The Perfect Room

[christoffe]

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=2421.msg25316#msg25316

This notes by Peter are leading us into a blind alley and we do not get the best out of our system, to listen to pure music.

In general we need a basis, a reference configuration of our listening room with the speakers.   
We need a balance with
-   the direct sound from the loudspeakers
-   the discrete early reflections from the floor, ceiling and side walls
-   and the reverberation time
etc.,etc.

Nice to read is the homepage of:
http://www.soundfountain.com/amb/speaker.html
 and amongst many other literature
“The complete Guide to High –End Audio” by Robert Harley, chapter 4

With this reference configuration of our SYSTEM (room and speakers) we are in a position to compare ……. , ONLY THEN we hear the pure sound of the music in OUR room!!!
The room must sound right at first, and so I can hear the differences of any audio software and components etc.

Joachim

PS
http://greenmountainaudio.com/room-acoustics/how-to-have-the-best-sound-in-your-room.html
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/rooms.htm
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-BKLmRBEhla1/learn/learningcenter/home/speakers_roomacoustics.html
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?9457-new-home-for-my-Magico-Q1
http://www.ultraaudio.com/index.php/features-menu/opinion-menu/312-music-vault-2-0-and-the-value-of-a-reference-listening-room

[boleary]

Joachim, thanks for the links. I've been pouring over them and they are mostly great reading. In terms of Peter's thoughts on room accoustics/treatments all I can say is I very much appreciate his pioneering spirit and willingness to go against traditional thinking. Out of that spirit came the NOS1 which, I hope we all agree,  sounds so incredible.

On the other hand, my very modest system was taken into another league entirely when I began experimenting with my home-made accoustic panels (3 and 6 lb per square inch, rigid fiberglass, 2 x 4' panels) Last weekend I had a member of the Philadelphia Area Audio Group over, he's a very big "progressive rock" guy. I played "Heart of the Sunrise" from Yes's Fragile album. The guy went banannas. Said he never heard the track sound so good with either vinyl or cd anywhere before. He particularly liked the vocals which emerge out of the music several minutes into the track (W7 OS of course).  My version was an early 90's red book cd ripped to the hard drive. This is a guy who has spent his "audio career" listening to systems that cost 10 to 20 times more than my system. I know he would not have thought so highly of the sound without the accoustic panels in the room!

[BertD]

With this reference configuration of our SYSTEM (room and speakers) we are in a position to compare ……. , ONLY THEN we hear the pure sound of the music in OUR room!!!

Exactly, your room or everybody else’s own room because that is their reference. If your room is perfect and another one is not then the sound will probably be unbearable as it does not represent your own listening room.

Sure the room is important but since it is a personal reference then the differences made to the equipment in THAT room should be noticeable just the same so let’s agree that I do not agree with you here.

Never the less it is very much advisable to have a perfect room as it will only make the sound better and less distracting in the end...

Bert

[fas42]

I will just note here, so not to offend anyone any more than necessary, that I'm 100% on Peter's side. He is not the "only" one that thinks that way, we may dispute who was first or the best ways to get the "good stuff", but that's another ball game ...

One way of looking at it, is that the sound when it emerges from the speaker drivers has to be "right". If it's not, then you need to start playing games with room acoustics, etc, etc, etc, to "improve" things  ...

Frank

[christoffe]

I will just note here, so not to offend anyone any more than necessary, that I'm 100% on Peter's side. He is not the "only" one that thinks that way, we may dispute who was first or the best ways to get the "good stuff", but that's another ball game ...

One way of looking at it, is that the sound when it emerges from the speaker drivers has to be "right". If it's not, then you need to start playing games with room acoustics, etc, etc, etc, to "improve" things  ...
Frank

Hi Frank and Peter,

let us answer the question of the original source of the music! The music is recorded in a studio or opera etc.

A picture of a new concert hall in Copenhagen see:
http://admin.medite-europe.com/imagebank/59.jpg

The sound in the studio or concert hall must sound right at first,
and then the sound engineers are mixing the record in their studio,
and in their studio the sound must be right too.
We hear the result of the recording engineers at our speaker drivers via our frontend.

Let us assume our listening room is ultra modern and all walls around are glas walls, no curtains around. Then I promise ............... .

Another link:
http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_info/studio_design/

Joachim

[fas42]

Joachim, what you say makes sense, if looked at at a simple physical level. However, what I've personally found is that the ear/brain is a very powerful processing engine, an ultra sophisticated DSP in its own right. And that it can adjust the sound so that it all makes sense, subjectively compensate for peculiarities, anomalies, even complete "wrongness" of the listening environment, such that it all comes together in your mind.

But, it can only do this if the sound image projected from the speakers is clean enough, low enough in distortion. All the detail in the recording has be extracted and reproduced, without too severe a film or veil then added on by the reproduction components. If the workload for the brain to decode the musical picture is too great, because these conditions are not met, then the soundstaging needs assistance - by, playing with the room acoustics as you suggest.

For most people this would probably need to be experienced for a decent period of time to really make sense: many years ago a keen audiophile came and listened to a just reasonable version of what I'm talking about. For the first hour or so he was quite fidgety, the sound didn't make sense to him, he was trying to judge it by the normal thinking. "Your room is completely wrong, you've got glass down one side, wood shelving on the other!" Finally, it clicked, and he relaxed, went with the flow and enjoyed himself ...

Frank

[PeterSt]

We can also try to put this in another way :

When things sound bad/wrong etc. etc., the very first thing "we" learned is : it will be the room. It is our very first huge excuse.

Never EVER I have seen this proven to be correct.

Now let's keep in mind : everybody reading this will not agree. I know that, and it's okay. However :

When you really want to proceed in audio you must NOT come up with this excuse. It will hold you back forever.
Of course, the room sizes must be adequate. The room is not allowed to inherently ring.

It is also good to keep in mind that without exception I ran into, we audiophiles ALWAYS blame the room. This makes anyone coming up with proof by means of tests and papers and articles etc. etc. right.
And still, when this is the attitude you will get nowhere.

Again without exception, when I run into a situation where things don't sound right and the room is blamed, I *will* find something which just is wrong and it is not the room.
In 100% cases it went like that.

Those who followed the "First Windows 8 experience" topic can see how I for the very first time in over 5 years "had to" touch my speakers because perceivedly they could be better positioned. It helped.
So it helped. But nothing was right and it can't be made right, and all I did was violating my own rule. read through that topic and see the exact sequence of happenings, and how I started to violate my own rule because I wanted a way out.

It is the wrong thing to do, because you will NOT get there; When things are wrong they are wrong and you are not to solve that by tweaking the room. But ... do so, and know that you will have destroyed forever.

We audiophiles are so freaking ignorant on these subjects, that a person listening to my "system" was able to tell me that I should move my speakers such and so and whatnot, while I could exactly point out what was wrong, how it should be, how it can't be so that moving speakers will help "because" etc., while out of all this same person knows my sound from earlier times (which was just W7).

Do we get it now ? Even with person to person speaking, me knowing exactly what I am doing, STILL we ignorant pricks blame the room. And so I am not going to convince you by means of posting in a forum.

Sure the room is important but since it is a personal reference then the differences made to the equipment in THAT room should be noticeable just the same so let’s agree that I do not agree with you here.

A bit hard to see the merits of this, but I think I know what Bert means. But do notice please : Bert is a person who always "fights" with speakers and get good sound from them. Obvious, when it is your work and goal for life. But the same Bert blamed his room wherever he could when something was not right or optimal in the filter department, up to not-so working out designs. I didn't count, but it can well have happened 50 times (I am serious) that something did not work because of "the room" according to Bert, who indeed does not have an optimal listening room. As many times (same 50) I said "no !" and while in half of the times we could find a  culprit, the other half could be split in an "undoable for this design" or "see ? all works now".

It can not be explained, other than trying to point at reality;
Bert's current speakers (see his avatar for one of them) were designed with a "no limits" idea. They should exhibit the best of the very best, and size of them nor room where they could end up in later should be limiting. And mind you, part of this is 4 15" woofers per side, so don't think this is not challenging for rooms;

It may not be of the most importance, but the design includes things which have not been done before, but which "things" exactly would eliminate the room influence. Good or bad. Positioning them right in a corner when you like - it doesn't matter a thing. Point is :

This was all well thought over, and while other designs needed attention to every nasty corner of every nasty room, this time we could 100% see it would work and no prerequisites would be needed.
And it just worked.
You want to play at 130dBSPL ? go ahead. No room will react to it. Even Bert's own room is right and stays so at any level.


It may be hard to see the relation with the subject, but what I tried to point out with the above, is that it is ALL about the source. Source = Audio System and System does not include the room. For the final result yes, but the audio system does not include the room. How could it, when made by manufacturers.

How could it ? Ha ! By making it independent of it. This is what I explicitly do with XHighEnd, this is what I more explicitly *can* do with the NOS1 DAC, this is what we do with very neutral GainClones and this is what can be done by well designed speakers.

I'm fairly sure I can convince you of this :
Wrongly designed audio gear will exhibit its wrongness. I'm sure we all think it is hard to point out how by means of a forum post, but outside of sheer distortion it is easy : it buzzes because it can't keep its things together, so to speak. But the buzzing are standing waves (trust me !) in all frequencies, and now what would happen when the audio manufacturer first decorates his room to in finesse, and then listens to his product. It may sound great.
Remove the decoration and it sounds awful. Ah. Why ? well because it is an awful product. Make it a good product and the decoration is not needed.

If you don't believe the above you are an ignorant audiophile. Why ? well, because a couple of manufacturers who go for the best only AND created that, tell you.

So how ignorant can an audiophile be ? How much can he be stuck in old school thinking ?


All right. Through this post I only wanted to make clear that I don't agree with a couple of things, but that it is not wrong to have another idea than I do, and that it certainly is not so that you are not allowed to vent those ideas. Only two or three will agree with it anyway.

Regards,
Peter


PS: I have glass on four sides. On estimate this is 65% of all the "wall" surface.

[PeterSt]

This is a bit for fun, and you may have seen the picture before, but this is how you should deal with rooms.
I can't say this was the optimal solution, but I played like this for half a year (before I got myself real horns) and the improvement was inmense.
Mind the hood lacking on the mid range, which was on purpose.

If you want diffuse bombastic sound, remove those hoods.
Or treat the room.
Hmm ...
What about making the sound more directional so you can eliminate the room better.

Not that anyone should follow this stupid setup, but I do say that this is another way of looking at the problem; Realize what's actually going on and how it can be solved.

This is nothing about liking horns. It is about accuracy and how it can be achieved. Razor sharp sound which is not harsh because another few things are good (*have* to be good) at the same time. Have that wrong and find yourself now buying filtering cables and such. Also wrong.

Ok, stop.

[christoffe]

PS: I have glass on four sides. On estimate this is 65% of all the "wall" surface.

Yes, your room makes me wonder! The sound is phantastic!!!
The only explanation I have, is the enormous kitchen area with all the "filled glasses" on the back side of the room.

Joachim

[fas42]

Of course, the other thing that is always blamed is the recording -- how many times when Status Quo did poorly in a showroom or elsewhere the host would sniff and effectively say, "Well, if you choose to use rubbish like that for testing systems what else could you expect ?!" ...  

A nice rundown, Peter ...

Frank

[fas42]

Yes, your room makes me wonder! The sound is phantastic!!!
The only explanation I have, is the enormous kitchen area with all the "filled glasses" on the back side of the room.

Joachim

You're doing it again, relating the quality of the sound to the nature of the room!

Until people grasp the concept that it all depends on the quality of the sound at the point where it exits the speaker driver the going round and round and round in circles will continue ...  , 

Frank

[PeterSt]

The only explanation I have, is the enormous kitchen area with all the "filled glasses" on the back side of the room.

Now we're talking !
haha

Thank you Joachim.
But as you can tell yourself, when you heard it this was dozens of XXHighEnd versions ago, the NOS1-USB improved by miles over the original NOS1 and then there's still this little tweak I told you about which again matters vastly.

[PeterSt]

PS:

And then to think that my "system" in its current state it to-tal-ly blown away when I would replace my current horns with the speakers from Bert I referred to in the previous post from today. Really, I can't describe that.

But luckily I forgot the sound of them. And I will never visit Bert anymore unless he promises to not play any music.

[PeterSt]

I hope this is related enough to link it in : Re: Anyone needing support ? go to X-Fi.

I just read it again myself, and now I have tears in my eyes ...

[christoffe]

I hope this is related enough to link it in : Re: Anyone needing support ? go to X-Fi.

I just read it again myself, and now I have tears in my eyes ...

Hi Peter,

Just a small teasing  with your future speakers.

You wrote:
When things sound bad/wrong etc. etc., the very first thing "we" learned is : it will be the room. It is our very first huge excuse.
----------------

You will see the efforts you and BertD have to manage to  get the right sound from your speakers in your room.
And one request: Please do not shut down your server during the  first extended listening sessions with the new horns.

Joachim

[Jud]

I like to write long comments, but let me see how brief I can be here:

- If your sound is screwed up at a prior point, there is almost nothing you can do at any future point to save it.  ("Almost" because digital grants some slight exceptions to the rule, as in async USB helping to lower incoming jitter by setting the data to a new clock.)  This includes the room.

- The brain is a wonderful thing and is capable of subtracting room effects to let you know when your system is producing good sound.

- If your room is so bad that it makes truly great sound coming from your system lose its magic, then what are you doing living there?  (I'm actually more than half serious here - it was certainly a big consideration for me when my wife and I were going over the plans for our house.)

[Scroobius]

Some interesting comments here about the importance of the room.

My room(s) have a particular problem. Essentially they are three rooms in one. So my speakers share the bass between 3 rooms (simplistically speaking) but the treble is beamed down to the listening position without significant attenuation) anyway whatever the reason there is (or was) a big suck out in the upper bass region in my room resulting in a thin technical sound. I have heard transmission line speakers in my room reduced to tears (ok their owners) because they sound so anemic in the bass and upper bass region. Not at all to be expected of Tx line speakers. And then back in their own room sounding wonderful. As stated elsewhere I was extremely lucky to have speakers that (uniquely?) allowed me to tweak the positioning to boost the bass and upper bass output. I don't see how changes in the electronics could have reduced those effects significantly without tone controls (uurrgh).

BUT on the other hand there are substantial room effects here that were reduced big time by my XX NOS front end - I used to get a big standing wave down the length of my room with my old system but with NOS1 that has completely disappeared the sound is very even now walking down the length of the room and from side to side (even with W8).  So it is not straightforward.

I think Peter is absolutely correct when he says that if you want to hear how your system sounds go and listen outside the room. Things are not so clear when you get inside the room for sure.

I do agree with Bert that - the changes due to the front end (i.e. W8 vs W7) audible in any room because they are usually about resolution.

Wouldn't it be great if hifi was easy?

P

[christoffe]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpovwbPGEoo

Standing waves are frequency related!

[Scroobius]

Hey Christoffe nice one - I would like a Rubens tube to replace our gas fire! I am sure I could rig something up.

[christoffe]

Hey Christoffe nice one - I would like a Rubens tube to replace our gas fire! I am sure I could rig something up.

This is a good idea for romantic hours with appropriate music via the NOS 1.
I will replace my open fire immediatly.

Two other links:
http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/acoustics/reverb.htm
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/standw.html#c4

Less standing waves in your room with the same tune is a result of a frequency shift with the NOS1 to the positive of SQ.

Joachim

[PeterSt]

Nice links Joachim. Everybody should dive into them. But :

Less standing waves in your room with the same tune is a result of a frequency shift with the NOS1

This doesn't make much sense to me ...

Peter

[christoffe]

Nice links Joachim. Everybody should dive into them. But :

Less standing waves in your room with the same tune is a result of a frequency shift with the NOS1

This doesn't make much sense to me ...

Peter

Paul had his reference system prior to the NOS1 with standing waves.
Listening with the NOS1 the SQ changed for the better without the standing waves.
Something happened. We can't alter physics and the only explanation is a frequency shift for the better unintended.
We know that a replacement of one component in our chain changes the SQ. (Mani with his Sauermann's and yours with the future speakers)


Joachim

[PeterSt]

We can't alter physics and the only explanation is a frequency shift for the better unintended.

What super strange conclusions you can have.
Besides : So, when there would be a "frequency shift", don't you think the standing wave(s) will exhibit elsewhere ? I sure do.



Peter

[christoffe]

We can't alter physics and the only explanation is a frequency shift for the better unintended.

What super strange conclusions you can have.



Peter

In general my wife agrees with you. He, He

I wrote listening to "the same tune" ............... .

Standing waves doesn't alter in our room with the frequency.
What is your explanation that with the NOS1 the standing waves are gone in P's room? Placebo?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gr7KmTOrx0

Joachim

[PeterSt]

I didn't watch that YouTube. But with XXHighEnd standing waves diminish by far already.

Maybe when I have time I may spend a post about it, *again*. That's why I have no time for it now. Haha !

Regards,
Peter

[christoffe]

I didn't watch that YouTube.

Regards,
Peter

You should, because it shows the relation of the distance from the speakers plane to the wall and the appertaining frequencies.

Joachim

[Jud]

We can't alter physics and the only explanation is a frequency shift for the better unintended.

What super strange conclusions you can have.



Peter

In general my wife agrees with you. He, He

I wrote listening to "the same tune" ............... .

Standing waves doesn't alter in our room with the frequency.
What is your explanation that with the NOS1 the standing waves are gone in P's room? Placebo?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gr7KmTOrx0

Joachim

The name of the company/site is Phasure ("phase sure") and many of us use "phase alignment" in XXHE.  That should give a hint what may be happening to the sound waves such that standing waves are minimized or eliminated.