Audio Science Review Discussion

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To make it clear, I absolutely understand there is a necessity to have a compromise in a living room environment. May the budget limit or the room´s interior or the size of gear or the experience of the owner be the limit. Everything understood.

I have started the discussion from the point how ideally things should work not to tell people they should hire studio installation professionals, spend 100 grand and aim for the ideal. It is rather to understand which factors of loudspeaker choice, placement thereof, basic room treatment and DSP are a promising way to get the maximum sound quality in a given environment and which ones are most probably a way to dissatisfaction.

What makes me sad is people like Amir telling music listeners in a very self-convinced manner from a pseudo-scientific point of view to focus on completely inaudible criteria, non-relevant parameters and choose methods which for sure do not work (like equalizing when having major, non-EQable room-induced flaws) in order to achieve a good compromise. Moreover they seem to misinterpret important parameters like speaker´s directivity for the sake of having smooth, neat-looking diagrams but leading to a non-compatible combination of room, placement and speaker. It is a shortcut to dissatisfaction and I have experienced that numerous times.

To highlight that: I am absolutely not saying anything against Roon DSP from a quality point of view. The DSP functions are well-coded, the filters sound superb, they do what they are supposed to do and simulation graph is awesome. I understand why they produce a gap after altering parameters and that is not roon´s fault as it is not a professional manipulation software.

The only reason why they are not helpful for a proper optimization process is the gaps after altering parameters. It makes it difficult even for trained listeners to compare the effect of a particular filter and the reproduction without. Recording and master engineers as well as sound reinforcement experts like do ´dial in´ narrow parametric EQ filters which is only possible if you have a seamless adjustment method especially of frequency and level plus a gapless bypass option.

While for an experienced expert it is already difficult to dial in such filters with a gap and without bypass option, for a laymen it is impossible without A/B comparison. I do not believe many people playing around with parametric EQs in roon, Amir included, are really capable of fully understanding what they are doing and achieving an optimization in sound quality which would stand the test of long-term listening. The fact that many rely on measurements trying to fight some most probably inaudible peaks speaks louder than a listening test.

If anyone is really interested in proper EQing their own system I recommend to rent a professional parametric standalone EQ which you can get from a PA rental company or alike for little money per day. Once you have dialed in your filters you can transfer the parameters to roon and the result will be as desired.

The question is: What are performant speakers for home use? How to choose the right one for a given environment?

I can tell you from vast experience with different rooms that all these things being taught on ASR about which criteria are important and which speakers are good or bad are in many cases leading to disappointment.

The sad thing is that measurements published there seem to be mostly correct and could be a helpful base for an informed decision. Especially the spinorama graphs, calculated indirect sound response and DI. One of the major problems is not telling people about qualities which are NOT in the measurements but require a listening test. The other big elephant in the room is the way verdicts on directivity are evolved as it seems to be merely judging how neat the graph looks like and how straight the line is you can draw through it.

That has nothing to do with choosing the right speaker for a given environment, and will bring a lot of people to dissatisfying choice of gear. And, yes, I am aware there has to be a compromise and there are affordable products out there which deliver a fair compromise.

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They have no useful knowledge to share. I have interacted with many and while they are good at what they do, their understanding of proper sound reproduction in the room, psychoacoustics of the same, preference factors with respect to speakers and rooms is no better than average audiophile. Ask them to quote a single piece of research in their choice of room treatment and you will not get any. Just like your posts which have been devoid of any references.

Ask me the same question and I will quote you extensively on every aspect of the advice I give. So please, don’t keep appealing to this (vague) authority. They are following old school ideas about acoustics which has long been shown to be wrong.

This is very different than research into consumer sound reproduction where we have decades of research to draw upon as far as room treatment, directivity, factors impacting preference, etc.

Nope. First, we are not talking about creating music so let’s not bring that in. Second, room modes are minimum phase phenomenon which means parametric EQ can most definitely correct them both in time and frequency domains. Since room modes are predicted 100% by physics, you must deploy DSP for proper response. There is no way you can remotely get there with any acoustical treatment as wavelengths are massive. Even anechoic chambers tend to have room modes below 80 to 100 Hz!

What? 1/3 octave? That has no place in the discussion we are having. Room modes are very narrow and require analysis at 1/12 octave or even finer. You can use more filtering (up to 1/6th octave) if you just want to look at overall tonality, setting target curves, etc.

CEA-2034 standard requires 1/20th octave analysis by the way and that I what I use for my speaker measurements.

It is clear you have never used Roon EQ, or any parametric EQ system in general. If you had, you would know that each filter can independently be turned on and off. Indeed, I develop my speaker/headphone filters one at a time using this technique. I make sure each one provides an improvement by itself, and then collectively all together. The technique absolutely works and is used by countless audiophiles already.

Research shows efficacy of such equalization to improve listener preference. Here is one example (AES paper):

The Subjective and Objective Evaluation of Room Correction Products
Sean E. Olive, John Jackson, Allan Devantier, David Hunt and Sean M. Hess

A listening experiment was conducted where eight
trained listeners evaluated the sound quality of five
different room corrections applied to a high quality
loudspeaker/subwoofer in an acoustically typical
domestic listening room. The same loudspeakersubwoofer
without room correction was included in the
test as a hidden anchor. Listeners gave comparative
ratings of the room corrections based on spectral
balance and overall preference. Acoustical
measurements of the room corrections applied to the
loudspeaker/subwoofer were made at the six listening
seats, and the primary listening seat, to study
correlations between the objective and subjective
measurements.

Room correction, when done properly, can
provide significant improvements in the sound
quality of loudspeakers in rooms. Three of the
five room corrections produced significantly
higher preference ratings than the uncorrected
loudspeaker/subwoofer.

Here is the preference score graphically: Target Room Response and Cinema X-curve | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

Automated systems like this are quite useful if someone doesn’t want to learn how to do things manually, or are dealing with multichannel systems where the work can get very tedious if not impossible to do by hand.

Here is another article i published a few years back on power of DSP when combined with multiple subwoofers:

Bottom line, there is no good sounding system without DSP. Period.

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I leave that sentence uncommented as it insults all practically educated experts in that field and speaks for itself.

That is kind of funny and showing that you have not really talked to anyone with proficiency in that field. If you have ever been witnessing and understanding how huge PA systems are planned, particularly when it comes to directivity and room simulation, you would stop talking about old school ideas. These people have advanced technology at hand and they know how to apply it.

Why should I ask people who are setting up studio listening rooms, studio-grade cinema sound systems and planning sound reinforcement systems for scientific research? This is not what they are doing, their job is to create a certain level of sound quality in a given environment. And I can with my own ears and similar yearslong experience hear the results and they match with what many of these experts are explaining about their concepts and theoretical base and why they do things the way they do.

With what you are claiming, it is rather the opposite. I read your verdicts on speaker directivity like ´perfect´ knowing this or that particular speaker and the flaws resulting from incompatible DI being massive in most of home environments. I read your statements about decreasing target curves and narrowing-down DI towards higher frequencies being ´what you want´ knowing exactly how that will sound like and how dissatisfying it is to most of listeners. And finally, the close-to-religious belief in the almighty DSP and room correction systems - once you have heard how these systems are trading acoustic flaws for others, you are done with such claims.

I asked you already which research was exactly confirming your claims people in mass tests prefer very similar sounding headphones and why a significantly decreasing in-room frequency response towards higher frequencies is proven to be preferred by many listeners as better/more natural compared to a linear one with both balanced direct and indirect sound field (which would be the natural conclusion of your ideas that everything should be linear and neutral).

Maybe you do not see these contradictions in your claims. Other people see them.

You obviously failed to understand what a minimum phase system with a resonator is when it comes to room modes. That is particularly funny as the idea of a resonator and the way it is affecting movement or sound waves in the time domain can be understood by an infant after dropping a ball and letting it bounce or sitting on a swing.

Room modes are caused by resonation and they usually resonate for an extended period of time. If this time is long enough, the sustain is audible in the form of booming and slower bass decay regardless the actual frequency response. The parametric EQ for obvious reasons can only affect or correct the latter but not make the sustain disappear. On top of that, the way room modes are stimulated is neither linear in terms of stimulation time nor sound pressure level. So, on top of resonation and sustain, they are nonlinear by dynamic means. Comparing a constant-frequency sine measurement with a DIRAC based one or one at 60dB SPL with another at 100dB should give you enough of proof your ideas about minimum phase modes are fundamentally wrong.

And this you want to correct with a parametric EQ? Really funny.

Obviously, a lot of people planning listening rooms and cinemas are getting to that point. It is just a matter of the right tools. Yes, wavelengths are massive, you might need a significant amount of absorption area but it is absolutely doable.

And no-one said it is necessary to eliminate room modes passively in their entirety. It is enough to get the resulting audible flaws in the time and dynamic domain under the threshold of audibility as well as controlling cancellation effects caused by them. The rest you can indeed correct with PEQ, as mentioned. I am not against DSP but you should be aware of what its limits are.

As mentioned, I work with PEQs for professional purpose and I have tried the implemented DSP options in roon extensively.

Obviously you try to twist my words but that looks increasingly desparate. I did not refer to the Enabled/Disabled option for every single parametric filter but to the fact every change or alteration in parametric filters including this defeat mechanism is causing a little gap. That is making it close to impossible to dial in single filters seamlessly, especially high-Q ones, for frequency and level by direct comparison.

It is obvious that you believe it is working in terms of an improvement, but that is just a typical audiophile’s belief based on overconfidence and misjudgment of the tools you have at hand. The way you do things and the tools you have speak a different language.

I have no doubts equalization can improve listener acceptance in case of mode-dominated, flawed reproduction in a room. In many cases it is enough to reduce the level or cut out the boomy band with a notch and people find it less annoying.

But that usually comes at a cost and it does not make a good sound quality nor is it any proof that room correction solely based on parametric equalizing can achieve same or better results than a method of avoiding such flaws from the ground up.

I strongly disagree with that statement. I would rather say, achieving a good sound quality is impossible if people rely solely on DSP and ignore basic rules of loudspeaker design, room acoustics, room treatment, speaker choice (particularly DI, bass quality and imaging) and placement. The risk of having massive flaws in a room+system combination which are not EQable is pretty close to 100% in an untreated living room environment if there is no particular concept of preventing such in place (such as dedicated near-field listening or full-range high-DI, CD speakers, line sources, dipoles, cardiods or alike).

The most flawless, most naturally balanced system offering best imaging installed in a control room I have ever heard was fully analogue, completely without DSP. Unfortunately the room was pretty expensive so not particularly an example for home use.

I have no problem with DSP and recommend to use one once the basic reproduction quality is met by traditional methods of room treatment, speaker choice and optimizing placement.

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This is how we all do it. Although room treatment is our furnishings, rugs, curtains etc.
Spinorama helps us identify performant speakers. Yes there are guides we can follow to poisition speakers, but not always practical. Then use DSP to suit.

Not sure what you are getting so worked up about?

By the way you can use Dirac ART or HAF Room Shaper for long resonances (both are DSP as well…)

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Every professional community has lots of word-of-mouth lore that circulates. Some of it is obsolete knowledge, some of it is rank superstition, and some of it is accurate. (The least supportable bits of lore seem to be the ones most passionately put forth by their supporters.) The trick is distinguishing between those categories.

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This is brilliant. Thanks so much for sharing, as it’s is the exact description of the problem i feel I’m having and especially with headphones, which you already pointed out are a completely different beast from speakers.

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I fully agree, and when it comes to sound quality and technology to achieve it, you need lots of knowledge, listening practice and a solid knowledge base on how to match theory and result. And although many people in that business have their own methods and workflow, a lot of them get really convincing results and seem not to be prone to superstition and misleading theories.

I wished it would be the case. Looking at the way many hi-fi people - including those claiming to follow a ´no-frills´approach, relying on measurements, ´scientific´ knowledge and technology like DSP - ignoring basic laws of electroacoustics and psychoacoustics, setting up their system improperly, combining loudspeaker and room which do not match while not getting results meeting a minimum level of sound quality, I have reason to doubt that.

Not just because I meet a lot of dissatisfied listeners and encounter shocking sonic results in many living rooms. Looking at pictures of home setups, seeing measurements telling a story of extreme acoustic problems (such as Amir’s example with Revel Ultimas and automated room correction routines) and reading how people give each other ridiculous advicse on how to choose or set up equipment - it seems a huge fraction of this scene is stuck in absurdity, the esoteric guys to the same extend as those dancing around straight graphs and DSPs.

On the other hand, if someone does not want to achieve studio-grade sound quality for the sake of not compromising, that’s fine. On the other hand i don’t quite get the contradiction between spending a lot of time and money on hi-fi if you live with massive flaws for the sake of not moving or exchanging your speakers or treating the room.

With all due respect, this in most of cases does not mean room treatment but making things worse, as these objects usually tend to absorb treble and let midrange reflexions pass more or less unfiltered resulting in a typical decreasing RT60 towards higher frequencies.

This would not be such a big problem if one is opting for a nearfield-like listening setup, or choosing speakers with a matching DI such as constant directivity on a higher level or even better slightly decreasing DI towards higher frequencies.

And this is where my dissatisfaction with Amir’s advices is becoming obvious: he seems to regularly recommend speakers showing a continuously increasing DI towards higher frequencies at times even showing steps towards higher DI in critical frequency bands. NO, PLEASE NOT! I can already imagine the result in a room like the one you have described.

In theory, yes. Practically I have not seen a single recommendation based on spinorama data suitable for a room like the one you have described (which is a very common situation in living rooms). To really identify which speaker is performant in a given environment you have to know the RT60 of the room and the approximate listening distance. Following ASR´s recommendations for ´perfect directivity´ with increasing DI or stepping up DI will lead to a disaster in most of cases.

That’s a contradiction according to my experience. What optimizing speaker positioning can achieve is mainly reducing mode-dependent or wall reflexion induced booming, improving bad localization or torn imaging caused by early reflexions, reducing the ratio between indirect sound and direct sound towards the latter. These are the textbook flaws you cannot EQ to satisfaction under any condition. If you are not flexible with speaker positioning, exchange the speakers for proper ones or treat the room. DSP might reduce the level of annoyance of these phenomena but would not mean a cure. It is as easy as that.

In theory this sounds like a way to fight mode-induced booming but from first practical experience with a demo I was attending I tend to be skeptical. Have to admit that I did not really work with this ART system myself so cannot give a final verdict.

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I have had countless discussions with people in the Pro industry and one of my friends is a mastering engineer. You can look for my arguments in GS forum. As I said, and you prove yet again, you never, ever see a reference to research paper for anything they claim. The main argument is “I am a Pro therefore I know what I am doing and you don’t.”

As to “huge PA” systems, they have nothing to do with sound reproduction in home listening spaces, or studios for that matter. Large acoustic spaces don’t have the modal region that we have in our much smaller rooms. As such, measurements like RT60 have more meaning there than they do in our rooms. On the other hand, they have major issues like dealing with long distances, covering high SPL focused on listeners, etc. Again, issues that have no cross section with home listening spaces. So please don’t keep mentioning them. What they do – whether right or wrong – is unrelated to problems of home acoustic spaces.

I already linked you to an article I wrote on wrong practices in that space such as X-Curve. And totally messed up and variable frequency responses even in “dolby certified” rooms. Here is the first part of that article:

“The reverberation times of a number of the Dolby-accredited rooms above 1 kHz are commensurate with those recommended in the 1994 Dolby Standard and yet these rooms do not show the assumed frequency-response characteristic during reverberant build up. We therefore conclude that it is likely that the X-curve has not been valid at least since 1994, and quite possibly earlier.”

“The authors conclude that the use of the X-curve is detrimental to the enjoyment of cinema.”

And from the previous follow up article I linked to last night:

Let’s remember that the X curve like all such responses is a target curve. The reality is different as I menionted. The Audio Engineering Society paper, A Survey Study Of In-Situ Stereo And Multi-Channel Monitoring Conditions, shows how far out of compliance production systems can be. The paper has measurements of 250 Genelec speakers used in professional control rooms. Their composite statistics are shown in Figure 3. The poor X curve shown in solid black line is lost in a sea of wide variations no matter which statistical measure you use.

Practices such as using 1/3 octave measurements is at the core of this problem as is using antiquated concepts such as X-Curve which have had no research behind it.

As I said, room modes are minimum phase so correction in frequency domain absolutely corrects time domain. Conversely, frequency domain variations are absolutely there in case of room modes. This is one of those myths that the PROs keep repeating due to lack of fundamental understanding of signal processing. I have discussed this at length so much that I wrote an article on it:

See how effective these filters are in reducing both variations in frequency domain and time domain. There is no way you can make this kind of impact with acoustic products.

Even if you tried, you would wind up with a dead and lifeless room due to how much of the surface of your room you would have to cover.

What you ask is simply read by spending just a bit of time on ASR or reading my posts here. But here we go.

Simply put, we want speakers with flat anechoic frequency response. And smooth directivity. The directivity of most speakers narrows at higher frequencies. This means that if you measure the room without gating, you would see a sloping down response. This, is considered “neutral” by listeners.

This sloping down target response is desired also because we are used to some amount of room gain in bass response. As such a flat response would sound too bright.

The slope of the bass to treble however, is subjective to some extent. This is why you must have DSP so that you can create the target to match your taste and music you listen to. This is mostly needed because audio lacks any production standards. Every professional space is different per above meaning every music we listen to has been mixed and mastered to a different response. So we have no choice but to have variability in our playback system.

As to headphones, there is a decade of research into preference there. I have written about it extensively on ASR and any casual read of the forum would give you an idea of that. Read that and if you have questions, ask.

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I did not bring up that argument. It was rather an example of pros mastering acoustic situations which are far more complicated and require much more theoretical knowledge and experience compared to setting up a home system plus room. And they are by no means right because they are pros but because the result in many cases is a proof they can master such situation.

I did not imply the problems and solutions of huge sound reinforcement and home system are the same. It way merely about PA people having tools at hand to simulate and take advantage of pretty complex directivity issues, far more challenging than those in home situations.

Which has nothing to do with the issue we were discussing. Thanks for the confirmation that you are avoiding the issue.

That claim is ridiculous. Funnily your waterfall plot is showing the resonances´ decay characteristics are still in place, they are just less loud so you can hide them in the noisefloor. But if they last long enough they are still audible despite the level being normalized.

You have been referring solely to the frequency response when it comes to modes. What about modes reacting in a nonlinear manner to the time window they are stimulated and the actual SPL at which they are resonating.

Since when would narrow-band or octave-wide measures to take out energy in the bass region, typically 40…200Hz, result in a lifeless and dead room? Higher frequencies than that are not affected if you choose the correct tools to counter modes.

Okay, that is a necessary condition to which I agree, but not a sufficient one.

No, the directivity of most speakers narrowing towards higher frequencies is neither divine law nor inevitable nor desirable for good sound quality. The fact that you accept that flaw because it is common is a classic example of a circular argument.

If we want to have tonally balanced reproduction in a room, we want to seek for linear response under free-field conditions PLUS more or less flat response in a reverberation chamber, or constant directivity index (at least in all frequency bands for which our ear can distinguish between direct sound and reflexions, i.e. approx. 300…8,000Hz) PLUS balanced RT60 of the room in this range.

Sloping down overall FR, may it result from increasing DI or decreasing RT60 towards higher frequencies or both, is a major flaw which should not be accepted. You as the high priest of linear frequency response and even graphs should view it as a mortal sin.

And it is by no means considered ´neutral´ or ´natural´ by listeners. Depending on the room characteristics and the actual sound field it might cause dull tonality, dark, overly warm, distant imaging, lack of detail, lack of air, impression of overdamped treble, decreased resolution and dampened dynamics, lack of attack or overtones (particularly of brass instruments, oboe, distorted electric guitars or similar timbres), may result in murmuring midrange, bloated voices, darkened or dull vowels and formants and alike.

Note that it is not determinable which of the aforementioned phenomena will be dominating as this is depending on the room, the frequency band of increasing DI and the listening distance. In near-field setups, rooms with increasing RT60 towards higher frequencies, broadly overdamped rooms or open spaces it might even sound good but that is not common in living environments.

Why should a linear frequency response be perceived as too bright? This is an outright ridiculous claim, especially if we talk about ears being calibrated by acoustic live performances and the natural timbre of non-amplified instruments and room´s reverberation patterns which by no means have a frequency characteristic sloping down. And if they would (some concert halls have), the microphones would have recorded exactly that sound field so applying an additional EQ curve tilted downwards during playback would inevitably lead to even more dull, dark, lame, midrange-heavy tonal balance.

Both is wrong. The slope is not subjective, it is called discolored tonal balance (in this case merely of indirect sound field) and represents a major flaw. And no, a DSP helps nothing here as it cannot influence the frequency-dependened ratio between direct and indirect sound which is solely determined by DI and RT60 changing heavily over frequency. If you try to linearize the overall FR in the room or the indirect sound, your direct sound field will be dominated by treble and this might sound too bright.

Could you provide me with a link to something you would call a relyable survey underlining your claim about similar preference please? If your arguments are as flawed as with the sloped sound field, it might be a very brief exchange.

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@Arindal you write a lot, with a many theories but no actual references. Is this just your own ideas on how things should be done, with an appeal to unreferenced experts?

Let me try another tac to understand your perspective. Can you show an example of a system you setup (including measurements) that is applicable to your average Roon user?

Please dont refer to people as “high priest”, iam sure you realise what derogotary name calling in a conversation infers…

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No these are not my personal ideas but it is common knowledge and regarded to be best practice among many many professionals from studio installers, loudspeaker manufacturers to recording engineers. Of course everyone has his or her own experience and methods to apply that knowledge, and so have i. In the pro audio sphere there is much more focus on planning a room from ground up including room treatment elements compared to hi-fi where given circumstances have to be accepted.

The fact that balanced direct sound, balanced early reflexions and balanced diffuse field combined create a tonally balanced listening experience, is so trivial that I would not expect many people to do research on that or publish it. In general not much is published as such knowledge is usually applied in a process which does not involve the public or scientific community (such as setting up a studio or choosing loudspeakers for control rooms and alike).

I have a wild guess where the fundamentally wrong idea of having significantly sloping indirect sound level towards higher frequencies is coming from. It is simply very difficult and expensive to achieve constant directivity under 1000Hz in a compact speaker design and most of the successful ideas how to do it only came up in the last 10 years.

I usually do not do measurements after a system is set up as the last steps are anyways based on subjective alterations. And certainly what is done in a studio control room differs from home systems.

Nevertheless there are several loudspeaker manufacturers specializing in (almost) fullrange controlled directivity speakers with different bass and midrange technologies used, who are offering dedicated home speakers. Examples which I can confirm are working: Kii Audio, Dutch&Dutch, GGNTKT, MEG.

Okay, i will not refer to that name again although I do not find it anyhow devaluating. There is just a certain irony in the fact that people who are claiming to base their pretty polarizing public verdicts on evidence and scientific knowledge show a tendency of dancing around golden calfs such as inaudible noise level measurements and straight lines in a frequency response.

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In fact you will find more audio engineers, mastering engineers and artists, industry oem’s including speakers and electronics, academic experts, audio luminaries on ASR than any other audio forum.
There is a higher standard there though, and none would simply accept your views without references or proof. No matter how much experience or expertise you believe you have.

Interesting, these are some of the most highly regarded and recommended speakers on ASR. Other popular speakers are Neuman and Genelec - lots of pro audio guys on ASR recommend them. Perlisten and Sigberg measure very well also. On the other end of the scale there are many cheaper speakers that Amir has measured - JBL, Kali Audio, Arendal, ascend accoustics, and diy Mechano23. Lots of well measuring speakers at various price points for us Roon users - all measured by enthusiasts like Amir and Erin. I wont name the brands, but they also show which speakers dont measure well and probably wont sound good in our homes.

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I think this is the fundamental rub with @Amir_Majidimehr and ASR. While science is purported you get dogma and a lack of curiosity and humility.

The problem I have with implementing Roon DSP is that since it’s not a seamless change and you can’t bypass the switch between implementing it and not, I always feel there is a reduction in sound quality vs. keeping things bit perfect. I notice with EQing in general is that one change seems to cause a reduction in sound quality at another frequency. The only knob/dial I like to change that changes the levels of frequency response is the one on my subwoofer when listening through speakers.

@AceRimmer I’ll make a last request to change the title to “Audio Science Discussion,” so we don’t all feel limited by what in my opinion is an overemphasis of one dogmatic ideology about what is considering authoritative audio science.

To emphasize this point, take a look at the Audiogon thread which cross-references this thread, https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/some-thoughts-on-asr-and-the-reviews

I recall many years ago seeing mahgister and things they posted and felt, wow, that’s quite out there. But I recognize now this person has a lot to offer. Just one example of what they shared: Bodily maps of musical sensations across cultures - PubMed

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@sonic_fanatic

First I suggest you research Roon DSP and post your theories on it in the existing threads here. You dont seem to understand how it works.

Second we are months and hundreds of posts into ASR discussion. Perhaps better to start a new thread if you want to discuss something different? Seems a very petty request to change the thread title and its purpose?

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Really? It’s petty to want to talk about audio science and not just the ASR forum and mostly @Amir_Majidimehr’s POV? Did you know how this discussion started?

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What’s wrong with looking at all kinds of scientific sources related to audio science and not just AES and what ASR forum does not even address in terms of psychoacoustic knowledge and science?

So many interesting things posted on that Audiogon thread.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267327268_The_Body-Image_Theory_of_Sound_An_Ecological_Approach_to_Speech_and_Music

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@Audiogeek i do not doubt there are lots of pros on the board and I already highlighted that I like ASR´s approach, philosophy and the measurements which I found to be plausible and surprisingly close to what I know from an anechoic chamber. When it comes to solely technical questions, I would not expect much of disagreement between leading ASR members and me.

If there are pros who understand about the acoustics of typical living rooms and have made listening tests in home environments before, I would be surprised if they were not coming to similar conclusions when it comes to full range constant directivity speakers. Note that I have deliberately left out manufacturers of line sources, line arrays, dipole speakers, open baffle concept and alike showing similar directivity properties but the result of bringing them into living rooms is extremely difficult to predict.

Not without good reason as they are well-engineered also from subjective sound quality point-of-view. I am nevertheless a bit reserved when it comes to recommending them for home use as most of their models are best for the purpose they have been designed for, i.e. either near-field situations or studio-grade rooms.

Nothing against affordable speakers. In general I think the percentage of well-designed speakers is nowadays much much higher than it used to be 20 or 25 years ago. Another reason not to publish condemning or disparaging verdicts.

Well-measuring does not automatically mean good-sounding and meeting the personal taste of the listener (which is a question beyond basic qualities like well-balanced tonality and absence of audible distortion). Furthermore, well-measuring under projected free-field conditions does not guarantee compatibility with a given acoustic environment.

That’s where my problems with ASR reviews and Amir start. On one hand, a speaker showing imperfections when it comes to on-axis FR or THD being too high, in my eyes it does not justify a bad mark or condemning verdict. On-axis FR can easily be EQed (if it is at all confirmed in a listening test to be audibly bad) and distortion is not necessarily a problem if the actual SPL in affected frequency bands is lower in reality.

On the other hand i regard directivity index and pattern to be the most important take from these measurements and a very useful tool to select speakers which might be a match for one. These properties have to go good with the room acoustics and their outcome cannot be EQed or influenced later (if you do not want room treatment). So again, a verdict like ´bad´ or ´perfect´ is senseless as it is a matter of the desired room the speakers should be working in.

What brings me to the conclusion that things in ASR speaker reviews are going fundamentally into the wrong direction is the tendency to praise speakers with problematic, sharply or continuously increasing directivity index being most probably unsuitable for most of home environments as ´perfect´ just because some graphs look smooth.

So, if people understand why the aforementioned constant directivity speakers (while being pretty expensive in their class for the sake of achieving such properties in bass/midrange) are good for homes and sound close to neutral in such environments, it is basically a proof that the concept of well-balanced indirect sound field is right and the claims about significantly sloping downward FR towards higher frequencies in a room as in ideal are wrong. I fail to understand how one can recommend speakers with continuously or sharply increasing DI calling them ´perfect´ for the same environment without noticing the massive sonic difference and contradiction in these claims. If you do a listening comparison between such fundamentally different speakers in your home, the perceived differences are so massive even after perfectly EQing both, one of them MUST be flawed.

If you do not hear this, it is not helping the credibility of your loudspeaker reviews. Same is true to not understanding the difference in tonality between a monaural speaker setup and a stereophonic one. Or the assumption that one can easily DSP the perceived outcome of a massive room mode in the time domain. Or the dogmatic belief in the Harman FR as a target curve leading to claims that narrowing directivity pattern towards higher frequencies is ´what you want to see´. Or the denial of certain aspects of loudspeaker quality evaluation which are not determinable by measurements (such as transparency, localization, ambience, bass character and alike).

It is not a shame not to hear these things. Maybe publishing speaker reviews is just not the best hobby for you. If you have massive problems with fine motor control, maybe playing snooker or starting a watchmaker’s apprenticeship is not for you as well.

845

I seriously wonder, do you listen to music too? What kind of music?

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847

Thanks again for bringing much needed signal to all the noise that ASR produces and calls science. This has all been incredibly enlightening. Maybe the ASR folks could take heed and start to speak seriously about advancing audio science and create more value by being more humble and accurate in claiming the authoritative and known truths. I think the disregard for preference that can change is a gaping hole that even the AES type science points out is a hard problem.

849

I’m only here to say/write how much I appreciated this statement. :sunglasses:

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850

Wow, you now tell us this? All this time you haven’t measured your room? Obviously then you don’t know if the response you wanted to see is really there.

There are only a handful of DSP speakers out there with cardioid bass. So if you are basing your comments on those, you need to specify that right at the start as the odds of audience here having those speakers is next to zero.

Your views are not shared by all of those people. To wit, every professional acoustician measures the room post installation even if they have fully simulated the response. It is simply mandatory as no simulation is accurate enough for this purpose. But you go ahead and quote those people and their qualifications and let’s see if your representation of them is right.

I have already! Here it is again from the paper

"3) Examination of the in-room frequency
response of the room corrections spatially
averaged around the primary listening seat,
largely explained listeners’ preference ratings,
spectral ratings, and comments given to the
room corrections. The more preferred room
corrections produced in-room frequency
response curves that were a) smoother, b) more
extended in the bass, and c) had a broad,
negatively sloped downward tilt, as opposed to
a flat in-room target function."

That directly contradicts your claim that you need flat in-room response. And it is not like you have that anyway even with constant directivity speakers. Here is D&D 8c horizontal and vertical directivity:

No way do these sum to flat response form 20 Hz to 20 kHz. If you have measured a room with such speakers in them, you would see that. Here is the predicted in-room response for 8C:

You see how it slopes down? It has to given the contour plots above showing bass to have far wider directivity than treble.

And this is in an ideal room. In a real room, you will have room modes added on top of this and that is where EQ comes in.

And it is not just D&D. The top brand amount professionals is Genelec. Here is my favorite from them, the 8361A:

What you say does NOT describe “ASR.” ASR reviews are 80% measurements. Readers get to judge that data as they see fit. Without the measurements, you would have no idea what the directivity is and as such, whether it matches your views of acoustics or not. This is what we provide at ASR. That critical data which you are scuffing at. The last 20% is my personal impressions of the speaker in listening to it, applying EQ as needed, etc. Folks can use that information or not. It doesn’t bother me one way or the other.

You on the other hand are insisting that we believe in your views. Why? Because you keep writing about being right without providing any data or references. Just stomping feet that you are right. You don’t quote any research to back your opinions. As such, no one learns a thing about audio by reading your posts. They just get to read the opinion of someone behind an alias in an online forum.

My job is to review the performance of a speaker. Not a “setup.” How I setup speakers in my room would not apply to other rooms so provides useless data in that regard. Testing speakers is very hard. Testing them in mono makes that easier as solid research demonstrates:

Watch this video and if have contrary research, let’s see it but please don’t keep writing text.

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