I guess that should be house hunting priority No. 1. That and a great kitchen...
Sublime Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
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And outdoors? If I’m judging the “naturalness” of sound I think outdoors has to be the reference. If I walk out of my kitchen door to the deck, it is clear instantly the sound inside is much more reverberant. Finger snaps and hand claps inside have some ring and decay. In my music room before the remodel, the decay was clearly audible. Stand out in my yard, not so much. In my music room now the sound of a hand clap or finger snap is clear and clean without any ringing.
So to me, as I try to interpret this "natural" standard, I think I have some idea of what is intended, but getting there is not so clear. If you limit echo and ringing (highly desirable IMO for clean, organized music reproduction) you're going to give up a little bit of "liveliness". Obviously you can go too far.
And I'm sure the iterations could be nearly infinite... if I make a change to my room, do I need to then make a change to speaker position to balance what that change does to the "energy" in the room, i.e. there could become a real chicken/egg dichotomy. As Peter has described, this has been a lengthy process for him. Patience of Job as they say.
My bedroom is laminated wood flooring and concrete wall. My bathroom is marble wall and flooring. When I speak, the tone is very different in bathroom from bedroom. Obviously, the sound in bathroom is more reverberated because of harder reflections from marble. But which is more natural? To be honest, I found the sounds in both bedroom and bathroom is natural but which is more correct? So is it a question of preference?
If one builds a room from scratch, how does one decide to choose the materials for wall and floor? It can’t be just decided by the word “natural”.
If one builds a room from scratch, how does one decide to choose the materials for wall and floor? It can’t be just decided by the word “natural”.
We went through the process in your room Anthony and balanced it out even with all the glass. Starting from scratch you have many options and yes maybe natural isn't a good descriptor for rooms. We were in a very expensive high end "designer" and perfect measuring room together, if you think of that as unnatural then natural will make more sense.
david
Imo, there is no 'absolute natural' or 'standardized natural' in audio, but there is in the real world.
Consider that almost every concert hall sounds different - put the same orchestra, musicians, conductor and music in any one and the sound is at least slightly different, sometimes more different. Natural is our experience of live music in the world, not necessarily outside although a concert outside is an example of it. Here, some of us are talking about what we use as a reference or guide for assesing the sound of our stereos.
Not sure if this is a good example or not: we've read about changes Peter made to his room set-up and small changes to his equipment with the goal of achieving 'a more natural sound' for the music he plays. For simplicity let's say his room before those changes was state A and after the changes state B. Imagine a quartett could fit in his room. Would the quartett's music sound more natural played in his room under state B than the room of state A? I would argue no - the sound will be equally natural in both cases. Both instances present live acoustic music we hear directly. We might hear some difference between the performances given that there were tube traps in A and not in B, and the listening couch in a slightly different position.
If there was a recording of the A performance and the B performance, which would sound more natural when reproduced in Peter's room under state A or state B. Assuming Peter achieved his goal with the changes he made, both performances will sound more natural in the state B room. And the reproduction hopefully will let us hear the slight differences between performance A and performance B.
When talking about reproduction, "naturalness" (apologies to the nominalists) is always relative. The live acoustic music goal can not be achieved through reproduction if for no other reason than not being physically present at the live event. No one knows the live acoustic music experience better than you - you have that experience. And you are the gauge of how relatively close your own system comes to that if you chose it as your reference. And if the assessment is in terms of more or less, you are the only one that needs to be satisfied with the degree of natural sound you achieve.
With low ceilings, you should consider diffusor panels on the ceiling or switching to line source speakers. You are almost certainly getting a lot of ceiling reflections that mess with the sound rather detrimentally. I was able to make tall electrostats sound fantastic in a small, rectangular room with no treatments simply because the dispersion pattern is more controlled with a dipole line source.
I don't know when you guys last moved in and out of a an empty house/room. Voice in an empty room is quite unnatural, I once scared myself because of the echo. It sounds proper with furnishing.
Now, voice from our mouth has a different dispersion to speakers, so for certain type of speakers, rooms furnished for our voice can be the equivalent of unfurnished/partially furnished and sound unnatural.
Different dispersions have different requirements.
Sorry. I just thought I would put in a perspective to keep the discussion alive
Now, voice from our mouth has a different dispersion to speakers, so for certain type of speakers, rooms furnished for our voice can be the equivalent of unfurnished/partially furnished and sound unnatural.
Different dispersions have different requirements.
Sorry. I just thought I would put in a perspective to keep the discussion alive
You scared yourself, Ked? Now you know how the rest of us feel Lol.
We enter a subjective area where each of us has its preferences. Although I have been in treated rooms that sound great, I always feel uncomfortable in such rooms. Perhaps not for sound, the appearance is enough. For me they are nice for sometime, but not for long time or leisure listening. The only nice acoustic panel is an hidden panel that I do not see! I need furniture, confortable seating, paintings on the wall and some controlled disorder in order to listen to music at home.
Please note that I have the same feeling towards asseptic white kitchens with plenty of chrome that look like a chemical laboratory - for me a kitchen needs wood, stone, sun and color.
The equipment will not fit in the room - it moves inside and from the room on wheeled platforms, sometimes with the help of a crane. But yes, I have shown pictures of the room several times in WBF, when I found them useful to illustrate points being discussed.
We enter a subjective area where each of us has its preferences. Although I have been in treated rooms that sound great, I always feel uncomfortable in such rooms. Perhaps not for sound, the appearance is enough. For me they are nice for sometime, but not for long time or leisure listening. The only nice acoustic panel is an hidden panel that I do not see! I need furniture, confortable seating, paintings on the wall and some controlled disorder in order to listen to music at home.
Please note that I have the same feeling towards asseptic white kitchens with plenty of chrome that look like a chemical laboratory - for me a kitchen needs wood, stone, sun and color.
It's basically a subjective world Francisco starting with the type of music we like. The entire passion for sound is irrational IMO but most of us including myself can't help ourselves but that doesn't mean there's no objectivity involved. I prefer the the same type of environments you like too and generally prefer dealing with the room using standard items when possible and if there's a build needed using construction materials that I can blend in over commercial acoustic products. Some of it is for aesthetic reasons but for the most part I've come across very few commercial acoustics that don't have a strong signature or even work well, most of them actually do a lot of harm.
The rooms I mentioned above were objectively superior, the speaker and positioning wasn't critical and you had great sound almost anywhere in the room. One room was completely empty and the other fully furnished with heavy furnishings but in both instances the sound was free and balanced.
david
We enter a subjective area where each of us has its preferences. Although I have been in treated rooms that sound great, I always feel uncomfortable in such rooms. Perhaps not for sound, the appearance is enough. For me they are nice for sometime, but not for long time or leisure listening. The only nice acoustic panel is an hidden panel that I do not see! I need furniture, confortable seating, paintings on the wall and some controlled disorder in order to listen to music at home.
Please note that I have the same feeling towards asseptic white kitchens with plenty of chrome that look like a chemical laboratory - for me a kitchen needs wood, stone, sun and color.
Fransisco, I assume you listen to music at home. We are discussing room acoustics, among other things, here, and you described the type of room you like, even claiming to "need" certain things. That is why I asked you to post a photo of your room and assumed you would be happy to do so to illustrate the point you were making. If you have done it in the past, but do not see the need or do not want to share photos now, could you at least share a link to refresh my memory, so I do not have to search the site for these photos you posted, or imagine what you are talking about? I think it would be helpful.
Of course, if you feel uncomfortable sharing images, I understand that. I am just looking for some clarity to better understand what you mean in your posts. You wrote here that you do live in a world of facts and evidence and do not dwell in the imagination or something. That is fine. That is why I would like to see your room to have a better idea of your reference and the basis on which you write your posts.
Thank you for your opinion Brad. I will not mount diffusor panels on my ceiling, nor am I interested in changing speakers right now. I've made a lot of changes lately and am very pleased with the sound of my system in my room. I congratulate you for making tall speakers sound fantastic in your small room without using treatments. That is wonderful.
If people don't want to show pics, videos in the dark are fine
According to the hand clapping test, you don't need diffusor panels on your ceiling, and I have not otherwise heard adverse ceiling effects in your room. On the other hand, I absolutely needed diffusor panels on my ceiling, even though my room is (at least?) one foot taller. Each room is different.
understand i'm not suggesting (1) that Peter's room needs ceiling treatment, or (2) that even if it could benefit from ceiling treatment that Peter should choose to do it. i celebrate that Peter is feeling positive about the changes he has made and where his sound is at.
but, that said; i would suggest that unless you test treating ceiling reflections, you really cannot know whether it can make a positive difference. nothing wrong with hand clapping as a quick test for gross obvious issues, but fine tuning a room goes way beyond that method as proof of concept.
you don't know what you don't know.
for me; it took hearing my same speakers and electronics in a different room for the lights to come on realizing what should be happening. up to that point i figured the effects of treatment would be negligible. i was very wrong. some understanding of what i did not know was the key event.
and many of the areas on the ceiling i ended up treating were very non-intuitive. those treatments were highly interactive. meaning that treating one spot cleaned up things to where treating other spots then mattered. more information led me to more solutions. of course; it's not my living room so i was not inhibited by anyone else's sense of aesthetics. and since i push the SPL's more than most the degree of effect is greater.
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Peter,
This is a picture I have shown sometime ago. Add some Ekorne Reno chairs, a work wood office table and an office chair , many shelves with CDs and books, several big amplifiers and paintings on the wall. The turntable and Metronomes stay on the right, usually a cumulative length of more than two tens of meters of cables spray on the floor ...
The second picture shows my future listening space - it was completely emptied, every wall was put down, being rebuilt now. The ceiling is tilted, perhaps I will put much less toe-in in the speakers!
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