In-Room responce measurement with Legacy Focus SE speakers


Evening all,

Odd request or question for folks with Legacy Focus SE speakers.  I am doing some VERY casual speaker tests and room response measurements of dads big system.  I have Legacy's smaller Studio HD bookshelf speakers, and have a VERY small space and I think they are incredible.  In hearing my dad's much larger room/speakers/system (his listening room is literally the size of my tiny home!) with his larger Legacy Focus SE speakers.....I am honestly a bit underwhelmed, especially considering I have the 1/8th size Studios, and in my room/system they sound incredible.

In my home, the Studio bookshelf speakers  sound 'mostly' full, warm, very taunt and articulate, and there is the right match of the tone of most all instruments and it's "weight".  Like the pluck or strum of a guitar that is percussive, actually has a bit of an impact on your body.  However, my dads system lacks this 'impact' or body and weight.  Listening at 70-75decibell level is actually grating and feels like your head is being a bit compressed, but it doesn't "sound loud".  My dad mentioned he usually doesn't play anywhere above 60ish decibels because of this issue. 

Attached (I hope) is a screen shot of REW in room measurement of my system with the Studio HD bookshelf speakers for reference to what I am hearing.  In my fathers system, there is a pronounced 100-130hz peak/hump and things sort of trail off rapidly in BOTH higher and lower frequencies.  I'm trying to get a similar measurement to illustrate, but thought I would try to get some thoughts first. 

Thanks for time!!

 

128x128amtprod

@amtprod There is no such thing as overdoing it. The more you kill what the room is doing the more you will hear what is in the recording including the third dimension, which is not the sense of depth as in distance it is the sense that the instrument of voice in front of you is a three dimensional object. The only caveat is that bass does not respond to room treatment. You start with enough acoustic power to do the job, then you tailor it with digital signal processing to sound right. 

The only caveat is that bass does not respond to room treatment.

Kind of, sort  of....

All my suggestions so far have been subtractive.  That is, to remove sounds in the room.  If you only subtract mid-treble then your balance shifts to the bass.

From experience and theory I can state that this absolutely brings out more bass and make speakers sound more powerful (I'd say larger but that sets some readers off into  an irrational tizzy). 

Will it fully fix the OP's issue? I'm not sure, but I do now his judgement about the bass problems will change after the room is treated. 

Also, we want the room to interact a little.  Diffuse sounds with a steady decay are really important to avoid a headphone-like experience and give us the illusions of the listening venue.

@erik_squires Morning.  Thanks again for things to try.  I'll look more into the "gated measurements" method.  I'll also look into OmniMic.  REW is really incredibly powerful program (free even!), and I think can be used even at a very surface level to help gain some objective info.  In my system/room at home REW helped me figure out exactly what frequencies were making bass boom, which helped me make some parametric EQ changes.  If you get time you should give it a look. 

Father is SUPER sensitive to bass, so for him little bass is perfectly ok to him.There is no way he will move his speakers (he can be, 'intractable'? about some things).  As we discussed, big goal is getting rid of the room echo/delay/reverb to a more moderate-mild level.  Like you noted, that alone will bring up the level or presence of existing bass. 

AM Acoustics Room Mode Simulator: I meant to say thanks for this!!!  I had found that awhile ago and forgot about it and where to find it!!  This is super helpful! 

@mijostyn I think if I can get him to do even moderate absorbing panels, it will make sizeable improvements that he will like.  I think the space COULD be perfect/exemplary and world class acoustically, but like we all know do we want to go thru the effort labor and expense?  In his space, it wouldn't take much really since there is no bass management issues (other than the lack of it!!!! :D )
But maybe I can talk him into a subwoofer at some point!  But these things take careful progress.  I think as we get older in ways we can become sort of set and resistant to things....even if we heard a difference, and even if that difference were 'objectively better'. 
And Erik is 100% correct about the bass coming out-- in putting absorbing panels directly inline with the face of the speakers and in-between, (so imagine 2, 2x4 insulation panels on chairs right and left of each speaker, and 4 of them in the 7' space between the speakers again 'in line' with the face of the speaker), you can easily hear a LOT fuller tone and sound, "as if you did an EQ boost in bass frequencies"......however, get this.....in doing a REW frequency sweep at the seated position, there was NO change in bass room frequency response!  Yet, you can easily hear maybe 15% more "bass"!!   
-----"Also, we want the room to interact a little.  Diffuse sounds with a steady decay are really important to avoid a headphone-like experience and give us the illusions of the listening venue."--- as Erik notes here, the above treatment I did in fact created a bit of this effect: it was JARRING (in context)!  I played a familiar track for him and removed the panels fast, and you can hear almost a pressure decrease in your ears. 

I think with how much I would bet my father would actually agree to do acoustic treatment wise, he would correct 30-40% of the room echo reverb, and gain maybe 20% more mid bass presence. 

I am sure you've all seen John's video series on dealing with his rooms, but these (there are 2 or 3?) are exactly what @erik_squires  has been helping me with.

 

 

OP:

 

Don’t go buying OmniMic because I use it. REW had similar capabilities, you just have to check the settings when you do a sinusoidal sweep. There’s usually some parameter that say "stop listening after x milliseconds" I’m just not familiar enough with REW. That’s the gating limit. There’s possibly/probably also a way to blend the gated measurements with the ungated for bass. That’s something OmniMic just does out of the box but I’m pretty sure REW has something similar.

Alternatively, if you ARE using REW with the gating turned on, it will cut the bass response off.