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Response means frequency response. Decay time is how long the sound takes to decay by X db. Polar response of a speaker is an important caveat determining how one can use the speaker/room interaction to your benefit. We can treat for either or both pending the situation.
Yes, I don't believe I've ever been in an untreated room that I "perceive" to not have room for improvement. Whether it is the possibility of better imaging, slap and flutter echo from high parallel bare walls, wandering images due to uneven boundary related phase issues from differing side walls, tightening and extending bottom end response, etc. - there is always room for improvement. Some rooms obviously more than others.
I will mea culpa on the formulas. Too many room submissions. We had been discussing Linkwitz, not Toole. My bad.
I would agree to identify the problem before treating. Would be silly not to. But I prefer to measure as well as listen. When you only listen, you are pulled toward trying to get the sound that you prefer. That's great if it's your room, not so great if you're setting up someone else's.
I think our differences can be related to the summary at the beginning of one of Toole's papers
. I slogged through that infomercial to the point "With the room empty..."As expected. Complete bogus silliness. A completely empty "living room" is hardly typical, outside of an institution. Like I said at the beginning Ethan, I not against sensible acoustic solutions in living/listening rooms. But 99% of it doesn't involve mattresses on the ceilings and padded cell walls, when "furniture", "decor" and other such esoterica, seem a bit more prudent starting point.Oh...and listening rooms and recording studios, are two different environments entirely. You ought to read and understand Toole sometime. Especially if you are going to give credence to the rigors of perceptual blind testing and preferences, of which you will have none of.cheers,AJ
Who said anything about always using absorption? Diffusion can INCREASE spaciousness.
You're making the assumption that all of those living rooms have loudspeakers with very specific characteristics.
He also assumes spatially averaged sources (many don't have - the vast majority I would say) and EQ (many don't have - the vast majority I would say). Awful lot of caveats/requirements going on here. I would ask what he considers the 'average furnished living room.' Many that I've been in certainly have plenty of problems that I perceived.
So let's look at a really average 2 channel system. No multiple sources, no EQ, average room, wood floor (even carpet if you like but hey, absorption kills spaciousness and realism and is about as non-linear absorption as you can get), 8' ceiling, windows, doorway, couch, TV, recliner, etc. Where is the targeted absorption? Where is the diffusion? Both of which he names (although he just mentions absorption - the targeted is mine) as things to do for good sound? What if the owner has speakers he likes but they don't fall in line with the 'requisite' design parameters? Sounds like the ones that might not need much treatment are getting to be a smaller and smaller subset of reality.
Some living rooms may not have many perceived problems - so by your logic the sound cannot be improved. So if a problem is measured but not perceived, but I treat the problem and the perceived recreation of the live event is better, it's not relevant? I understand the point of addressing perceived problems - just making a point. JLM doesn't like dipoles. Some people don't like horns/waveguides. Some people don't like ported speakers. Everyone has a different perception.
We'll just agree to disagree. I would disagree that the 'vast majority' of living rooms have no chance of any improvement with SENSIBLE, TARGETED treatment (not necessarily all broadband or even all absorption) designed to address the specific problems of a room. I'm done with this thread. It's not going anywhere and I have way too much work to do to spend this much time on a single thread. Gotta go help all those people who don't know what they're doing and improving their listening experience by addressing all the problems they don't really have.
I've enjoyed reading your posts and salute you for not using this thread as a thinly veiled excuse to sell something.
JohnR, thanks for the microphone info but I wonder how often those mikes/techniques are used ("plenty", really?).
I'm not aware a single studio professional who uses dipoles at home.
Consider this: every time a pet, spouse, child, listening buddy (or more) enters or leaves the room, the acoustics change. The effect that 50 - 1000 lbs. of living matter (mostly water) has on room acoustics is usually overlooked.
