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RE: QRD placement, grouping and orientation

Posted by David Aiken (A) on February 10, 2011 at 12:48:31

In Reply to: QRD placement, grouping and orientation posted by Mark UK on February 10, 2011 at 08:13:54:

I've said it before and I'll say it again. There is no way to treat a room that will be perfect for everyone. Different people like different types of result and my feeling from many discussions of absorption vs diffusion here over the years plus my own limited experiments with diffusion in my room leads me to believe that there are strong individual differences associated with the use of diffusion in listening rooms. Some people like it, some don't, and I suspect there will be differences of opinion on the amount and placement of diffusion even amongst those who like it.

My advice: try both and pick the one you like the most.

My experience is also that knowing what a particular treatment will do with the sound in the room is different to knowing whether or not I will like the sound. Over the years I've done things with my room or my system that I thought would be improvements, and even had the sound change in the way in which I expected it to sound, only to discover that I didn't like listening to the result. I think that the experience of listening to a particular treatment in a room is a very different thing to trying to decide in advance whether the sort of change in the sound which that treatment will produce will be good or bad.

The only way to assess the result of a particular change is actually to listen to it, and the only way to know which of 2 options will be the better is to compare them. Those aspects of our perception which contribute to our feelings of like and dislike, and even love and detest, don't always agree with our intellectual assessments of what will be a better or worse sound, and I think the disagreement often hinges on a question of degree. A bit too much, or too little, of something we think is a good thing, whether it be absorption or diffusion, can be the difference between like or dislike, love or detest. The problem is often getting the amount right, just as it is getting the amount of seasoning right in the dish you are cooking. You have to taste while you're cooking if you want to know whether you're getting things right. In my view you have to listen when you're treating a room in order to know whether you're getting things right. And just as not everyone agrees on how much salt, or chili, or whatever you need in a particular dish in order for it to taste great, my experience is that not everyone agrees on how much absorption or diffusion you need in a room in order to get great sound, or on where it should be placed. It's your room and it's your opinion which counts, and I think you need to try to listen to both in order to get the answer to the question you're asking.


David Aiken

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