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Is the significance of room acoustics overrated?

Don't get me wrong as I realize just how important room acoustics are (I think).

However, let me share some recent experiences:

In our previous home, an audio reviewer/columnist evaulated my system. Very positively I might add. Anyway, upon telling him that my family and I were preparing to relocate to the West coast after his 3 hour evaulation, he responded with "good luck trying to find another room with these acoustics." And I knew exactly what he meant.

Well, we found a home that may have had even better room acoustics but it failed the home inspections. I'm still bummed about that one, but it was on to the next...

We settled on another home and it was either the living room or the family room for my listening room. Because of it's isolation from other rooms (very open floor plan) I selected the family room even though the living room had better acoustics and immediately had an electrician install the dedicated lines there. But this family room has no where near the level of acoustics of my previous room.

Although the same basic sonic characteristics where there in the new room, the bass had peaks and valleys like a rollercoaster. And off-and-on over the next 7 months, I'd move the speakers around trying to locate the best position for overall best performance/best compromise.

Lo and behold about a month ago, I located a position in which the bass peaks and valleys have all but disappearded and overall and in some ways the absolute bass control and response as well as the overall presentation is even better than my previous room.

Of course I can't help but wonder what if I had devoted this kind of attention to speaker placement in my previuos room with better acoustics?

But at the same time, I find it difficult to believe that simply relocating the speakers to an 'optimal' location could cause the interactions with the room's poor acoustics could be minimalized to such a degree.

Therefore, I ask:

Aside from ensuring basic room treatments i.e. thick wall-to-wall carpeting and padding and generally good room demensions/symmetry, etc. is not speaker placement far, far more important?

And lastly, I suppose this thread may offer hope for some that there very well be a better speaker placement to cover a multitude of sins in what should be deemed an otherwise acoustically poor room.
stehno
stehno OP
1,453 posts
 
Twl, perhaps yours is the more intriguing response. When you said "attempting to place unusal emphasis, or importance, on one part or another can get out of hand."

Maybe that's what was in the back of my mind. Because up 'til now, the most common response for ingredients necessary to aquire good sound has been room acoustics. And with that response I've heard and read too many times that room acoustics account for typically a whopping 80%. And with my previous room's excellent acoustics I agreed.

But now my current room has nowhere near the same level of acoustics, yet speaker placement has more than made up for that deficieincy.

So getting back to your statement, perhaps that room acoustics accounting for 80% of the sonics is the unusual emphasis, importance, or the one part that may have gotten just a bit out of hand?

I mean, couldn't room acoustics account for a still whopping 40 or 50% while speaker placement accounts for the other 40 or 30% ?

-IMO
ohlala
1,236 posts
 
"Ohlala, stop trying to pretend you are educated beyond your intelligence. Based on your verbiage above and elsewhere, it's quite evident that you already are."

My post was economic, not an attempt to be eloquent. Out of laziness, instead of writing a longer post, I used the diction I did in order to shorten it. I am also fine with the pointed adornments. If you want to judge my intelligence, try deferring to my post's content.

"For the last two years you've been like a little butt rash that flares up every three months or so, even though I've no idea who you are."

Not as a slight, you know more about me than I would be interested in knowing about you. I don't get personal, you do.

"Where do you get this "bold conclusion" from?"

You had to make a conclusion about your experience to question the logic of others. As I posted, I found your conclusions to be too week to even begin questioning the experiences of others. Even though "bold" could be dropped from my post w/out changing any of my points, that's where I was coming from when I wrote "bold conclusion".

"Or perhaps speaker placement can sometimes substitute for a portion of that 80%."

The proportion game is mediocre audio, and I don't think 80% is the mainstream thought (but whatever), but I can only take what you state as you finding your poorer room to be more difficult for speakers placement. Maybe there is something else, but I'm sleepy. At this point of this post I just have to circle back to my first. Even if I bought in to ##%, your conclusion is beyond your experience.

"As for my one experience to your vast experiences with room acoustics? College dorm rooms really don't count."

The Revelations have never been in a dorm room, but comparing bad rooms and good rooms, I don't see the point in dismissing a dorm. I don't consider my room acoustic experience to be "vast". My experience pertaining to the topic of this thread is greater than yourÂ’s, so I felt obligated to state my findings within a post that debunks your's.
robm321
932 posts
 
stehno,

I am using Auralex 1" foam pads. I do have a comforter on one wall to kill the flutter echo, but I think, well I know because I've tried covering all the walls, will kill the dynamics and roll of the highs.

There is nothing wrong with carpeting at all, but having "wall to wall carpeting" will give you a dead sound. The ratio usually thrown around is 50% absorbtive (if that's a word, I'm too lazy to spell check) 50% reflective - preferably difused sound. I'd have to agree with this. A dead sounding system is as bad as a bright untreated sounding system to my ears.

But ultimately the question can't be aswered in general. It has to be taken on a case by case basis. The loudpeaker placement will always come first, then treat the walls. They are both necessary to get your what you payed all the money for in your system.
stehno OP
1,453 posts
 
Robm321, when I said 'wall-to-wall' carpeting I meant only covering the entire flooring. I thought wall-to-wall was kind of a popular term to describe this. Sorry.
subaruguru
1,376 posts
 
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