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In Reply to: More on the listening room as an evaluation tool posted by Charles Hansen on January 17, 2007 at 20:19:17:
how they may sound in a labratory or anechoic chamber!What's an optimized room anyway? Comparing JA's to Dudley's bring to mind the old expression... Some like it hot, some like it not.
An in most things disclosure is the way to go, one can make better judgement of a reviewer's critique when he/she is familiar with the reviewers's preferences, biases, musical leanings, room, etc. etc.
Follow Ups:
A good room, whether or not the reader has one, will allow the reviewer to know what's happening. A bad room could actually have synergy with a particularly bad speaker where as in a good room it would be obvious.
Let's use the Stereophile rooms offered by JA, his own and Art Dudley's, are both "good", how do we know, is their allowance for personal preference?; I'll admit this last question is rethorical, it almost seems too obvious contrasting the two sample rooms, yet if there's some objective standard of "goodness" feel free to spell it out... don't worry, if there bad news for one of the two esteemed reviewers I'll take on the woeful task and pass on the news. :)
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher
I don't think the point is that there is one "best" way to set up a listening room, any more than to say there is one "best" amplifier (or speaker or whatever).To me the point is that there are known ways to screw things up. For example, putting anything in between the speakers will reduce the image depth and focus. (I know that many people put their equipment rack right there, but a quick listening test will show that this is sub-optimal placement.)
Both JA's and AD's rooms show that they were paying attention to the details, and not making the gross kinds of errors that will screw things up. This is in stark contrast to the picture I originally linked to. In that photo, there were at least a half-dozen obvious faux pas that were screwing up the sound.
My other point is that there are other *invisible* ways that people can be screwing up the sound in their listening rooms. For example, installing a Wi-Fi network in the next room over (or worse yet, in the same room).
Now for the average listener, it doesn't really matter if they are "screwing things up". All that matters is if they enjoy listening to music on their system -- it doesn't matter how they get there. But I think that a reviewer has a different job and should be held to a different standard. If their room is screwing things up, how can they be trusted to make credible judgments on the performance of a piece of audio gear?
Take another look at JA's pictures. In one he has a massive Halco standing roughly adjacent and in front a Wilson Sophia speaker, the side of the Halco, which is fully two third the height of the speaker if not more, appearing to act as an outside boundary for the speaker. The arrangement with the other speakers is different so it seems there was no attempt at symmetry (in fact the room is open on the other side relative to the placement of that side's speaker). Now mind you perhaps via trial and error he arrived at that setup as one which produced good sound. The point is that the photo, which makes no attempt to disguise the obvious clutter created by his audio components, testing gear, and computer setup, doesn't strike me as a overtly obvious prototype of a careful optimized setup.Now bear in mind that is not a criticism of JA's setup, in fact I'd say the opposite as it seems to me that his setup very likely shares attributes with the majority of hobbists who *do not* have dedicated, single purpose, listening environments.
As for Art's setup it stands out as a rather obvious contrast to JA's. Given that these two fellows are members of the revirewing elite this would seem to argue against the notion of a particular correct "one way" or even direction to arriving at a satisfactory listening space. In terms of potential problems related to room nodes it seems Dudley's would be more susceptible as the space seem basically a closed rectangle with a not particularily high ceiling (as far as I can tell), yet there are no obvious room treatments such as bass traps (unless I'm missing them).
So overall I really don't see where you're coming from with the suggestion of obvious attention to detail, unless of course the fact that Art's room being a dedicated listening space fits the bill.
But frankly nothing about either of the room causes me any great concern. Oh Art's room is very likely to exhibit an annoying bright sound with crappy components but let's face it the bulk of the stuff he plays with hardly fits that description and moreover his well known prefererences further ameliorate any great concern.
I bother will all these observations only because I have for some considerable time become convinced that the "room" is just another of the tiresome "ojectivist" bugaboos. I don't know how many times I've read some BS about how a few simple room treatments would be *enormously* more effective than spending money on quality components, and typically from guy who believe most all electronics (forget cables!) sound the same anyway, etc.... ad nausea! How many of us have lived with single room for decades on end?... how many of us have had rooms that were a sonic disaster?
Ironically I just visited a friend who has moved to a space that grossly exagerates sibilances and hard constantants, it's obvious just by conducting a conversation. The critical point here however is precisely that the problems *are* obvious, he knows, and I know, something has to be done in that space. Fortunately given the current bare layout and hardwood floor a good Persian, an upholstered sofa, and maybe a tapestry on a wall should work wonders... heck even our work introducing better speaker cables and power cords has already made a world of difference, I can't wait to hear it with the "room treatments" in place!
As far as the conceptual leap from an obvious hell hole to reviewers using Jenga blocks under all their cables well what can I say?... maybe that sort of thing is no biggie to flighty Ayre types but I fear a great many audiophiles would be lost to the canyon in the attemmpt to vault across the divide.
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher
...because perceive an obvious contradiction. You wrote:> > I don't know how many times I've read some BS about how a few simple room treatments would be *enormously* more effective than spending money on quality components, and typically from guy who believe most all electronics (forget cables!) sound the same anyway, etc.... ad nausea! < <
...and then:
> > Fortunately given the current bare layout and hardwood floor a good Persian, an upholstered sofa, and maybe a tapestry on a wall should work wonders. < <
Well maybe I get it. Are you saying that both are important?
From my own experience--and theoretically--I've got to say that the idea that cables could address that problem meaningfully seems wrong. After all, those effects--sibilance, ringing--can readily be mapped onto properties that are easily measurable--and addressable by room treatments. Room treatments have obvious, measurable effects in the frequency and time domain. The effects of cables--well, you can make those measurements, too, but you'll get no change (unless at least one set of cables is defective). And I am NOT claiming that all cables sound the same!
There's a lot we don't understand about this stuff--well, anyway, there's a lot that I don't understand. But there's also a lot that we do understand. It'd be foolish not to bring that to the table.
I'm having a bit of fun with the term "room treatment", i.e. just common furnishings... the things that the vast majority of audiophile get by with!; including JA it seems. The other aspect is the idea that rooms can be, or require, improvement is often overstated... i.e., if it ain't broken...Read Mike Fremer's review on the Tara Labs Zero cables to understand the meaning of improvements via cables. In particular his comments about the Zero's yielding a reduction in "Electronicia", if that was the coinage he used, but basically a reduction in that sense of "electronic" sound is something that is not unique to the Zeros.
In fact for someone moving from a very poor (manufacturer throw-in) interconnect to, say, a good quality Cardas he/she might experience an improvement on the same scale (or perhaps to an even greater degree!) than Fremer did going from his already very good cables to the Zeros; assuming a decent system of course. Think of a cable as something that, subjectively speaking, adds "nasties" to the signal, adds "zing" to sibilance. Better cables add less, do less damage, sound smoother, more natural, more like "no cable". In a overly "live" room any reduction in "nasties" from the cables will be especially appreciated.
Bear in mind that some like the sound that a live room gives, yet that doesn't meant that like electronic nasties!
Charles believes that if it sounds good in a poor environment, such as at CES, it will sound even better at the reviewers or in your home. I think to some degree with experience that you can "listen through the room and even the electronics," but this is an art and I am not confident that it is very accurate. It also means that it may also sound awful in buyer's rooms where they don't want to have to listen through the problem.
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