Poll: Is your listening room acoustically treated?
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I have a dedicated, professionally treated room
1.92%
2 1.92%
I have a dedicated room I treated myself
13.46%
14 13.46%
I listen in the living room but it's well treated
14.42%
15 14.42%
I listen in the living room and it has no room treatment but it sound ok because of all the stuff in it
49.04%
51 49.04%
I listen in a living room that sounds pretty ordinary
21.15%
22 21.15%
Total 104 vote(s) 100%
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Is your listening room acoustically treated?
#31
A new video from GIK.

I found the extent by which a large null was reduced with room treatment to be both interesting and perhaps a little surprising. That said, they have added a LOT of room treatment for this demonstration, far more that most would do for a domestic room I guess.

The "before and after" recordings are also interesting.

This is a short video, and well worth the time to watch I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9u6rvWSTDM
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
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#32
Easy to hear the improvement in the highs, even on my phone. Most of the improvement would be in the bass though and to hear that you would have to be in the room.

It definitely shows how important the room is. It can really make or break a system. I know because I'm dealing with it daily.
                                                    Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,                                     
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                                                                                                                                                                              Jim Smith's GBS.
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#33
(18-Feb-2021, 10:13)Pim Wrote: Easy to hear the improvement in the highs, even on my phone. Most of the improvement would be in the bass though and to hear that you would have to be in the room.

It definitely shows how important the room is. It can really make or break a system. I know because I'm dealing with it daily.

I listened to the clip on headphones.  I would agree that it is easy to hear the improvement in the highs.  In fact, this is why I particularly liked this video, you can very easily hear the difference and improvements right the way through the entire frequency range.  The obvious effect is the "deadening" of the sound, or removal of the room echo if you like.  This I would expect, but what really struck me is some of the mid-range stuff, where to my ears the system in the treated room sounds like it has has a significant amount of distortion removed.  In some threads we discuss distortion levels of 0.0018% versus 0.00026% or whatever (which is all good fun), but this is on another level I think.
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
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#34
It's the most important level if you ask me.
                                                    Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,                                     
                                                                                                                                                                            Dynaudio C1 MkII.
                                                                                                                                                                              Jim Smith's GBS.
                                                                                                                                                                        Northern NSW Australia.
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#35
I haven't read all the thread posts, but I eyed several that advocate as a good listening room to be as important as good components.
Scientifically, this is absolutely true. From the human point of view, though, isolating myself in a dedicated room (I could have one in my basement) would imply cutting down my time to listening sessions by 90%.
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#36
My room is about 29 x 32
Ceiling is anywhere from 12-24

70% of the ceiling is treated and one wall and corner
I did d t want the room to be “ dead or too alive “
The end result is easy to listen and talk environment.

I agree, the room acoustics is as important as any other component in the system


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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#37
(19-Feb-2021, 01:19)docvale Wrote: I haven't read all the thread posts, but I eyed several that advocate as a good listening room to be as important as good components.
Scientifically, this is absolutely true. From the human point of view, though, isolating myself in a dedicated room (I could have one in my basement) would imply cutting down my time to listening sessions by 90%.

You are presenting acoustic treatment as an "all or nothing" sort of situation. Acoustic treatments basically do one of two things, they either absorb or they diffuse sound. Lots of things absorb sound with professional grade treatment products at the extreme end of the scale. Carpet is an absorber, soft furnishings can be absorbers, curtains can be absorbers. Things like bookcases stacked with books of different sizes, pictures of different sizes or other wall hangings on walls, furniture placement along walls, and other things can help diffuse sound. Most rooms have absorption in them and it's possible to use targeted placement of normal room contents to control reflections and increase diffusion to varying degrees.  Applying acoustic treatment in a room does not require that the room end up as a dedicated listening room and arranging normal furniture items such as rugs and furniture in order to improve sound quality is just as much an act of acoustic treatment as installing specific acoustic treatment products. There's a lot of acoustic treatment you can do with normal living room items to improve the acoustic behaviour of a living room without destroying the room's function as a living room, in fact people may never notice that things have been arranged to help improve sound quality.

One would definitely hope that a  "dedicated listening room" would definitely be a "good listening room" but one can have a "good listening room" without it being a "dedicated listening room". You just need to work with your room and what you have. The other thing I would say is that if having a dedicated listening room is going to cut your listening time by 90% then the last thing you need is a dedicated listening room but that doesn't mean you can't have a good listening room or that you can't find ways of making the room you are using  into a better listening room.
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Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#38
David,

I perfectly agree with you. I might have just used too little words to express a more complex concept.

Working on the acoustics of a room is for sure dramatically impactful and expensive (in the cost, we should all also factor in the real estate we would subtract to a home if we convert an environment into a dedicated listening room). And it surely is one of the most effective "tweak" for an audio system.
But, of course, the acoustics of a standard living room that would maintain a flexible use can be improved, even if with the constraints of the room shape and respect of the general cosmetics of the environment. I am actually looking forward to receiving a new rug (obviously picked by my wife) to hit two birds with one stone, while I know there's little I can do to "correct" my beautiful, yet audio-not-friendly, asymmetric cathedral ceiling.

My latter point on the isolation has nothing to deal with audio performance, logics of investment and so on. 
On the most disparate forums online, we can all admire gorgeous listening rooms: perfect setup, optimal choice of material for structure and surfaces and freedom to install components that we would dislike in a living room.
A common feature of all of them is the single listening chair: that's my problem. I respect that some audiophiles have a "nook for themselves", but that would just not work for me.
So, perfectly aware that a room I have in my basement could work better as listening environment, I gladly embrace the compromise of listening to music in my living room to enjoy it alone or with my family and in a focused or distracted manner. 

Things might change over time, but for now I'm happier this way Smile
Ultimately, it is just for pleasure and for the love of music!
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#39
@docvale ,

A lot of what you said above resonates with me.

Back in the 1990's my wife and I were living in a fairly small house and my audio system was in the living room half of a combined living/dining room that was rather awkwardly arranged when it came to doorways and traffic paths. Speaker and listening position setups were difficult and while I really liked listening to music my wife was far less interested. When we started looking for a new house after I retired in 2001, one thing that we had an agreement about was that I could have a separate room for the audio system. That agreement was as much about accommodating to our different interests in some areas as it was about giving me the opportunity to set up a "dedicated listening room"'. The room I chose when we bought the new house is an acoustically awkward L shaped room with 2 open archway entrances, one into the front hall and the other into a space connecting to the open plan kitchen/dining/living room area. My wife got the opportunity to set up the living/dining area to suit herself and I got the opportunity to do what I liked in the listening room. Yes, it is set up for a single listener but the shape of the room really dictated the layout and the best speaker/listening position setup placed the listening position near the bend in the L shape where a single chair was the best option. The only reason why that isn't a problem is that most of the time the only person in the room is me (my wife died a couple of years after we moved so most of the time the only person in the house is me). I have got a sofa and chair up the back of the room behind and to the left of the listening chair for when I do have visitors interested in music and we just take turns moving through the listening chair.

There is one trick I "stole" for my own living room from a member of my local audio club, an architect who has designed school concert halls and a few dedicated listening rooms. In his home he has his own system, which includes a pair of visually imposing speakers and a fair amount of electronics, in a small living room which actually functions very well as a living room when people just want to sit and chat. What he's done is to stick the speakers at one end of the room with the other components and a listening chair at the other end of the room. In the middle he has 2 sofas, one along each side wall, with a coffee table between them. When you aren't listening to music people can sit on the sofas to chat and have drinks and nibbles and the rather imposing audio setup is virtually unnoticeable because it's off to the side of your visual field at one end of the room or the other, it simply doesn't intrude or interfere with the sorts of activities you usually do in a living room. When listening to music even people on the sofas at the ends closest to the listening chair can sit comfortably and enjoy good quality sound though not quite as good as it is in the listening chair and he can bring in a couple of extra chairs so a few more people can sit facing the speakers as well. I use the same setup in my living room with my flat screen TV at the end of the room and a sofa on one side facing a couple of living room chairs on the other side with a coffee table in between. It's a surprisingly effective and user friendly layout to use if you can set up your room in that manner.

And you're right, it is all just for pleasure and the love of music so it's best to do it in a way that works for you on as many levels as possible, even those levels which have nothing to do with listening or music.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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#40
Hi David,

First of all, I’m sorry to learn about your loss.

Regarding your description of the arrangement you used for your room, it seems a good combination between lifestyle and audio enjoyment.
Best,

Valerio
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