The original question was about a music listening/living room. Monteverdi wants to know:
FWIW, built-in speakers were somewhat popular in the early days of stereo, but lost popularity in the late 60s-70s and almost disappeared from the home market.
What advantages do built in speakers have for control rooms that would not translate well to the home environment?
FWIW, built-in speakers were somewhat popular in the early days of stereo, but lost popularity in the late 60s-70s and almost disappeared from the home market.
What advantages do built in speakers have for control rooms that would not translate well to the home environment?
That question has been answered already.
But it's discussed in Dr Toole's book in chapter 12.5. We can go over that or what other scientists have to say about monitoring and acoustic treatment.
As I understand it, but I can be wrong, in a nutshell: Good sound stats with good speakers. Good speakers have a flat on axis and somewhat downs loping off axis responce. Spinorama is the term used. Good speakers only need modest acoustic treatment. This means that in a normal living room, you don't need any extra treatment. The curtains and furniture are enough. If you want a dedicated listening room with little other furniture, like a ht, control room or mastering room, you need a bit of treatment.
If you don't have good speakers, no amount of acoustic treatment can make it sound good. But it does improve it a lot. Most speakers used in control rooms are not good, so enormous amounts of treatment are necessary to make it sound decent.
Spinorama is a term Toole uses for polar plots of loudspeakers and als much I appreciate the scientific intentions and background he still wants to sell loudspeakers. I completely agree with him that off-axis sound quality is essential for listening in a room especially if one want to achieve a wide "sweet spot" listening area. The issue I have is that early reflections are merged with the direct sound if there is not enough time delay and level attenuation. DI or bipolar speakers minimize the radiation to the sides but are more dependent on front wall distance (I had Apogee before).
p.s.: I agree: no room treatment or DSP ("room correction") can improve a speaker
Perhaps that depends on what you mean by "improve". All speakers sound better in a good room. Almost no speaker sounds good in a bad room. Having dragged speaker systems around to a wide variety of venues in Europe and North America, I can say with confidence that the room makes a huge difference.
And although room correction might not be able to improve a speaker, it can sure help the sound at the listening positions. Better speakers in better rooms should be the starting point, though. There's only so much bad you can fix.
And although room correction might not be able to improve a speaker, it can sure help the sound at the listening positions. Better speakers in better rooms should be the starting point, though. There's only so much bad you can fix.
No, not really. They can be bad, but they don't have to be. They can add pleasantly to the sense of space. But late reflection might be better at that and easier to get right.
IME it's the strong early reflections from hard, flat surfaces that don't sound good. Break them up and attenuate them some and they help with a sense of width.
IME it's the strong early reflections from hard, flat surfaces that don't sound good. Break them up and attenuate them some and they help with a sense of width.
Which is what springs to my mind when the phrase is used. I suspect dispersion, which amounts to turning them into late reflections, is better and easier than absorption, not least because it preserves more of the spectral content.
The most extreme architectural design using diffusors I saw is the French pavilion for the 2017 biennale in Venice.
Studio Venezia - Domus
YouTube
A little bit more than I want to do and these rooms are not symmetric so not optimal for stereo imaging. But the scale of these diffusors would allow them to work in a wide frequency spectrum and that makes me think what is possible compared to standard diffusors. I wonder that this is just empirical build and test or is there any way to predict the sonic effects of these masses.
Studio Venezia - Domus
YouTube
A little bit more than I want to do and these rooms are not symmetric so not optimal for stereo imaging. But the scale of these diffusors would allow them to work in a wide frequency spectrum and that makes me think what is possible compared to standard diffusors. I wonder that this is just empirical build and test or is there any way to predict the sonic effects of these masses.
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Hello All,
HT is another world. Add enough speakers and electronic signal processing. Also add room acoustic treatment or not and your ears and brain will accommodate and listen past the room and experience what is processed into program material. This is not my room or wall of vinyl LP’s. If it is your room and your world okay then.
Room types;
Neutral designed to minimize / control early reflections rooms, rooms for analysis.
Not so neutral room, rooms designed to work with and add to the space and soundstage of the speakers and program material. This is completely different than letting the program material be in charge. Sometimes the program material is a little weak in leadership. Knowing about lateral reflections and the beamwidth / aiming of your speakers are critical in optimizing your desired room effects and listening experience.
Speaker Types;
You have your cones and domes, big and little. Large cones have narrowing beamwidth. You can do some beamwidth aiming to control lateral reflections with larger cone speakers. Small bookshelf type speakers have a much wider beamwidth and aim is much less doable. The beamwidth splashes all around the room, without too much control. People, right away, want to start placing acoustic treatments to fix it.
Then you have Controled Directivity speakers (controlled beamwidth). The interaction between CD speakers and room can be highly prescribed with tightly controlled results. Then add acoustic treatments to taste.
Real world rooms plus real world speakers; (Tell us about your room.)
My room is a short shoe box shape. The speakers are constantly morphing.
15 inch woofers (large cones), 10 inch mids (large cones) and JBL 2432H compression Drivers with JBL PT H1010HF-1 100 X 100 degree waveguides. These speakers are very amiable. As the spacing between the speakers is adjusted and the toe-in angle is dialed you can palpate the sound stage and space change in the room.
Thanks DT
HT is another world. Add enough speakers and electronic signal processing. Also add room acoustic treatment or not and your ears and brain will accommodate and listen past the room and experience what is processed into program material. This is not my room or wall of vinyl LP’s. If it is your room and your world okay then.
Room types;
Neutral designed to minimize / control early reflections rooms, rooms for analysis.
Not so neutral room, rooms designed to work with and add to the space and soundstage of the speakers and program material. This is completely different than letting the program material be in charge. Sometimes the program material is a little weak in leadership. Knowing about lateral reflections and the beamwidth / aiming of your speakers are critical in optimizing your desired room effects and listening experience.
Speaker Types;
You have your cones and domes, big and little. Large cones have narrowing beamwidth. You can do some beamwidth aiming to control lateral reflections with larger cone speakers. Small bookshelf type speakers have a much wider beamwidth and aim is much less doable. The beamwidth splashes all around the room, without too much control. People, right away, want to start placing acoustic treatments to fix it.
Then you have Controled Directivity speakers (controlled beamwidth). The interaction between CD speakers and room can be highly prescribed with tightly controlled results. Then add acoustic treatments to taste.
Real world rooms plus real world speakers; (Tell us about your room.)
My room is a short shoe box shape. The speakers are constantly morphing.
15 inch woofers (large cones), 10 inch mids (large cones) and JBL 2432H compression Drivers with JBL PT H1010HF-1 100 X 100 degree waveguides. These speakers are very amiable. As the spacing between the speakers is adjusted and the toe-in angle is dialed you can palpate the sound stage and space change in the room.
Thanks DT
Nah, it can be very cheap and easy to build, if you go with step diffusors rather than trying to do the more complex well type diffusors (that don't really work any better, just easier to predict and design). See the nice designs by Perry (Sound Diffusers 101: Free Designs for DIY Diffuser Panels) or if you're really after easy and fast (and in USA near some big box hardware stores) my Depot Diffusors (Making easy DIY sound Diffuser panels, step by step).
The trick might be to make something with appearance that significant others are willing to have in a shared room. I can't even use my diffusor design in our little living room because it would visually overwhelm and there's not anywhere they could be. But I have a setup with books on one wall and delayed ambience tweeters and directional speakers so that the most dominating reflections at least are quite delayed -- helps quite a bit.
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Where is the scientific proof that neutral rooms or rooms for analysis need to minimize/control early reflections?
If I look, I find something different. But I haven't read everything.
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