[zybar]

In preperation for getting my Roompack + Seams from Nathan, I decided to get out my Rat Shack meter and Stereophile test cd to see where things are at now.

When I started my measurements, I had up my EchoBusters in the ceiling corners and on the rear wall to either side of my screen.  I also had in place three Roomlens' (one in the middle, and one to each side of my speakers).

Well, my measurements don't look that good and I can defintely hear some of what numbers suggest.  

I have a suckout at 125Hz of roughly 6db's and I am positive 6-8db's between 80-50Hz.

In the midrange I am "relatively" flat with my worst reading being down 4.5 at 2000Hz.

In the upper frequencies I am not so good - between 3150-2000Hz I am at least 7db's down and at the very top almost 15db's down.  

Wow, sounds like I really need help??

Well, when I listen to my system, I think it sounds pretty darn good (not bragging or being defensive).  When I have people over, they comment that it is one of the better systems they have heard.

How can this be?

I know the goal is to be as flat as possible across the board, but based on these numbers you might think the system should sound pretty bad.

Also, when I took down ALL of the room treatments and measured, things were only slightly worse from a numbers perspective.  I guess I was expecting a bigger deviation...was this wrong?

When I listen to music without the room treatments I do hear a drastic drop-off in the sound quality; it's just that the numbers don't seem to support it.

Will Nathan or somebody who really understands room acoutics shed some light on this for me?

Thanks in advance.

GW

[Horsehead]

Here is an article that might help you.  Also, they sell a test CD that has corrections for using the RatShack meter.

[zybar]

Thanks for the link...

That is exactly what I read and used for my measurements.

But that doesn't explain to me why the measurements did change very much when I compare room treatmeant vs no room treatment.

GW

[Hantra]

Well George. . . I wish I had an answer for you.  

The short answer is, a flat frequency response is not a requisite to have good sound, and sound that is emotional, and pleasing to you.  I had a serious frequency suck out around 70 and a peak at 110 before Scott helped me fix it with his RTA.  Even so, I still had gobs of emotion, and very pleasing sound.  

It just gets that much better when you do get those frequencies back that you're missing. . .

Let us know how your experience goes!

B

[Rob Babcock]

It isn't just the frequency domain that the room treatments are working; a lot of it is controlling the reverberant signature of the room.