In 50 years of selling, designing, equalizing and installing HiFi systems I've never seen such a fantastic explanation of why you MUST correct a room before all else. Bravo!
After coming back to hifi about 5 years ago, I’ve gone through a lot of gear and heard quite a lot of systems and I think you can break all systems down into two camps. Those in a good/treated room and those in a bad/untreated room. Instead of crowing on about their latest 20k DAC or 10k cable maybe audiophiles should do a tour of their room treatment and show off their RT60 data and room sweeps. It would make more sense. The gear plays second fiddle to the room. And I’m sure it’s audiophiles with bad rooms that spend more money and time buying new gear trying to chase a sound they will never get? Just a thought. Richy.
John, sounds like getting those Soul 6s to sound halfway decent in your bathroom-esque living room is a lost cause. Tell you what, I'll happily take them off you and even front up the shipping ;)
@@DarkoAudio ha, fair enough! I have been eyeing a pair as an upgrade to my Zu DW MkIIs. But, boy is it a price jump! Eagerly awaitng the next part of this series on your battle with reverb :)
@@milkplus27 what do you think of the DW's? I am doing a 60-day trial of the DW6's. Have mixed feelings. Great mid-range totality. Female singers sound great. Nice deep bass response. But treble presence is not quite there for me. Could be more resolving
The office takes the sound issue to another level. On our end, the reverb comes across with sustain that is most noticeable when you pause speaking. The room seems to ring,
Another great video, and John's views are astute, particularly with respect to the RT and "energy" in the room. It's like a holey bucket: the more you put in at the top the longer it takes to drain out the bottom. It's good that this science is starting to creep into home audio, but with a caveat I think: don't forget about the music! Or rather, don't forget about your ears as the first (and best) scientific measurement tool. I'm training as an acoustic professional and it's very easy to get waylaid with equations, graphs and minutiae. We're constantly reminded by tutors that any acoustic problem is firstly how we perceive it with our ears and brain.
Thanks for a wonderfully nerdy adventure into room acoustics. This post will probably be way too TLDR for a UA-cam comment... but here goes! The RT is a physical characteristic of the room, so it can't be changed by massaging the speaker's output. Therefore I think that the difference caused by Dirac is probably just a quirk in the measurement process. Maybe it's related to the fact that Dirac has increased the speaker's low-frequency output. For example, the measurement needs to stop once the signal is no longer above the room's ambient level, so bumping up the level might expose more of the 'long tail' in the decay curve. Another interesting issue is that your smaller office has more reverberation than the living room, despite the living room having the longer RT. It has been a while since I dealt with this stuff, but after some head-scratching I've come up with a theory relating to the distance to the reflecting surfaces (e.g. walls and ceiling) in each room. For a given amount of absorption (Sabins) in a room, the larger room will have a longer RT, because the sound takes longer to reach each surface that absorbs some of the energy. However the reverberant sound level will be lower, because the energy is spread over a larger volume (as per the rule-of-thumb formula Lp,rev = Lw + 10 log (RT/V) + 14 ). Therefore the reverberant sound is initially louder in the smaller room, but it tails off quicker. And the reverberant sound in the larger room isn't as loud initially, even though it takes longer for the sound to bounce off enough walls to lose 60dB worth of energy. A lot of psychoacoustics research suggests that our perception is greatly affected by early reflections (e.g. measurements of Early Decay Time), so perhaps that's why the room with the lower RT sounds worse. The moral of the story is that RT is a crude way to characterise a concert hall, so the same is probably true for a our living rooms!
Room correction has limits: it doesn't change the room itself. RT60 is a bit crude, decay spectrum or waterfall is a lot more specific. I use roomcorrection a lot in churches and big meetingrooms to prevent feedback. Sound absorbing is key
You're underestimating the sound improvement of normal furniture, rugs and shelves...its not just absorption coefficients. Their irregular shapes and the materials combine for dramatic effect. I just emptied my living/listening room to paint it and the echo/reverb were unmerciful. I do have a couple acoustic panels, but I was amazed the difference basic rugs and furnishings made in fixing echo/reverb.
Very true. Two walls in my listening room are bookshelves. Much to the annoyance of my significant other I've arranged the books in such a way that each book is randomly sticking out or more pushed onto the shelves. Although modest, this has a noticeable effect compared to all books flush side-by-side by making reflections more random in direction.
Dirac is promising to release new functionality in spring 2023 which they describe like this: "Dirac Live Active Room Treatment - calibrates your speakers as a unified system and uses each speaker’s strengths to reduce room decay time, efficiently canceling out lingering bass and leading to unmatched clarity.". From what I was reading it will work similar to headphones noice canceling. By the way, I am using Dirac with Buchardt A500 via NAD C658 and it's a game changer for me comparing to Buchardt room correction. Stage placement between speakers you mentioning, and better bass correction makes the difference. It's actually huge difference for me in my room.
Your videos are wonderful but frankly not a lot of us can afford professional room treatments. Having worked in audio for years at the shoestring level coming up with inexpensive solutions for room (and hearing deficiencies of clients) became a Sisyphean endeavor. The use of carpet tiles and acoustic foam became two of my most recommended patches to high energy rooms. Of course, not all solutions will work on all rooms. The fun is in the experimentation.
John, great vidéo. You are the reason i fully acousticly treated my listening room. It was the biggest upgrade i made. It made all upgrade itch disapear. Now i just listen to music.
I have awesome room response. Plaster walls, lots of carpet and a cloth sofa plus other room filling. it's the right amount of hard and soft surfaces. sofa's and rugs actually do make a huge difference. We used lots of drape to quell bad acoustics in ballroom and break out rooms in the pro space. it always made a big difference. a lot of this is to make content and the general rule coming from someone who did this professionally for years in many different spaces. Carpet and sofa works really well in most case.
You can go to La Scala and still be influenced by the 'room'. Best practice is to spend your money on (1) better speakers; and (2) Absorption and diffraction equipment. Software 'solutions' are just another layer of processing that degrade the original signal. And don't get me started on the sponsor. I used have an almost full loom of Audioquest products but sold those for and replaced them with cables from Oyaide and diy. Sonic difference? Nil but the replacements looked better and saved me a lot of dosh.
Thank you very much for this wonderfully instructive series on room acoustics, room treatment, and room correction software. I think I'm finally understanding what the best available room correction software can and can't do. If I understand correctly, the reason Dirac, etc., won't help with reverb is NOT that reverb is a function of what happens to sound waves "after they leave the speakers". In-room frequency bumps and dips are a function of what happens to sound waves after they're out in the room, and so are misalignments in the timing of the the sound waves hitting our eardrums. Dirac can correct for these things. The reason Dirac, etc., cannot help with reverb is that reverb is a function of multiple time-misaligned sound waves hitting our eardrums after the ones that come directly from the speakers and from first reflections. EQ and impulse timing adjustments at the speaker will never help with this. Those sound waves bouncing around the room just have to be damped down or cancelled, and apparently the only way to do that (right now, anyway), is through physical room treatment apparatus. Am I getting this right?
nothing unexpected... no room correction can fix reverberation. Dirac is cool only for fixing phase and timing and therefor imaging + eq. Nothing goes over proper room treatment 😊
If you have a loudspeaker that can only correct and play thru the same drivers, no you cannot get rid of reverb. However, if you have a loudspeaker like the Beolab90, you may have a chance because not only does it use DSP to room correct, but it also purposely fire side drivers at different phases at different times to correct at the listening position.
I send an recorded Audio file to HAF (Home Audio Fidelity) and he builds Custom Convolutions (Software) that I plug into Roon that incorporate them into my system where I took the room measurements... via Microphone from my listening position....Thierry does a great job and will make sure you are happy with his efforts...
I really like the way Yamaha solved this. The YSP-5100 for an example, is a so called (Pre-Soundbar-Age) sound "projector" and with its common, av-receiver-known microphone, it's measuring the room and uses all the reflections, to throw sound into the different locations, with his 44 single driven drivers. The only way, to get a proper "7.1" sound, from a single speaker. The YSP-5600 even added a real Dolby Atmos projection.
Ah, what a pleasure to have my daily dose of Darko. The joy of listening to you talk about the constant quest to the elusive grail of audio bliss. Thank you dear friend that i have never met in person but look forward to each time you allow us into your life.
Thanks Darko for an informative video! The room acoustics will always be 50% of the sound experience - whether you like it or not. That's why it's to important to address the issue hands-on. 👍
Indeed roomcorrection software is of no use for limiting reverb. Roomcorrection software is only usefull for improving your frequency respons. And even then, you can only correct the peaks in your frequency respons. The dips cant be raised with software because the room won’t let you. Certain frequencies are just eliminated by the room. Dips and reverb can only be tackles with physical acoustic treatment. Looking forward to your measurement after installation of your acoustic treatment.
1. Love love love the aesthetic in your new spot, especially the tiles - They'll come in handy the summer John 2. Bring back the small snippets of coffee you used to do, always sets a nice tone 3. This was very useful, I have floor standers in a 6 by 7 room with an annoying amount of reverb (sounds. dreadful) Is there any other way to improve your sound without physical products on the wall ( the wife will not allow)
Thank you, great video. Your observations match my measurements. I have put acoustic panels to the wall behind my speakers (felt with slats) and the RT60 dropped around 0.2 - 0.3 seconds in the frequency range above 400 Hz. My M33 with full Dirac licence didn’t improve the RT60 times in the higher ranges and slightly increased it below 400 Hz just like your measurements show. Next steps will be ceiling and maybe some diffusion on the side walls but I will call an expert in to do it right. Looking forward to your next videos and keep up the good work!
Nice vid. This series is a bit also about your journey on the learning curve of acoustics. As it so happens, Dirac does work in time-domain but here's it meant to time-align speakers (where cross-over, even location of woofer/tweeter within the cabinet, have an impact on phase response). Works great for impulse response (check the impulse button of the filter you created) in the Dirac software where you can see how the room responds in time and what Dirac does to mitigate this, but... No system can reduce reverb.... Physical room treatment is the only thing that will help improve things as you noticed ;-).
This is very informative and interesting! Waiting for an episode on bass, specifically. My room has a very resonant raised wood floor. To the point that it literally acts as a damned giant passive radiator. The only way that I've found that helps - at least fairly and cheaply - is to decouple my speakers and stands from the floor with spring loaded footers.
John, your video is today's reminder that there is no getting around the laws of physics. Now searching for acoustic panels that don't cost an arm, leg and organ. My bedroom system sounds a bit like yours, but ours is reasonably furnished and the sound still misbehaves. The rug, couch and bookshelves don't compensate.
100% with Dirac Live helping out with giving a more defined stage. I would say it's more to do with its ability to also do time alignment. It makes a huge difference to my set up in a not so great but only room I can have it. To me it really can be a game changer.
John, I spent many years in the field of adaptive antennas. You've corrected amplitude distortion, now you need a sound cancellation system to remove those pesky echoes. This is the same principle as sound cancelling headphones except instead of a single sound (coming from outside the headphones) you have multiple sounds (echoes). This is an easy DSP problem by comparing the (loud) sound near the speakers to the sound at the listening position. I'm unsure if echo sound cancellation systems are comercially available. It may be easier to just move apartment!
It is like a big hill. The higher is, the further you will get downhill before you lose energy (speed) for example on the bike. You can see it on waterfall graph. Also room upstairs has I guess plasterboard sealing with isolation so less low end reverb. Bass can escape.
My wife thinks stereo equipment and speakers are ugly. I have a small listening room 5 x 7 meters. I did 2x6 inch interior walls, spaced 1.5 inches from 4 inch Styrofoam plus 8 inches of concrete. Interior wall insulation and then disconnected from room with steel rails. Interior walls are sheetrock. Wife didn't want plywood. Ceilings are pine. Sounds good. Think reflection theoretically should be same. Lots of recording studios do what I did. But people who sell treatment say it's useless.
At a hifi show in Melbourne last year I heard room correction software by two companies (Linn and some other company I can't recall) but made a huge difference in listening clarity.
Really appreciate more substance on the interpretation of those REW outputs. I hope you do a follow up session with comparative measurements after the treatments are installed!
Back in't day before all this fancy room eq and being able to record the room onto a phone I put up a couple of curtains on the walls either side of the speakers. This certainly helped in a Heath Robinson way, but I wouldn't recommend doing this as guaranteed you will constantly be asked if there are windows behind the curtains. Good luck with getting shot of the reverb in your new place.
Wow! I can hear the resonance from your voice as it is being picked up by the microphone John, at first I thought it's something else in my home that's making that noise.
Great video! And a thorough demonstration of how room correction only improves your system up to the limits of your room. It would have been nice to see you give your observations of how the experience changes when there is both better room conditions AND room correction. Also, what are your thoughts on how “active room correction” like Dirac is launching this year and others are likely to follow suit with will impact this situation? You should have a follow-up video when they launch it to compare!
Really love these videos tackling this issue. I'm currently finally setting up my listening room in the house I purchased last year and it's been an adventure in trying to figure out how to get the best sound out of my (relatively) small room. I've also came to the same conclusion that physical treatments are the only way to really tackle reverb, excited to see what comes next with Vicoustics!
I recognise that tee-shirt from the tip of that neon blue horn! Absolutely legendary, great choice. Loved your appreciation for the ambient Moby CD extra, I fell head over heals for that too. Now you're wearing The The, I think even more of your taste. Bang on.
Isn't it amazing that your brain can compensate for reverb and room correction software can not. Humans developed this skill as a matter of survival in the wild. The human brain is truly amazing!
funny enough - since I've purchased a mic and run REW with it - that told me my RT60 is between 600ms-900ms - I feel my room reverbs more than ever before.
Very informative John ! Sounds like given the choice you would have to go physical room treatment first and then if needed use the software to fine tune the room ! Agree ? Obrigado !
I quite recently bought an Onkyo A-8190 Integrated Amplifier with a pair of Mordaunt Short Two Way MS55TI speakers, along with NAD Compact Disc Player C515BEE, Onkyo T-4120 am/fm tuner, Onkyo TA-2130 tape player/recorder, Sony CDP -297 cd player, all for $60 Australian from a Second Hand shop, finally I have something I can consider High End of the latter part of the 80's, the A-8190 drive my sennheiser HD-600's and the pair of MS two way speakers, my KOSS headphones like the new gear too...
Had a chance to listen to the Buchardt and the NAD at a house on a hilltop overlooking a striking mountain range. Entire room was wood ceiling and 10' tall triple pane glass sliders. I'd never heard of Buchardt before, but am not looking to get them as soon as possible, the room was large and those speakers filled the room elegantly.
Hey John, great series of videos on room acoustics. Good time to do it while you’re moving into a new place. Realising how important it is, is also a bit disappointing. It seems like there’s a big divide between DIY solutions and custom fit outs for room treatments. And tough for renters who aren’t usually allowed to drill into walls.
Many people just don't like music listening on headphones. I'll bet that carpets and furniture would tame most rooms enough to make headphones unnecessary.
Thank you for the video, John. I appreciate your approach and introduction to a topic that may upset established views in hifi. It really is the integration of everything together, inluding room, that makes for great sound reproduction. A very interesting note about psychacoustics -if you reduce the playback room decay shorter than the recording’s, the perceived environment becomes that of the recording. This is essential for realism in multichannel cinema setups. You are “at” the event perceptually. FYI cinema rt60 target is 0.3s. Listening room target is 0.45s. Sorry long reply. :)
I'm not sure how Dirac works, if the program base its adjustments on the non-gated room measurements it will most likely degrade the overall sound, as the direct sound from the loudspeakers is the dominating factor we hear at a "normal" listening distance. The room measurement should be gated (short measuring window) for the higher frequency range so that adjustments can be done for the actual frequency response (the direct sound) of the loudspeakers if that is needed. Under 500 Hz it's okay to make EQ adjustments based on the non-gated in-room response.
Your floor tiles do look nice though. I’ve got a 1 meter cube of foam that’s a folding bed that turns into a footstool. I tell myself that it helps even if it doesn’t.
I would suggest that by treating the room for reverberation changes the frequency response at the listening position since reverberation is now being suppressed. It sounds like the best way forward is to treat the room to obtain an optimum RT60, and, once treated use room correction software to tweak the frequency response. Is that correct?
Correct, you’re essentially stopping the time domain interference from the room on the sound heard with treatment. Once you’ve done that you can use EQ to take out any problem areas and tailor the sound to taste.
You may not be familiar with the Tidy Bowl Man, but he is in his little boat cleaning your toilet bowl. You do sound like him down scrubbing away in the bowl.
To say that furniture in a room has a negligible effect on reverb time depends upon the room. For example I recently had our carpets cleaned and in preparation for the cleaners removed all furniture from the room and the amount of reverb (according to my brain) went from not noticeable to substantial. YMMV.
@@DarkoAudio In my experience a fully furnished room with soft furnishings has no problem bringing the RT60 time to acceptable levels, but again YMMV. One Ikea sofa and a rug with a tile floor? Obviously not.
I don’t believe he is underestimating the other pieces of the room nor the fact that it is mostly empty space. It seems like he is working with a blank slat that most people do not get to do in order to make small incremental changes that he has the ability to measure. Each change will produce a level of improvement but he is taking a look at it from a more objective and scientific perspective. I like the way he’s doing it. I look forward to the next video.
Finally we have more and more reviewers talking about listening rooms treatment. Realizing that over 50%+ of what you hear comes from the room and not your speakers; room modes and SBIR related distortions may easily hit 20%+ for problem regions especially when EQed (still talking which amplifier gives you less distortion? 0.01% is negligible related to what your speakers and the room do..); bass management in small rooms is a separate and very complex topic.. all kinds of fun stuff ahead.. Are you sure you want to go that route? Maybe you just let people "enjoy" their Macintosh'ed B&Ws in those 1.5s RT60 rooms with ~40dB peak-to-deep frequency responses that come from wife-acceptance-factor limitations? Sure you want to have that Pandora box opened here? :) What's your point in going into this?
just bought a pair of genelec 8030s over the 8320s (a model down but with the genelec room correction). Took a while to decide. It's for a stand-up DJ setup and in the end i thought i'd get the bigger (bassier) speakers and save the cash on the room correction. Then maybe buy a rug for the wall.. Loved watching this today. Also can i just say how nice it is to have an audiophile youtuber who is into techno and electronic. cheers john. what a great all round selection of vids you put out.
I was thinking the room treatments the whole time. I think the software is for after the treatment or that last 5%. Something like this temporary setup . Maybe heavy drapes on mic stands or lighting stands holding up the curtain rods
Great video. You ask the same questions I do. I have a Mini Dsp Studio with full range Dirac live. It is brillant to fine tune the frequencies. The rest is physic.
Room correction is a misleading term. The room is never corrected .... Nothing is better than a good prepared romm as a starting point for any audio setup. Greetings from Germany
This is very informative and I have been curious about this for a long time. For a beginner like me I think I need to figure out how to exactly measure reverb. And also looking for the next video to see how to treat a room. I have floor to ceiling windows in my living room on the whole side and putting stuff on the ceiling is not an option for me. I can only think about pictures with acoustic foam behind the picture. I hope that some of those things will be addressed in the next video. Love and respect from 🇩🇰
Really enjoy the video again. I consider myself lucky to live in an old house with lots of wood, and soft plastering. No reverb in the listening room. I had a nad m10 and use now the tdai 1120. As far I could hear it did solve the problem that one speaker stands completely free and the other in the facinety of a window. (Enhanced certain frequency.) Comparing both systems I had the impression the lyngdorf improved the soundstage more than the m10. Thanks for the video, looking forward for the next.
What's really interesting to me is that while I was listening to this video I kept hearing a very specific resonance that your voice would make in that room that ia a G below Middle C - I believe that equates to 195.9hz
Talking about small rooms: Do you have a favourite stand-mounted / bookshelf speaker that likes to be close to the wall? Usually that should be something without a rear-port, right?
Ok, John. It is clear, that a room treatment with acoustic panels will of course improve the RT Time. Me, I am looking into an acoustic ceiling with an sonic sorb mat (40mm) and a stretch ceiling (if this is a correct meaning in english). Now the RT is 2,21! Oh YESS. Put into the Sabine’s formula, treated it should be 0,47. Which I find ok for a living room/open kitchen. This , of course, is an prediction and not a fully accredited test. Advantage is, that I don’t have to work with panels, which I never could sell to the wife. On the other hand, it is ok for the RT. But it is no treatment for the frequencies, isn’t it? I think, I should do more mesurements. Don’t you think? And does anyone could explain the difference between the Sabine an the Eyrings formula? Wich is said to be more accurat?
In 50 years of selling, designing, equalizing and installing HiFi systems I've never seen such a fantastic explanation of why you MUST correct a room before all else. Bravo!
After coming back to hifi about 5 years ago, I’ve gone through a lot of gear and heard quite a lot of systems and I think you can break all systems down into two camps. Those in a good/treated room and those in a bad/untreated room. Instead of crowing on about their latest 20k DAC or 10k cable maybe audiophiles should do a tour of their room treatment and show off their RT60 data and room sweeps. It would make more sense. The gear plays second fiddle to the room. And I’m sure it’s audiophiles with bad rooms that spend more money and time buying new gear trying to chase a sound they will never get? Just a thought. Richy.
John, sounds like getting those Soul 6s to sound halfway decent in your bathroom-esque living room is a lost cause. Tell you what, I'll happily take them off you and even front up the shipping ;)
I am sorry to report that it is not at all a lost cause and I will be keeping the Zu. 👍🏻
@@DarkoAudio ha, fair enough! I have been eyeing a pair as an upgrade to my Zu DW MkIIs. But, boy is it a price jump! Eagerly awaitng the next part of this series on your battle with reverb :)
@@milkplus27 I will be selling my Zu Soul Supreme if you are interested.
@@milkplus27 what do you think of the DW's? I am doing a 60-day trial of the DW6's. Have mixed feelings. Great mid-range totality. Female singers sound great. Nice deep bass response. But treble presence is not quite there for me. Could be more resolving
The office takes the sound issue to another level. On our end, the reverb comes across with sustain that is most noticeable when you pause speaking. The room seems to ring,
As a student with a small bedroom I found the most effective method (using hand clap method) was to put a rug on the wall opposite the speakers
Another great video, and John's views are astute, particularly with respect to the RT and "energy" in the room. It's like a holey bucket: the more you put in at the top the longer it takes to drain out the bottom. It's good that this science is starting to creep into home audio, but with a caveat I think: don't forget about the music! Or rather, don't forget about your ears as the first (and best) scientific measurement tool. I'm training as an acoustic professional and it's very easy to get waylaid with equations, graphs and minutiae. We're constantly reminded by tutors that any acoustic problem is firstly how we perceive it with our ears and brain.
Great observations Chris.
I like the holey bucket analogy a lot.
PROPER ROOM ACOUSTIC TREATMENT IS EVERYTHING.
Thanks for a wonderfully nerdy adventure into room acoustics. This post will probably be way too TLDR for a UA-cam comment... but here goes!
The RT is a physical characteristic of the room, so it can't be changed by massaging the speaker's output. Therefore I think that the difference caused by Dirac is probably just a quirk in the measurement process. Maybe it's related to the fact that Dirac has increased the speaker's low-frequency output. For example, the measurement needs to stop once the signal is no longer above the room's ambient level, so bumping up the level might expose more of the 'long tail' in the decay curve.
Another interesting issue is that your smaller office has more reverberation than the living room, despite the living room having the longer RT. It has been a while since I dealt with this stuff, but after some head-scratching I've come up with a theory relating to the distance to the reflecting surfaces (e.g. walls and ceiling) in each room. For a given amount of absorption (Sabins) in a room, the larger room will have a longer RT, because the sound takes longer to reach each surface that absorbs some of the energy. However the reverberant sound level will be lower, because the energy is spread over a larger volume (as per the rule-of-thumb formula Lp,rev = Lw + 10 log (RT/V) + 14 ).
Therefore the reverberant sound is initially louder in the smaller room, but it tails off quicker. And the reverberant sound in the larger room isn't as loud initially, even though it takes longer for the sound to bounce off enough walls to lose 60dB worth of energy. A lot of psychoacoustics research suggests that our perception is greatly affected by early reflections (e.g. measurements of Early Decay Time), so perhaps that's why the room with the lower RT sounds worse.
The moral of the story is that RT is a crude way to characterise a concert hall, so the same is probably true for a our living rooms!
Room correction has limits: it doesn't change the room itself.
RT60 is a bit crude, decay spectrum or waterfall is a lot more specific.
I use roomcorrection a lot in churches and big meetingrooms to prevent feedback. Sound absorbing is key
The outdoors is best for listening. Will make your system sound 3 x better. No extra costs! Yeah there is a bit of a downside...
RT 60 targets are based on room volume. Your sloped ceiling reduces your room volume and therefore your target time.
I've watched more than a few videos on the subject of room acoustics but none have been as clear or as well presented as yours. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
You're underestimating the sound improvement of normal furniture, rugs and shelves...its not just absorption coefficients. Their irregular shapes and the materials combine for dramatic effect. I just emptied my living/listening room to paint it and the echo/reverb were unmerciful. I do have a couple acoustic panels, but I was amazed the difference basic rugs and furnishings made in fixing echo/reverb.
Very true. Two walls in my listening room are bookshelves. Much to the annoyance of my significant other I've arranged the books in such a way that each book is randomly sticking out or more pushed onto the shelves. Although modest, this has a noticeable effect compared to all books flush side-by-side by making reflections more random in direction.
This is one of the most helpful videos on youtube. Thanks John!
Excellent production John. It's like Olaf is there. Kudos.
Dirac is promising to release new functionality in spring 2023 which they describe like this: "Dirac Live Active Room Treatment - calibrates your speakers as a unified system and uses each speaker’s strengths to reduce room decay time, efficiently canceling out lingering bass and leading to unmatched clarity.". From what I was reading it will work similar to headphones noice canceling.
By the way, I am using Dirac with Buchardt A500 via NAD C658 and it's a game changer for me comparing to Buchardt room correction. Stage placement between speakers you mentioning, and better bass correction makes the difference. It's actually huge difference for me in my room.
Your videos are wonderful but frankly not a lot of us can afford professional room treatments. Having worked in audio for years at the shoestring level coming up with inexpensive solutions for room (and hearing deficiencies of clients) became a Sisyphean endeavor. The use of carpet tiles and acoustic foam became two of my most recommended patches to high energy rooms. Of course, not all solutions will work on all rooms. The fun is in the experimentation.
If my room had that much reverb, I would only listen to music through headphones because it would drive me crazy.
Welcome to Portugal! Welcome to Lisbon! Portuguese follower here!
John, great vidéo. You are the reason i fully acousticly treated my listening room. It was the biggest upgrade i made. It made all upgrade itch disapear. Now i just listen to music.
Yes, worked pro audio and Audio file consultant, nothing new to me. I keep banging that drum, because so many people don’t get it.
I have awesome room response. Plaster walls, lots of carpet and a cloth sofa plus other room filling. it's the right amount of hard and soft surfaces.
sofa's and rugs actually do make a huge difference. We used lots of drape to quell bad acoustics in ballroom and break out rooms in the pro space. it always made a big difference.
a lot of this is to make content and the general rule coming from someone who did this professionally for years in many different spaces. Carpet and sofa works really well in most case.
The couch or rug may not make a difference to the measurement microphone and program, but I sure can tell a positive difference with my ears.
..Yes, and the clap test proves it.👏
You can go to La Scala and still be influenced by the 'room'. Best practice is to spend your money on (1) better speakers; and (2) Absorption and diffraction equipment. Software 'solutions' are just another layer of processing that degrade the original signal. And don't get me started on the sponsor. I used have an almost full loom of Audioquest products but sold those for and replaced them with cables from Oyaide and diy. Sonic difference? Nil but the replacements looked better and saved me a lot of dosh.
Thank you very much for this wonderfully instructive series on room acoustics, room treatment, and room correction software. I think I'm finally understanding what the best available room correction software can and can't do. If I understand correctly, the reason Dirac, etc., won't help with reverb is NOT that reverb is a function of what happens to sound waves "after they leave the speakers". In-room frequency bumps and dips are a function of what happens to sound waves after they're out in the room, and so are misalignments in the timing of the the sound waves hitting our eardrums. Dirac can correct for these things. The reason Dirac, etc., cannot help with reverb is that reverb is a function of multiple time-misaligned sound waves hitting our eardrums after the ones that come directly from the speakers and from first reflections. EQ and impulse timing adjustments at the speaker will never help with this. Those sound waves bouncing around the room just have to be damped down or cancelled, and apparently the only way to do that (right now, anyway), is through physical room treatment apparatus. Am I getting this right?
This is great info, thanks for doing the tests
nothing unexpected... no room correction can fix reverberation. Dirac is cool only for fixing phase and timing and therefor imaging + eq. Nothing goes over proper room treatment 😊
If you have a loudspeaker that can only correct and play thru the same drivers, no you cannot get rid of reverb. However, if you have a loudspeaker like the Beolab90, you may have a chance because not only does it use DSP to room correct, but it also purposely fire side drivers at different phases at different times to correct at the listening position.
I send an recorded Audio file to HAF (Home Audio Fidelity) and he builds Custom Convolutions (Software) that I plug into Roon that incorporate them into my system where I took the room measurements... via Microphone from my listening position....Thierry does a great job and will make sure you are happy with his efforts...
John you highlight a problem that all of us have to face even before choose our hifi
BINGO!
John, as always a very interesting presentation. You have made me rethink room treatment as a tool rather than depend on room correction software.
I really like the way Yamaha solved this.
The YSP-5100 for an example, is a so called (Pre-Soundbar-Age) sound "projector" and with its common, av-receiver-known microphone, it's measuring the room and uses all the reflections, to throw sound into the different locations, with his 44 single driven drivers.
The only way, to get a proper "7.1" sound, from a single speaker.
The YSP-5600 even added a real Dolby Atmos projection.
Ah, what a pleasure to have my daily dose of Darko. The joy of listening to you talk about the constant quest to the elusive grail of audio bliss. Thank you dear friend that i have never met in person but look forward to each time you allow us into your life.
Thanks Darko for an informative video!
The room acoustics will always be 50% of the sound experience - whether you like it or not.
That's why it's to important to address the issue hands-on. 👍
Indeed roomcorrection software is of no use for limiting reverb.
Roomcorrection software is only usefull for improving your frequency respons.
And even then, you can only correct the peaks in your frequency respons.
The dips cant be raised with software because the room won’t let you.
Certain frequencies are just eliminated by the room.
Dips and reverb can only be tackles with physical acoustic treatment.
Looking forward to your measurement after installation of your acoustic treatment.
1. Love love love the aesthetic in your new spot, especially the tiles - They'll come in handy the summer John
2. Bring back the small snippets of coffee you used to do, always sets a nice tone
3. This was very useful, I have floor standers in a 6 by 7 room with an annoying amount of reverb (sounds. dreadful) Is there any other way to improve your sound without physical products on the wall ( the wife will not allow)
Thank you, great video. Your observations match my measurements. I have put acoustic panels to the wall behind my speakers (felt with slats) and the RT60 dropped around 0.2 - 0.3 seconds in the frequency range above 400 Hz. My M33 with full Dirac licence didn’t improve the RT60 times in the higher ranges and slightly increased it below 400 Hz just like your measurements show. Next steps will be ceiling and maybe some diffusion on the side walls but I will call an expert in to do it right. Looking forward to your next videos and keep up the good work!
Thanks for another educational video.
I have used a DSpeaker Anti-mode 2.0 for years now. Measuring results with REW prove it's very effective.
Amazing your attitude is Amazing thanks
Nice vid. This series is a bit also about your journey on the learning curve of acoustics. As it so happens, Dirac does work in time-domain but here's it meant to time-align speakers (where cross-over, even location of woofer/tweeter within the cabinet, have an impact on phase response). Works great for impulse response (check the impulse button of the filter you created) in the Dirac software where you can see how the room responds in time and what Dirac does to mitigate this, but... No system can reduce reverb.... Physical room treatment is the only thing that will help improve things as you noticed ;-).
Love this conclusion. Superb build up and analysis. Clearly, the take away is more plants :-) Okay, I think I’m funny, ymmv. Cheers!
This is very informative and interesting! Waiting for an episode on bass, specifically. My room has a very resonant raised wood floor. To the point that it literally acts as a damned giant passive radiator. The only way that I've found that helps - at least fairly and cheaply - is to decouple my speakers and stands from the floor with spring loaded footers.
John, your video is today's reminder that there is no getting around the laws of physics. Now searching for acoustic panels that don't cost an arm, leg and organ. My bedroom system sounds a bit like yours, but ours is reasonably furnished and the sound still misbehaves. The rug, couch and bookshelves don't compensate.
100% with Dirac Live helping out with giving a more defined stage. I would say it's more to do with its ability to also do time alignment.
It makes a huge difference to my set up in a not so great but only room I can have it. To me it really can be a game changer.
Same for me. My room is treated and RT60 is fine. However with Lyngdorf room correction imaging and soundstage is far improved
John, I spent many years in the field of adaptive antennas. You've corrected amplitude distortion, now you need a sound cancellation system to remove those pesky echoes. This is the same principle as sound cancelling headphones except instead of a single sound (coming from outside the headphones) you have multiple sounds (echoes). This is an easy DSP problem by comparing the (loud) sound near the speakers to the sound at the listening position. I'm unsure if echo sound cancellation systems are comercially available. It may be easier to just move apartment!
It is like a big hill. The higher is, the further you will get downhill before you lose energy (speed) for example on the bike. You can see it on waterfall graph. Also room upstairs has I guess plasterboard sealing with isolation so less low end reverb. Bass can escape.
My wife thinks stereo equipment and speakers are ugly. I have a small listening room 5 x 7 meters. I did 2x6 inch interior walls, spaced 1.5 inches from 4 inch Styrofoam plus 8 inches of concrete. Interior wall insulation and then disconnected from room with steel rails. Interior walls are sheetrock. Wife didn't want plywood. Ceilings are pine. Sounds good. Think reflection theoretically should be same. Lots of recording studios do what I did. But people who sell treatment say it's useless.
At a hifi show in Melbourne last year I heard room correction software by two companies (Linn and some other company I can't recall) but made a huge difference in listening clarity.
Really appreciate more substance on the interpretation of those REW outputs. I hope you do a follow up session with comparative measurements after the treatments are installed!
Back in't day before all this fancy room eq and being able to record the room onto a phone I put up a couple of curtains on the walls either side of the speakers. This certainly helped in a Heath Robinson way, but I wouldn't recommend doing this as guaranteed you will constantly be asked if there are windows behind the curtains. Good luck with getting shot of the reverb in your new place.
Can’t wait to see the next video, cheers!
Wow! I can hear the resonance from your voice as it is being picked up by the microphone John, at first I thought it's something else in my home that's making that noise.
Great video! And a thorough demonstration of how room correction only improves your system up to the limits of your room. It would have been nice to see you give your observations of how the experience changes when there is both better room conditions AND room correction.
Also, what are your thoughts on how “active room correction” like Dirac is launching this year and others are likely to follow suit with will impact this situation? You should have a follow-up video when they launch it to compare!
hahaha...yes the ring was there. perfect ending
Great stuff John. Real-world issue with experimentation and testing. Perfectly technical without geek speak. Objective and subjective. Thanks.
Wow, I thought my basement was bad. Now, I'm looking forward to watching the room get treated, might give me some ideas.
Really love these videos tackling this issue. I'm currently finally setting up my listening room in the house I purchased last year and it's been an adventure in trying to figure out how to get the best sound out of my (relatively) small room. I've also came to the same conclusion that physical treatments are the only way to really tackle reverb, excited to see what comes next with Vicoustics!
I recognise that tee-shirt from the tip of that neon blue horn! Absolutely legendary, great choice. Loved your appreciation for the ambient Moby CD extra, I fell head over heals for that too. Now you're wearing The The, I think even more of your taste. Bang on.
😈
Isn't it amazing that your brain can compensate for reverb and room correction software can not. Humans developed this skill as a matter of survival in the wild. The human brain is truly amazing!
funny enough - since I've purchased a mic and run REW with it - that told me my RT60 is between 600ms-900ms - I feel my room reverbs more than ever before.
Very informative John ! Sounds like given the choice you would have to go physical room treatment first and then if needed use the software to fine tune the room ! Agree ? Obrigado !
I quite recently bought an Onkyo A-8190 Integrated Amplifier with a pair of Mordaunt Short Two Way MS55TI speakers, along with NAD Compact Disc Player C515BEE, Onkyo T-4120 am/fm tuner, Onkyo TA-2130 tape player/recorder, Sony CDP -297 cd player, all for $60 Australian from a Second Hand shop, finally I have something I can consider High End of the latter part of the 80's, the A-8190 drive my sennheiser HD-600's and the pair of MS two way speakers, my KOSS headphones like the new gear too...
Another brilliant advert for headphones
Furnishing does make a difference, because with proper amount of furnishing they are big enough to change the shape of your room.
Nice, thank you, enjoying learning about reverb
Had a chance to listen to the Buchardt and the NAD at a house on a hilltop overlooking a striking mountain range. Entire room was wood ceiling and 10' tall triple pane glass sliders. I'd never heard of Buchardt before, but am not looking to get them as soon as possible, the room was large and those speakers filled the room elegantly.
am 'now' looking 🥸
Hey John, great series of videos on room acoustics. Good time to do it while you’re moving into a new place. Realising how important it is, is also a bit disappointing. It seems like there’s a big divide between DIY solutions and custom fit outs for room treatments. And tough for renters who aren’t usually allowed to drill into walls.
The best solution for acoustic difficult room are headphones.
Many people just don't like music listening on headphones. I'll bet that carpets and furniture would tame most rooms enough to make headphones unnecessary.
Good to see ya, John...
Thank you for the video, John. I appreciate your approach and introduction to a topic that may upset established views in hifi. It really is the integration of everything together, inluding room, that makes for great sound reproduction. A very interesting note about psychacoustics -if you reduce the playback room decay shorter than the recording’s, the perceived environment becomes that of the recording. This is essential for realism in multichannel cinema setups. You are “at” the event perceptually. FYI cinema rt60 target is 0.3s. Listening room target is 0.45s. Sorry long reply. :)
I'm not sure how Dirac works, if the program base its adjustments on the non-gated room measurements it will most likely degrade the overall sound, as the direct sound from the loudspeakers is the dominating factor we hear at a "normal" listening distance. The room measurement should be gated (short measuring window) for the higher frequency range so that adjustments can be done for the actual frequency response (the direct sound) of the loudspeakers if that is needed. Under 500 Hz it's okay to make EQ adjustments based on the non-gated in-room response.
Your floor tiles do look nice though. I’ve got a 1 meter cube of foam that’s a folding bed that turns into a footstool. I tell myself that it helps even if it doesn’t.
I would suggest that by treating the room for reverberation changes the frequency response at the listening position since reverberation is now being suppressed. It sounds like the best way forward is to treat the room to obtain an optimum RT60, and, once treated use room correction software to tweak the frequency response. Is that correct?
Correct, you’re essentially stopping the time domain interference from the room on the sound heard with treatment. Once you’ve done that you can use EQ to take out any problem areas and tailor the sound to taste.
Sounds like you need to carpet your rear wall! 🤣
Carpet!? No no no… bad hi-fi way of thinking. You need broadband absorption through mass.. not carpet
Great video! Thank you very much.
You may not be familiar with the Tidy Bowl Man, but he is in his little boat cleaning your toilet bowl. You do sound like him down scrubbing away in the bowl.
To say that furniture in a room has a negligible effect on reverb time depends upon the room. For example I recently had our carpets cleaned and in preparation for the cleaners removed all furniture from the room and the amount of reverb (according to my brain) went from not noticeable to substantial. YMMV.
As with everything in hi-fi, one man's 'neglible' is another man's 'substantial' 😉
@@DarkoAudio In my experience a fully furnished room with soft furnishings has no problem bringing the RT60 time to acceptable levels, but again YMMV. One Ikea sofa and a rug with a tile floor? Obviously not.
One of the best books you can read on this is called RA The Book .. it’s a book about various studios designed and built by Roger Darcy
You need room compensation, like bang and olufsen does with there products, example is the beo lab 90, with side driver for the anti sound s.
I don’t believe he is underestimating the other pieces of the room nor the fact that it is mostly empty space. It seems like he is working with a blank slat that most people do not get to do in order to make small incremental changes that he has the ability to measure. Each change will produce a level of improvement but he is taking a look at it from a more objective and scientific perspective. I like the way he’s doing it. I look forward to the next video.
Finally we have more and more reviewers talking about listening rooms treatment. Realizing that over 50%+ of what you hear comes from the room and not your speakers; room modes and SBIR related distortions may easily hit 20%+ for problem regions especially when EQed (still talking which amplifier gives you less distortion? 0.01% is negligible related to what your speakers and the room do..); bass management in small rooms is a separate and very complex topic.. all kinds of fun stuff ahead.. Are you sure you want to go that route? Maybe you just let people "enjoy" their Macintosh'ed B&Ws in those 1.5s RT60 rooms with ~40dB peak-to-deep frequency responses that come from wife-acceptance-factor limitations? Sure you want to have that Pandora box opened here? :) What's your point in going into this?
Would I loved you could try RoomPerfect !
Thanks for the analysis.
just bought a pair of genelec 8030s over the 8320s (a model down but with the genelec room correction). Took a while to decide. It's for a stand-up DJ setup and in the end i thought i'd get the bigger (bassier) speakers and save the cash on the room correction. Then maybe buy a rug for the wall.. Loved watching this today. Also can i just say how nice it is to have an audiophile youtuber who is into techno and electronic. cheers john. what a great all round selection of vids you put out.
I was thinking the room treatments the whole time. I think the software is for after the treatment or that last 5%. Something like this temporary setup . Maybe heavy drapes on mic stands or lighting stands holding up the curtain rods
Perhaps that's the right room to listen to The Echo & The Bunnymen "Reverberation" album.
Excellent video !
Great video. You ask the same questions I do.
I have a Mini Dsp Studio with full range Dirac live.
It is brillant to fine tune the frequencies.
The rest is physic.
Room correction is a misleading term. The room is never corrected .... Nothing is better than a good prepared romm as a starting point for any audio setup. Greetings from Germany
Very clear, thanks
This is very informative and I have been curious about this for a long time. For a beginner like me I think I need to figure out how to exactly measure reverb. And also looking for the next video to see how to treat a room. I have floor to ceiling windows in my living room on the whole side and putting stuff on the ceiling is not an option for me. I can only think about pictures with acoustic foam behind the picture. I hope that some of those things will be addressed in the next video. Love and respect from 🇩🇰
Really enjoy the video again. I consider myself lucky to live in an old house with lots of wood, and soft plastering. No reverb in the listening room.
I had a nad m10 and use now the tdai 1120. As far I could hear it did solve the problem that one speaker stands completely free and the other in the facinety of a window. (Enhanced certain frequency.) Comparing both systems I had the impression the lyngdorf improved the soundstage more than the m10.
Thanks for the video, looking forward for the next.
"No reverb in the listening room"
@DarkoAudio ok, correction. No problematic reverb. Of course there is always room for improvement. But ast it is, I like the balance of my set-up.
I can't ignore that DUUUUUUM around 180-200Hz. Good luck with that!
Wow that's a real ring to that room!
It's a real zinger!
Sounds like karplus strong synthesis!
What's really interesting to me is that while I was listening to this video I kept hearing a very specific resonance that your voice would make in that room that ia a G below Middle C - I believe that equates to 195.9hz
Great room for recording drums though if not for listening !
Talking about small rooms: Do you have a favourite stand-mounted / bookshelf speaker that likes to be close to the wall? Usually that should be something without a rear-port, right?
I think he has, Wilson Tunetots.
I say not. A standing wave or null will always be.
Just correct!
Ok, John. It is clear, that a room treatment with acoustic panels will of course improve the RT Time. Me, I am looking into an acoustic ceiling with an sonic sorb mat (40mm) and a stretch ceiling (if this is a correct meaning in english). Now the RT is 2,21! Oh YESS. Put into the Sabine’s formula, treated it should be 0,47. Which I find ok for a living room/open kitchen. This , of course, is an prediction and not a fully accredited test. Advantage is, that I don’t have to work with panels, which I never could sell to the wife. On the other hand, it is ok for the RT. But it is no treatment for the frequencies, isn’t it? I think, I should do more mesurements. Don’t you think? And does anyone could explain the difference between the Sabine an the Eyrings formula? Wich is said to be more accurat?