://www.audioshark.org/showthread.php?t=11511&p=196042&viewfull=1#post196042

John Bamford's room is good on the hifi news site.

Mike Malinowski of 6moons
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/theroom/1.html

Jacob Heilbrunn of the absolute sound
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/state-of-the-art-in-dc/

 

[bonzo75]

Mike Malinowski of 6moons
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/theroom/1.html

Jacob Heilbrunn of the absolute sound
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/state-of-the-art-in-dc/

Yes, Jacob was posted here. Joel of 6 moons is also quite good

 

[Jazzhead]

Another well chronicled , solid effort ... Ed Monkus from Dagogo .

http://www.dagogo.com/rebuilding-my-music-room-part-1

http://www.dagogo.com/rebuilding-music-room-part-2

 

[Kingsrule]

This is more like it ...... http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/state-of-the-art-in-dc/ ...... Jacob Heilbrunn 's room .

Pretty but all the gear is between the speakers so really not so great......

 

[stehno]

I built my room using the same principles and then some .. I would expect any serious reviewer to have a similar room. When there is nothing playing , my room is 19dba .. dont underestimate the value of a quiet room.

I curious what constitutes a "serious reviewer". Anybody in particular?

Also, I'm all for aesthestics and I'm all for having a quiet room. But in the grander scheme of things, what do these really have to do with a system's actual performance level? IOW, a given system's ability to generate a believable level of musicality?

Here's why I ask. I attest there exists volumes (upon volumes) of the recording hall's ambient information in even some of the most poorly engineered recordings. If a pb system was indeed sufficiently capturing and reproducing this volumous recording hall ambient info, then whatever quirks are going on in a reasonable listening room should easily being overridden by the presentation being generated via the speakers. Shouldn't it?

And if that's not the case with a given system, then isn't spending an insurmoutnable time and resources on the room really just dealing with the effects rather than the cause?

Does it not stand to reason that the more of a recording that a system is able to sufficiently reproduce, the less the room should matter? Assuming of course that we're talking reasonable and not unreasonable rooms to start with. And if one boasts so much about performance of "the room" is that not really an indication of their system's significant performance limitations?

If nothing else, on its face, does that not sound reasonable and logical?

 

[dctom]

Roy Gregory's room. might well be different now as this is a few years old.

http://www.theaudiobeat.com/blog/roys_room.htm