ABA Clips: Do you really need room treatment? 

I don't think there's any other video that could give you so much info in such a short space of time. Brilliant and concise. I actually learn stuff - like room resonance frequency. Thanks Tarun. 👍👍👍

Man I’ve got to admit Tarun….A British Audiophile seems like a NASA research arm for Audio! Your in-depth knowledge obviously earned from years of meticulous research and study sparked by a strong interest to get to the bottom of everything is commendable and much applauded and appreciated! But the punch line of your videos not only this important one but also the various others is your articulation! Bravo my friend! Well defined and well selected words bring across exactly what you want to say to your audience and you do it with top marks!! 👏👏👏 No mumbling or incoherent maze of wandering words is how a class act should be presented and A British Audiophile does it in spades! Yeah Tarun I haven’t been commenting a lot but I’ve been watching for sure! 😉Cheers!

One unexpected benefit of having a gik absorption/diffusion panel on my back wall, when I play music on my setup, my ears perceive the same loudness satisfaction but when I check the volume indicator, its actually at lesser volumes 🥳

Got my popcorn and a front row seat, now waiting in anticipation for the opening performance 🍿

You are the Ben Kingsley of HiFi, the Gandhi of Audiophiles. Excellent video, meticulously explained. "In a gentle way, you can shake the world."

Very sensible. Thanks.

Great video! You very quickly clarified much of what I've been seeing and reading over the years. But most important, you helped me see that I'm not doing too badly, which has sufficiently brightened my day. 😄

Very much looking forward to this!

As always brilliant video ,full of detailed information… thanks a lot

Thanks Tarun. I did treat for reflected sound and have enjoyed the benefits.

Brilliant guide!

Good morning! Very much looking forward to to seeing this also! Al. USA

Enjoyed the video Tarun thank you.

Very clear and useful info as always. I found Dirac helped me quite a lot with a difficult room.

As always, very interesting! Thank U

Great video 👍🏻

Couldnt have explained it better myself. Cheers Tarun,, 🍻😎👍‍‍👍‍‍

You have done it again. Another very interesting video. I don’t use any room treatment. I setup my speakers as your speaker setup video suggested and I’m more than happy. Keep up the good work.

Outstanding explanations as always, Tarun. Thanks! I appreciate you referencing and explaining the acoustics, timing, and pressure zones but reminding us all that speaker and listener placement is the place to start. While not everyone can rearrange their room, it's always the place I start if I'm not happy with the sound. And it's free! One other comment has to do with speaker selection - it's worth pointing out that some speakers are just more finicky in their placement with a smaller sweet-spot of optimum sound.

Hi Tarun - Thank you for this video it is excellent! I expect this will get a lot of views. I know how I will be spending my weekend!!! It is also a comfort to learn from the comments that I am not the only one bobbing my head this way or that or crawling around the room looking for bass Nirvana. Thanks again.

Thank you Tarun!

Thank you for a very well executed massively informative video. WELL DONE!!

Hi Tarun, hopefully you’ll be pleased to know, that I’ve just stuck this highly informative video up on The Naim Forum in ‘The listening room reality’ thread 👍🏼 Best Peter

Hi Tarun. Top explanation (as ever). I set up my listening room 30 years ago when I moved here. We had two small children at the time and I got them to stand in various positions as highly mobile absorbers. Two changes to my room made a significant improvement. A slim tall bookcase was added in the empty corner behind one speaker to break up corner reflections. The biggest improvement however was a heavy wall hanging covering most of one side of my chimney breast, reducing a time-smearing early reflection. I would also note that my system sounds much better since we changed the furniture. The old high-back armchairs absorbed too much of the sound which should reflect from the wall behind the listener. The newer chairs only reach shoulder height and placed a third of the way up the room as widely suggested gives a sound less shut-in and more natural than their predecessors.

Thank you for helpful tips.

Very useful Tarun. I met you recently at Cranage and it was great to chat. Room acoustics is a tricky subject and I spent a lot of time a few years ago experimenting with it in my listening room. GIK Acoustics are an excellent company to deal with and their products offer genuine great value for money and the staff there are super helpful and not pushy giving free advice. Most listening rooms here in the UK are usually smallish or compromised in some way. My own room is only about 3.5 m x 5 m x 2.2 m. The advantage I have over many modern homes is I have a solid concrete floor with oak flooring on top. All the walls are solid brick. I have tried bass traps and reflection panels but aesthetically that's a no no where I have to respect my wife's opinion. The furnishings of the room and limited space just don't lend themselves to treatment. I have two leather setees, a listening chair coffee table , two bookcases and a storage unit for my vinyl and a rug on the floor. Heavy curtains on the window wall. The hi-fi sits on two racks at the end of the room with my speakers either side on stands. Liaising with GIK they admitted that domestic rooms are far harder to advise on than commercial situations as compromises are very different. That is not to criticise GIK in any way , I applaud their honesty and |I am sure many audiophiles have had success in their particular rooms that allow more panels to be placed in. As you said in your conclusion speaker placement is first and foremost the main issue to address. Get that right and everything else will fall into place. It is also a question of knowing what speakers best suit your room. I have tried all types from large floor standers to small stand mounts and both have worked well, but you need to know which is best. That only comes with experience and experimenting. A fascinating subject and one I advise friends on and the many customers I use to sell to when I was in retail.

I once again took my Hifi on holiday with me - this time the Buchardt A500SE plus a Volumio RPi - into a Scottish cottage. And the difference in sound in a new room is once again so much bigger than when you buy a new amp or DAC! Can only recommend to everyone to test their kit in different rooms of their home and choose the best sounding one (and the best speaker position in it) for listening.

Love all your Videos buddy. Keep up the amazing work. Most people don’t know how much work goes into making a video.

Definitely a valuable topic. I do believe that MANY people need to understand and practice with this topic to get better sound .. instead of just buying more speakers or amps.

For anyone who doesn't want to or cannot use room treatment I highly recommend looking into The Art of Rational Speaker Placement. A guy named Bob Robbins developed it based on the Sumiko Master Setup method. It's almost like a manual form of room correction that helps you optimize frequency response based on your listening position and the acoustics of your room. As a bonus it also adjusts the height of the center image to be more true to life. It's free aside from a few hours of your time or you can go to his website and for a small fee you can ask him questions about your particular setup. But I'm sure there are other methods that work too. The most important thing is having a consistent set of steps rather than haphazardly moving speaker around the room.

Very well presented! Next year we'll be moving into a new home and I will have a dedicated home theater/listening room. I will need to really plan for the layout. Thanks!

Thank you again.

Wow , thanks For informative video , have to save it and try at home .. thanks again Tarun

Thanks again!

Another great video, many thanks. Room is all important. Its been a while since Ive moved now, but when ive moved house in the past, ive taken the time to check room accoustics as best I can on each viewing and I wont consider a living room with poor accoustics (much to the bafflement of estate agents) . I do not have a dedicated listening room, so its imperitive for me to have decent accoustics in my main room without the need for treatments. Its always astonished me how many top systems ive seen in the past set up badly in a poor room. You could spend half what they did, set it up properly in a decent room and get far better sound. Not thinking about room accoustics is the biggest detriment to hi fidelity sound ive seen over the decades, so its brilliant to see you continue to spread that message!

Great advice Tarun👍👍👍

I really love your videos. Thanks. P.S. I have just restored my old Rogers Studio 1's. Magnificent. Cheers from northern Australia.

Tarun - an area of utmost concern for me, that is strongly related to speaker placement - is to spread out the bass resonance modes; to minimize them summing/canceling. I learned about this from none other than Roy Allison. He gave me a floppy disk (!) with a simple program that did the math, and made the process a lot easier; including giving you the frequencies that would be boosted/cut. So, if you measured the response, it would help figure out which distance/surface was involved. This is done simply by placing your speakers so that the source(s) of the bass output - driver(s) and port(s) are at varying distances from the 6 main room surfaces. The idea is to get these distances to NOT share any common factors (in the math sense of factor). So, having the *same* distance between the center of the woofer(s) and any two of the six room surfaces is a BAD thing. And having a common factor of 8, 4, or 2 is similarly problematic. Obviously, you have to start with the two given distances - the distance from the woofer to the floor and to the ceiling. These can't be controlled - because you need to have the speakers at a good height for getting the best sound. So, hopefully the woofer isn't 4 feet from the floor and 4 feet from the ceiling; or 8 feet from the ceiling. If that's the case, then hopefully the speaker can be lowered by say 6" to eliminate the common 4' mode. Let's say the center of the woofer is 3' from the floor and 5' from the ceiling - that's a good place. You then need to avoid (if possible) the same distances from the wall behind the speakers, and to either of the side walls, from either of the speakers. For arguments sake, let's say the speakers are 2.5' from the wall behind them, and 4.5' from the side walls. Once you have placed the speakers to this level, you can then check the distances to the more distant surfaces, to hopefully confirm they are not sharing a common factor. Once you do this, you can see how some room sizes are better than others - and one "rule" is that if the 3 main room dimensions are all prime numbers, they will make it easier to avoid common modes. Common modes are going to happen with dimensions that are even numbers. For me, getting the bass response as even as possible - is far more important than the effects on soundstage from reflections. Though I do think that if speaker placement works for bass - then it will also work for mids and treble. And doing this *first* can go a long way to tuning a room w/o more things in the room. Another concern I have about subs relates to phase / timing. While placing subs can "distribute" the modes (a good thing, obviously) - it also then has a large effect on the phase / timing of the bass arriving at the listening position(s). This is where subs with continuously variable phase control 0-180 degrees is important. So, subs help but also complicate ...

Excellent

Ready! 💪🏻

Thanks a lot for this one Tarun, like others have said it covers a ton of relevant concepts and topics in a very concise video. I completely agree about the speaker/listener positions being the most important, I have been setting up my first hifi stereo over the past few months and that took SO long to figure out! Settled on about a 6.5 foot equilateral triangle, and a moderate toe-in angle, speakers around 4 feet from both walls. My listening area is mostly bare drywall, so been putting up simple/cheap absorption and diffusion panels to help reduce the liveliness of the room, which has helped so far but not quite there yet! Using Room EQ WIzard (REW) and a miniDSP UMIK-1 measurement mic, my room's RT60 time (T30 metric) is currently (still working on it) 0.4 - 0.8 sec below 200 Hz, and between 0.3 - 0.4s above 200 Hz. In this state, things like acoustical music and vocals sound amazing, but electronic music with super fast transients still sound like they get congested and detail suffers a bit, so trying to drive RT60 down slightly more. I also have a bass trap coming 🥸

Thiankd for yet another great review! Used the original Altair for a few years. Upgraded a few days ago to the Aurender A100 and again not just for sonic quality but also for ease of use. In my opinion streamers should have both: good sound quality / synergy with your amp and a intuitive & stable user interface.

Excellent as always Tarun. I toe in speakers but there have been occasions in the past where off axis has worked in a different environment. Heavy furnishing is good enough room treatment for me.

Another excellent video sir and a topic near and dear to me. My smallish living/listening room definitely requires some treatment, along with careful equipment choices and set up. However, before putting down hard earned money on room treatment, significant research is a good starting point. So much misinformation out there. Foam as a bass trap comes immediately to mind.

Speaker placement is critical to real quality of sound. Finding true center and the tweeter/midrange elevation with respect to your ears. Some may see some of this as trifling. They miss the mark. Enjoying your music to the full improves your quality of life. Acoustics are important also. If you have two way monitors, a very stable, highly dampened speaker stand pair will drain off excess energy and allow your speakers to shine their true colors. Cheers Tarun on another fun video. Some don’t know what they are missing.

Excellent as always. You could always go more in depth on this. Room treatment is something that many reviewers are starting to address. It's something I look forward to stepping into this fall. (yard work first). Maybe next you could look into products like those from Synergistic Research. They use electronic noise cancelation of some sort to achieve the desired room tuning. Maybe first treat the room. Then incorporate the electronic methods. Then maybe room correction software. Dirac live or REW on a mini DSP. Or is one superior to the others canceling the need for more. Please help straighten this out.

Being lazy and having no space , i've opted for the 'Overwhelm the Room " method . i plopped down my polk L600s on either side of the tv at the foot of my bed , toed them in , bought a big enough amp to wake them up and 💥 😂😎

I love this channel for all the right reasons. Thank you, Tarun. I wish I were, as my mum (Cardiff, Wales) says "back home" just for having a bit less expensive access to British audio and speakers. I am keen on KEF, Acoustic Energy, Mission, Monitor Audio and Wharfedale speakers, in fact, I very much like my brother's old KEF Reference 104.2 speakers. I had seen REL subs bantered about on a few channels including yours, but I had no idea that they were a Welsh company. For the time being, I am getting by with my Vandersteen Model 1B with a very underwhelming Yamaha 100W (yeah right...) receiver. I believe either Cambridge or Rotel integrated amp is my future upgrade. I am generally a more entry-level Hi-Fi sort of consumer, but that doesn't stop a boy from dreaming... Sadly, my ProJect Debut III needs a little love, but I should be able to sort that out for well under $100 quid with a replacement motor. La vida...

Thanks Tarun. I was particularly interested to hear your comments on symmetry. I am lucky enough to have a dedicated listening room and have been experimenting with speaker and chair placement. I was surprised to find that by moving the speaker-chair triangle off axis of the rectangular room, so that the axis was closer to the diagonal of the room, there is an improvement in clarity and soundstage. I don't know why this could be, maybe it breaks up some standing waves or changes some sidewall reflections? Anyway, I've been having fun experimenting and I will probably keep doing so for a while yet before thinking about adding any special room treatment. Thanks again for your videos and thoughts!

Hi Tarun, I have left a message on the F700 review. My name is David Hart from Hart Audio 12 years in the making. I have a pair of small tower speakers using 8" Tannoy's that play Leftfield (Leftism) et al at high volumes. Leftfield use sub 20Hz signal in most of the tracks. Theses small speakers display 16Hz +/-2db. And they do it loud. There are 50 drivers in a pair. Making for very deep bass at high volumes with a low real estate footprint of 25cm x 20cm x 130cm. They give a big speaker output in a small enclosure. They would retail for £50k but no distribution as I've only just finished them. So maybe available direct. I am in the UK on the Isle of Wight. I would be grateful if you could come to hear them. Best regards, David

Oh no Tarun! Your nice decorated room does not looking like a mixing studio and I believe it's now de rigueur to have bass trap absorption and diffusion panels in plain sight. I thought you'd know this! 😀

I am new to audio, and I have a technically poorly shaped room for audio 13x14. I did learn about the golden triangle and application in room of my shape has actually made my sound better than my previous 16x10 room. I had never heard of it and I am sure it may be possibly known in the community, but for those that dont check it out.

As usual, am absolutely excellent video. In my opinion, 2nd only in terms of controversy to cables. There are an abundance of things in the average family lounge/listening room which will alter the acoustic ambiance of the room as I found out when my wife took down our thermal lined, heavy winter drapes and put up light weight, single skinned summer curtains and again, when I updated our heavy, leather, recliner sofas for lighter, static, fabric sofas. So, I take on board that room treatment could, make a noticeable difference to the acoustic properties of the room. Whether that difference represents an improvement, is surely down to the personal taste of the listener. In my experience and humble opinion, the amount of soft furnishings found in the average size British family lounge, is sufficient to negate the necessity for further treatment. I’ve watched dozens of tutorial videos on acoustic room treatment and observed a multitude of different view points. I think that all too frequently, acoustic room treatment is presented as a costly solution to a non-existent, or at least, insignificant problem. I’ve absolutely no room treatment, other than a large plush rug deployed between and in front of my floor standers. I do employ multiple small, relatively low powered subs around the room for a more even bass distribution. As I am the only audiophile in our household, I only need to concentrate on getting the balance right at a single listening position. Could the audio reproduction in my listening space be improved with room treatment or DSP? May be, but I reckon, like yourself, good placement gets you 70% there and as much as I love my music, I also love my wife. If I were to start erecting bass traps, installing defusers and absorption panels, the cost of divorce would far outweigh any potential benefits. Keep up those excellent videos and most of all, enjoy the music.

I've always found speakers sound more open or livelier when the have no toe-in (pointing straight ahead). I've always found tweaking their position, even by a couple of inches often helps. You could ask a willing friend or family member (or even a resentful one) to move them until you hear the sweet spot. If you can't hit the sweet spot then look at some sort of acoustic panelling. But if you do try and purchase panels that matches the closest to your decor. This is especially important if your listening space is your family living room. Luckily, never had the need for any panels, as I always match the system to the room acoustics. How do you test if your room is reflective? One simple way is to turn the TV or hi-fi off, close the windows and doors and raise your voice above normal conversation levels. If it echoes you know it's reflective, louder the echo the more reflective. Most of the time this can be rectified buy adding rugs or curtains.

SoX (command tool GNU/Linux) and my chair are the equalizers that improved the bad geometry of my room. If could, I would start with a good geometry. Thanks for talking about this very important topic.

Gettin’ a little grey Taron, me too old friend.

"Deja vu" partly ... but never the less ... very usefull. BTW "repeticio est mater studiorum." Best Regards

Short and to the point! Bravo! Since I live in a rented house, I use carpets, furnitures and potted plants to mitigate those reflections. You have to be creative with what you got, right? Thanks for another great video!

I live in an apartment, where bass disturbing the neighbors could be an issue. So, I used "room EQ" to intentionally place my listening position in an area with naturally higher bass response. It's kind of the opposite of what most suggest, but I get deeper bass, and it's only audible in my sweet spot. This allows me to cut bass by about 6dB without things sounding too thin.

My advice is to try different setups for at least days. Then ask yourself how enjoyable is your music. This is key. I messed around with 1 to 4 absorbers behind the speakers and in the back corners of the room. With each absorber added, the clarity in base response and focus of instruments improved. But I lost the impact an drive of the music. I really did not enjoyed but examined my music. After weeks I of not listening I removed them all one day. What a pleasure the drive and musical flow was. My joy for musical pleasure was back. It was to much dampening. Now I start over more carefully with little change in positioning. I put down transparent tape on the floor at two corners of the speakers and mark the alternative positions for easy recovery. Have fun listening.

Excellent as ever. I think the variability of furnishings absorption can also effect room modes considerably. In discussing the design of concert halls with colleagues at Arup acoustics, the impact of seatings absorption is, I think, usually under-appreciated. 2000 seats of uncertain absorption, even when lab-tested, will have significant impact upon otherwise carefully designed architectural form and surface finish. Thanks for everything. (Will you ever consider headphones??!! - just asking!)

Thanks a lot, Tarun, excellent video as always. You do a great job in explaining in a very clear way even the most technical aspects of speaker placement. Listening to your explanations, it’s clear that I’ve got a long way to go in adequate placement. At present, my left speaker is just 33 cm away from the side wall and 64 cm from the back wall while the right one sits 2.50 mts. from the side wall and same distance as the left from the back wall. Right in front of both speakers, I have a large coffee table with a thick glass top. The thing is there is very little I can do as my system sits in our living room (about 45 sq mts) and it’s very difficult to find a suitable compromise regarding aesthetics and also the WAF. Any suggestions/advice to reduce the imbalance? I have a pair of Spica TC 60, very much a vintage model now but still great soundstage, imaging and midrange. Thanks a lot and best regards. Ignacio

The only reflective surfaces in my room are the ceiling and the wall behind where i sit., This may appear to be an overly absorbent room but it is not. I can sit at double the distance between the speakers and still receive the direct sound first. This opens up the soundstage in both width and depth and i am able to hear the natural reverberation that the mics pick up at the recording session, without the room diluting it.

My situation is complicated. I have a large loft conversion which is a large wide "L" shape. The ceiling walls and floor are all wood, (looks Scandinavian). The ceiling is close to an apex shape so the room shape is a little like breaking a Toblerone bar in half and forming an L shape out of the two halves. I use one half, which is about 18ft across at floor level and about 25ft long. I sit at about 15ft from the gable end wall, and have my speakers forming roughly an equilateral triangle from me. The space behind, in front, and on both sides are completely asymmetric. All good fun. I have learned over many years to poke my head into different positions in the room to get varying effects. Stand behind the chaise long (spelling) and lower bass is more present. If my head is the height of the drivers, violins are the sweetest. if I stand up, I get a little reflection from the angled roof. That amplifies male voices more than higher female voices for some reason. Its like a hall of mirrors for hi-fi 😁 I put up with imperfection because its my escape den. Still sounds very good. Knoppfler guitar is magic if I move my head around.

An elaborate answer, thank you. How does your method compare to the Wilson Audio Setup Procedure?

Good stuff, and just the highlights -- the most audible issues first and most important. I've offered this before; it was taught to me by a prominent audio recording engineer/musician I worked for. To get a clear idea of what your room sounds like, and what it does to your speakers and music, try plugging one ear with a finger and listening. It won't sound very good, but it will give you a better idea of what your room is doing to the sound you're providing. This disables your brain's ability to focus on directionality and distance, and allows you to hear more clearly what the room is doing to your music. You may hear your room 'doing a lot' to the music -- thus probably needing treatment. Alternately, and not so often, you may be pleased with what you hear. Perhaps you need little to no treatment. In any case, you will hear much different sound with one ear: the music with all of the room 'contributions' exposed. It can, at least, give you 'marching orders' to make changes. -Just one man's view.

Great video! How do you measure RT?

Thank you for the video. You said the back of the speakers should be about 3 feet away from the wall. Is that the same for the relationship between the side I’d the speaker and the side wall? Thank you. Mark

Almost forgot. One of the reasons I find your reviews so credible is the video tour you did of your room. Plenty of room around and behind the speakers, plenty of room around and behind your listening position and no big stacks of equipment or TVs between your speakers. And let's face it, no way can one achieve proper bass with big 3-way speakers in a 12ft x 15ft room.

Could you do an episode on HiFi furniture? (Racks/Tables etc) for various budgets, what to look for etc? Thank you!

Well done. I appreciate the reasoning besides just the points. Did that room photo include the world's largest blowup bed?

great information as always. its amazing how subtle changes in how you set up a room can make huge changes in sound. I find even shifting my head position in the sweet spot can bring down some of the high frequency sheen that i dont really like. I have a closed side and a wide open side. Adding a floor to ceiling bass trap really helped tamper down the huge bass energy in the corner of the closed side (i have Goldenear triton 3+s with the built in powered subs, BIG bass). I recently added in a minidsp SHD studio to see how Dirac plays in my space. Its almost embarrassing that I thought my system sounded great before. Dirac, for me, is a game changer. Its a real shame that there is not a video on youtube going in depth on using dirac for two channel. Tons of HT vids about it but only one or two for two channel (i think the minidsp solutions might be the only dedicated 2 channel dirac options right now).

Hi, wanted to ask if you've reviewed any Linn or Cyrus equipment? Thank, great content.

Good review. In your opinion, could you name a few speaker brands that have good tone and depth and soundstage , thanks for your response

Soundwise you want a stereo (symmetrical) 3D image. But forget the idea (goal) of setting up your speakers symmetrical. If the left is 1" further to the side and the right toes in slightly more, so be it. As for rake, some speakers already point (mids) highs up to be reflected from the ceiling. Bass can be tricky, in particular with a tile floor (uncontrolable bass). As for numbers (distances), they are startingpoints at best.

I always believed that the single most important factor in how ones system sounds is the ROOM. The speakers will sound completely different when placed in another room. No matter how expensive your gears are they won't perform at their best unless the rooms acoustics is addressed. Great speakers will sound bad in a highly reflective room while a good set of speakers will sound great in a well treated room. In my dedicated home theater room which is only about 25% treated my RT60 is about 250ms.

Sitting 30 degrees does sound amazing but I noticed some instruments do not sound correct they sound a bit too harsh. It’s interesting how some brands recommend x1 from the centre line and Harbeth recommend even further back. For me around 26 degrees works best with speakers 1m from sides.

Taron, a question regarding your speaker position video. You measured 85cm from speaker to wall but on your left wall there's a big cabinet and I think you still considered the wall. I have a big bookshelf covering 3/4 of lenght and hight of a wall and I always assumed that as the wall. To make it worst, I have an open passage on the other wall. So how does one go about that?

How do I measure the Rt 60 time? What equipment or software do I need?

New Record Day - does a YT video on speaker placement within a room. It certainly worked for me and was free.

Hello All, a digital beginers question. I am in the process of ripping my CDs(300) onto my windows PC in FLAC format and would like to transfer them to a stand alone device for replay via a bluesound node 2i. If I copy the ripped CDs onto a standalone hard drive, SSD type, and plug that into the bluesound would that sound good and work well ? .............or is it more complicared than that........ ? ,

Anyone who is going to take their music seriously should invest in Sonarworks Reference software as their starting point. Room acoustics is no laughing matter and should never be underestimated or ignored but there is a level of diminishing return. Its not all about room treatment although that is important, its about matching your setup/sound to the environment sadly most modern systems no longer come with built in EQ features and if your bass is bad no matter how much you spend you will never get the sound to be even close to right. Thats why streaming software like JRIver media centre are so important, it can natively run vst plugins so you can correct the EQ tweak the stereo image and add in what extra harmonics you want. including tape and valve emulation making any modest sounding system sound like one costing the earth, no its not perfect but its great fun to play around with.

I dont know of any normal sized rooms with furniture that have an echo. In other words i dont understand room treatment unless you live in a gymnasium.

It would have been helpful if you had addressed an apparent discrepancy, namely that the room in which your speakers are placed, the room with the fireplace, appears to have little to no passive room treatment. I'm sure that there's an explanation and I doubt I'm alone in wondering about it. Out of politeness I hesitated to bring this up but think it important to gain some clarity from you on this issue.

My speaker woofer driver just blow off after loud volume. Can this be repaired?

I tried to place diffusers next toy wife's mouth after I applied all the suggested room correction, but I could still hear her shouting. Any tips ?

I’m supposed to be working 😂

But how about if the room echo is too much?

it is worth leaving a 6" gap on your first reflections panels in line with the tweeters, too much suction out in the top range can make it sound as you said not very lively. yes it's important to have your speakers lined up exactly to in 0.8 of a millimetre to eliminate comb effect below 660Hz. only exception to this is the resistance of the speakers are not exact to each other, so actually having one slightly forward to the other can be a correction. good you said about the gap! telling people for last 5-years to make sure there's a gap between your panels and the wall even better lie some natural wool fleece on the wall first before the panels, especially if solid walls. same if you have a quadratic diffuser just remove the back so it's open for bass notes

Not all of us have the space to set up equipment in the ideal listening zone.

I would say no if there's enough furnishings.

#1. Get big speakers (15" woofer or dual 8"). #2. Good amp (100wpc +). #3. Get a decent dac. Turn it up loud! Lots of little things after that like preamp, source, etc.

By far the most important thing you can do to get good bass is not to overload the room with energy. Anything else is fixable with setup, eq and treatment.

For me its nonsense to spend 10k or more on High Resolution Speakers with the newest High Tech Driver and destroy their ,,power,, with zero room treatment. Room Acoustics are way more important instead of the Gear Chase. But most people spend their money into the latest audio gear, instead of building an room concept with Acoustics

diffusion 30cm deep wow - sorry but ive never seen any diffusion this deep. please provide a link

Well, except speaker positioning/my position, everything else is going to cost more. I just cannot do it myself. I need an expert who could do it at a reasonable cost

If the room is (ok)… I’m good. But if it’s somewhat Bouncy, or accentuating certain frequency ranges, forget it. One can tell in a few seconds. I’ve been very lucky with my spaces in the past. Most were conducive as is. But man… when you’re in a room that splats… I don’t care how you point this and that. Opinion expressed very non technically. Hope you’re doing well, my friend!

The space and treatment is about half of the sound usually. Putting more money into a system in a bad space is a waste and cheap speakers can sound fantastic in an optimal environment.

I've noticed many reviewers on RU-vid reviewing speakers with sound demonstrations in untreated rooms. Very strange. In my small listening room I ended up with 19 bass traps to get things to sound right. Six are sealed limp membrane traps and the rest are velocity traps. Many people believe that you can't have large speakers in a small room. Well you can, but it will cost a lot of money in bass traps and probably more than the cost of the speakers.

very interesting post, but google makes a lot of mistakes in translation, I guess I'll have to learn English