How do you know when a stereo sounds good?

Your room acoustic treatments are tweaks.

 

 

For sure there exist 2 methods to fine tune the room acoustically: BY EARS or with a MIC and an electronical equalizer...

 

But ask any acoustician about electronical equalizer... They dont use it generally and if they do it is only a secondary tools...

I use my ears with my timbre recognition BIAS for sure...

But the fact that 2 people EARS and hearing bias are different CANNOT made acoustical principle in Helmholtz method VOID and useless...

 

Acoustic principles are not "tweaks" they are science.... The way you use them is according to your SPECIFIC EARS for sure...

I use Helmholtz resonators and diffusers grid.... Nothing is a "tweak" here for 2 reason: it cost NOTHING to experiment with that, i used cheap bottles and plumbers tubes...

And "tweaks" is about a particular READY MADE SOLD device, Helmholtz method in acoustic is not a "tweak"...

Tweak are secondary addition to an audio system in the audiophile lingo...

Acoustic is not a secondary addition to an audio system, it is ESSENTIAL and a dedicated room is the more important luxury in audio...

Good observation! thanks ...

Great hall acoustic differ completely of small room acoustic...

 

Reflections and reverberation time for example are not used the same way...

We can use POSITIVELY in a small room the reverberation time to improve the imaging...

In a great Hall there exist general principles of design very well known by MILLENIA beginning with the geniuses Greek architect of theater...

Small room acoustic is a very late and contemporary subject matter existing only for decades....Who was looking for a small audio room acoustically designed in 1950 ? How many? Even now people THINK that the S.Q. COMES from the speakers DIRECTLY....And from their amplifiers...they ignore that the final waves to reach their ears has crossed their room hundred of times in ONE SECOND...For my 13 feet room : 83 times...

Each ear by Haas principle of first frontwave give to the brain a DIFFERENT time responses in MILLISECONDS...Anyway.... It is easy to study that...And what are the implication for the way the brain construct imaging for example and others acoustical cues....

 

 

Most audiophiles were CONDITIONNED like i was about electronic design

orientation toward GEAR selling not toward ACOUSTIC of small room...

I was deluded myself by this general ignorance LESS THAN A YEAR AGO...This is the reason behind my posts here...Acoustic may cost peanuts ....Or a small dedicated room can easily cost more than 100,000 bucks...

My room is not perfect but BEAT my 7 headphones....

 

 

I am pretty sure the OP of this thread KNOW very well this matter subject by the way.... And better than me, Ask him....I am not an acoustician nor a specialist in audio myself....Just a customer without money who was dreaming Hi-FI and knowing how to read books about acoustic or others, i created my own devices......

 

I dont need an upgrade now why?

My audio system is not perfect at all being low cost and my room was created by me not by a pro at high cost...

Because my sound quality make me able to listen the ORIGINAL acoustic cues from the original live recorded event ( It is not perfect, but Goddam good) so well i can forget audiophile expanse till my death....I never ask for perfection with a 500 bucks audio system...But i am not envious anymore of high cost system even if their potential are better than mine...i listen music with good S.Q. fore the FIRST time in my life then i am very satisfied... ALL my albums sound great not only the few audiophile recordings i own...

Music through sounds and sound through musics....Not one without the other....

 

 

Is not the Orchestra Hall built before its performers ever step foot?

@winnardt

To you, there’s only one answer and the question was meaningless, but you can’t know ahead of time what the other answers will be.

No, that’s unfair; look back at my very first post which offers one other way to construe the question. Further answers have been interesting, too. So, no -- I’m not saying there can only be one answer. Give me some credit.

Can’t help advance you on the science fiction question.

I ask guys selling expensive audio tweaks. They must know best, right? 🤔