What is Really Important...

[nicoff]

1) Your room and seat location in that room. And that includes room treatments & good power.
2) Your speakers.

It is physics, it is measurable. And both count, in my opinion, for 80% (that’s my ratio).

Everything else. And that includes electronics, cables, etc. is secondary.

Yes, everything matters. But not everything matters the same.

Concentrate on what is important.

[AJ Soundfield]

1) Your room and seat location in that room. And that includes room treatments & good power.
2) Your speakers.

Come to my room at Flexpo and I will physically demonstrate for the umpteenth time, why the latter far exceeds, even negates, the former, unless pathological.

It is physics, it is measurable. And both count

Yes, absolutely, but without correlating to perception, not meaningful.

cheers,

AJ

[u-sound]

dude, while everybody has a room and a seat, there is no sound without your 20%

[Mike]

The room/speaker interaction is so important and with that, listening position.

Power second. Dirty power can kill a great system.

Source third. You can’t fix downstream what’s broken upstream.


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[AJ Soundfield]

You can’t fix downstream what’s broken upstream.

Although a good Scotch can help

[kiwi_1282001]

1) Your room and seat location in that room. And that includes room treatments & good power.
2) Your speakers.

It is physics, it is measurable. And both count, in my opinion, for 80% (that’s my ratio).

Everything else. And that includes electronics, cables, etc. is secondary.

Yes, everything matters. But not everything matters the same.

Concentrate on what is important.

Agreed.

Time and time again I have found where your listening chair [and thus your ears] are located in the listening space is of incredible importance.

In order to get the best bass performance you need to discover where in the room to sit, picking a location that mitigates obvious standing wave peaks and dips in the bass.

This is objectively measurable (see my system thread) but also subjectively audible. One can hear the dramatic difference between smooth bass, bloated bass or diminished bass on a recording with repetitive bass just my moving the location of your ears during playback. Get the bass right and its amazing how much that can potentially improve the experience of the rest of the frequency range (above 250 Hz).

[u-sound]

unless you are not listening inside a tube, the amp alone is 20%

[a.wayne]

After selecting the correct amplifiers for the speaker load being driven , room setup and acoustics is the 2nd most important issue to deal with, no amount of front end , fiddling and cables are going to fix a bad amp/speaker load selection and while everything makes a difference , IMO amp to load mismatch is the number one issue with bad sound ..

Exceptions being Open baffle designs Corrected with DSP and being driven by class D amps those are just horrible all the time ..!



In coming ..!

[MPW]

Agreed.

Time and time again I have found where your listening chair [and thus your ears] are located in the listening space is of incredible importance.

In order to get the best bass performance you need to discover where in the room to sit, picking a location that mitigates obvious standing wave peaks and dips in the bass.

This is objectively measurable (see my system thread) but also subjectively audible. One can hear the dramatic difference between smooth bass, bloated bass or diminished bass on a recording with repetitive bass just my moving the location of your ears during playback. Get the bass right and its amazing how much that can potentially improve the experience of the rest of the frequency range (above 250 Hz).

This is exactly right. Step number one.

[Spock]

1) Your room and seat location in that room.
... And both count, in my opinion, for 80% (that’s my ratio).

Everything else. And that includes electronics, cables, etc. is secondary.

Some people think quite differently.
Some say that electricity is 50% of the sound (start at 2.20).

[Mike]

Exceptions being Open baffle designs Corrected with DSP and being driven by class D amps those are just horrible all the time ..!



In coming ..!

Uh oh.

[Mikado463]

Come to my room at Flexpo and I will physically demonstrate for the umpteenth time, why the latter far exceeds, even negates, the former, unless pathological.

AJ, are you implying that the speakers / room are not tied together with respect to optimal performance ? and if so, 'negates' the room ?? as a general statement that is utter nonsense(again, if that is what your implying), my counter to you would be di-poles (planar / electrostatics)

The room/speaker interaction is so important and with that, listening position.

Power second. Dirty power can kill a great system.

Source third. You can’t fix downstream what’s broken upstream.

agreed ........

[nicoff]

Some people think quite differently.
Some say that electricity is 50% of the sound (start at 2.20).
...

I know. Some people also believe the earth is flat. It is a free country after all.

[kzhtoo]

I know. Some people also believe the earth is flat. It is a free country after all.

Oh no. It isn’t?

[nicoff]

Oh no. It isn’t?

[Spock]

I know. Some people also believe the earth is flat. It is a free country after all.

So if someone thinks differently from you, it's the equivalent of saying that the earth is flat ...
You must have a terrible room (from an acoustic point of view)

[GSOphile]

My wife's grandfather was a 'flat earth' farmer who spent most of his life on or near his land. When he was very old, they took him to the beach for the first time. Upon seeing the ocean, he remarked, "Hmm, not as big as I thought it'd be!" (And indeed, if it really was flat, it would have looked 'bigger.') So from an audiophile perspective - needed a bigger room!!

[jadedavid]

1) Your room and seat location in that room. And that includes room treatments & good power.
2) Your speakers.

It is physics, it is measurable. And both count, in my opinion, for 80% (that’s my ratio).

Everything else. And that includes electronics, cables, etc. is secondary.

Yes, everything matters. But not everything matters the same.

Concentrate on what is important.

A question on picking the seat location first.
Don't the room node locations change with the placement of the speakers?
I certainly hear changes from a fixed seat position when moving the speakers.
This leads me to believe that the room is being excited differently.
Therefore how do you go about initially setting the speakers so that you can set the chair?

[AJ Soundfield]

1) Your room and seat location in that room. And that includes room treatments & good power.
2) Your speakers.

AJ, are you implying that the speakers / room are not tied together with respect to optimal performance ? and if so, 'negates' the room ?? as a general statement that is utter nonsense(again, if that is what your implying).

I'm responding to what Nicoff stated, in quotation for brevity.
I'm not an audiophile. All statements can be supported by repeatable, verifiable science...and demonstrable, unlike utter nonsense. Most will be oblivious to.
Seating in room: https://www.linkwitzlab.com/Links/Op...rea-Davies.pdf
Rooms mandating "treatments" (audiophiles, absolutely, yes, more the merrier)
https://www.audioholics.com/room-aco...man-adaptation
https://www.audioholics.com/room-aco...steners-prefer

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Iss..._audiofest.htm
https://www.dagogo.com/3rd-2012-capital-audio-fest/

A system that was both unusual and very good was that from Soundfield Audio, in Tampa FL. A.J. is the designer...He also likes a lively room and indeed, his room lacked any sort of room treatments. I am often amazed at the number of audiophiles who will spend tens of thousands of dollars on audio gear, but not a single penny on room treatments – often not even simple absorbers for the first reflection points. (This is true for both their home systems, and the ones they set up at shows.). To my ear these rooms usually sound like echo chambers, concealing much of what their systems are capable of. Much to my amazement, to a large extent this was not true of AJ’s room. It seems that the problem is not reflections per se but rather, that the off-axis reflections of most speakers have a very different tonal characteristic from the direct sound.

https://www.audioholics.com/trade-sh...audiofest-2013
....
https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2019/...le-you-decide/

Dave, I have no issue with folks treating themselves for all sorts of maladies, "Class A", digititis, "condition", etc, etc, etc. If that makes them happier, I'm all for it.
I choose a different path and don't just "talk" (or type). Actions speak louder than words.
Swing by, I'd be more than happy to demonstrate the science, not nonsense. Any time.

cheers,

AJ

[MPW]

A question on picking the seat location first.
Don't the room node locations change with the placement of the speakers?
I certainly hear changes from a fixed seat position when moving the speakers.
This leads me to believe that the room is being excited differently.
Therefore how do you go about initially setting the speakers so that you can set the chair?

I would recommend reading the article in the link below by Jim Smith for a more detailed explanation (and Jim’s book Get Better Sound). The short answer to your question is that, while there will be some changes in low frequency response by moving the speakers, they are orders of magnitude larger by moving the listening position and won’t change much as speaker position is changed.

https://www.psaudio.com/article/loca...tion-location/

[brad225]

Oh no. It isn’t?

I have a brother in law that, though considered relatively sane by some in the family, honestly believes the earth is flat, the earth is only 4,000-5,000 years old and other odd things that have made many in the family avoid him and his conversations.

[AJ Soundfield]

Don't the room node locations change with the placement of the speakers?

The strength of excitation of the nodes/anti-nodes depend on where and what type of acoustic source they are driven by.
So yes, placement of speaker, relevant to room/listener does matter there. A typical audiophile box speaker is a pressure source and omni-directional at LF, which will maximally excite every mode based on placement. What ensues is based on this.

This leads me to believe that the room is being excited differently.
Therefore how do you go about initially setting the speakers so that you can set the chair?

Yes.
Depending on speaker types, these are good general guidelines https://www.linkwitzlab.com/rooms.htm
"General" because real rooms/domestic situations...and taste, varies.

cheers,

AJ

[Spock]

I know that speaker placement and listening location is important but,

- in 1st place you should say that to MBL! It seems they don´t care so much about it. Perhaps Mike could say something about MBL concerns about speaker position in a room.

- 2nd, and a little more serious, in my opinion, the most important and prior thing to do before all these steps that have been mentioned, is the fine decoupling of the speaker in relation to the floor. If decoupling is not efficient, in my opinion all conclusions about the speakers and about the room could be wrong. On the contrary, if the decoupling is fine and if we assure they are very well stable, the placement does´t need to be so “careful”. Different placement of the speakers always gonna give us a different sound. Sometimes is just a matter of taste. Or that or probably i´m just a lucky guy with a good room.
Regarding the choice of the sweet spot, I follow the rule of the triangle between the listener and the speakers. They must be fyring directy to the listening position. Than some experiences in the vertical angle of them could help. You can do it easily playing with the height of the front and back spikes.

- 3rd, no one denies the importance of the speakers and their interaction with the room (I am the first to consider them the most important piece of gear in a system). But 80%? I would like the author of the topic to explain how he would spend the other 20% distributed by the amplification, source and the unavoidable cables.

[nicoff]

.....

- 3rd, no one denies the importance of the speakers and their interaction with the room (I am the first to consider them the most important piece of gear in a system). But 80%? I would like the author of the topic to explain how he would spend the other 20% distributed by the amplification, source and the unavoidable cables.

The answer to your question with references to objective measurements is below. I agree with the author of this article.

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2019/0...-does.html?m=1

[kiwi_1282001]

I know that speaker placement and listening location is important but,

- in 1st place you should say that to MBL! It seems they don´t care so much about it. Perhaps Mike could say something about MBL concerns about speaker position in a room. [...]

MBL do care! MBL North America frequently use room treatments and very carefully place speakers and seating in their show winning rooms.

Below is a photo from an AXPONA show. Even omnidirectional speakers can benefit from some diffusion whether its obvious stuff like purpose built diffusers or less obvious placement of fake plants.

[Mike]

MBL recommends and uses diffusors from this company:


http://www.diffusor.com


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[jaxwired]

Hmmm...well, I don't think it can be distilled in such black and white terms. I think speaker placement, listener position, and room acoustics play a role, but for me, as long as those things are not silly stupid, I ignore them entirely. For instance, I don't place rear ported speakers 1 inch from the wall. I don't sit in far corner of the room when listening, and I don't listen in a room with glass walls and floors. Other than that, I completely ignore those items and I believe I've been able to achieve draw dropping sound over the years with various systems I've owned.

I do agree that of the major components that speakers are the most important to great sound. But, IMO, the electronics cannot be ignored. I think performance from great speakers with a Best Buy receiver would suffer greatly.