Speakers that sound great in terrible rooms

Dborden702 wrote: "I used to attend many audio shows. The first thing I would look at when walking into a room was how many acoustic room treatments and system tweak toys were in play. The speakers and systems that impressed me were the ones that had none and sounded great."

Nice to hear you notice and appreciate that when you come across it!

[brag] When someone speaks up at an audio show and says they like what they’re hearing in our room, I’ll sometimes say, "the secret is all the acoustic treatments we use." Whereupon they look around the room and notice that we aren’t using any. Just bare hotel room walls.

However the best was when we showed with an industry veteran electronics manufacturer who remarked that this was the FIRST time he had shown in a room where "we weren’t fighting against the room the whole time." [/brag]

On the other hand... having said all that, if the sound in our room sucks, I can’t very well blame it on the room now, can I?

Duke

One secret, which an ASC guy told me once, but I agree with, is listen to the music in the hallway. You can go up and down the hall and quickly pick out the well tuned rooms without ever having to walk in.

Honestly, I simply don't know how audiophiles audition most equipment in a hotel room, at all.

Erik wrote: "One secret, which an ASC guy told me once, but I agree with, is listen to the music in the hallway. You can go up and down the hall and quickly pick out the well tuned rooms without ever having to walk in."

From outside the open doorway, with NO line-of-sight to the speakers, ALL you can hear is the reverberant sound. And if that reverberant sound is spectrally correct (and the dynamics are preserved), there’s an excellent chance the sound in the room is likewise quite good.

This reverberant sound is dominated by the speaker’s off-axis response, and is of course modified by the room, but it would take some very capable targeted room treatment to "fix" a speaker which has inherently poor off-axis response.

On the other hand, an unamplified voice or acoustic instrument would sound totally convincing from outside the room assuming the room isn’t absolutely dreadful, imo in large part because the off-axis energy of the unamplified voice or instrument is inherently correct.

So while I understand what your ASC guy is saying, listening from outside the room can tell you a great deal about the speakers even if there are no acoustic treatments in play. Among other things, a spectrally correct reverberant field is conducive to long-term fatigue-free listening, assuming the direct sound is also correct.

I don’t have anything against using room treatment, but if your speakers start out with spectrally-correct off-axis energy, then your room treatment can be focused on enhancing something which is already pretty good, instead of needing to focus on fixing something which isn’t. (Examples on request.)

Erik again: "Honestly, I simply don’t know how audiophiles audition most equipment in a hotel room, at all."

I understand your skepticism which is why I had hoped we could cross paths at an audio show.

If the speaker system effectively takes the room out of the equation, then the room is no longer superimposing its signature atop every piece of music you play. This would be a situation where you could audition equipment in a hotel room.

Duke

Gradient 1.3  speakers , that I have owned for many years and still do.

Hi @audiokinesis

Oh, I believe that different types of speaker dispersion patterns will sound different, and some may sound excellent in a hotel room. I have no doubt that bi-polar or cardioid or line sources are going to attack the problem of the hotel room very differently. I’m not "skeptical" but I’m inexperienced. I would love to hear your speakers at a show.

My comment is more general in that in a poor sounding room audiophiles often attempt to do detailed comparison between speakers or cables or whatnot when I can barely stand to be in the room.



Best,

E