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It is all about the ‘Room’, thinks Toole.

Is it the 'room'?

Late last year a book by Floyd Toole appeared, ‘Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms’. Toole’s background gives him high creditability. He knows what acoustics and psychoacoustics are really about. Hopefully you have read it since it will become the ‘bible’ of the field, just like Everest’s work’s did. I’ve read it twice so far, with many more readings necessary to get all the knowledge out of it. Don’t buy anymore ‘gear’ till you check it out.
This book is lucidly written in easy to understand language, extensively illustrated and referenced. I think it is a must read for anyone that considers themselves an ‘audiophile’. There are some good short reviews on Amazon. Stereophile has also done a short review.

I would be interested in comments of Audiogon’ers who have read the book, at least once.
buconero117
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,928 posts
 
I haven't read but would say in general that the venue is always the first thing to consider when designing any particular sound.

In the specific case of home audio, the room is your venue and the sound comes from your system. The fast path to a sound you can live with is to first consider the room.

In my case, my system can drive 5 different pairs of speakers in 5 different rooms (one an outside deck). Each room is different and each dictates what speaker designs will work well or not, and my system has to work well with each room/speaker combo.
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aldavis
200 posts
 
I'm working my way through it. So far it makes a lot of interesting points ;some unrelated to the "room". I would encourage all to read it. Can't wait to finish it. -Jim
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
I read this about a year ago. I found it rambled a bit but there is some excellent advice in it. FWIW: I have invested rougly half of my money on room acoustics. I find it very odd that audiophiles pretend to be serious about sound quality to the point of agonizing over speaker cables, interconnects and cones/spikes yet many of these same audiophiles do absolutely nothing about the room acoustics - go figure! (Is this hobby about aesthetic fashions or sound quality?)
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dbphd
1,624 posts
 
Judging from many of the posts on Audiogon, Shadorne, I think it's mostly a hobby about fools' gold, mysticism for the gullible. Toole's advice pretty much comports with what I knew about psychoacoustics when I was active in the field, but it's not nearly as sexy as whatever latest widget has become available. We need to get our heads straight and start listening to those power cords.

db
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