Importance of room acoustics

[Kemp]

I recently had the opportunity to listen to my speakers (Boston VR3) at a dealer in his theater room (Approx 8m x 5m). The amp we used was a much older version of mine (RX-V1300) which was a RX-V800. It was incredible to hear these same speakers that is in my house perform at a level that i've never heard. It just reiterated the fact of how much we (newbies?) underestimate the effect of room acoustics. If i didn't know it was my speakers i would have guessed it is speakers at 3x the price of mine. I think it would be more worthwhile to invest in improving the room instead of jumping onto the next equipment upgrade. This was a revelation to me!

[Lewing]

I agree

The sound treatment I learned about are improving sound reflection, adding diffusion, placing absorption material to reduce early reflection such as echo, and speaker placement. Too much absorption materials will make the listening area sounds lifeless and causing the quality lost of the midrange and treble but however, little absorption materials may also caused the speakers sound bright too.

Over the years I’ve learned that room acoustics is one of the most important parts in sound reproduction through many online researches. With proper sound treatment in you listening room, you should be able to experience improved sound reproduction with your current HT and audio setup. It is definitely worth the effort to improve room acoustics but unfortunately the entire process are much more complicated than changing to new equipments. That’s mean, much more works (researching, measuring, experimenting and building) and effort are needed.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Just as relevant when comparing the showroom demo to your home is the comparative size and shape of the room.

For instance, smaller room will enhance bass response, and odd-shaped rooms (like you often have at home when rooms open to one another) are less prone to have problems with nulls, dead spots and standing waves than a symmetrical shoe-box room. These things can drastically affect the way a speaker sounds at a showroom vs. your own place.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

[Kemp]

The funny thing was that even in that big room the bass response was the factor that stood out for me. I actually asked the guy to check if there really isn't a sub on at that stage, which we verified not to be the case. The CD we used was Collective Soul and a track called "Run". There is this ultra low bass on that track which caused the confusion. I think it is easy to get caught up in all the media hype that you may start to believe that your own equipment might not be adequate anymore. This is especially true if you don't get to demo equipment quite often.