Grear video, precise, direct, full of information, all that is hard to get out there. Many RU-vidrs want to sell something, create so many long videos, and some times we just want the raw information. This make all the diference
Well done! Most of everything you said is correct, but the advice on the best Listening Position being at 38% is incorrect. The so-called 38% rule was ONLY ever meant to be a general guideline. It doesn't work universally because it doesn't take the room LENGTH into account. For smaller length rooms a Listening Position of 45.8% is going to be a common position. For a medium-length room, it might be closer to 39.6%, and for a longer room, it might be closer to 32.8%, etc. And technically 38% is a bad position because it's very close to the 4th null located at 37.5%. The correct position is 39.6% which is located between the 4th null at 37.5% and the 6th null at 41.7% (37.5 + 41.7 /2 = 39.6%).
Good video, it always astounds me how folk can pay hundreds of £ on useless cables/tweaks and thousands of £ on equipment and sit it in a room with terrible acoustics whilst pontificating about sound quality. I had a budget of £7k for my room/system and spent £3k on gik very similar to yourself and the rest on Dynaudio Lyd 48 + 18s subwoofer and a CXN v2 streamer along with a Umik mic and implementation of roon peq, very happy with the resulting sound.
This is one of the most comprehensive videos that I found related to setup a proper listening room, covering all the subjects. Thank you. Got my mic and laptop ready! 😊
By far the best video I've watched on the subject. Thanks man, your delivery is clear and concise, without the exasperating mannerisms a lot of RU-vidrs regurgitate for engagement. Cheers 💪🏽
This is filled with disinformation. The best channel that I have found that gives the best advice and articulates how to treat a room is Acoustic Fields. this guy's room has NOT been treated properly.
@@econautx This is a custom built room that's one of the best I've seen. Look at the thickness of the walls, ceiling, etc. The reasoning behind that is that the structure turns into a low frequency absorption so you only need acoustic foam panels for the mid's and high's. Diffusion from front and rear. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eMLA5h0nh8s.html
@@econautx How to deal with low frequencies under 100Hz. I would never put the low frequency absorption in just the corners, as that's not enough surface coverage. What he should have said is to put the room dimensions in AMROC and only look at the Axial Modes and treat those first. Those are going to be the biggest problem area and if you fix the Axial model, you are fixing the other modes at the same time. If you put corner traps, you simply aren't going to fix an Axial mode. Axial modes are unwanted pressure between 2 parallel surfaces. That means the low frequency PRESSURE problem is going to be along the entire surface. So, if the lowest low frequency problem in your room starts at 30Hz, and it's along "an example" the side walls, then you would need to find a product with the highest amount of absorption coefficient at 30Hz and get enough to cover at least 50% to 70% of the entire surface covered. Sticking some "traps" in the corners is NOT going to fix low frequency problems in a room as it's not enough surface coverage. It will a very small amount of difference and that's because they are only covering maybe 5% of the surface coverage, at most. Plus, I'm not sure the units he used are all that good at absorption in the low frequencies in that room. So, wrong product, wrong amount and wrong placement. Also, his terminology seems rather mis leading, and it's not his fault, it's the industries as there's a lot of wrong terminology used. Bass Traps is the incorrect terminology. the industry has practically standardized on that term, but it's simply an incorrect term. The correct term would be low frequency absorption device, and depending on the type of design of the unit. There are three main types of low frequency absorption type devices. Membrane, Diaphragmatic and Helmholtz. Helmholtz is for SPECIFIC frequencies, but the problem is they simply don't absorb enough at the frequency a unit is designed to absorb. then the other problems with Helmholtz is you are going to need a lot of them, and in most cases, the problem is not at one frequency, it's at many DIFFERENT frequencies. Membrane and Diaphragmatic are from a similar family of absorption, but between the two, I would go with Diaphragmatic as if designed properly with the right materials, you'll get much more absorption at lower frequencies than a membrane. Yes, they are typically more costly, but they typically will be heavier as they have more mass to absorb more low frequency energy. So, on a per square foot basis, you'll absorb more per sq foot, so you can fix a problem better. Also, he talks about reflections and they starts talking about ECHO's and Reverberation in a room. Echo don't exist in a room. An echo is a repeating sound. Think of what happens if you go to a large Canyon and you yell out "Hello" and you hear the word "hello" repeating until it fades away. That's an echo. A reverberation you won't hear the word repeating. You'll just hear the energy bouncing off the walls until they die away.
Great video! However will just say that flat anechoic frequency response is the ideal, but in-room it sounds more natural and appealing to not have flat so much as a tilting downward-right so the bass is about 5dB~ higher than treble on a straight downward slope. Look at the "Spinorama" graphs for estimated in-room response for an anechoic flat speaker (eg Ascend Sierra-LX) to see what this looks like. Perfectly "flat" in the room can sound pretty "flat" and dull, not very robust.
I believe there's a Harman curve equivalent for speakers that's basically what you say, that is a slope with bass slightly boosted while treble is rolled off.
It also helps to have $21,000 in loudspeakers and another $30,000 (I'm guess-timating based on those Naim amps) worth of electronics. Jesus. Did I go into the wrong career or what?
In normal living spaces for normal people without dedicated rooms, furniture like couches, chairs, bookshelves, etc. functions as the treatments. Yes, starting with an empty room and no furniture means you'll need other ways to make it less echoy. And remember that it's subjective and the amount of echo that is acceptable is a very subjective personal preference. Some people want "dead" sounding rooms that are more like headphones. Some people don't mind or even prefer varying level of liveliness left in the room.
I can relate to the latter. There's no way I can stand sitting inside of a mini anechoic chamber for long. Cozy theme and furnitures are a must as well.
People don’t realise the chair you sit on affects the sounds substantially. I have Meridian speakers which sounds amazing but sitting on my leather chesterfield causes major problems in sound unfortunately particularly in the bass.
One of the most valuable lesson in the speaker world: your system will only sound as good as your room does. My living room is not treated (can't do it and don't want it either) and understanding this has saved me a bunch of money on upgrading components, since it now sounds pretty much as good as it gests for my space. Nice video!
@@Pure-Luck447 the sound coming from unwanted reflections from the wall and ceiling, arrives at a different timing to your ears. This echo effect makes things sound muddy and less clear. This has more impact on sound quality than Dacs or amps.
This video was not only helpful and isnightful, but also very entertaining in trying to recognize the album covers behind you. I see: Daft Punk Woodkid Alt-J Tash Sultana Mother Mother Pink Floyd Gorillaz The Script My Chemical Romance Tame Impala Good taste! 🎉
Question. I have a 120” projector screen on the main wall and have my speakers (Dynaudio Heritage) in same area (I can pull them out quite far). Would the screen be good for sound treatment or would you say I should get panels to put on wall as well? Also I have curtains on one side wall. Would that be fine for that side? Thanks!!
Call me a minimalist. Call me a purest. Call me old school. Call me whatever you choose. But isn’t hi-fi an acronym for hi fidelity? Is high fidelity not the art of reproducing music as faithful to the creator’s intent as is technically possible? Is introducing DSP or EQ into the signal path not adding yet another processing stage to the signal? Which surely can only degrade that signal. When you employ DSP or EQ to a signal, does that not merely adjust the linearity of that signal? Whether or not you prefer that adjusted signal must be a matter of personal taste. So if it is your choice to employ DSP and or EQ? Then don’t you have to weigh up the caveats of an extra signal processing stage against the ability to alter the signal to suit your personal preference? Does it not make more sense to invest your money in speakers that are designed to load the room correctly. Not to invest your hard earned cash in EQ or DSP to compensate for your speaker’s inadequacies. If you have the luxury of a dedicated listening room furnished only with your hi-fi rig, listening chair and maybe beer fridge? Then room treatment may play a part in shaping the sonic picture you’re trying to create. But, back in the real world, where most hi-fi has to fight for its right to be in the family lounge, you simply have to minimise your compromises. Push your luck to the limits of your wife’s tolerance level when it comes to speaker and listening chair placement. As regards room treatment/acoustic correction, in most family lounges, the soft furnishings, sofas, carpets, curtains, rugs, cushions, people and pets will all play their part in insuring RT levels are kept within acceptable limits. Your comments welcomed. Enjoy the music! y
Really good video, but you are in some sort of race? You speak far too fast dude… you are going to fly straight over the head of any beginner / novice audio enthusiast You have missed a huge criteria for the mathematical model, we should never assume that the walls are made of the same materials? When it comes to bass response, each corner needs to be treated independently. It has far more to do with the actual mass of the area of you are treating. Only in a perfectly built symmetric construction can you treat it all equally. Each channel needs to be treated differently, and so this is my big bug about videos like this, A simple thing that most “ professionals “ oversee is the difference between diffusion and diffraction Diffusion and diffraction are distinct sound phenomena that require different treatments in a small listening space. Diffusion scatters sound waves to create an even distribution and reduce echoes, using specially designed surfaces. Diffraction, on the other hand, involves the bending of sound waves around obstacles, which can cause phase interference. Thus, treating them the same way is ineffective; diffusion requires diffusers, while diffraction management focuses on strategic speaker and object placement.
I only need 10 minutes with my Swan OS10 inside my room to understand that I've been missing a lot from my 7 years of headphone hobby. After that I stopped looking much into headphones and IEMs deals and just buy a KEF LSX and a sub for it. It's just doing something all three of my over 1000 usd headphones and IEMs can't ever do.
Hi, can i use this way of measuring to find my ideal subwoofer position by playing pinks noise in my sub at hearing position the using the mic at posible sub location?
How about Foam Panels, i see many uses them. And how about placing them behind the speakers on the wall, some say that removes sound that bounces back to the wall
I've got a question about 'perfect' frequency response. You've shown a flat one, but I found theories that perfect harman target in room looks more like +5dB bass, flat mids -5dB trebles
You are correct, MOST will not prefer a flat in room response! He should have mentioned this so as not to confuse people! It will sound bass light, and bright to most. We dont hear the flat response as flat and even.
Refusing to use EQ seems very backwards to me, but the other end of the spectrum are people who try to correct things with EQ that just can't be corrected without causing more damage than good. Headphones are comparatively easy, but as soon as the room is involved you really have to know what you are doing. For example I initially tried to eq my speaker to a flat target curve, which is a bad idea, because the speakers are supposed to measure flat in an anechoic chamber, but have a downward slope in the highs in a treated room. If you EQ to a flat FR without agressive windowing, you get too much highs. Also, you have to balance correcting the total power FR vs the windowed on axis response, as both matter and can't be corrected with EQ seperatly. Here room treatment and/or speakers with better constant directivity are needed.
@@genkifd you must have an incredibly good system and incredibly good ears. How do you find recordings which were recorded using bit perfect. My favourite recordings used DSP in the production.
Dude assumes we have a choice of rooms to put your hifi in.😮 For most it goes on the same room as everything else, not questions asked, ot gpes there or not at all.
Is your recommended RT60 time derived from the two commonly used standards for such - ISO 3382 and EBU/ITU? The ISO standard specifies an RT60 of ~500 ms and EBU/ITU specifies between 200-400 ms. Also, you should have mentioned that furniture can actually act as room treatment if you have enough of it. My bedroom, untreated, has a RT60 of around 350 ms with only a king size bed, a desk, and a dresser in it.
QUESTION; I have very good audio (b&w diamonds-devaliet power -REL subs) how do I find and hire a guy like you??? I now have a dedicated audio room, I have excellent musical ears from being a session player and producer in LA, but I have low technical skills on the mathematics and analyzing room acoustics. I can Google but whom am I looking for with such excellent skills as yours? I have a budget for acoustic treatment and to hire an expert. Are you referred to as an acoustician? I really need someone like you with your knowledge base to set my room up properly or else I will only be getting 50% of what my gear is capable of. SUGGESTION PLEASE. I would be quite grateful if you can point me in the right direction. I now live in Georgia USA.
Your final measurements after dsp seem to indicate a very linear response which looks great but shouldnt that have a downward tilt as such a linear response at the MLP is considered bright? Was this a personal choice to try emulate a typical recording studio response? Also, the very slight dip between 200hz to 300hz wasnt fixable with DSP?
This is incredible information! This has to be about the best 'audio room treatment' information on RU-vid. Thanks for this! Now I have a summer project.
"1. Bass traps don't fix bass modes. As Dr. Toole says in one of his private presentations, "the only thing bass traps do is trap your money!" Wavelengths are way too large for any traditional velocity absorbers to do much good. Often people put a ton of them in there to get results and with it, make their room too dead. In general, few if any people are in a position to use velocity absorbers to make effective changes in their room. Pressure absorbers work better but they are expensive and require skill to design and use (they are very frequency selective). 2. He is optimizing for his eyes, not ears. Two ears and a brain don't work like a single microphone and a graph as Dr. Toole would again say. The notion that reflections are "bad" is folklore as comprehensive peer reviewed has repeatedly shown. Yet, it has become one of the "internet rules" to chase them using measurements. Doing so will lead to a completely dead room when you are done. Ask any high-end acoustician what the #1 problem with DIY acoustic is and they tell you people creating dead rooms because of this mistake. 2A. Use speakers with proper directivity and you will not need to fear reflections. Indeed, this is your #1 tool for good sound in a room. 3. Rooms are never ideal. The calculators for room modes and such for the most part generate incorrect results because your walls are not perfect reflectors. Ditto then for golden ratios, and this and that dimensions not being good. Read Dr. Toole's book for example measurements showing this. For this reason, you can actually fill nulls a bit because cancellation unlike what he claims are way away from ideal (or they would not be down just a few dB). 4. Reflectors need to be broadband. Those skyline diffusers are not. And neither are a lot of what you folks slap on walls. Minimum depth should be 4 inches. 5. DSP is extremely powerful. Get the right speakers, put them more or less where you like, and set your seating position the same. Then measure and apply DSP to pull down peaks. This is the formula which will give you 90% of the results with minimum expense and uglification factor (slapping panels everywhere in the room). Sadly the folklore has gotten so bad that if you don't have a room full of acoustic panels, folks think something wrong with your room. What is really wrong is that people haven't spend $35 on Dr. Toole's book and a few days of reading and learning about real sound acoustics. Please, please do not follow the Internet consensus on this. They are just wrong." - Amir, audiosciencereview.com
@@Patagoona it’s ridiculous, you read one book and you think you’re an expert! You are what’s wrong with the internet mate 😂 the sheer ignorance is astounding
Except DSP usually sound shit above 500hz and can’t address decay time (ok ok, the bleeding edge hardly out yet is starting too, especially if you have more than 2 speakers). But sure, lets all listen to the 🙉🙈
Kudos for making this video! I do have one item to point out. The modes between parallel walls start at a frequency that has a wavelength 2 times the distance between them and at the integer multiples of that lowest frequency. So, instead of 7m for the room described, one would want to use 14m for the wavelength of the first modal frequency.
It's fairly easy to get a substantial improvement over an untreated room but really difficult to get close to perfection. For someone with the money for the speakers in this video, I would probably recommend to just hire someone to to this.
Most of this stuff has already been figured out because of the data that has been collected through various rooms. The problem is the misinformation and the nonsense people and companies like to spread, some of which are commonly present in this video
I have a couple 100 pound dogs, things get very dusty and dirty fast. I want to avoid foam and fabric that will become disgusting allergen traps. What are my treatment options?
Fantastic! I've attempted room treatment many times but never had the cool tools like in this video. It was tough and at times, took months for me to figure things out. I think it might be an interesting series if you guys did Room treatment challenges. Choose people with oddly shaped rooms or unique furniture layouts and do a room treatment and see what kind of challenges you had, etc. Also knowing how much it cost each time to get to a certain level would be very interesting to see. Oh and also doing comparisons with other products that claim auto room correction too and measuring those and seeing the difference. I was quite impressed with Sony's HT-A9 when it auto adjusted everything in a few minutes for the size of the speakers but it's also a different experience. Room Treatment is hard and expensive.. which is why I usually stick to headphones. LOL
If you have to ask how much it costs; you can't afford it. Seriously, I looked into purchasing room treatments for my office, which is the size of most people's bathroom. I was looking at a minimum of $2k when all was said and done.
Do mine! A mezzanine with stone floors below and stone walls. Reflection heaven. The hifi is on the elevated level and the ceiling is a triangle. Reflectiontastic!
@@astorbeijer9424this is just a guess, I I would surmize that 10 to 20% of your entire audio budget be spent on room treatment and the gear necessary to get accurate readings. It really depends on what the room is.
Did you actually ended up making that video about room correction? I couldn't find it scrolling through your timeline. Great video on the matter btw. One you can share with others too get them understanding it.
Excellent primer on the subject. One thing that I have not seen addressed in videos on room optimization/treatment is open floor plans. Most newer homes, at least in the U.S., are build with areas or "moments" rather than rooms, per se. For example, my listening area is about 12' X 12' but it is open to an area (bar/kitchenette) behind it that is about the same size, an area (game/billiards/darts area) to its left that is about 20' X 14' and has a French door to its right. There are no walls on which treatments can be placed. I have installed wood diffusers on the front wall, but don't have side walls, exactly, where additional treatments could be installed. Keep up the good work!
if you don't have walls in a traditional room that might be a good thing since you don't have walls in the listening area off which sound will bounce. You can make sure the floor has rugs or carpet and if you notice reverberation you could add treatments to ceiling. The idea is to block surfaces from which sound will bounce
@@drplot1 but its more often the case the area might have for example wall directly in front, behind and to your left but the right side will open out to the kitchen/dining area. In this case the reverberation is uneven. I guess you could put treatments on the left and rear walls. I would also point out, if you can afford quarter of a million dollar AUD speakers as he has, you can afford to be very selective with your home selection.
My "room" is my living room in an open style house with an angled ceiling, a square room to the left, a rectangular room to the right, a bird house shaped dining room and a square kitchen. All mixed between carpet and hardwood 🤦♂️
I have very good speakers cables (Audioquest Rocket 88). If I change the room setup I wont be able to put series cables but regular ones (one speaker will require 50ft long cable) Is it worth it to change? Cables are not more important than setup, right
Your speaker cables are not important at all unless they are too thin to properly carry the required current. Their length doesn't matter much either as long as you're not in the hundreds of meters range. It's been demonstrated several times.
I own B&W 801 matrix series 3 speakers. My room is 10'H x 14.5'W x 27.5L. I cannot use any front wall treatments as I will suck the life out of the mid-range and treble. Also, I have only one 4 ' x 2' absorption panel on the ceiling. Two panels sucked the life out of my speakers. So, listening is very important in optimizing the sound of your room.
The opposite is true actually. 1. You can build these panels yourself if you like to trade timemoney. 2. You can make budget gear sound amazing in a well treated room, while no amount of money will make a great speaker sound good in a shitty untreated room. Trust me I have some very nice speakers in my living room and they sound pretty shit 😂
i have glass wall on my left side of the room pretty much all rooms have glass on corners or a whole wall and i have no clue how will it work in my room if i treat it will the sound bounce back lol what does a glass do
I placed my speakers with the window between them. I figured....it's acoustic properties are different from the other walls....so it'll be uneven....it really was. I rearranged mt speakers and the center image tightened up, no more off balance Soundstage.
A lot of people don't, and a lot of people do. This video is just to teach you what a perfect world situation would look like for optimal results. And then you apply what you can to your setup.
All I need now is a giant room that's big enough that my partner will let me plonk speakers a third of the way into.. Anyway, great video with a lot of useful info, but you really have that RU-vidr style of hard attack about your speech. You don't need to emphasise every other word! e.g. 4:37 "Now Quite a lot of you May not have too much flexibility with Where you can actually place your Speakers."
Tbh it can be done for almost nothing. I have a pair of absorbers behind my speakers that I build from an old mattress, a few planks of wood and some subtle but good looking fabric. Cost me around 10 euro. A whole room will of course cost more, but if you're into diy then you can still do it for a very low cost :)
@@gurratell7326 I do not agree. Look at recording studios, and you'll see that good treatment is costly. I mattress here and there will not make a room any way near perfect.
@@gurratell7326 If you DIY don't forget to take fire hazard precautions and research materials properties. You don't want to burn everything down because you've used the wrong material. I see quite dangerous advice all the time.
Great video. This video does a really good job illustrating exactly why I invested more money into my headphones than speakers. Speakers are superior to headphones IMO, but not in the rooms in my house!
I'm mainly a headphones guy and I have never been able to listen to nice speakers in a well treated room. At this point I'm scared to because I think it might change me. >.
As far as speaker placement goes, I've tried a number of different recommendations over the years, and so far the absolute best I've found has been from the German high-end speaker manufacturer, Audio Physic, as published in Stereophile's 1995 review of their Virgo loudspeaker. Their recommendation is really pretty different from the recommendation in this video, and I find it really improves both imaging and bass response. With regard to subwoofers, I've never heard a proper high-end setup that sounded right with them. The additional crossovers tend to introduce time delay, and subwoofers often sound muddy and slow anyway. If you have a time-aligned set of speakers, adding a subwoofer can negate a lot of the benefit of that design.
There are MANY high end systems that have subwoofers and sound amazing! Just because you havent heard any doesnt mean they dont exist! DSP, REW, Umik-1, DiracLIve, ARC, MSO(multi sub optimizer) etc. etc. have taken 2.1 stereo and home theater to another level in the last few years! Time to catch up!
Wow very nice room. I bet it is hard to go back to headphones. I have JBL 4367s on McIntosh gear with JL subs highpassed at 60hz and my headphones get very little use these days. Great video
The new Dirac Active Room Treatment correction could potentially replace big bass absorbers. It uses all speakers to basically cancel any unwanted reflections up to 150Hz. It also will support higher frequencies in the future.
Really a great lecture about room treatment and its effects! I enjoyed it. It seems you are not only a headfi guy but also a hifi guy. That's great 🙃 Would like to watch more of you testing hifi gear too. This beautifull snow white Sopra 3 and your equipment in the rack could be the interception of this second path 🤗
