Why We need Audiophiles..

[amey01]

Does anyone recognise the little goosneck lights Mikey has on the two turntables in the photos in that article? I need something like that, but haven't found anything suitable.

Check out Littlites - but if you need one for a turntable then make sure you get the proper incandescent ones rather than the LED ones.

 

[tonepub]

Why would you do get inc. instead of LED?

 

[Rich]

I have no idea about Fremer's income or wealth but it is not within most of our budgets to custom design a room, i. e. doors and windows will fall where they may and room size was set long before we move in by the designer.

Again, this gets back to the main point: he is not an average Joe. He is a professional reviewer and has been for decades. His opinions on systems costing hundreds of thousands of dollars are taken as gold. He purports to hear minor differences in a $2000 cable vs. a $4000 cable. But after all these years, and with this being his primary profession, he can't manage to design a decent acoustical space or treat it properly? That is absolutely dumbfounding!

Is it possible that a room doesn't need bass traps?

Not likely. Especially not likely for any rectangular shaped room. Ask any expert in acoustics that question, in regards to a medium size rectangular room. They will get a pretty good chuckle.

Actually, I guess you could say that no room needs bass traps, as long as you don't care about accurate reproduction of frequencies below a few hundred hertz.

 

[Rich]

From my limited experience I'd think that trapping would have an effect on every room, but this is dinstinct from actually having a benefit or positive impact.

I mean, you don't see those sort of things in concert halls, do you? Some places are designed to actually harness the reflections, etc and this is what contributes to the sound of the venue.

A listening room is no different - they're great for treating problems in a domestic setting, but in an ideal world you shouldn't need them!

Concert halls are a completely different beast and cannot be compared with a standard rectangular listening room. Concert halls are large enough to prevent the formation of acoustic standing waves and are designed almost solely with acoustics in mind.

The standard small, medium and even slightly large listening room, which is most often a rectangular box, will generate resonant room modes that greatly accentuate certain bass frequencies, while minimizing others. The result in most rooms is a very uneven bass response, and a lot of boominess and/or muddiness in the bass response. The only way to really minimize this problem is to design the room with acoustic response in mind, and provide adequate absorption of the bass frequencies. Digital filters can help, but cannot by themselves "fix" room mode issues.

 

[amey01]

Concert halls are a completely different beast and cannot be compared with a standard rectangular listening room. Concert halls are large enough to prevent the formation of acoustic standing waves and are designed almost solely with acoustics in mind.

The standard small, medium and even slightly large listening room, which is most often a rectangular box, will generate resonant room modes that greatly accentuate certain bass frequencies, while minimizing others. The result in most rooms is a very uneven bass response, and a lot of boominess and/or muddiness in the bass response. The only way to really minimize this problem is to design the room with acoustic response in mind, and provide adequate absorption of the bass frequencies. Digital filters can help, but cannot by themselves "fix" room mode issues.

Agree fully Rich - I did say "in an ideal world" and gave a concet hall purely as an example.

 

[amey01]

Why would you do get inc. instead of LED?

I am under the impression LED would not give the strobe effect required for speed control. Not sure though.

In any event, why use stark and ugly LED light when you can have the nice enveloping glow if incandescent?

 

[tonepub]

I have no idea about Fremer's income or wealth but it is not within most of our budgets to custom design a room, i. e. doors and windows will fall where they may and room size was set long before we move in by the designer. Is it possible that a room doesn't need bass traps?

Keep in mind that the Wilson Maxx's that he uses are no where near as finicky as the panels we own. And because you can tilt the mid and tweeter around, that speaker is a lot easier to optimize to different room conditions.

Considering that he can probably have any speakers he wants, my guess would be he chose the Maxx because it worked the best in his room. I'd bet that the big open area where his record collection is behind the listening area probably acts as a big diffuser.

Everyone I've talked to that's been to Mikey's room says he's got pretty darn good sound.

 

[Pete]

"The benevolent"

I personally ,and totally love this article in spite of the way some of the people on the digg site try to portray him as Dr. Raymond Cocteau in the movie "Demolition Man"!!! LOL!!! I just have one thing to say to those people, properly hook up any system and play a SACD of "Clocks" in two channel or surround, then A/B with another properly set up system with Pink Floyd "Clocks' from a standard cd, and play it in Dolby pro logic,......if that person can't hear a difference.............let him continue to buy Bose and be happy, .....that's how you seperate the wheat from the chaff!!!!!! And it's a fitting song for the chaffs since it's a bunch of Coo-Coo's!!!!!!!

 

[Gordon Gray]

You say what?

 

[tonepub]

I am under the impression LED would not give the strobe effect required for speed control. Not sure though.

In any event, why use stark and ugly LED light when you can have the nice enveloping glow if incandescent?

You don't want to set your turntable that way anyway....
Get a test record and your multimeter, play the 1000hz band
and adjust your speed control until you have 1000hz on the nose.

 

[JonFo]

It's nothing against JonFo personally, but rather the measurement thing in general.

No sweat Jeff, I know we’re having a lively, civil debate, which I think is good.

I haven't been able to pin down one designer that has been able to tell me that measurements correlate to anything terribly meaningful in terms of sound.

I have heard a number of the best designers in the industry tell me that they can hear things that their instruments can't reveal.
And as far as the 4db diff on the Spires, I stick to my guns that if you had a pair of speakers that were 4db off of each other, they would sound so grossly mismatched that anyone with NO training whatsoever would be able to hear that.

So, until I talk to at least a handful of audio designers that can tell me that the measurements really correspond to the actual sound of a piece of gear, I remain unconvinced.

I agree that measurements will never tell one how any one given piece of gear will sound per se, as there is no single holistic measure for audio quality.
Measurements happen at various stages and are used for various purposes. In my case, I usually am measuring the entire system, end to end, in the room. Therefore the dominant impact is the Room.
This is why I’ve become such a zealot about treating the room, as it has a disproportionate impact on the sound we hear.

I agree with designers, not all great specs sound great in room. And that’s because (especially with speakers), it’s all about the interaction with a given room.
This is also why we see one reviewer raving about the bass on speaker X and another lamenting the lack of bottom-end for the same model. Besides listener preferences, there is the no small matter of completely different rooms.

Which why I would find your reviews of MartinLogans much more credible than other reviewers, as I know you have an appropriately sized and treated room. That matters much more to me than whether you use amp A or amp B on them.

However, I do take exception to the statement that measurements do not correspond to the sound. I can easily demonstrate that a change in phase relationship, frequency response and any number of other variables has an immediate and predictable audible impact.

Now, are there things we can’t accurately measure that might have an audible impact, sure there are. But those are probably a small minority of factors. Electrical and acoustical engineering has advanced a lot in the last 60 years.

In my reading of Floyd Toole's book (highly recommended BTW), which itself is a great compendium of the knowledge built around sound reproduction over the past 60 or more years, I find there is strong support for the correlation between measurements and results.
Floyd Toole has probably forgotten more about audio and acoustics engineering than the lot of us put together

Again, I’m not saying only measurements matter, but they can’t be dismissed as irrelevant either.

 

[JonFo]

I have no idea about Fremer's income or wealth but it is not within most of our budgets to custom design a room, i. e. doors and windows will fall where they may and room size was set long before we move in by the designer. Is it possible that a room doesn't need bass traps?

All small rooms (under 4,000 cubic feet of volume) have room modes and could benefit from bass trapping.

Rooms basically have two acoustic components, separated by what's known as the Schroeder frequency (typically around 300hz in home rooms).

Below that, the frequency issues are modal and much like waves, they build up and reinforce or cancel.
At frequencies above, they reflect and bounce around much like billiard balls.

Each type of acoustic issue needs to be treated with a unique set of treatments and placement approaches.

A totally untreated room, even if designed to have ‘ideal’ ratios and all that, can sound horrible compared to a well treated one.

Case in point: My theater was designed around my Monoliths and Sequels , and it has ‘ideal’ acoustic ratios along with a generous 3,800 cubic feet of volume. I did this design back in ’98, and built the house in ‘99/’00.
Ever since, I’ve had the Monoliths and the Sequels, powered by Sunfire amps as constants in this equation. Over that time, the room has gone through several iterations of room treatments (documented in detail here on the MLC – part 1 ; part 2 )

The initial overly reflective surfaces caused massive ringing at high volumes. It was not pleasant to listen to the system at reference levels. Bass modes made it even worse down low.

When I introduced an incredibly capable Subwoofer back in ’04, I had cleaner bass, but now overpowered the room even more at its modal frequencies, which robbed me of being able to hear the true depth and accuracy of my new sub.

Fast-forward to ’09, and after $15K of room treatments carefully chosen and placed based on actual measured responses, the bass is now what I’d categorize as world-class. I’ve never heard better, and neither have the folks visiting.
Mid and highs are also incredible.
Listening to a well recorded DVD-Audio in multichannel on this rig at 90+ dB avg levels (peaks into 108dB) is pleasurable, and one hears every nuance in the recording. And not some ‘audiophile’ overly polite stuff either, this is using Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet, which is pretty heavy Prog rock (but oh so well produced and recorded).

Therefore, if even an ‘ideal’ room required that level of effort to ‘get right’, the average room with windows doors and whatnot, untreated, is an acoustical nightmare in my book.

Using one for audio reviews robs the author of much credibility in my view.

[Clearly had too much coffee this am ]

 

[Gordon Gray]

Six Moons editor's listening room

There has been discussion regarding MF's room and the fact that it is has not been optimized to address sonic anamolies.

Having read numerous equipment / music reviews from this publication, which I personally find quite well written, very detailed, and enjoyable, what do people think about the editor's (Srajan Ebaen) listening room and what effects the room may have on what that person hears?

Given the room, does this individual have any credibility?

If interested and if you have not seen it before, goto the website and find an equipment review by the editor.

GG

 

[tonepub]

well, I know my room has benefitted tremendously from the room treatments I've done and the big floor to ceiling bass traps made more improvement in my system than anything ive ever spent money on pound for pound.

When I spent time up at Shunyata recently, Caelin Gabriel (their owner) spent a lot of time and effort on his room and I must say it's the best room ive ever heard in terms of low level resolution, detail, etc etc. The effort really pays off.

 

[Gordon Gray]

Jeff,

I have every confidence that room treatments yield positive results.

Having said that, this thread has raised the issue of a reviewer's credibility or lack thereof, depending on that individual's room acoustics, which, in my mind, is a somewhat separate issue.

See JonFo's most recent post as an example.

GG

PS: See the Six Moon's review "Red Wine Audio: Mixing & Matching" for a picture of Mr. Ebaen's room.

 

[Rich]

Having said that, this thread has raised the issue of a reviewer's credibility or lack thereof, depending on that individual's room acoustics, which, in my mind, is a somewhat separate issue.

PS: See the Six Moon's review "Red Wine Audio: Mixing & Matching" for a picture of Mr. Ebaen's room.

I have to say I am not impressed. I imagine the high ceilings and the length front to back help with the minimizing standing waves in those dimensions, but the side walls are so narrow that you are going to get some modes in that dimension, and a lot of early reflections off the side walls. And yet, nary a bass trap or a treated first reflection point to be found. I am also not sure about the effect of the open rectangular box behind the speakers vs. having a rear wall. That has got to induce some odd sonic effects.

I will be the first to say that I can't take seriously too much someone says about the audio quality of a sound system when they have done nothing to ensure the quality of the sound of their room. To me, it just shows a complete lack of knowledge about one of the most important factors that plays into the sound of the system. Would you trust the opinions of a professional driver on the performance and handling of a Ferrari if the only place they test drove it was on a dirt and gravel track?

 

[Gordon Gray]

Hi Rich,

I'm with you on his room. This is one of the most funky listening environments I've ever seen. That's why I brought this into the discussion.

Does that mean that the sonic observations and reviews thereof (read credibility) of this individual are invalid as a result of that environment?

I recognize that this is somewhat of an esoteric discussion (for me) but I sense we may have a different perspective on this issue.

And if we do, so be it. As I hope you know, I certainly respect your perspective and trust, you understand mine.

Gordon

PS: Have no personal knowledge / experience regarding Ferraris so I can't comment on your analogy.

 

[Rich]

Does that mean that the sonic observations and reviews thereof (read credibility) of this individual are invalid as a result of that environment?

I don't know that I would go so far as to say that this individual's observations and reviews are completely invalid, but his credibility is certainly diminished in my mind. His observations are tainted by the sonic signature of his listening room, no question. But on a more practical level, how can I trust someone purporting to have some special insight and knowledge of audio systems when they show how little they know about room setup and acoustics? If a professional reviewer is going to go to zero effort to tame the acoustical anomalies of their own listening room, why would I trust their opinions on any piece of equipment? I take all reviews with a grain of salt anyway, because there are so many variables involved. But I would have a hard time giving any credibility to a reviewer who had an untreated listening room.

I recognize that this is somewhat of an esoteric discussion (for me) but I sense we may have a different perspective on this issue.

And if we do, so be it. As I hope you know, I certainly respect your perspective and trust, you understand mine.

Absolutely.

PS: Have no personal knowledge / experience regarding Ferraris so I can't comment on your analogy.

A sports car can only perform up to its capabilities when it's tires have traction. A windy mountain road is an excellent venue to test such a vehicle. A dirt and gravel track, not so much. If the environment in which you operate the machine prevents it from performing anywhere near the peak of its abilities, what good is the opinion of the operator as to the performance capabilities of the machine?

 

[Bernard]

His observations are tainted by the sonic signature of his listening room, no question.

And even more so by his hearing, especially if he has hearing loss, but how many reviewers have submitted graphs showing what their hearing is like, or are even aware that they do have some loss? What if a reviewer has extreme hearing loss at high frequencies, to the extent that room treatment to absorb highs is unnecessary?

 

[RichTeer]

Check out Littlites - but if you need one for a turntable then make sure you get the proper incandescent ones rather than the LED ones.

Will do--but why incandescent rather than LED? I'd be using it as a light, not a strobe light.