In-Room responce measurement with Legacy Focus SE speakers

@yoyoyaya HA!!! Bigger is not always better!!!  It's funny his space is over sized and empty, and my space is VERY small and VERY not symmetrical. 
I honestly think someone could have a really cool business of doing live -[ place your favorite instrument here]- sessions in someones listening space and sound system to help them dial in tone/frequency issues, and find short comings in the room or equipment chain.  

@amtprod If the room is really bad there will be positions where the woofers won't be functioning. You have to walk around to find the bass.

The single most important aspect to building a great system is finding a good room to put it in. When I was a graduate student down in Miami the huge showroom at Sound Components sounded great. It was something like 30 X 100 feet. In the meanwhile my system was crammed into a studio apartment and the bass was....difficult. In the public health service I rented a house that was open concept. None of the spaces were particularly large, but walls were missing everywhere and it sounded great. The house was one big diffusor. When I built my own house I had that in mind eliminating walls and doors where possible. I also use speakers with very controlled dispersion which helps a lot. Unfortunately, It does nothing for bass. That is where 4 subwoofers come in. If you are running on a budget Audiokinesis sells it's system for something like $2500 for an amp and four subwoofers. If you can spend more Kef makes a great little balanced force unit and Martin Logan has a pair of balanced force subs. After that it is Magico and even if you can afford them they are big and ugly. Everything else on the market is standard fare. If used with digital bass management they can be OK but not as good as the units I mention above. 

@mijostyn   The room is just so large, in a VERY large full size basement (it's effectively the nicely finished region of the whole basement  with the basic 'foundation walls' as the boundaries, (listening area = 34'L x 24'W 10'H) with the other areas of the basement as unfinished and even open-wall-stud framing mainly.  So to my ears and measuring, the Legacy speakers never really "pressurize" the room/basement.   So lucky for him, he could always add subwoofers if really needed--but I think for his room/system the biggest boom (see what I did there) would be from dealing with the "empty chamber syndrome" effect. 

In placing a few simple insulation panels directly between and aside the speakers (2, 2'x4' yellow insulation panels) in line with the face of the speakers: two in the middle, two on each side, you not only hear dramatically less echo/ringing, but things actually sound like they have more body to them, and warmer.  Yet, in doing a room frequency sweep measurement, there is NO change in frequency response.  I get the feeling if properly treated, the room and system will sync together better and maybe there won't be 'more bass', but all the hash/echo.reverd will be cut and enough body created to really bring out what I know the system and speakers are capable of.

I would love to get him the KEF unit (2 of them): I had heard two of them in a friends showroom space, and they were excellent value for function.  I know his Legacy will perfectly create the tone and detail of a bass note guitar (there is ZERO bass reinforcement/boom at any frequency), but would really benefit from a bit more "body feel" so to speak. 
Happy Easter
~alan

I am sure most have seen this video series, but just in case I thought I would post.

I found this very useful to hear 'before and after' from his space....yet played thru my fathers system and echoy room--so it's VERY obvious the echo/reverb.

 

Want to make a few points here:

1. One major reason we have trouble hearing a room is the ear/brain mechanism is actively filtering, which takes actual energy (i.e. the consumption of carbohydrates) and is tiring. Try recording your speakers and then listening that with headphones, or a friend’s voice in the room. You’ll be amazed at how much of the room reaches your ears but which your brain filters out in order to process the meaning of the words which were spoken. Do t his a few times and you can develop the skill to turn the filtering on and off. Takes a little practice.

2. IMHO, the Audioophle consensus is wrong about first reflection points. They matter but only if you already have a controlled acoustical environment. That is, you need a certain critical mass of absorbers before the 1st reflection points can make a perceptible difference. I’m not saying first reflection points never matter but that you shouldn’t get tunnel vision about them. Given a choice between an overall well treated room with controlled reflection time but no panels at 1st reflections and a room with only 1st reflection points treated the former will absolutely win. For this reason, do both, and don’t be disappointed if you place 4 panels and don’t hear a big difference.

3. Don’t forget the AM Acoustics Room mode simulator which in your case could be a real life saver. It will help you place your speakers and listening location more ideally, which you should do before considering 1st reflection points.