Acoustic treatment for my living room - Page 15

Yes, diffusion works well too, though when listening in my medium sized living room (25 feet front to back, 16 feet wide), I greatly preferred absorption over diffusion at the reflection points. So I'd say diffusion is useful almost anywhere but reflection points. The downside of diffusion is it's more complicated to design and build, so it costs more than absorption whether you DIY or buy commercial products.


There's no way to account for all the choices and expectations the mix engineers made when creating the music you play. I explain this in great detail in my book both from the perspective of recording engineers and home listeners. The best solution is for both parties to have rooms that are as neutral as possible, for many reasons including minimizing the disparity between your room and theirs. Most pro mixes are made in treated rooms, so if listeners do likewise that gets them closer to the artist's intent at the receiving end.

--Ethan

I think it is important to note that this is a personal preference, based on your own views on how something "should be heard". That's cool, but again you cant categorically state that this should be done


Its still cheap relative to what we spend on gear (very cheap actually, BAD panels, perforsorber etc dont cost much at all when I think about it)


In your opinion. I'll note Toole has documented research based evidence that opposes this view.

neither offer temporal dispersion

I agree with your initial point but I don't come to the same conclusion.

The music that most people are likely to be listening to (rock,rap,electronic, etc) is recorded by laying down one part at a time in a nearly dead room (except for drums which are usually recorded in a very live space). Or its synthesized on a computer. Then its sequenced on computers, polished with protools, auto-tuned, dynamic range compressed to within an inch of its life Not to mention that the mix is designed to sound good on radio, in your car, on your ipod. All of which is to say that I find it difficult to believe there is any ambience or imaging left in most recordings (except for audiophile or carefully treated live/live-to-tape). So to me that says that it should be the job of the room to inject some ambience - "accuracy" be damned!

Now on the movie soundtrack front things should be better - at least you have a starting point that was designed for playback in a well treated theater environment. But its not clear to me that, when they redo the home mix, this is still true. Certainly, a home mix is modified to better playback in a small room - what assumptions this entails I don't really know (but would like to know more).

Anyways, all of this is saying to me that our goal shouldn't be for the room to be neutral, but for the room to be part of the experience (in a positive fashion). That's just my opinion, but I feel that its probably the best starting point for most people unless they want to sit down and experiment for themselves.

Cheers

Thanks for the reply. So it seems that I did quote Dr. Toole correctly. And he did both acknowledge the issue you keep making, while at the same time proposing a new use with which you disagree. I see no evidence or references to back your opinion. And find it odd that in two posts back you used Dr. Toole to back what you were saying and now think he doesn't know what he is talking about? Again, you do realize he is not trying to find the "behavior of the space" whatever that means?


There is no one mandating what we should do in our homes. It would be quite remarkable to be told to spend money to achieve a dead space that is less pleasant than what we had before!


Please help me understand this again. I quoted Dr. Toole word for word. Your feedback is that he is wrong. If he is wrong, does it not reason that you are accusing him of not understanding "foundational aspects of acoustics and the behavior of the sonic energy within a small acoustical space?" I mean his statement could not be more clear and once more, I quoted him word for word and the full context, including graphs of his experiments.


There is nothing contrary. One is macro analysis, the other micro. As I said, you keep thinking if I say I use a gas gauge to measure how full my car is, it has to tell me its composition or else it is not useful. The point you keep making and repeating here is not under dispute. It simply is not relevant to the use Dr. Toole has for this measure. Repeating what is already in agreement is not logical. It implies you are not seeing the distinction between the two uses.


It absolutely is not in this scenario. You can use ordinary speakers to perform this measurement. As I said, you are not familiar with this use of RT60 and keep thinking it is be used to analyze a space and it is not. It is being used differently here.


Not at all. Why don't you put forward some references that says that the use that Dr. Toole has in this regard requires a dodecahedron speaker.


There is nothing to answer as there is nothing in dispute there and I said as much. You have to acknowledge that this is a different use of RT60 and bring evidence from someone else than Dr. Toole to prove your point. This is why I asked you to answer my simple questions. If you had, you would have noticed that you are arguing the wrong point.

But we need not stay with Dr. Toole's words alone. We can look to Dr. Olive's AES paper, A New Reference Listening Room For Consumer, Professional and Automotive Audio Research:

"Acoustical measurements were also conducted in the
reference listening room to determine how various
acoustic treatments of the room affect the measured
reverberation time (RT60). Toole has argued that
reverberation measurements of domestic sized rooms
are rather pointless, since such rooms do not produce
diffuse, isotropic sound fields. Nonetheless, an attempt
was made to minimize the resultant measurement errors
by energizing the room with a large number of
loudspeakers, and averaging the measurements over
several different microphone locations.
The room was measured under five different conditions:
1) bare room (seats, carpet, diffusers and absorbers
removed), 2) absorbers only, 3) seats/carpet only, 4)
reference setup with no diffusers, and 5) reference setup
with diffusers. The results plotted in Figure 8 reveal that
the bare room produces a maximum RT60 value of 1.7 s
at 500 Hz and even larger values at higher frequencies.
Simply adding an area carpet and six leather chairs to
the room brings the room RT60 down to 1.1 s at 500 Hz.
However, the wall absorbers are clearly doing the brunt
of the work as they alone bring the RT60 down to 0.7 s at
500 Hz. The reference setup produced the lowest
average RT60 value of 0.4 s. It is interesting to note that
the diffusers actually reduced the reverberation time,
probably by their scattering of sound towards absorptive
surfaces. For the reference setup, the 0.4 s value puts the
reference room’s reverberation time among the typical
values Bradley measured in 600 domestic rooms [10]."

So once again, experts acknowledge what you keep arguing as true (the comment regarding Dr. Toole above), yet use RT60 as a gross measure of reflectivity in the room.

My sense is that you had never seen this use until now so can't acknowledge it. That's cool. I am not here to get your agreement. I am here to make sure all the facts are on the table. And facts from two top experts in the industry say you do have a useful measure to know if you have under-, or over-treated your room. You are welcome to ignore it.

you think a man of toole's position would understand that diffusers are inherently absorbers due to 1/4wave resonances, viscous losses, as well as edge diffraction losses. oye.

in no way can diffusers INCREASE the "reverberation time" (lol) unless the treatment they are replacing are even more lossy -

top two experts in the industry, eh? lol - mind informing me what concert halls, control/mastering rooms, or any other acoustical spaces these "top two experts" have designed? what 'breakthroughs' in acoustics or physics have they presented to the community?

yep - and im still waiting for your examples on how to treat a room (and placement) based on rt60 times...

edited: - there's no point enabling you further.

He picks whatever the flavor of the month is and uses that as attack plan in his attempts to discredit those who debunked his sales pitch. A few months ago it was audibility of jitter difference between HDMI and S/PDIF, then it was Ing's amp test, then aliens, ...etc, now it's Toole's article.

You see, debunking him was the "mistake" you made. It's one of those good mistakes.

Floyd Toole believes that listening rooms should not be neutral? Where did he say that?

--Ethan

I don't know about "most" music, but even music that never existed acoustically is still mixed based on how it sounds in a (hopefully) neutral control room. So any deviation from neutral in your room can only take you farther from the artist's intent. At least that's how I see it.


Again this is personal preference, but the ambience of a small room always sounds small and boxy to me. This in turn drowns out the "good sounding" ambience that's present in the recording, making the music sound smaller, not larger. Maybe in a big living room with a high ceiling the ambience has a good character that doesn't detract from the sound quality. But then the room is large enough to have true reverb, which in turn makes things sound less clear.

--Ethan

Even if well treated by diffusion? Typically people describe the "sound" of diffusion as that of making the space sound larger than it really is, which to me would be the opposite of small and boxy.

He said: "diffusers actually reduced the reverberation time." And you read as increase? No wonder we can't communicate.

So we finally get clarify on this. If Dr. Toole says something you think backs your position, he is put on the pedestal and message hammered into members. post #15 on the first page of this thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post21817738. Multiple times you demanded to know later who disagreed with him.

But when I quote him as saying things contrary to the position you take, you put him down with such commentary and worse. He may not be right about everything but if I were a betting man, I would bet on him every day of the week and twice on Sunday versus an anonymous poster on the Internet who is not even in the industry.


I don't keep track of his work in Pro world. But in his presentations, he talks projects like that where he is brought in. But really, I don't need to justify his credentials. No matter what it is, it orders of magnitude more than yours. Lest you want to tell us how many "concert halls, control/mastering rooms" you have designed.


No one has innovated as much in correlating what we like in non-sighted audio tests, to what measurements achieve them. No one. For a guy who like a broken record asks for double blind tests, you are ironically very blind to their contributions in this manner. Their work at NRC and then followed at Harman is beyond question. In addition, it is them who have popularized the notion of using multiple subwoofers. Here he is mentioned in another one of your evidence points, the blackbird studio slides:



You yourself post research from them on audibility of reflections on speech. That was work done by Dr. Olive under Dr. Toole. Now all of a sudden, they haven't made their mark in this area? Why do you keep quoting them? Why not quote others who have done that work first?


Examples where given. Where to put them, is independent of that. You should know that he doesn't care about time domain analysis for that.


Please don't stop. You make a great "straight man" for me to point out these key teachings that are important to know .

Well then. Let's ship the speakers that was used to mix the music with that CD so that we can hear the same thing! I say that half seriously. Above the transition frequency, the speaker is mostly in control and determines what we hear. The boxy sound comes from below the transition frequency and there, we must correct for room response. If you fix that, the boxy sound goes away. It doesn't go away with sticking thins on first reflections and such.

please apply reading comprehension. you ignore my first sentence. toole seemed surprised that reduced decreased the RT (lol) --- "It is interesting to note that the diffusers actually reduced the reverberation time,"

i do not know why it was so "interesting" to toole, as diffusers are lossy devices inherently - so obviously diffusers are going to reduce the energy within the room. the only way it would be the other-way-around (increasing RT) is if the diffusers replaced a more lossy treatment. why does toole find this so "interesting"?

please apply appropriate reading comprehension.

so the modal (LF) region is responsible for the sensation of spaciousness and envelopment

yep - i agree with his statements that support my recommendation that if a user decides to attenuate (absorb) a specular reflection, then the treatment needs to be broadband. why do you have difficultly with this.


so are you insisting it is binary? either you agree with every statement, sentence, paragraph from toole, or you disagree with every single statement he's ever made. get real. you've put so much personal backing into toole's commentary that you, from a psychological perspective, will NEVER admit to toole being misinformed on a topic or making any type of acoustical mistake or misunderstanding. he can NEVER be wrong from your viewpoint, because it would also constitute a blow to your credentials. this is basic psychology/human nature and very apparent.



you made the claim that he is of the "two top experts in the industry". maybe you should refrain from making such statements in the future if you are unable to back them up. i think such claims "top expert" is laughable, to be honest --- no matter whom you are referring to.



wow - i see toole's name referenced with many others. what information on that slide is relevant other than simply mentioning his name? hmm. are you presenting this slide to prove a point? if so, what are you attempting to communicate?


sidestepping again - dance, deflect. you made a statement and are unable to provide anything outside of copy-pasting toole. how are YOU utilizing rt60 to deploy treatments? a simple question - can you answer it without copy-paste parroting toole? how did YOU decide via rt60 times how much and where to place treatments in your company's or your personal room? let's talk REAL acoustical issues here, not copying screenshots from toole's book.

you keep posting this single slide from the blackbird pdf --- what relevancy does it have here? was toole involved in blackbird? no. what does toole have to say about dense, effectively anechoic sidewall reflections? do you know if he has been in blackbird or whether he has performed any listening studies there? that room is effectively anechoic, so im quite curious as Massenburg himself says: "just listening to music in there is extraordinary; ensemble musicians report that it's easier to play live in the room because it's easier to hear in the room.those that appreciate it use it to it's utmost. the "sound" is more or less like an "acoustic white-out", and the decay is extraordinarily linear with higher frequencies (the Schroeder curves are remarkably linear) having more decay than any other room i've ever experienced. i made the best record i ever made in my life in there (from which that video clip came)."

after all reflections are reflections are reflections -

I am glad you asked . It speaks to transparency of your arguments and the depth to which you studied them. Let's review. You have in two separate threads and multiple times put forward this studio design. Let's bring everyone up to speed on this project.

Blackbird studios is owned by John McBride (husband of Martina McBride) in Nashville. John approached George Massenburg to help him design their new studio. George in turn asked for Dr. D'Antonio's help, who is an acoustics researcher and the founder of RPG (folks who make acoustic products). What came out is this one of a kind space with 4 foot diffusion products as the main answer to tackling room acoustics in this prototype room.

You ask why I post this slide:


Well, it counters your claim that Dr. Toole has brought no innovation to field of acoustics. To wit, the person whose project you worship, Dr. D'Antonio, put him on the pedestal as one of the key contributors to our better understanding of room acoustics. Importantly, his name and this project, are associated with a more acceptance of reflections relative to older approaches of removing them (LEDE, RFZ, etc). So clearly something about teachings of Dr. Toole went into design of this space -- itself acknowledged by another expert in the industry, Dr. D'Antonio.

But the story does not end there . Earlier you post a graphics that showed the effects of reflections: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post21890738. Terry asked for an explanation of what it meant and I gave it since the data came from Dr. Toole according to the footnote. You objected to parts of that explanation. In answering you, I asked where that page itself had come from so that we could all read the context of how that author was using the information. You refused to provide that data.

Well, I have that answer now. It is the last slide in the presentation on Blackbird Studio design by D'Antonio, coming at the end of where the above slide came from!!! Here it is: From Mono to Surround: A review of critical listening room design and a new immersive
surround design proposal, by Dr. Peter D’Antonio, Chesapeake Acoustic Research Institute, LLC



So D'Antonio ends his entire presentation on this new design by referencing work of Dr. Toole. In that regard, Dr. Toole must be the recognized expert in the industry as far as subjective evaluation of these designs. Further, he is talking about how like Toole, they plan to do further analysis including listening tests and measurements.

Did you have this information and not present it to us? If you did have it, why didn't you acknowledge that their work was incomplete as far as evaluation? Why did you challenge the status of Dr. Toole in this regard?


He has no use for it and neither do I. No one in their home is going to put 4 foot diffusers on their walls. The issues of low frequency can best be dealt with using much more powerful techniques. Above transition frequency we do not need such measures. Either way, we have to wait for Dr. D'Antonio to show the efficacy of the design. It is not for Dr. Toole to jump on it and say something about a one-off project.


No. I gave up the job of being his secret service protector, going wherever he goes, and what he had for dinner yesterday .


So the guy who headed the design likes his design . I respect George. But that room or the opinion expressed do not form my decisions with respect to home listening spaces. But perhaps you can point to half a dozen new studios designed since then that look like that. You have that list?

ah, a lesson in reading comprehension.

what i say:

what amir thinks i say:

do you even read my commentary before replying?


LEDE/RFZ are 2ch studio models for mastering/control rooms. pray-tell, what control room model has toole presented? none...? hmm,

and LEDE/RFZ do not "remove reflections" - that would be a Non-Environment Room. please, if you're going to pretend that you at least have any clue about these studio models, at least get the terms right.


could you elaborate exactly "what" you claim went into the design of this space from toole? or are you just making stuff up? this is the part where specifics would really help your cause instead of vague nonsense.

has toole even been in blackbird? performed studies? no?



no, i clarified your attempt at an explanation. you didn't even know what 'effectively anechoic' meant until i spelled it out for you

i had to present that graph because you seemed oblivious to the fact that reflections are not reflections are not reflections --- and that gain of the reflection and time can have dramatic differences in psycho-acoustic response. as such, the graph deals with the time-domain of which you claimed earlier has no relevancy here. hmm,

im still waiting for you to detail to me how you go about treating a room based on rt60. ill await for next deflection -

Been meanin toi answer amir, but quickly on this one and the following bit.




I sorta mentioned this earlier when I agreed with amir that 'it has to be on the recording but you need good speakers (mostly, I throw room in too) to realise it'.

I actually had examples like this in mind when I said 'it is MORE common than realised (that most recordings have amazing ambience and space within them)'.

But, you need speakers that can show it to the max as it were.

I am often astounded what these guys can do with studio tricks! Sometimes I wonder if those things are accidental, but I can't imagine that to be true. Guys like Royksopp spring to mind...Have a listen to caribou swim if you want amazing envelopment etc, anything from trentemoller, the list goes on.

It might not be 'natural' ambience if you will, but strangely I think the LEV and ASW of quality studio electronic music to be tha greatest of all, by a wide margin.

Maybe it is the type oif music I listen to which gives me 'luck' and sways my opinion of how common it is, dunno.

So control room models is where it is at? You can praise the select few who have done that. Me? I go with the guy who puts their assumptions to test, unbiased, to see if they went by their gut, or did something good. Tying this to Ethan's post is Dr. Toole from his *1979* AES Paper, LOUDSPEAKERS AND ROOMS FOR
STEREOPHONIC SOUND REPRODUCTION

"In making these adjustments the engineer is performing a kind of listening
test. There are no procedural rules, the judgement is an aesthetic one and the only
opinions solicited are from those directly involved with the recording. These people
labor under the impression that a wider audience, the public, will hear the performance as a reproduction of what takes place in the control room. The important
factors in this transfer of musical experience are, at this stage, purely technical.
The loudspeakers and listening rooms of the public must be facsimilies of the
studio control room. Since this is impractical, the converse must be considered.
Sadly, control rooms and monitor speakers are neither standardized nor necessarily
even very good [3,4]. The evidence of this variability of source material is in
any reasonable record collection, and it is apparent in music of all kinds."

On his credentials:
http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reproduc.../dp/0240520092

"Floyd Toole, a leading expert in the field of sound reproduction, explains how to design the best possible listening experience for recording control rooms and home entertainment systems. "

I read some place that Dr. Toole has written 27 AES papers (convention and journal), 17 published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.


You too my brother . What do you think "dead-end" referred to in LEDE? Leaving all the reflections there?


Years of research into what makes good sound? As in, there was a mistake in thinking LEDE was a good model? He is not just a technician. He digs deep into what we like. That was at the heart of NRC research. It was the first wide scale test of what people like in sound reproduction. Until then, it was all a lot of assumptions and gut feelings. Amazing what a bit of real data does to change your preconceived notions. You know, the concept of blind testing applied to audio.


Making stuff up? The guy who headed the design, Dr. Peter D'Antonio, gives him credit in his paper describing this studio. Twice! You have a copy of the presentation from Dr. D'Antonio, yes?


Now you call what Dr. D'Antonio wrote vague non-sense? I quoted him directly with complete snapshot of his slides.


I don't know if he has been involved. What we do know, with 100% certainty is that they themselves are performing the study and have yet to publish it. When they do, and you get an inkling of logic to tell us why we should care about 4 foot diffusers in our home, then you have something to talk about. Lest you tell me if I said a power cable sounds better than another, it is your job to go and run the test to show the efficacy .


No, it was an attempt to throw buzzwords around, unrelated to the topic at hand that we don't need to go and search for reflections and treat them. Nothing in Blackbird studio design was about that. They did not search for reflections. They just put super broadband diffusers there and called it the day. Yet you keep putting it forward as a reason to do time domain analysis of an existing room. You throw around terms coined in that paper as if they are industry standard such as "Ambechoic." Here is the exact reference from Dr. D'Antonio's paper on the studio design:

"This space can be described as an ambient anechoic space
or Ambechoic, as we now describe it"

You see the "TM" trademark there? That means it is a marketing brand. It is not a scientific/engineering specification.


I repeatedly asked you to provide the source. Why did you not provide it? What was there to be scared about? Let us read for ourselves. Let us see that they are referencing the work of Dr. Toole which you were objecting too. Let us read that they have not yet performed subjective tests to see if it is indeed a better listening space. Let us read that they are giving so much respect to the work of Dr. Toole as to finish their presentation with his research. This is why references are important to provide.

You take everyone's graphics, including one of mine in this thread, and put it on your own file sharing site as to not reveal where it came from. Why? It represents pretty low level of ethics in such discussions. Every paper has a list of references giving due credit and context to where the data came from. I have been following the same religiously by giving the paper time, authors, year, and where they were published. It is totally inappropriate to present data created by others without attribution.


Oh, it will come. Don't worry. You will get another chance in being confused about it

little point enabling you any further as you clearly do not even read my posts.
how many times have i stated that it is the USER'S CHOICE whether they want an accurate, critical listening space vs that of a subjectively pleasing listening space based on their own personal preferences. unlike you, i do NOT make an attempt to decide for the user...

sigh,

and why on earth do you keep quoting toole on control rooms. what control rooms has he designed? what acoustic models has he put forward for accurate, critical mixing rooms? is toole relevant in the studio world?


"Floyd Toole, a leading expert in the field of sound reproduction, explains how to design the best possible listening experience for recording control rooms and home entertainment systems. "

so where is all of his discussion on accurate, critical listening room design?
what acoustic model standards has he put forth? none? hmm,


please do not pretend like you even have a shred of a clue as to what LEDE is. quoting your commentary for preservation of ignorance. and what about RFZ model used to achieve LEDE specular response? hmm? not a shred of broadband absorption. hmm, but why would you know this. you don't have ANY real world experience here.

also, much of the information on LEDE/RFZ is closed-source. so would you mind presenting which documents you are sourcing your information on?


you don't even know what LEDE is so please stop attempting to reference it. you have ZERO experience in the studio world and you have ZERO knowledge on such control room models. quoted for ignorance.


yep - so then you shouldn't be having difficulty refining your answer and telling me how toole was involved in the design of such a model. can you please inform the audience what aspects of ambechoic room design toole was involved in? any specifics? anything at all? has toole even been in blackbird? no?


and where does it say how toole was involved with the room? nowhere?


here's a hint - no, he wasn't. so until you can present evidence otherwise, please stop eluding to such conclusions.


you're clueless. you think they just randomly put up big broadband diffusers and "called it a day" eh? seriously, you're utterly clueless and have ZERO experience with respect to room design and even less experience with respect to the studio world.

im still waiting to see your report on how rt60 is relevant in small acoustical spaces and how it can be used to know how much and where to apply 'treatment'.

looking forward to more dancing and deflection as you are simply unable to stay on topic and backup your own commentary.

although i must say the little tangent on studio control models has been good entertainment for me. it is quite humorous to see you attempt to speak on the subject when you have ZERO experience in the studio world and ZERO knowledge on the acoustic models for control room listening spaces outside of knowing what the acronyms stand for. we all know you are in no way involved in room design.

tell me again the closed-sourced documents you are working from with respect to these control room models? and tell me again what acoustic models/standards toole has assisted in development?

As if anyone would prefer a non-pleasing listening space! Accurate is a canard here anyways - the best anyone could do would be "more accurate for a majority of source material", no one can have an accurate room for all source material.

I also find it amusing that you continually accuse Amir of having ZERO real-world experience - it is you who has ZERO real world experience, or else you would have posted some evidence of it by now.

The problem is yours my friend. You put forward an expert witness, Dr. Toole to back your position. When it is then pointed out that he says otherwise in the rest of his teachings, you attack the poster and claim Dr. Toole is not qualified to have an opinion in that regard. And that you know more than him because you have seen pictures of a studio with 4 foot diffusers. I have repeatedly asked why we should care about such a project and you have put forward nothing. No other examples related to home listening environment is put forward by you, showing that listeners like the results of the technique you recommend. But yet, we go on because as I said, the discussion does, in a strange way, lead us to more insight into where we need to go with respect to our room acoustics, whether you acknowledge that or not.


Ah, you play a great game of Calvinball! "The only consistent rule states that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice." You challenge the credibility of Dr. Toole. So I answer how he is more qualified than all of us combined in this thread. Then you come back and say "sigh" that you were talking about providing choices? What does have to do with the challenge you put forward regarding Dr. Toole's credibility?

As to choices, please put forward listening tests showing which models are more preferred or that none is more than others. Otherwise, it shows that you don't have such data and that you don't know how to answer questions like the one that started this thread. Dr. Toole has no problem answering the question and has done so not in this forum, but in authoritative papers published at top institutes in this space. Again, he may be wrong, and the opinion may not apply to all, but it sure is one hell of a lot better starting point than the fallacious slogan, "I give them a choice and you don't" stated by someone not in the industry and posts on an Internet forum with a networking/IT originated alias.

Besides, you don't let them have a choice. You keep complaining about someone showing them the other points of view. You insist that the only answer is no answer per above. Well, that is not a position you have managed to back up with data.


As I have said repeatedly and so does Dr. Toole, the choices people make for a business of mixing and mastering music is different than the choices consumers need to make. Dr. Toole has even tested the two audiences and found their preferences for good music to be different. So it matters not if the expert you want to quote has done one or a million control rooms.

As to why keep quoting Dr. Toole on control rooms, you are the one who asked me about it! And continue to do so in this quote. I provided data as to his expertise, yet you don't acknowledge it and keep going. So here it is again, hoping you will read this one. From AES Journal paper, The Modification of Timbre by Resonances: Perception and Measurement" biography at the end:

"Dr. Toole has designed recording studios, control-room monitor loudspeakers and sound-reinforcement systems for large multipurpose concert halls and theaters."

In his presentations he talks about Ron Howard's Todd-AO studio and Disney hall. I am sure there are countless others. In the next post I hope you share with us how many more control rooms you have designed than Dr.Toole.


You seem to be stuck in this grove of cookbook models for rooms. If cookbooks were so good, why did the Blackbird studio not follow the ones before it? Why have others not followed that? You need to learn how to fish rather than how to buy one if you want to be set for life. Dr. Toole is a fan of analyzing how technology can produce the highest fidelity experience. He has proven that time and time again. And then provides insights that let you design your room appropriately.

For your part, you have not even shared with us which one of these cookbooks you have followed. You say there are choices. Please show us your choice and explain why. Of course you won't do that because you either have no system to talk about, or have one that you know won't stand up to test of accuracy. I am confident you won't post one frequency response chart showing you have flat response. The #1 metric we use for accuracy in audio is that. Who would buy an amp with 20 db fluctuations in frequency response? Yet that is likely what we have in our homes while you talk about screwing around with a reflection point. Forrest is lost from the trees...


All buzzwords. Yet if I asked you to post a sentence from the presentations on those models in journals, you wouldn't be able to do it because you have never read them. Why? Because the sum total of your experience is what someone has post on a forum. On top of that, it is not like you have designed such rooms or compared them to others. You have just read about them and they sounded good to you, in words, not real experiences of being there. I get that. But that is not what it is about. It is about whether we as home listeners would like such environment. I hear you. You don't know what that answer is. But others do.


Closed source? This is closed source? http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=3965
"The LEDE- Concept for the Control of Acoustic and Psychoacoustic Parameters in Recording Control Rooms."

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=11805
"History and Development of the Lede Control Room Concept"

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=3744
"Translating LEDE- Control Room Design into Practical Experience"

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=3688
"Engineering an LEDE- Control Room for a Broadcasting Facility"

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=2852
"The -Lede- Concept for the Control of Acoustic and Psdychoacoustic Parameters in Recording Control Rooms"

The list goes on. Of course, if you can't fill in the login information to download the papers then you do have the problem you state. Not an issue for me because I am an AES member and pay out of my personal pocket to be informed and learn.


Same back at you partner . I am super comfortable saying that I could care less about LEDE or RFZ even though I have read some of the papers. Nothing about research or application to our homes says we should care or attempt to duplicate what they have done. And we know for certain some of the models were misguided and therefore have no applicability even in pro space even though people still follow them in some instances.


I already answered. That the key researcher that designed that room gives him credit for informing him those reflections in rooms may be something that should be preserved. And that perceptual tests and measurements are important and will follow. What other engagements he has had, I don't know and is not important. I did ask you however to tell us how many other rooms have been designed that way since. You seem to have difficulty answering that question.


This is your chance to show us you are not clueless. Show us how many rooms you have designed and their measurements. I am ready to be humbled by your experience .

OK, the rest of your post is a repeat of the same argumentative points, sharing no new data or insight.

Yes, of course, I meant an untreated small room. Even absorption makes music sound larger because, as I explained, the larger sound embedded in the music is no longer drowned out by the small-room ambience of the room.

--Ethan

That should be completely seriously. This too is a useful goal - for all speakers to have as close as possible to a flat response. As proven already by Toole and Olive. So yeah, the goal is for the speakers to be flat, and the room too. As I already said.

BTW Amir, you should take a tip from your own forum's guidelines and tone down the insults. Referring to acoustic treatment as "sticking things on first reflections and such" is derogatory and unnecessary.

--Ethan

+1, leave the personal attacks out, takes away from discussion.

I believe the people here are above that pettiness.

Are we still talking about the OP Q?
2 of my neighbors want advice on what to do in their living room, not a dedicated HT space like I have.
I hesitate to point them to this thread.

Good to know someone is paying attention to frequency domain . Hopefully we can make further progress and look to myriad of other tools in our arsenal to tame our room frequency response than getting stuck in the one grove of acoustic material.


I am sorry, I will try to do better. Sometimes I let posters get me a bit down to their level:

I plan to write a summary post soon. Right now, I am busy listening to music .