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I can prove your room is bad

So you want to upgrade?  You want to know what the next big thing is you can do for a better sounding experience?

Try this.  Pull up a chair 2' in front of your speakers.  If you can't move the speakers, put it up to just 1, and listen for yourself.

The difference between what you hear sitting in front of the speaker like this, and what you hear at your normal location is all in the speaker dispersion and room acoustics. If you feel mesmerized, entranced, and wowed by your speaker at 2' but not 8' you really should consider improving the room, and if you can't, consider getting speakers with alternative room coupling, like ESL's, line arrays, bi-polars, etc.

That is all,


Erik
erik_squires
audiokinesis
2,737 posts
 
@erik_squires : "Oh, no, not me. :) That’s why I stated in the OP that the difference is in fact the combination of the room and speaker dispersion."

Thanks for replying; we’re on the same page there.

What I’m getting at is, in my opinion, sometimes the speakers’ off-axis response is either the main culprit or a significant contributor.

As a thought experiment, would an unamplified instrument such as piano or acoustic guitar suck in the same room? Would they significantly benefit from nearfield listening? If not, then perhaps the room is not the primary culprit; perhaps the speakers and/or setup are more at fault.

I'm not AGAINST improving the room's acoustics!!  But I think the room gets blamed for problems which originate in the speaker's off-axis response, and which are therefore difficult to correct via acoustic treatment alone. 

Duke

jrwaudio
345 posts
 
My room is above a three car garage with knee walls and sloped ceilings. It basically sucks, but its all i have. Life is full of priorities and compromises 
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,600 posts
 
jrwaudio

I grew up in a room like that. ESLs sounded good there and still do.
baclagg's avatar
baclagg
151 posts
 
I love my GIK panels! Bass absorption behind each speaker, diffusion at first reflection and three 2’ square diffusion panels on the back wall behind the listening position. All are 4” thick.
erik_squires OP
16,059 posts
 
I'm going to throw this discussion back at you, @audiokinesis ...


My original point was to help audiophiles figure out if the direct speaker signal was making it well enough to their seat, without tools. Your question is, literally and figuratively, orthogonal to my own. ;-)


Lets say there is a speaker with good forward and poor off-axis response.  How do you suggest an audiophile discover this with no tools but their ears?
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