Reviewer rooms

[853guy]

Just a small, experiential detour.

I once was asked to mix a few songs in a room I wasn’t familiar with as it was more convenient for the band to oversee proceedings. I was able to take my ATC’s in, but of course the sound was very different to my room which I had become accustomed to, in that it was larger, with very few acoustic treatments, and two very large windows. It was pretty terrible. And given there’d be no chance for me to change anything about the room’s acoustics I simply had to accept I’d be stuck with it and have to get on with it.

I’d say it took me about a day to acclimatise and be able to listen “around” the room - i.e. understand it’s impact on the sound and mix as I normally would. At a guess, I’d say it was much more efficient for to use my brain’s ability to identify the sonic signature of the room and deal with it perceptually than it would have been for me to try and treat every peak and null from axial, tangential and oblique modes via diffraction/diffusion/absorbtion. In terms of time, expenditure and effort, the latter would probably still be ongoing.

 

[Rodney Gold]

The room is everything..I agree ..

I went all in with a fully treated room and still tweak it.. Real tangible and audible results...
As with all hifi , rooms are a matter of taste and one tunes accordingly..
I have seen so many seriously good systems ruined by a poor room..

My room is 6m x 8m x 2.4m , it is ultra quiet .. a bit drier than neutral in decay.. most of the large scale treatment is hidden
Very low bass is corrected with DSP.. then for midbase I use bass trapping and the rest of the spectrum is dealt with by absorbers and diffusers ..
It is designed to be able to handle music wound up to lifelike and higher levels.. and Do bass..and I mean ceiling cracking stuff

Looking at the pics of the reviewers rooms is a bit dismaying .. but then its probably more realistic in representations of normal rooms most audiophiles have ....

 

[bonzo75]

my experience as far as speaker performance and the room is that everything matters. the smallest things can make significant differences. the larger and more dynamic the speaker and room are the more is required to harness it. and unless you attack literally everything you won't know what the room and speakers can accomplish.

so when I see a cluttered room for me it's not that it won't sound good, it's that the actual fine tuning of the room and speakers is likely not to have occurred. so it's all left to chance and so the feedback on the speaker is, like has been said, for entertainment purposes only.

a neat, tidy and relatively organized room is no proof of anything either. god knows my room was neat and tidy and sucked in many ways for years. so it's a combination of things including credibility over time from the person/reviewer.

Either way, I don't see how your speaker can be reviewed in some of the rooms in this link.

 

[JackD201]

Just a small, experiential detour.

I once was asked to mix a few songs in a room I wasn’t familiar with as it was more convenient for the band to oversee proceedings. I was able to take my ATC’s in, but of course the sound was very different to my room which I had become accustomed to, in that it was larger, with very few acoustic treatments, and two very large windows. It was pretty terrible. And given there’d be no chance for me to change anything about the room’s acoustics I simply had to accept I’d be stuck with it and have to get on with it.

I’d say it took me about a day to acclimatise and be able to listen “around” the room - i.e. understand it’s impact on the sound and mix as I normally would. At a guess, I’d say it was much more efficient for to use my brain’s ability to identify the sonic signature of the room and deal with it perceptually than it would have been for me to try and treat every peak and null from axial, tangential and oblique modes via diffraction/diffusion/absorbtion. In terms of time, expenditure and effort, the latter would probably still be ongoing.

Listening "around" rooms is something top mixing engineers do routinely as they go from facility to facility. There is no single criteria for a good control room ST rating aside. Same goes for any domestic environment. Familiarity with the environment IS a factor. As for big speakers in small rooms, generally I would agree. My point is simply that pictures are not blue prints and construction details. One should not be so quick to judge.

 

[twitch]

sonically speaking, clutter is often a good thing.

so that's what DIY diffusers are all about !

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Either way, I don't see how your speaker can be reviewed in some of the rooms in this link.

no doubt, speakers with lots of driver surface need to be able to breathe......and the large speaker magic comes from note decay and development....which needs space to bloom.

OTOH i also agree with Jack that it's a mistake to judge how rooms might sound from pictures, however tempting it is (and I've been guilty of that in the past).

 

[Mike Lavigne]

so that's what DIY diffusers are all about !

well.....clutter can be better than bare.....but it's also different from 'right'. can it be cluttered and right? sure, but the odds are not in favor of that. unless you work hard to get to 'right' you will never know.

 

[twitch]

no doubt, speakers with lots of driver surface need to be able to breathe......and the large speaker magic comes from note decay and development....which needs space to bloom.

OTOH i also agree with Jack that it's a mistake to judge how rooms might sound from pictures, however tempting it is (and I've been guilty of that in the past).

no mistake to judge how Maggies or Logans would sound by the pictures of these rooms ............ like 'chit' ! None of these rooms portrayed have a prayer of doing a di-pole speaker justice !

 

[twitch]

well.....clutter can better than bare.....but it's also different from 'right'. can it be cluttered and right? sure, but the odds are not in favor of that. unless you work hard to get to 'right' you will never know.

WTF ??? .........Ok, now I know I had one too many Manhattans tonite !

 

[Mike Lavigne]

WTF ??? .........Ok, now I know I had one too many Manhattans tonite !

sorry.....is my use of the word 'right' somehow causing confusion? or something else? i apologize if I've caused any issues. would you like me to expand or explain further?

 

[microstrip]

(...) iMHO, the room is the most important component of the whole system.(...)

I quoted yours, I could have quoted any of those who will repeat your statement. This is the kind of statement that is true and not true - in the end it is like what happened first, the egg or the chicken. In sound reproduction there is not a most important element in the sense of the room or any type of equipment. The most important element is the listener and, naturally, his preferences will dictate what is the most important component. IMHO, all else is just forum sword play.

 

[Gregadd]

Fremer does!

Effectively? The Magic Q5 was measured in Fremers' driveway.

 

[microstrip]

(...)
OTOH i also agree with Jack that it's a mistake to judge how rooms might sound from pictures, however tempting it is (...)

+1!

 

[JackD201]

(and I've been guilty of that in the past).

So have I

 

[twitch]

sorry.....is my use of the word 'right' somehow causing confusion? or something else? i apologize if I've caused any issues. would you like me to expand or explain further?

LOL Mike .......... I trust you're feeding my sarcasm with a bit of your own !!

 

[twitch]

+1!

wrong.......I stand by post #28

 

[microstrip]

wrong.......I stand by post #28

IMHO what is wrong is using a particular type of speaker to contest a general comment that only exposed a trend, not an universal rule.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

IN the beginning reviewers had access to the kind of gears that we could only dream about. This has changed in a big way .. Many here have rooms and gears that surpass most reviewers'. Some audiophiles here and elsewhere have taken the notion of a dedicated room to its ultimate expression ... As can be seen from these pictures, those reviewers have not followed suit. Knowing what we know now about rooms we can only wish their rooms is decent sounding ... Those with great rooms know the care, time, knowledge and pain that must be taken to bring a room to its ultimate. They also know what a great room brings to the reproduction of music in their listening place. It also happens that many of these people are gentlemen and humble souls .. Thus the warnings about not being quick to judge a room just on looks alone and they have a point ... a very small point.. Some rooms in spite of their odd to unappealing appearances may sound decent but how many on the WBF are willing to bet that the rooms we see in these pictures will bring the best from serious speakers as well as the listening rooms of people like Jack D201, MikeL, Rodney Gold, Steve Williams and others? Not many ...

 

[twitch]

IMHO what is wrong is using a particular type of speaker to contest a general comment that only exposed a trend, not an universal rule.

I merely pointed out a particular type of speaker that I could easily see would not work well in those rooms and thus showed that in 'some' cases you can 'judge the book by the cover' !

 

[Bruce B]

The thing that acousticians and and everyone in the industry preaches to us is symmetry in a room. You can certainly see that in pictures. If you don't have this to begin with, then everything else is just a band-aid.

And about recording/mixing in a room... the reason you listen in the nearfield to be begin with is to take the room out of the equation!