Ah yeah he wanted to burn me at the stake for not believing in room treatment haha (exaggerating). Actually I have read some of his articles and I am in line with a lot of his thinking. I just disagree with him about room treatment. And I mean you always have to consider the source - the guy makes his living off of treatment of course he is going to say you need it. But personally I think he needs to adjust those speakers before you even think about trying to mess with the room.
Yes and mine is even better - people said so 🙂
Schubert, Barron, Seraphim, Olive and Toole all measured detection thresholds for lateral reflections for different types of signals. You propably have the data (Olive et al. 1989).
What I don't understand, if it's not about preference but about detection thresholds then you should be a big fan of maximum absorption like shown in the picture. This "reflection free zone" approach tries to minimize reflection levels. Porous absorbers are pretty effective at doing so. They're also broadband when thick enough (6").
Best, Markus
I can only offer my subjective experience. And my personal experience with that same speaker layout and the same sized speakers is that they should be equally spaced and have the early reflections removed where ever possible. I just take it as common sense that early reflections are a dominant artifact or one that is not simply ignored. There is no way for that speaker in it's current location to sound like anything except a speaker behind a couch.
The speakers must also have wide dispersion properties well into the high frequencies. At this point the direct sound of the 4 main speakers swamps out the late reflections and the Haas effect takes over.
My thinking is that you need to make the room act as normal as a room with reflections would have acted in the last 500 years or so. And if you use modern technology to absorb reflections it creates a more difficult environment to ignore with weird uneven FR on the reflections. At best you can have a dead room where you will kill intelligibility.
Unfortunately literature suggests that it's more complex. Different signals need different reflections (level, direction, delay, spectrum, quantity) to help intelligebility.
Fact is that we know little about sound perception (how works summing localization?) and all the conclusions on the speaker-room-system floating around are highly speculative.
Best, Markus
Fact is that we know little about sound perception (how works summing localization?) and all the conclusions on the speaker-room-system floating around are highly speculative.
Best, Markus
Well I know when I simulate reflections I get more intelligability. But I guess that's just me and my system. I think that some people do have insight into the way we percieve sound. I think mixing engineers toy around with these parameters on a daily basis simulating what they think an ideal room should sound like.
Summing localization I believe makes perfect sense when you compare sounds created by human technology to natural sounds. You will never encounter two identical sound sources spread across a distance in front of you in nature unless the sound source is coming from in front of you for a simple example.
Summing localization I believe makes perfect sense when you compare sounds created by human technology to natural sounds. You will never encounter two identical sound sources spread across a distance in front of you in nature unless the sound source is coming from in front of you for a simple example.
All correct, but you missed one thing. The aff axis response needs to be well down from the direct response, i.e. the speaker needs to be directional. One does not want wide directivity in a small room. Narrow directivity dictates large. The narrower the directivity the better the speaker works in a small room. The bigger the speaker the narrower and lower you can get this kind of directivity. With a small speaker all you can get is omni - at its best - or garbage, which is more typical.
So what more a cardiod in your opinion? I am loving these half garbage/half omni speakers more than any other speaker I have heard and I can only really deduce it down to it being closer to omni directional from around 40Hz - 15kHz without any real falloff I can detect with the ear or the mics I have been using.
Also consider I am using 2 more speakers to lengthen the coverage from a mere 90degrees to somewhere close to 360 degrees - at least in terms of perception. Basically I can move my head around and while imagery can shift a bit frequency response stays about the same - if you ignore proximity/boundry effects which actually seems to add to the realism.
For well mixed shows it's almost as if you can stick your ear really close to the screen and hear the sound coming out of there mouths. I am most likely doing this on a smaller scale than you could tolerate if you thought the size of his screen was small haha.
Also consider I am using 2 more speakers to lengthen the coverage from a mere 90degrees to somewhere close to 360 degrees - at least in terms of perception. Basically I can move my head around and while imagery can shift a bit frequency response stays about the same - if you ignore proximity/boundry effects which actually seems to add to the realism.
For well mixed shows it's almost as if you can stick your ear really close to the screen and hear the sound coming out of there mouths. I am most likely doing this on a smaller scale than you could tolerate if you thought the size of his screen was small haha.
We all have our approaches. Everyone whose heard mine wants to do it my way. Must be something there.
And Markus - we've been over all this before. This is not the place to re-hash it because it doesn't fit.
And Markus - we've been over all this before. This is not the place to re-hash it because it doesn't fit.
Earl,
a little reality check every now and then must be allowed. Otherwise "approaches" soon look like facts although they are scientifically unproven and nothing more than believes.
Best, Markus
a little reality check every now and then must be allowed. Otherwise "approaches" soon look like facts although they are scientifically unproven and nothing more than believes.
Best, Markus
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It seems the discussion has gone from stuffing loudspeaker boxes to address backwaves to 'stuffing' rooms with sound treatments to address early reflections. Perhaps an order of magnitude or two change in dimension. And perhaps a new thread is in order to further critique Ethan Winer's living room.
Or continue the room discussioin over here:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/121385-loudspeakers-room-system.html
Or continue the room discussioin over here:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/121385-loudspeakers-room-system.html
Yes, they "toy around", in the rooms they work in. In most cases these rooms follow some kind of RFZ design. If mixing and mastering engineers are the people that create the "original" then we consequently would need to match our listening spaces to "the" standard control room - whatever that might be...
If you're interested in a deeper look into things then this is a good start: http://www.hauptmikrofon.de/theile/ON_THE_LOCALISATION_english.pdf
This is basically where the discussion within the audio community stopped nearly 3 decades ago.
Best, Markus
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There has been work done of late on the interaction of loudspeakers in rooms.
Toole picked up the mantle from Theil. Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms: Amazon.ca: Floyd Toole: Books
There are also many others working in this area.
Towards Objective Measurements of Sound - The Classic Speaker Pages Discussion Forums
Toole picked up the mantle from Theil. Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms: Amazon.ca: Floyd Toole: Books
There are also many others working in this area.
Towards Objective Measurements of Sound - The Classic Speaker Pages Discussion Forums
Markus - I completely agree. As a scientist I always question my assumptions. When other people stop praising my system then I'll know I've done something wrong or somewhere someone else is doing something better. That hasn't happened yet. I have no doubt that someday it will (or maybe I'll change mine and make it even better - who knows). But I'm content for now.
skeptic43,
everything Toole presents is a review of papers from the last few decades. His book is "just" a blown up version of his scientific review (http://harman.com/EN-US/OurCompany/Technologyleadership/Documents/Scientific Publications/13686.pdf). Although I highly recommend it to everyone.
His own words: "Although the interactions of loudspeakers and listeners in small rooms are becoming clearer, there are still gaps in our understanding. A number of these are identified and are good opportunities for future research."
There just has been no real research on home sound reproduction that is conclusive. If you look up Naqvi then you'll find some interesting stuff. But he didn't do any new investigations. And again, his papers are not conclusive.
Best, Markus
everything Toole presents is a review of papers from the last few decades. His book is "just" a blown up version of his scientific review (http://harman.com/EN-US/OurCompany/Technologyleadership/Documents/Scientific Publications/13686.pdf). Although I highly recommend it to everyone.
His own words: "Although the interactions of loudspeakers and listeners in small rooms are becoming clearer, there are still gaps in our understanding. A number of these are identified and are good opportunities for future research."
There just has been no real research on home sound reproduction that is conclusive. If you look up Naqvi then you'll find some interesting stuff. But he didn't do any new investigations. And again, his papers are not conclusive.
Best, Markus
Markus and all
I would agree that there is no way to "prove" what is correct as regards things like early reflections etc. because there isn't a single question or goal that one can ask. Hence there can't be a definitive answer. While I agree with Floyds book ALMOST 100% there are a few points that I take exception to. But I would say this - if there is anything in Floyds book that you disagree with then you'd better have a very good foundation for this difference or you may as well just adapt what he says as "fact". The idea that one can assert "in my experience" as justification to throw out Floyds position is rather weak.
Is the topic here really "enclosure stuffing"? Wow are we off track!
I would agree that there is no way to "prove" what is correct as regards things like early reflections etc. because there isn't a single question or goal that one can ask. Hence there can't be a definitive answer. While I agree with Floyds book ALMOST 100% there are a few points that I take exception to. But I would say this - if there is anything in Floyds book that you disagree with then you'd better have a very good foundation for this difference or you may as well just adapt what he says as "fact". The idea that one can assert "in my experience" as justification to throw out Floyds position is rather weak.
Is the topic here really "enclosure stuffing"? Wow are we off track!
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what do you suggest is the mechanism which makes absorption selective with respect to frequency ?
i can only think of 2:
1 - thickness of the foam used ( 1/4 wavelength thick or more for good absorption ) to ensure high air speed within the foam ( so that displacement maximum is located somewhere in the foam, which is always the case if your entire speaker is plugged with foam of course ).
2 - stiffness of the foam ( stuffing having zero stiffness can probably couple to the moving air at low frequencies reducing air speed relative to the stuffing and therefore reducing absorption )
but assuming the foam is not flexible and the entire volume of the speaker is plugged with it - why would it be less effective at lower frequencies ?
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