Does the first reflection point actually matter??

I like Toole, but let’s be clear that this is his personal opinion about what he likes. For some of us, the acoustics of live spaces can take a toll on our brain power. As others have written, filtering out a room all the time can be exhausting, including academic settings.

I personally want my room a little less present. I like my stereo to be the acoustic equivalent of looking across a mountain range. That feeling of relaxation you get when suddenly you feel like you can see forever, but with my ears.

We ALWAYS listen to our room when we listen music, except that if the controls of the room is right we are not conscious of the room but better aware of the musical flow....

There is no "stereo equivalent of looking across a mointain range", it is not the audio stystem alone that create the sounds impressions, but the room.... It is an unseparable unity, this unity can be horrible or celestial with all the level between the 2....




The subjective impressions caused by the impact of a specific room are subjective and vary for each imdividual, but the recreation of the sound impressions by the brain/ears WITH the recording space cues and the actual cues of the room space are informations absolutely necessary to the experience....This recreation is based on the INFORMATION linked to the recording event and the room event for all of us, even if we are not conscious of the room because we are used to it...To be conscious of the room is simple, go to your basement et compare that sound with your kitchen, and the sound of the next church....

What Toole speak about are not only opinions, but serious trends in acoustical science, and we cannot answer to that:" i prefer the sound of my music coming from my stereo system", forgetting the room....We all want to forget the room... But to do so we MUST control the room....This is precisely the point i made and negating it reveal only that you are not conscious of what is the problem at all... :)

If you have the impression that your room dont exist already without any workings of it it is probably a self ingrained conditionment of your perception.... When the boat takes water anybody can negate reality and say all is well i prefer the infinite view from the soaking boat...

And we must realize that we are not conscious of the impact of our room on the sound except when we experiment with it.... I myself became conscious of the extraordinary contribution of the room by experiments... WITHOUT experiments we cannot be aware of this contributions at all...We can suspect it yes, but being aware of the enormous size of the impact, no, not at all... This is the point of acoustic treatment and controls in audio, where people invest big money in electronics and little or nothing in treatment and controls...This blinders were mine BEFORE my experiments in listenings....

The recording experiment you propose is only to reveal the presence of the room, but will not reveal the constructive/destructive impact of the room... When we lived in a room we became used to it, we are not conscious at all often of his destructive side....And anyway most people dont even believe their own ears.... Suffice to read audio forum to know that....Listening experiments is the ONLY way to create a room... Even computerized solutions has limits....

How much you are taxed by the space, how much you are willing to filter out is very individualized.

I’m sorry @mahgister but I feel that you misread my points in too many ways to count, so I'm going to let that drop there.  It's too hard to answer all that.



Best,

E

i get your point and i apologize if i was insisting...

What you say makes more sense in a vast room, in a small one we are captive of reflections and using it is the best way.... Erasing then partially is not the only and not the better way....Most people listen music in small room like me....And not in a ideal acoustically designed big room...

Anechoic chamber are unbearable by the way....And we cannot have an anechoic chamber impression from a normal room....We can record something in an anechoic chamber, not living in it..... In an anechoic chamber we are missing all information cues that comes from our normal room.... And what Toole or any acoustican know is that the brain NEEDS the recording cues of the lived recording original musical event and the cues from the room where the audio system plays to recreate the music on the best scale possible...The final information comes from the mixing by the brain of the cues coming from the direct waves and the reflected one in a room....There is no normal room who mimic an anechoic one.... It is a delusion or a metaphor to convey a peculiar opinion like: i taste my wine but i prefer that the wine dont come from any glass at all.... And this saying says all.... :)

My best to you....

I was only talking in relative terms, on a scale.

Anechoic room  <================> Drywall and concrete

If tool is in the middle I'm a little to the left of him.  The rest, the importance of reflections is important, too many overuse absorption and don't use enough diffusion.

That is all.

Erik

Ok i get your point.... Sometimes i am too swift to react.... But you dont get mine....About the difference between passive materials treatment and active controls one.... :)

The scale you just draw is about reflections only, not about the recreation of the music from the sound event by the brain  using the cues from the refective room and from the direct waves .... This scale is refering to passive controls methods not active one....There exist always 2 space in one, the recording space, and the actual room space.... The best method to recreate the event is using information not eliminating them only....That was my point.... Ok i will go silent....



My best to you....