Can room acoustics amplify the sound of speakers?


In attempting to solve some room acoustics problems, I have encountered a dilemma: Can room acoustics actually amplify the sound from speakers?? This is my scenario, I play music fairly loud, but am no headbanger (for example Yes' version of "America" or "Going for the One", Allman Brothers "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed") I understand what it means to pressurize a listening room and how recording venues have different degrees of loudness which should be adjusted or matched by the volume control. The source of this question originates when I play music loud, the dynamic passages become less clear and more congested or noisy, but a transition to a softer passage, the clarity and harmonics of the music improves. Am I hearing more total harmonic distortion at loud volume levels, and less so on the softer passages??, OR, is my amp clipping, or is the music's demands beyond the capabilities of my integrated amp. The amp is a Creek SE5350 Classic (80RMS) driving Acoustic Zen Adagios. The room is only 12X14. Will appreciate any advice or explanation. Jim
sunnyjim
What often happens is room reflections either cancel or reinforce different parts of the musical spectrum. I have been using room treatments and found that by placing them in different positions the sound changes dramatically. Several of the companies offering room treatments give free advice; I got mine from Ready Acoustics and it has really improved my sound.
I agree with Stanwal.
If your room isn't accoustically treated at the first reflections, and preferably the second also, the nodes can make havok of the imaging and it will fall apart at high SP's.
If you don't have enough headroom in your amp this can also cause the image to fall apart at loud SP's.
And, if your speaker isn't capable of filling the room with said SP's, it will break apart.
And a combination of all the abouve will be evident
It is possible that the colorations you hear at high levels are actually present at lower levels, but are below the detection threshold.

In a small room, you inevitably have lots of early-onset reflections, and in general early-onset reflections are more likely to be detrimental than later-onset reflections. In my opinion it makes sense to address this situation at the speaker design level, rather than relying solely on room treatments, because room treatments are not frequency-selective enough to target the types of problems loudspeakers tend to have in small rooms.

For instance, if your tweeter has much wider dispersion than your woofer(s) in the crossover region, the reverberant field in your room will have excess energy in the lower treble region, at the lower end of the tweeter's range. This is more likely to color the tone and degrade the clarity if the reflections begin arriving relatively early, as is the case in a small room. Absorptive panels cannot target just that frequency region; they will absorb broadband, and enough absorption to eliminate the coloration may also make the room too "dead". Some absorption will probably be beneficial in your case, but in my opinion it's easy to over do it in a small room.

The fact that you're using the word "amplify" makes me think that you may indeed be getting emphasis in the 3-4 kHz region from the reverberant field, as that is where the ear is most sensitive so extra energy in that region would seem to amplify things.

Imho, ime, ymmv, etc.

Duke
dealer/manufacturer