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This just came to me on a random thought, so it's not a fully developed observation.
Last year, I was at Music Lovers audio shop in Berkeley. Long story short... they had some very nice equipment (Ayre and Wilson) set up and ready to hear, but their room totally sucked.
Is this common among "high end" hifi shops these days?
:)
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High quality showrooms and accompanying sound, is a rare thing indeed.
It is a crummy state of affairs when dependence on written reviews or word-of-mouth becomes a more reliable means of evaluation than live auditions at trade shows and/or brick-n-mortar showrooms.
Edits: 10/03/16
Yup Audio Advice here in Charlotte is like that. Over dampened rooms
Setup like crap really. A waste of some decent equipment. To the uneducated consumer going in there it's all wow bang and boom. They make their $$ all from high end HT. A huge waste of time. Oh, if you order something not in stock and you don't like it there is no returns. Nice! Foolish way to run a business. And that is why b&m's are saying bye bye.
By coincidence, I've been to both Music Lovers in Berkeley and Goodwyn's in Waltham.
Music Lovers in SF has very well treated rooms by the way. Both Music Lover's and Goowyn's offer complete installation services, and Goodwyn's really pushes the very top end gear. For a while the entire industry was collapsing around the 1% of buyers, so this kind of made sense.
I was talking about this in another forum, and had a very nice chat with an ASC rep a year ago. He was bemoaning the fact that even though they offered to loan manufacturers acoustics during the show, very few accepted, with the fear that their speakers would seem to require acoustic panels.
Well, the truth is most rooms I went to sucked, but got RAVES from attendees, so I can see the seller's point. During the entire show there was only like 2 or 3 rooms I could stand to be in for long.
Further, we both noticed that a well treated room sounded great from the hallways. After that, I learned to only stick my head in if the music sounded good outside.
It's also true that the dispersion of a speaker makes a difference. The more directional, the less room treatment is needed for the same level of clarity and frequency smoothness.
So I guess my point is, yes, many rooms suck, and most buyers don't care. Buyers are too easily swayed by reviewers who, in my mind, have a spotty record of being objective to pushing a particular sound.
Your mileage may vary.
You mentioned SF and Beserkeley. I'm talking about Beserkeley. An eight or nine foot ceiling, no bass trapping, no room dispersion. But, they DID have a little 3" round thingy on a wall, so that might've helped - LOL.
We heard the big Wilsons through Ayre stuff. Nice, but I wouldn't pay $200,000 for any of it, from what I heard.
What many "audiophiles" don't seem to "get" is that the room makes a huge difference. They're largely into equipment, 'cause that's where the audiophile fun is.
The best room I've been in was at Magico (magico.net). Hearing their S7 speakers in there was excellent. Close to live. 25 feet wide, 40 feet deep, 14 feet tall.
:)
My only point was that both Music Lover's stores are not the same. :)You are absolutely right about "audiophiles" not getting the need for acoustics. I recently read a review by Michael Fremer (I think) in which he bemoans the lack of bass in his completely untreated listening room. Well? No wonder! :) He's reviewing $20k+ speakers in a poor environment.
During a recent event comparing DAC's I heard an audiophile, who brought in a very nice sounding unit, disparaging room treatments. He buys homes, and if they don't have the right acoustics by design he doesn't move in. That was the moment I realized I might very well be in the wrong crowd. Life is too short to live with boomy or weak bass and my money too precious to spend it trying to swap amps, cables or my living space to get it right.
The Magico listening room is magnificent and practically a concert hall. It really is magnificent. I've only heard the S1 Mk II. It was nice for a two way, but kind of an odd speaker to buy in terms of it's space and power requirements.
I really wish I had a chance to listen to their larger works.
Best,
Erik
Edits: 10/03/16 10/03/16 10/03/16
I'll be in Beserkeley in November, to hang out with my amp designer friend John. (Now he's gonna call and accuse me of name dropping.) Anyway, he's gonna show me how to build an amp, or at least try to show me the basics. And, no, I still don't know my differential equations, but my son thinks they're fun - whoda thunk it.
Maybe we oughtta have a pizza and a beer.
But I ain't goin' over the bridge at 9 am. Ever again.
:)
How would that be the fault of the room? Typical room treatments absorb bass.
If there are room treatments that can create bass I'm sure that some of us would like to know about them. Time to save big on subwoofers!
It's obviously true that room treatments don't add bass. But by reducing frequency response peaks, resonances, and reverb, the subjective impression is that the weaker parts of the frequency response are comparatively stronger.
Also, a perceived lack of bass can be a setup issue, due to placement of either the speakers or listening position in a null. Room treatment of the right type and placement can help reduce the severity of nulls or even shift their frequency a little bit, particularly in the upper bass.
... it may be that Fremer's room is small and/or crowded and his options for experimentation with speaker placement are limited. But one would think that an experienced guy like Michael Fremer would be fairly accurate when estimating the potential of a pair of speakers.
Bass traps are god-sends. In addition to what was pointed out above, bass traps can de-energize nulls, allowing EQ's to work when they could not, as well as control time domain resonances, where again, an EQ could not fully function.
Done correctly, the combination allows for much better bass integration from a subwoofer, or speaker. In many rooms the alternatives is either boomy or limp bass.
Best,
Erik
You've made some very good points in this thread, thanks.
Goodwin's High End in metro Boston has 3 or 4 really good listening rooms of various sizes. It's always a treat to audition equipment there. They have a lot of experience in custom room design, so their listening rooms were built to showcase what they can do. Another shop in my area, Fidelis, has one really good room that they put some effort into when they moved a few years ago.Most of the other shops I've visited in New England have been relatively disappointing. Some rooms are downright awful with slap echo from hell and/or out of control bass modes. When I've pointed it out I usually get a quizzical look and a bunch of attitude like I'm some clueless newb who doesn't know what I'm talking about. However, there are some who acknowledge it and say they want to show their systems in rooms that are typical of their customer's homes. I get that, but I also think they're missing the opportunity to show people what can be achieved.
Another common problem is showrooms designed for home theater with lots of high frequency absorption, so the room sounds dead on top but boomy down low.
One of the more disappointing experiences I've had around here is Blink High End. Their shop is a loft style apartment used as an audio showroom and a piano instruction & recording space. For listening to a grand piano, it's quite nice. For listening to a high end audio system, it's not. They specialize in Raidho, but I've heard Raidho sound better in hotel rooms if you can believe that.
When I used to travel to Japan a lot I visited many shops in Tokyo. I heard some really nice rooms there, and also some of the worst. In one shop, you can hear a $50k system set up perfectly in a purpose built, isolated, treated room. And in another shop you can hear a $50k system in department-store like environment surrounded by dozens of other speakers and electronics and background noise.
Edits: 10/01/16
But Brian Walsh''s room sounds great.
I had the distinct pleasure to experience his setup a couple of years ago - so some gear might be different. He played a wide range of hi-rez gear through the Aurender that sounded incredible.
My only nit to pick was that I thought the U-1s were a tad too far apart. I think he might have subsequently tried out my suggestion. :)
Beautiful pic!
Nice! Q: are those Silver 7s in the background?
Brian may need to correct me, but I think those are Atma Sphere MA-1 amps while larger MA-2s were active at the time.
Ralph Karsten's products sounded superlative in that system. There were a couple of block buster tracks where the 500 watt MA-3s would have been magnificent. :)
aa
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
at Linn dealers in the late 80s and early 90s with the single speaker concept. There are some decent sounding rooms re: Audio Element in Pasadena and Brooks Berdan in Monrovia to name two.
By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.
Galileo Galilei
Back in the 60's walls of equipment, with speakers lined up on the other short wall.
The 'better' rooms had just several speakers lined up to compare, but all side by side. At least the speakers were at the end of the room, with a listening chair available.
Then the 'boards' with allowed different components to be connected. Usually with jacks. And hundreds of feet of wire added in, CHEAP wire. LOL
The better places did not do that. Instead they hand connected the stuff directly.
Rarest were the places with electronics left on.. Usually everything was just turned on for YOU to listen.
And the quality of the rooms was directly proportional to the price of the stuff.
Cheap stuff always was the wall of parts. The $$$$$ stuff got the nice rooms.
I would say high quality showrooms are (and always were) a rare bird. Seen only in a few cities.
I've never heard a good showroom for Magnepan speakers, which I think take extra effort in setting up.
Stereo Design which was here in San Diego (they unfortunately folded this past Summer after a 33 1/3 yr run) had an incredible showroom for the 20.1s back in the early 2000s.
Talk about a holodeck experience; I couldn't listen to my 1.6s for two months after that.
I heard some Tympani 1d(?) speakers that were set up in a large room fairly nicely; the buyer temporarily allowed the shop to set them up and play them on some really nice equipment. Those suckers were HUGE.
This was about 40 years ago or so, if I recall (wow!) - mid to late 70s.
I remember that that during a classical piece I could feel the wavefront of a drum strike propagate through the room. It was something else... (I think my pants legs practically flapped ;-)
Happy Listening!
DeeCee
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