Harley quote

“...a seemingly poorly designed room CAN sound amazing.”
Maybe to your ears, but the sound by objective measures is not amazing. Distortion can sound subjectively good, but its not correct and is something to be avoided.

A room with one side wall absent cannot by definition sound amazing.  Using conventional two-channel dynamic drivers, imaging will be hopelessly messed up in such a case. Unless one is listening in the extreme near-field, which defeats the purpose of setting up a six-figure ‘big’ system in a large room.

I’m guessing at least half of the posters here would go ballistic at the sight of the word ‘correct’.  But there are correct and incorrect ways to set up a room; there’s no getting around the laws of physics.  

“Some of the supposedly best designed rooms are often horrible sounding.”
No. A correctly constructed and outfitted room will sound right, by definition.

To focus on something relatively minor like cables, while ignoring the laws of acoustics, is something else to be avoided.

“Some of the supposedly best designed rooms are often horrible sounding.”
No. A correctly constructed and outfitted room will sound right, by definition.

A small ordinary room is defined by his geometry ( form+proportion, by his topology (doors+windows) and very importantly by the acoustical different properties of the different materials contituting his content (furniture+books,vinyl,cd, flowers,lamps etc +walls-ceilings-floors) ...

NO equations here, even computerized pre-fabricated solutions will or could replace completely the human ears....

Designed room are NOT small living room, but even them need the ears designers piloting the work....

Then laws of acoustics dont replace ears....Practical acoustic is an ART based science...

To focus on something relatively minor like cables, while ignoring the laws of acoustics, is something else to be avoided.

Here you are more than right....

My greatest discovery in audio, is that upgrading electronic design is often secondary ,if a certain quality product is being acquired... The most important factors being most of the times the 3 embeddings controls dimensions of the audio systems : mechanical,electrical and acoustical embeddings...

Not knowing that is condemning oneself to chaising his tail or chaising the dragon tail , in the 2 cases entering in an endless pit throwing money into the abyss....

Or endlessy arguing meaninglessly about cables, after being deceived by one or after buying a  good one, and at worst, arguing at the end  with  anti cables zealot of scientism... 😁

"Distortion can sound subjectively good, but its not correct and is something to be avoided."

What? You do not like pulling styrofoam over glass?

Fun fact...experimenting with raising my speaker cables off the carpet and isolating them from vibrations with anti vibration supports and Mapleshade brass weights on top of their network boxes.  Sound became dull and less dynamic.  Back on carpet....fantastico!!  Moral?  Gotta play around and above all else USE YOUR EARS 👂. All the advanced acoustic design in the world ain’t necessarily gonna do it for you...keep on truckin:)

un fact...experimenting with raising my speaker cables off the carpet and isolating them from vibrations with anti vibration supports and Mapleshade brass weights on top of their network boxes. Sound became dull and less dynamic. Back on carpet....fantastico!! Moral? Gotta play around and above all else USE YOUR EARS 👂. All the advanced acoustic design in the world ain’t necessarily gonna do it for you...keep on truckin:)

Any specific embeddings device works in the limits related to any audio system and in the limits of the other 2 embeddings environment... You are right....

Then i am not surprized by your report that contradict some other  report...
The contradiction only reflect that any solution must be ADAPTED to a specific audio environment and to their specific varied embeddings...😊 The ears cannot perceive in the abstract, they works in a specific environment in front of a specific system....They teach themselves how to listen and perceive in this environment...We all have different listenings histories....


This is why NO TWEAK are a universal solution...And i dont buy them....Even if some for sure are good...

Myself i dont "tweak", i make listenings experiments with my system and after that i create complementary SPECIFIC embeddings devices for the 3 dimensions, mechanical,electrical and acoustical and for my specific audio system....

The ultimate test for the ears is always natural TIMBRE perception... All the other qualities of sound come generally gradually with the implementation of the conditions for natural TIMBRE experience, be it dynamic, imaging, soundstage qualities etc...