Cause or not, that statement is simply untrue. Home sizes and room sizes have grown over time, and families have gotten smaller.
You're right, a waveguide does not "replace" room treatment. Good judgment replaces room mutilation. A properly-designed loudspeaker with a good waveguide is far preferable to room mutilation.
Depends on the hobby.
If your hobby is "enjoy music," then what you write makes perfect sense.
If your hobby, like many, is "get on a hamster wheel and buy a bunch of 'audio' crap," then yeah you need to get with the times. 🙂
Cool, thanks for the link!
As far as I can tell, the only serious area of debate (without taking sides as to which is "correct") seems to be the desirability of near-sidewall reflections.
Tomatoes/ Tomatos
And I prefer to listen to the recording, not the room. So, we differ in what we like, and how we like to listen. That is not uncommon even among members of the little audio club I belong to. Oh, just while I am here, and perhaps have your attention, I very much enjoyed reading your two part essay on the use of multiple subs (and where to place them)...and thank-YOU very much for that.
And I prefer to listen to the recording, not the room. So, we differ in what we like, and how we like to listen. That is not uncommon even among members of the little audio club I belong to. Oh, just while I am here, and perhaps have your attention, I very much enjoyed reading your two part essay on the use of multiple subs (and where to place them)...and thank-YOU very much for that.
You can have acoustic treatment and spaciousness if you make your panel adequately. IF you make your panel adequately.
What is your experience with treating your room. If you dont put some sort of material on top of your panels, you will make your room sound too dead, but I have my room pretty much covered with absorption, and my room is still pretty lively.
Anyways, My experience have been that adding room treatment was a MAJOR improvement. nothing subtle, major.
But I want to have my first reflection panel to absorb as much as possible the sound. so I leave those without kraft paper which acts like a lowpass around 500hz for all my bass traps and basically any panel you make which are not reflecting directly to your listening position must has kraft paper or tin foil to reflect highs.
Doing so, my room is lively but not boomy, silent, ect.
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Wow a lot of ignorant and condescending comments about room treatment from people who should know better (and some that might know better but admission would be counter to their agenda / product?).
A properly treated room will give you all the "spaciousness" you crave. As Scott L said in a properly treated room with a good recording will project an illusion of a boundless and 3-dimensional sound with pin-point imaging, natural decay etc. There is no sense of a "dead" sound if you treat the room properly.
A waveguide is better than none (for imaging in a typical non-treated room) but it doesn't really compare to properly implemented room treatment and trapping
If you have a dedicated room and you can accommodate room treatment there is no reason why you shouldn't do it and many reasons why you should.
A properly treated room will give you all the "spaciousness" you crave. As Scott L said in a properly treated room with a good recording will project an illusion of a boundless and 3-dimensional sound with pin-point imaging, natural decay etc. There is no sense of a "dead" sound if you treat the room properly.
A waveguide is better than none (for imaging in a typical non-treated room) but it doesn't really compare to properly implemented room treatment and trapping
If you have a dedicated room and you can accommodate room treatment there is no reason why you shouldn't do it and many reasons why you should.
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This is indeed the area of largest disagreement. Floyd Toole on one side - that early reflections are good - and Dave Greisinger, Dr. Blauert and I on the side that says that these early reflections degrade imaging.
There are no absorption panels in my rooms at all. Don't need them, don't want them. The walls are damped structurally, but nothing at HFs.
I simply do not accept this although I do agree that good room design is essential. Its just that HF damping is not part of my technique.
Correctly implemented room treatment remedies room induced distortions over a broad band of frequencies - and done properly the effect is profound. But its not something most people can do unless they have a dedicated room. So for them, the second best option is a waveguide / large midwoofer / multiple subs.
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On the dipole thing, might be that I got lucky 5TH. I don't experience the problems outlined by you with their use in my room. My room is fairly spartan and lively. The tweeter is a heil so it might be considered "waveguided". No joke that I can pretty much walk up to either left or right speaker without totally losing the image. The soundstage is that wide between them. No "head in vice" here at all .. believe it or not.
Haven't had the pleasure of hearing Earl's speakers. They are most likely wonderful ... but I am quite happy with what I've got going here right now as well. I'm not easily pleased either.
Haven't had the pleasure of hearing Earl's speakers. They are most likely wonderful ... but I am quite happy with what I've got going here right now as well. I'm not easily pleased either.
I have a dedicated room and I have designed several others. I would never use "panels" or any form of HF absorption in the room. I do control the early reflections with the loudspeaker design however. Its not "second best" option it is the best approach.
"The effect is profound" - another of those phases that we just don't hear enough of 🙄 No data or theory, of coarse, just typical accolades of ones own designs based on ones own "unbiased" perceptions.
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Theory is one thing, but real world experiment is still paramount when it comes to sound reproduction.
Toole did both, and his approach differs from yours (early reflexions, broader directivity, smooth but not necessarily constant power response, no mention of diffraction being a factor per se).
Are you serious?
data or theory about acoustic panels.?
you doubt if they make a difference?
Doubting every single thing is the moto I guess.
You can find before and after treatment measurments all over the net which shows clear improvements of bass absorption, decay, ect.
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Earl isn't talking about data on being able to design an acoustic panel and therefore knowing what it will do if introduced into the room and this I suppose is a big issue within this thread currently. I'm surprised that it hasn't really come up yet, but no one has actually tried to define what the room is and I think this is actually half of the point.
We all have different rooms, different sizes, different shapes, different types of furnishings, varying amounts of clutter, different ideas on what constitutes the perfect décor.
One persons room could be hardwood flooring, some solid wooden furniture, painted plastered walls, a few stained glass windows and not much else in sight. Another persons room could be thick piled carnet, sheepskin rug next to the fire, plush fabric covered sofas, a tapestry wall hanging and curtains.
Both of these would have significantly different properties concerning how they sound, but neither would be considered treated.
It is also quite possible that for those of you who have treated your dedicated rooms that they actually fall well within what one would consider a normal untreated room.
It is also clear from most peoples perspective, and at least the ideas they have floating around in their heads with regards to improving their sound system, that room treatment just doesn't fit in and why should it? No one actually wants to have to treat their room and in most situations it is simply not an option.
Still that is sort of besides the point, because even if they could add in room treatment all of this is tending towards the same thing, all rooms, both treated and untreated, are different and so far no one has actually tried to define what the perfect listening room actually should be. Maybe this is also besides the point because it's never going to happen, at least not in the vast majority of peoples homes and with some of the people living in them having a great passion for sound reproduction.
From this point of view does it not make sense to try and use loudspeakers that are actually the most tolerant of the room in which they are placed?
And to those of you who are saying you want to listen to the music and not listen to the room, what do you think of listening to music on headphones? They are the epitome of room exclusion.
We all have different rooms, different sizes, different shapes, different types of furnishings, varying amounts of clutter, different ideas on what constitutes the perfect décor.
One persons room could be hardwood flooring, some solid wooden furniture, painted plastered walls, a few stained glass windows and not much else in sight. Another persons room could be thick piled carnet, sheepskin rug next to the fire, plush fabric covered sofas, a tapestry wall hanging and curtains.
Both of these would have significantly different properties concerning how they sound, but neither would be considered treated.
It is also quite possible that for those of you who have treated your dedicated rooms that they actually fall well within what one would consider a normal untreated room.
It is also clear from most peoples perspective, and at least the ideas they have floating around in their heads with regards to improving their sound system, that room treatment just doesn't fit in and why should it? No one actually wants to have to treat their room and in most situations it is simply not an option.
Still that is sort of besides the point, because even if they could add in room treatment all of this is tending towards the same thing, all rooms, both treated and untreated, are different and so far no one has actually tried to define what the perfect listening room actually should be. Maybe this is also besides the point because it's never going to happen, at least not in the vast majority of peoples homes and with some of the people living in them having a great passion for sound reproduction.
From this point of view does it not make sense to try and use loudspeakers that are actually the most tolerant of the room in which they are placed?
And to those of you who are saying you want to listen to the music and not listen to the room, what do you think of listening to music on headphones? They are the epitome of room exclusion.
Pretty much all rooms induce a large amount of distortion on the sound reaching your ears regardless of layout, dimensions, finishes, furnishings etc.
The point of treatment (bass traps, broadband absorbers, diffusors etc) is to significantly reduce these distortions, not remove the room altogether.
And the data proves that it works very well.
No doubt that it does. As Dr Geddes said, first reflections should be absorbed or diffused but after 10ms reflections are desirable because they add spaciousness to the sound.
That is why i asked for pictures of treated room because looking at what couple of guys here are saying - i get the impression that their rooms are like studio dead room. Maybe it is just lightly damped and I am wrong.
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I don't think anyone here is recreating a studio dead room. Sadly I no longer have a dedicated room but when I did it was comprised of corner broadband absorbers (for the troublesome 80hz-300hz range), side panels at first reflection points, a thick rug on the floor and a panel behind the chair for flutter echo. And a few diffusors.
The trick is broadband absorption which requires thick and dense panels with varying porosity.
Using things like curtains and piddly little foam panels does more harm than good.
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