@mahgister --
I would go so far to say the room is certainly part of the cake as the main dish - in conjunction with the speakers, that is. The predominant focus on acoustics potentially fails to take into account their being relative to the speakers and their dispersive nature. That is, below the Schroeder frequency (seeing the room here as a resonator) a multitude of bass sources is the acoustic measure to at least partially alleviate the need for absorbers/bass traps/PEQ, while above the Schroeder frequency narrower dispersive characteristics from the likes of line sources, large coned drivers and horns will limit the influence of the room.
That is to say: generally speaking a smaller, direct radiating coned speaker will be more dependent on acoustic measures, or certainly for the listening room to natively better suit it for it to perform closer to its fuller potential, compared to earlier mentioned more narrowly dispersive, larger speakers.
My listening room is on the livelier side of neutral, and the recent addition of a (much) larger MF/HF Constant Directivity horn (replacing its smaller CD horn sibling) - controlling dispersion better and also lower in frequency - has seen a welcome indifference to the acoustics at higher SPL’s in particular; the sound is now more focused, physical, relaxed and better saturated.
My main gripe with absorption (in contrast to diffusion) is that used too extensively it simply kills the soundstage and natural life of the presentation. Indeed, usually I find the fine line here to be easily crossed with just a limited amount of absorption. That’s why earlier I left the acoustics of my listening room on the slightly livelier side, a compromise for sure, whereas now (with the bigger horns) it feels closer to being ideal.
The room is the cake, you must design a room with all the passive and active acoustical controls necessary to help your speakers...
I would go so far to say the room is certainly part of the cake as the main dish - in conjunction with the speakers, that is. The predominant focus on acoustics potentially fails to take into account their being relative to the speakers and their dispersive nature. That is, below the Schroeder frequency (seeing the room here as a resonator) a multitude of bass sources is the acoustic measure to at least partially alleviate the need for absorbers/bass traps/PEQ, while above the Schroeder frequency narrower dispersive characteristics from the likes of line sources, large coned drivers and horns will limit the influence of the room.
That is to say: generally speaking a smaller, direct radiating coned speaker will be more dependent on acoustic measures, or certainly for the listening room to natively better suit it for it to perform closer to its fuller potential, compared to earlier mentioned more narrowly dispersive, larger speakers.
My listening room is on the livelier side of neutral, and the recent addition of a (much) larger MF/HF Constant Directivity horn (replacing its smaller CD horn sibling) - controlling dispersion better and also lower in frequency - has seen a welcome indifference to the acoustics at higher SPL’s in particular; the sound is now more focused, physical, relaxed and better saturated.
My main gripe with absorption (in contrast to diffusion) is that used too extensively it simply kills the soundstage and natural life of the presentation. Indeed, usually I find the fine line here to be easily crossed with just a limited amount of absorption. That’s why earlier I left the acoustics of my listening room on the slightly livelier side, a compromise for sure, whereas now (with the bigger horns) it feels closer to being ideal.