The Emperor Has No Clothes!!

Most people thinking that their speakers sound at their top optimal S.Q. when they put them in a non dedicated room are delusional by cirscontances or price or ignorance...

Not all people had the luxury of an acoustic dedicated room...

Not all people had the money to ask an acoustician to build one...

Not all people have the time and the knowledge necessary to build one at low cost...

I am sorry about these truth facts...😁

No gear sellers will ever say trying to sell you his miraculous product or after selling it to you , that his costly piece of gear especially the speakers need a dedicated room to sound at their top ...

I learned that because i had no other choice than to investigate....Nobody said that to me....😁

The knowledgeable will claim at most that room acoustics matter... i read that years ago and decided to experiment ...

But in fact acoustics concepts and experiments is the key of audiophile experience, for any system at any price ...The price tags does not matter here ...

( And yes to put the point on the letter (i) a better designed system had a better potential this is a common place fact which not does contradict in any way my point above but confirm it )

But there is a good news hidden in this acoustics inconvenient truth. upgrading the gear is not always the best solution. And modest acoustic change in a living room can pay more than a very costlier possible upgrade...

Thanks interesting anecdote confirming my experience...

Here’s a story for you all regarding the room.  I have my listening room which is quite large but has dormers.  I had some corner traps and a few absorption panels on the front wall behind the speakers.  Now my shop is 30x30 with a drywall ceiling finished in textured spackling.  The walls are insulated and covered with perforated Masonite.  That makes the shop hemianechoic (mostly).  When I sold my Thiel speakers a couple of years back I set them up in the shop with a cheap little bluetooth amp so the buyer could audition them before purchase.  The Thiels sounded amazing in the shop.  I got sick to my stomach because they sounded so good.  This was nuts.   My first thought was cancel the sale but the buyer was already on the way.  I was ready to move my stereo to the shop until my wife talked me off the ledge.  So I went to work on my room.  It took me a couple of months, but I got the room to sound much, much better.  Mainly I had to work on the sloped ceilings but also put absorbers- bass traps in the dormers.  The last issue is signal to noise.  The diffusers and absorbers actually helped with that too.  Still, if I had room in the shop…

@tonywinga 

My wife and I love Savannah!  We’ve been collecting art (that sounds so 18th century!) for almost 30 years now, and it started with a getaway to Savannah.  We bought a couple pieces from a self-trained French Algerian with a studio in Savannah.  We still have and love those pieces, and have added many since.  And don’t get me started about the low country food scene there - oh my!  I’ve always characterized Savannah as a more genteel version of New Orleans. 

There was some Formula One champion who said his main secret to racing success was "brake management" by which he meant using them as sparingly as possible in order to extend their functional life, and apparently he was a supreme master at doing this. Somewhere in there is a metaphor for trying to restrain oneself when faced with the "embarrassment of riches" that is the modern candy store of audio components.

must have been Lauda