Anechoic listening room?

TNT

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For 2 channels, stereo reproduction: It would probably be superior to a living room if you would allow some addition of a few extra speaker channels (at least a center and 2 back channels) with generated/simulated content. And in general, quite a lot of signal manipulation like echo etc. A lot of what we hear at home when playing 2 channel is the room - take that away and it will die completely - you would hate it. But recreating it with "DSP" using a completely dead room puts you all in a sudden in total control. This would most certainly enable benefits. It would probably need to be a cube of say 50 meter side with a mesh/open floor at half height to sit on in order to give benefits in the low en ;-)

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But if you could make an anechoic or close too room as a listening room (for loudspeakers naturally)

would that be recommended?

things could get weird!

My old home had a room that was near anechoic and I listened daily for 15 years.

I would highly recommend it.

Its not weird. The sound is focused and clean without disturbing and WEIRD reflections. My aging hearing is better for it and my new home will get the same room within a year, so I can treat my hearing with respect, once again!

Lots of misconceptions about overtreating a room. I hear it all of the time from top people. Its frustrating.. IMO, reflections as part of analyzing the estimated in room response, is trying to make something good from the bad. Maybe, AES has realized most people are not going to treat their room!

Recorded music and playback has only been around a very short time in the history of Human evolution. We evolved with reflections but not for stereo listening, its to new and in its own process of evolving.
 
Not sure if this is the right place.
appologies if so.

But if you could make an anechoic or close too room as a listening room (for loudspeakers naturally)
would that be recommended?
i cant seem to find anything, or even any "reviews" of listening to loudspeakers in an anechoic chamber?
(granted it was a limited search, easier to go to the sauce!)

have any of you experienced this?

im just really curious, music from a linear projection, with Thumpy bass?
seems very interesting.
numerous channels?

things could get weird!
It exists and in studios, it's called non environment rooms.

Speakers are flush-mounted in a massive wall, and every other surface except the floor is absorbent. I mean really absorbent, wide band 1+ meter deep, not your average 10 cm fiberglass which does nothing to lows and low mids.

In there, human comfort is provided by your self noises, triggering reflections from the floor and hard front wall. The speakers don't really interact with the room except for the floor bounce which is needed by the brain for translation. Flush-mounting also have some positives :
  • hemispherical low frequencies dispersion with no baffle-step = more headroom and lower excursions
  • if the front and side walls are correctly shaped, you can redirect most of the reflections to the very deep back wall, minimizing a lot of the first early reflections.

Modern variations, like FTB from Northward Acoustics, add carefully engineered diffusers that are acoustically not audible when playing something on the speakers (low enough reflections that are psychoacoustically masked by the direct signal) but are feedbacking enough information to noises emitted from the listening spot. It gives the brain more information about the room so you can feel comfortable in there, while still enjoying the very precise sound that no reflections rooms offer.
 
Listening to music in an anechoic environment is very interesting. You easily hear ALL the flaws
in the recording and equipment, without the room acoustics obscuring them. Many people hate this,
but I think it's great. The outdoors is a perfect anechoic chamber, though the ground relative to the
speakers still affects the bass region. A number of loudspeaker mfrs have used outdoor testing.
I like the diffused sound of a wooded environment. There is ground bounce of course but otherwise very enjoyable. A friend has a cabin with a wooded firepit area. A $100 pair of satellites and $120 sub sounds like a million bucks. One day I'll setup one of my systems there.
 
To make a truely anechoic room all room dimensions need to be larger than any typical house. No matter how heavily damped, rooms or spaces with dimensions less than 20+ meters between external surfaces in all direction will not comply with the fundamental requirement for anechoic behaviour, which is the -6dB rule across all frequencies for a doubling of distance between source (loudspeaker) and receiver (listener). Anyone who thinks they have an anechoic space can test it easily by measuring an FR, doubling the distance between source and receiver and measuring another FR. The result should be the exactly the same FR curve displaced downwards by 6dB. Prepare to be disappointed!
 
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It simply felt wrong and a bit alien. Cause first off - it's not cozy or pleasant. There's missing a bit of room-sense and you kind of feel part of an experiment, rather than listening to music for pleasure.
I much prefer a normal room with a bit of carpet, furniture and damped sealing. When things become too correct.... then it just becomes to much - in an unexplained way...
There's not much to explain - you told everything.
It's just that the sound loses most of its
attributes when spoiled by reflections.
That's why I feel always irritated when I read about 'room effects' (the same when I read 'stationary waves' inside enclosures...) which are separated from the source (speakers), oh well, that's a can of worms... it goes together with the measurements of 'sound'....
 
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The best comparison would be an outdoor concert. The difference is the s/n ratio. Even if you were the only person in attendance the missing link would still be the ambient backround noise, maybe 40db or so? So it would be clinical sounding, no airiness at all. I was at the Ontario Science Center in Toronto many years ago and they had an exhibit you could walk through which in effect was an anechoic chamber. It was a very startling, spooky experience as it seemed to suck the life out of you, as if you'd lost your breath. Weird.
 
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If a recording is captured from an outdoor concert and then its played back in a room that is well treated, We would hear the non ambient sound of that outdoor concert.
Sure, relative to a studio recording. But it's still there. Remove it and you'll know it's gone. Dependent I suppose on the ability of the mic. I would wager you'd notice the change walking into an anechoic corridor from outside.
 
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