My system is too accurate

[Bruce B]

I guess you'd rather implement your own tastes then as the labels (not all) only care about pushing volume and not quality.

That's for sure. I'm not proud of some of the albums that left here.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

That's for sure. I'm not proud of some of the albums that left here.

It is what it is and you followed their direction. I'm sure your peers have felt likewise with their projects.

 

[Orb]

The Marantz-Ken Ishiwata listening room and 1st interview about it is online (this goes back to 2011).
Interesting what they have done as a listening room.
http://www.hfxsystems.com/siteimgs/HFC_KI_01-02.pdf
http://www.hfxsystems.com/siteimgs/HFC_KI_03-04.pdf

Think it is at largest points 8.6m length by 6.5m(ish) width.

An interesting read.
Cheers
Orb

 

[hvbias]

You are correct. FR is only part of the picture. The time domain is the part many folks ignore. I think it's as important, if not more so, than FR. That's why I posted the impulse response before and after. They are interrelated. I also think gear matters.

But the low-hangin' fruit in high end audio is speaker/room interaction. It's the last food group most folks consider eating, if ever. The healthy eating analogy is apt. It's not as profitable for a food company to market whole meats/veggies than it is to sell mass produced refined grain products. In high-end audio, nobody is making a killing selling acoustical test gear, room treatments, DSP or acoustical advice. The big money is made with the electronic gear. Consequently, the gear sellers rule the roost in marketing, opinion making and dealer education.

I think this forum in particular is very well educated about room treatments and we are fortunate to have some experts that offer their knowledge for free. On other hifi message boards most people have their setups in their living room, where it is understandable that their SO's would not want these less attractive pieces hanging around.

 

[MylesBAstor]

The Marantz-Ken Ishiwata listening room and 1st interview about it is online (this goes back to 2011).
Interesting what they have done as a listening room.
http://www.hfxsystems.com/siteimgs/HFC_KI_01-02.pdf
http://www.hfxsystems.com/siteimgs/HFC_KI_03-04.pdf

Think it is at largest points 8.6m length by 6.5m(ish) width.

An interesting read.
Cheers
Orb

If only I had five hundred dollars for every one of these fancy treated rooms that sounded like s--t. (No dollar for me, want the whole shebang!)

Move over Donald.

 

[Orb]

Myles,
you suggesting the room is not good?
The room uses a combination of science and listening (considering what Ken had been involved in at Marantz he is a very good listener/lead designer).

Cheers
Orb

 

[MylesBAstor]

What I'm exhibiting is a healthy dose of skepticism. I certainly know Ken's rep but until I hear.... And I've heard far more custom designed rooms/treated rooms being disasters than successes. Remember when LEDE rooms were all the rage?

 

[microstrip]

I think this forum in particular is very well educated about room treatments and we are fortunate to have some experts that offer their knowledge for free. On other hifi message boards most people have their setups in their living room, where it is understandable that their SO's would not want these less attractive pieces hanging around.

Yes, we are fortunate to have a few experts in small room acoustics in this forum. But although they have generally been very generous spending their time in this forum , their advice is always too general to be of any practical use for the non experts. The main lesson I could get reading in these forums is that "level 1" (a nice designation for a low cost, no visit or measurements) projects are mostly gambling recipes and most of the time do more bad than good to stereo systems.

As always, being an non-expert in acoustics, but prepared to learn, I suggest people read F. Toole pages about room acoustics and treatments in his book "Sound Reproduction" to start. Just as an appetizer, go to page 480 and read about the single/double gypsum wall episode. Also remember that we have to separate what applies to stereo and to multi-channel systems.

 

[TBone]

Long known, very common problem; NOT related to tubes/SS/digital/analog or room acoustics ...

"The good sounding stuff sounds good and the great sounding stuff sounds really great, yes, but most of the stuff I like sounds not-great. Flaws really stand out, painfully."

If I had a dime for every time I've witnessed the above on many a good system ... poor mastering has long been a common complaint, and indeed it can be painful to enjoy at full resolution. The thing is, a good system SHOULD resolve poor mastering - as poor mastering.

Nothing really insightful about SH comments ...

"I honestly don't know what to do."

Geez, Steve ... easy solution: consider a spade a spade, and simply turn the volume down.

tb1

 

[rbbert]

Yes, we are fortunate to have a few experts in small room acoustics in this forum. But although they have generally been very generous spending their time in this forum , their advice is always too general to be of any practical use for the non experts. The main lesson I could get reading in these forums is that "level 1" (a nice designation for a low cost, no visit or measurements) projects are mostly gambling recipes and most of the time do more bad than good to stereo systems...

I can't agree with this. The level 1 advice is use bass traps and diffuse side wall first reflection points, and I think doing that will (essentially) never make the sound worse.

 

[mep]

How did this thread switch from the system being "too" accurate to room acoustics? I don't think your system can be "too" accurate without having really good room acoustics.

 

[TBone]

I don't think your system can be "too" accurate without having really good room acoustics.

Room acoustics can't fix poor mastering.

tb1

 

[dallasjustice]

My only point in bringing up room acoustics is to simply challenge the assumption SH makes concerning his system's accuracy. If his system sounds unpleasant, then too much accuracy is certainly not to blame. If the sound that hits his ears behaves well in both time and frequency domain, it wouldn't sound the way he describes.

 

[mep]

Room acoustics can't fix poor mastering.

tb1

Who said they could? Poor mastering should always sound like poor mastering whether your system costs $1K or $1M.

 

[microstrip]

I can't agree with this. The level 1 advice is use bass traps and diffuse side wall first reflection points, and I think doing that will (essentially) never make the sound worse.

I think you are agreeing with me when you need to write essentially between parenthesis in your sentence.
And "diffuse side wall" is not a simple concept for neophytes.

 

[mep]

My only point in bringing up room acoustics is to simply challenge the assumption SH makes concerning his system's accuracy. If his system sounds unpleasant, then too much accuracy is certainly not to blame. If the sound that hits his ears behaves well in both time and frequency domain, it wouldn't sound the way he describes.

But aren't you making the assumption that his system sounds unpleasant 100% of the time? If it sounds great 70% of the time, maybe 30% of the recordings he listens to are bad recordings.

 

[microstrip]

Room acoustics can't fix poor mastering.

tb1

Surely. But I have found that many nasty aspects I naively associate with poor recording quality or mastering of many recordings were due to improper acoustics and playback system. Once you get proper acoustics (and this means acoustics that matches your system or vice versa) the number of good sounding performances increases fantastically.

 

[rbbert]

I think you are agreeing with me when you need to write essentially between parenthesis in your sentence.
And "diffuse side wall" is not a simple concept for neophytes.

Very few things in audio or anything else are 100% certain; I just wanted to add that qualifier, but I really don't believe it. I think it would be really hard for an "audiophile" to screw this up, but experience has shown that almost anything is possible. Your original post implied that many rooms have been messed up by that level 1 treatment and I will reiterate that is very unlikely.

 

[rbbert]

Surely. But I have found that many nasty aspects I naively associate with poor recording quality or mastering of many recordings were due to improper acoustics and playback system. Once you get proper acoustics (and this means acoustics that matches your system or vice versa) the number of good sounding performances increases fantastically.

and again, even if this is true there is definitely an even larger number of poor sounding recordings that continue to sound poor, especially if we are talking about releases from the last 15 years or so.

 

[mep]

I think you are agreeing with me when you need to write essentially between parenthesis in your sentence.
And "diffuse side wall" is not a simple concept for neophytes.

I think people should learn to trust their ears a little more if they don't have the money to hire an expert to build and treat their room for them. And as we have all seen, even many who can afford to pay someone to design, build, and treat their rooms come up with sonic disasters. If you walk into your listening room and start clapping your hands as you walk around the room and all you can hear is the sound of your clapping ringing everywhere, that's a bad thing. I think it's easier to underdamp a room vice overdampening a room. Just as tight is tight and too tight is broke, if you have managed to kill off all of your high frequency extension and your sound is now dull, you have managed to overdamp the room. If your system throws a nice soundstage and the frequency response is good from top to bottom and your bass sounds deep and extended with good articulation/definition of the bass notes and part of the frequency response doesn't stick out like a sore thumb over the other parts, you're probably in good shape.

I sometimes wonder if some people can ever enjoy their system without worrying about some aspect of performance.