Specifications VS Sound Quality

Removing masking noise via improving acoustics is the most critical thing a person can do to improve the observed sound quality of an audio system.

And that requires research, lots of research and work and thoughtful application to the specific case at hand - as acoustics is not a simple problem. Otherwise we’d all have it down to a fine science and all be observing it’s correct effective use in our own systems. Note that we are not.

My own solution work for me:

Passive material treatment with a balance between reflection and diffusion and absorption...

But the Activation of the zone pressures of my room by adding a grid of Helmholtz homemade resonators, which i called a mechanical equalizer gives me the real improvement ( located at some critical ponts in my room )....Tuned by ears with a method to "mark out" the first frontwaves coming from each speaker for each ears....

For vibrations controls of my speakers i use a sandwih of different materials under my speakers.... But it is not enough, i added a 4 springs sets under the speakers, and i added 4 others springs boxes under a fine tuned load on top of my speakers.... This worked at peanits costs...

For my electrical noise floor i used a edevice i created the "golden plate" a piece of shungite +copper tape on external side.... I have them all along my electrical grid...


The results make my ratio S.Q./price very interestesting.... My 500 bucks system is not better than many system here but i am not so far behind them.... People would be astonished....


My best and regards...

teo_audio, I know a lot about high end audio, but I know very little about "room acoustics". At this late date I'm not going to try to learn; what professional services would I need to treat my listening room, and what do you think would be the cost?

By your post, I have assumed that you might know the answer to these questions?

Upgrade obsession is born fron acoustical ignorance and marketing ploys to sell new electronical design, which may be better BUT which will never  replace acoustic  controls....

I think it’s best to consider technical specs to be an indicator of the quality of the item rather than how it will sound. Harmonic distortion describes how linear the amplifier is (how closely the output resembles the input) which is important, however the difference between 0.001 and 0.0001% is unlikely to be heard... but it is an indicator of the quality of the overall design. The method of measuring THD uses a simple sine wave as input which causes some to say that it’s not representative of music. Intermodulation distortion measures the reproduction of multiple frequencies and so is often considered to be a more relevant spec.
Noise measurements are pretty indisputable (THD+N, Noise Floor, Signal to Noise Ratio). The greater the SNR the less noise there will be, but again, the difference between 115dB and 120dB is unlikely to be audible.
In general, if you know how to read them then graphs are much more informative than numeric values (0.1%, 100dB etc.).
In terms of putting a system together the least used tech specs (in my experience) are the most important ones... gain (or output level), impedance, power and loudspeaker sensitivity. They don’t tell you how good a component is but they do tell you whether it will play nicely with the rest of your equipment.
One last point... if you’re comparing different specs be sure to read the small print e.g. the conditions measured. Was THD measured at 1W or full output power, was loudspeaker sensitivity measured with a 1W or 2.83V signal, these things matter. Also if you’re trying to compare a % measurement with decibels there are plenty of online tools that will convert between the two.
I think the problem with specifications is that you need to understand what they’re telling you to make use of them and that takes a bit of effort to learn.
Nothing beats listening as long as you get a decent amount of time to figure out whether you like how something sounds.

Great post! thanks...

Regards...