-First there is room non dedicated audio room: living room...
-Second passive material treatment is not enough in a truly DEDICATED audio room which is not a living room...It takes experiments in active mechanical control with Helmholtz method..
-Third we must chose the gear BEFORE controlling the room, why? Because generally the size of the speakers and the dimension of the room must be commensurate and the type of the speakers must be adapted to the geometry of the room, and because the goal of the room control is too adapt the room to the large bandwidth response called "timbre" to the ears, and i did it mechanically...
My dedicated audio room is not pretty because i BOUGHT no pretty costly ready made devices i made them myself with junk materials at no cost from one dollar store or from my basement...
Acoustic preinciples dont mind esthethic and cost...A set of straws and discarded plumbers tubes etc nust obey acoustic principle not art...And i am not a crafty skilled person like many of you...I know how to study thats all because it was my job before retirement...
Appearence is not sound quality no more than a beautiful amplifier must be good because he is way more beautiful..That is prejudice...
-And fourth yes sorry, but a completely dedicated audio room is the only luxury in audio not the price of the gear...If not i will go on chasing my tail and changing the gear wiithout being able to made my acoustic experiments... Is it possible to do it in a living room, yes, but only if you know what to do and to some extent only...
-Finally judging people according to their brandeed name product and room esthetic is only that PREJUDICES... Listening is the only way to judge...My room is not pretty and i decided to not put any more photos for years now from my room which is impossible to describe because it ressemble a cavern where a nut operate...Some seller here make precisely disparaging inuendo about that this week...People are stupid when they judge on appearence this will not change, but some have their own agenda to do so and they will repeat your final post paragraph here because this suit their selling agenda not audio experience and experiments and partaking of knowledge...
A resume of my discoveries in acoustic experiments :
No speakers at any cost will beat by his upgrading power acoustic control,
Here are these 6 aspects of acoustic control parameters in a room i experimented with :
1 -Balance between absorbing surfaces,
2 -Reflecting one,
3 -Diffusive one....
This was "classical" passive material treatment of a room, now these 3 new other factors are related to my concept of the mechanical active control of a room ( what i called a mechanical equalizer):
4-control over reverberation time and timing of the wavefronts
5- control over the distribution of the pressure zones
6- fine layering and tuning of the laminar flow
These 3 last aspects could be controlled with Helmhotz mechanical method NOT by electronical equalization...or by some costly "tweak"...
Then the piano will not sound the same from the same pair of speakers in a non controlled room and in a controlled one...Not even close...
Dont upgrade good speakers with costly one BEFORE studying and experimenting with acoustic...
My acoustic devices and experiments were all homemade and cost me nothing...
I can then claim that great hi-Fi experience is possible at low cost contrary to what is claimed or supposed almost everywhere by almost everyone...
People dont know acoustic and never seriously try experimenting with it in a dedicated small room.
You are not wrong. For sure.
About “YOUR ROOM”…. Let’s walk this through: any person serious about good audio will take care of the “room”. Assuming good size & dimensions, and audio specific (not a general living room area where WAF comes in play, and rightly so), it’s relatively very cheap to treat the room with speaker positioning, as well as acoustic panels, like I did with GIK, absorbers and diffusers everywhere including ceiling, bass traps, etc. etc. Yes, it takes some time and effort to make it right, as well as some knowledge and understanding, using microphone and tools (I used REW and UMIK-1 which I still have), and some professional help if necessary (I did hire someone mostly for aesthetics and accuracy for the ceiling stuff). But it’s fun, and we learn a lot while doing it.
Every “gearophile” I personally know, has taken care of the “room”. It’s not that hard, relatively cheap, and people who can spend $3,000 on a power cord can easily afford to “treat the room”, and let’s face it, these are the same people who can actually afford to have a dedicated sizable audio room / house, not those who can barely afford to own an amp. Am I wrong?
So let’s say “YOUR ROOM” is taken care of. Now what? It ends there? You can put any kind of speakers on that PERFECT room? Amps? If the room is perfect, say you inherited daddy’s big house, then what? What percentage of your total audio endeavors are done?
Or from another angle, for most of us mortals, let’s say we can only have a system in a general purpose living room or family room, or bedroom, with a wife and kids in the house, no dedicated perfectly sized spare room, then what? Abort the pursuit because the room cannot possibly be perfect?
Oh… more often than not, from my experience, it’s the same people who cry wolf and shout loudly ROOM!!! and gear does not matter, who have crappie general purpose “rooms” with a small minority having some panels here and there thrown in haphazardly where wife allows with no rhyme or reason. Not always so, but the majority of these folks. Just ask them to show you their “room”.
Am I wrong?