Speaker positioning and setup.

[robbbby]

HI robbby,

 

 

 

I'm not sure if you tried 1/3 placement or the placement I suggested, which is *slightly* different (insomuch as it is the front, inside edges of the speakers that I place at the 1/3 points). In any event, it seems you have noticed that such placement minimized interaction with the room. No setup I've heard sounds as able to me, to get out of the way.

 

Your statement saying "It seemed very odd to have my speakers so far out and close together in the middle of the room..." made me smile because that is exactly how I felt when I first walked into a room with such a setup. Having been into audio for decades already, my response to that experience was to realize that moment represented the first time in my life I heard stereo (and understood what it truly meant). It isn't "some sound from over there and some sound from over there", it is that part of the room coming to Life with the music, in three dimensions, with some recordings, extending well beyond the physical dimensions of the room I was in and sounding like the room the musicians were in.

 

However, with the understanding that such an arrangement may not be practical for you, my next suggestion would be using the next odd dimension: 1/5. (Vandersteen mentions something along these lines too.) Know, though, that such placement just isn't going to do what "1/3" placement does, as the room will "speak" more than it does with "1/3" placement.

 

As always, please don't simply take my word for any of this. The best way to find out is to listen for yourself. You may find the 1/5 placement more in line with your needs and perfectly acceptable for listening.

 

Just before you do though, I suggest completing the "1/3" placement for one more listen: do the toe-in also, just to hear what your system can do with this setup. As a starting point, aim the speakers at the center of the wall behind the listening position.

I suggest doing the same when you evaluate the 1/5 placement. In other words, try each setup to its fullest, with a complete placement of the speakers, including proper toe-in.

 

Most of all, have fun!

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

 

Hi Barry, I have not yet moved the speakers as I wanted to finish setting them up like you mentioned. I plan to leave them like that for a few days just to familiarize myself with the sound so I can compare when I eventually do move them.

 

With regards to the 1/5th placement, how would that be done? They way I am imaging it is, my rooms width (155.5") divided by 5, but that only gives me about 31" between the speakers, and likewise puts my seating position all the way at the opposite end of the room and my speakers far up front. (291" long / 5 = 58.2", so speakers 58" off front wall and seating 58" off back??)

 

Hi robbbby, I'm not Barry (obviously), but what you're now asking is exactly what the Vandersteen method does, which I recommended to Mihnea and he found helpful. See the link in his comment in this thread.

 

Hey Jud, I checked the link out and actually have the pdf saved on my desktop. I read it but have not tried it yet. Once I saw all the possibilities with that method I think I decided to put it on the back burner. So many combinations to try that I think i'd go crazy, also much harder to measure to the center of the speaker. I definitely plan on laying my room out using that method and seeing what spots are possible and narrowing it down to a few to try.

[bdiament]

Hi robbby,

 

Hi Barry, I have not yet moved the speakers as I wanted to finish setting them up like you mentioned. I plan to leave them like that for a few days just to familiarize myself with the sound so I can compare when I eventually do move them.

 

With regards to the 1/5th placement, how would that be done? They way I am imaging it is, my rooms width (155.5") divided by 5, but that only gives me about 31" between the speakers, and likewise puts my seating position all the way at the opposite end of the room and my speakers far up front. (291" long / 5 = 58.2", so speakers 58" off front wall and seating 58" off back??)...

 

With 1/5 placement, you'd leave ~3/5 of the room width between the speakers, not 1/5 (which would remain *outside* of the speakers). Since this spacing puts the speakers much closer to the side walls than the spacing I consider optimal, instead of placing the inside front edge of each speaker at the 1/5 point, I'd place the center of the speaker at the 1/5 point.

 

To be clear, you'd measure 155.5 divided by 5, which gives you 31.1. So measure 31.1" from each side wall and *that* would be the point under the center of each speaker. So facing the wall the speakers are in front of, you'd have 1/5 its width to the left speaker, then 3/5 its width to the right speaker and the last 1/5 to the right wall.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

[robbbby]

Barry, that makes much more sense.

 

What about distances along the long wall? Would I be safe in assuming that the speakers can go 1/5 off the wall behind them and my listening position 2/5 off the opposite wall?

 

So in my case something like...

 

Back of room - 116.5" - listening position - 116.5" - front of speakers - 58.25" - front of room

 

Thanks

[Jud]

Will leave this to Barry, but since with the Vandersteen recommendations you can mix thirds with fifths or other odd fractions, you might try both fifths and thirds for width (while using fifths for depth so your speakers are not so far out into the room) and see which width placement you prefer.

[bdiament]

Hi robbby,

 

Barry, that makes much more sense.

 

What about distances along the long wall? Would I be safe in assuming that the speakers can go 1/5 off the wall behind them and my listening position 2/5 off the opposite wall?

 

So in my case something like...

 

Back of room - 116.5" - listening position - 116.5" - front of speakers - 58.25" - front of room

 

Thanks

 

Looks like Jud anticipated my response.

 

I was going to say to try 1/5 off the wall behind the listening position too but also to consider 1/3.

 

A lot really depends on whether there will be any treatment of the early reflection points in your room: are the side walls covered with something absorbent in the area between where the speakers will be and where the listening position will be?

 

If so, I think a longer distance from the speakers will work. If the side walls are mostly reflective (i.e. hard), you might want to try placing the listening position closer to the speakers if possible.

 

Another way to look at it: If you measure the distance between the center of the left speaker and the center of the right speaker, I wouldn't want the distance from the listening position to either speaker to be greater than about 10% more than that.

 

Again, what I've found to result in most setups getting out of the way has been arranging things around the 1/3 points. I consider anything else a compromise. So, if you *must* place the speakers at 1/5 points width-wise, you might consider 1/3 depth-wise. Or if the speakers *must* be at 1/5 both width and depth-wise, I'd still consider 1/3 for the listening position. But it really depends on what works for you. (I have been fortunate to be able to set up all my listening rooms by placing the speakers first, the listening position second and everything else in the room *after* that.)

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

[Priaptor]

Hi robbby,

 

 

 

Looks like Jud anticipated my response.

 

I was going to say to try 1/5 off the wall behind the listening position too but also to consider 1/3.

 

A lot really depends on whether there will be any treatment of the early reflection points in your room: are the side walls covered with something absorbent in the area between where the speakers will be and where the listening position will be?

 

If so, I think a longer distance from the speakers will work. If the side walls are mostly reflective (i.e. hard), you might want to try placing the listening position closer to the speakers if possible.

 

Another way to look at it: If you measure the distance between the center of the left speaker and the center of the right speaker, I wouldn't want the distance from the listening position to either speaker to be greater than about 10% more than that.

 

Again, what I've found to result in most setups getting out of the way has been arranging things around the 1/3 points. I consider anything else a compromise. So, if you *must* place the speakers at 1/5 points width-wise, you might consider 1/3 depth-wise. Or if the speakers *must* be at 1/5 both width and depth-wise, I'd still consider 1/3 for the listening position. But it really depends on what works for you. (I have been fortunate to be able to set up all my listening rooms by placing the speakers first, the listening position second and everything else in the room *after* that.)

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

 

Barry

 

Enough about speaker placement and tell us when we can expect to be treated to another one of your amazing productions??

[Hipper]

Although it may be a pain with such big speakers, if their ideal position is not practical, could you not place them out of the way when not in use and move them into their place for listening? I'm sure there must be some practical way of doing this.

[spdif-usb]

Cardas Room Setup Guide

[robbbby]

Hi robbby,

 

 

 

Looks like Jud anticipated my response.

 

I was going to say to try 1/5 off the wall behind the listening position too but also to consider 1/3.

 

A lot really depends on whether there will be any treatment of the early reflection points in your room: are the side walls covered with something absorbent in the area between where the speakers will be and where the listening position will be?

 

If so, I think a longer distance from the speakers will work. If the side walls are mostly reflective (i.e. hard), you might want to try placing the listening position closer to the speakers if possible.

 

Another way to look at it: If you measure the distance between the center of the left speaker and the center of the right speaker, I wouldn't want the distance from the listening position to either speaker to be greater than about 10% more than that.

 

Again, what I've found to result in most setups getting out of the way has been arranging things around the 1/3 points. I consider anything else a compromise. So, if you *must* place the speakers at 1/5 points width-wise, you might consider 1/3 depth-wise. Or if the speakers *must* be at 1/5 both width and depth-wise, I'd still consider 1/3 for the listening position. But it really depends on what works for you. (I have been fortunate to be able to set up all my listening rooms by placing the speakers first, the listening position second and everything else in the room *after* that.)

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

 

Jud, Barry, thanks again for all the help, much appreciated. My room does not have any treatments yet. I was waiting to get my speakers in their final position before I start sticking things on the wall. I do plan to put a bass trap in one of the rear corners behind the speaker (the other corner is a door opening, don't think it would benefit?), and also treat the first reflection and and rear wall behind the listening position.

[robbbby]

Cardas Room Setup Guide

 

That is the first one I mentioned in my original post

[bdiament]

Hi Priaptor,

 

Barry

 

Enough about speaker placement and tell us when we can expect to be treated to another one of your amazing productions??

 

Thank you so much for your kindness and your support.

I am still on a search for new talent.

 

There have been candidates but with so many players having gotten so used to being able to "punch in" during a typical recording session in order to fix mistakes and so many used to having an "engineer" balance what they hear, finding players that can actually perform a three minute song in three minutes and who can balance themselves *and* whose music moves me, is not as easy as I would like.

 

There was a reggae project and a big band project both of which turned out to be something other than the caliber I seek.

There might be a salsa project but it is too early to tell.

 

I'm always on the lookout for new talent and am open to suggestions. It is time for a few new Soundkeeper Recordings.

 

Thank you again for your interest.

 

Meanwhile, to steer us back on topic, I hope the existing Soundkeeper Recordings help folks get their speakers properly placed. True stereo recordings can be quite magical when played back on a good stereo speaker setup.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

[mayhem13]

I just assisted a friend with a performance recording of Flamenco in a dance studio which was very interesting......and fun! Performance sessions are very difficult for all but the most accomplished artists but this group was very mature and have been performing their cultural classics for over two decades so it all came so naturally. The only difficulty we has was the dynamics of the dancers tapping vs the strings.....we had to have the dancers clear on the other side of the studio and used a seperate channel to balance the reverberant taps so it all didn't seem too disconnected. Take all this with a grain of salt as my forte was always live reproduction for audience, not for tape.

[Kiwi2]

Is there any other "ratio" or "zone" further back that will have nearly the same benefits of their current 1/3 positioning?

 

The only reason for 1/3 or 1/5 placement is that hopefully your speakers are more likely to produce the smoothest frequency response that is possible for your given room in those positions. However it is still not a guarantee that they will. Construction and even furniture in your room will change the mathematics from those theoretical ideals. One way to know for sure is FR measurements from the listening position. Every room is different and unique.

[bdiament]

Hi Kiwi2,

 

The only reason for 1/3 or 1/5 placement is that hopefully your speakers are more likely to produce the smoothest frequency response that is possible for your given room in those positions. However it is still not a guarantee that they will. Construction and even furniture in your room will change the mathematics from those theoretical ideals. One way to know for sure is FR measurements from the listening position. Every room is different and unique.

 

Actually, 1/3 placement *does* in fact guarantee the least amount of room interaction (with 1/5 coming in a somewhat distant second place). The key is the word "least" and it should not be confused with "none". That is because *every* room requires treatment in order to optimize system performance. But the mathematics of exactly where is room is most -or least- excited, do not change.

 

As I've said elsewhere, frequency response measurements look at only some of *many* symptoms -- not at the cause. Room issues are time-based, not amplitude-based. So getting a "perfect" amplitude response - however one defines that - will have *zero* impact on all the other varied issues brought on by the room. Some frequencies will still be "held onto" by the room longer than others, longer than they exist in the recording. The room will "sing" in the bass and it will be out of tune with the recording. Low level details will be obscured as will soundstage focus. Musical dynamics will be stunted. I have often said that attempting to address a time-based problem by using an amplitude-based approach is like trying to fix a broken arm by wearing a different hat.

 

I recommend a tape measure to find optimal positions for speakers and listening seat, then continued use of the tape measure to find the fractional positions along the room boundaries for acoustic treatment to address resonant modes. Add an assistant holding a small mirror for location of the early reflection points. It works every time, in every room, with any speaker. (To be clear, it might not be what a given listener *likes* or it might not be possible for every listener, particularly if they cannot dedicate the room to music playback but if the goal is truly to hear past the room and system, all the way to the recording, my experience has been that this works, 100% of the time).

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

[mav52]

Hi Kiwi2,

 

 

 

Actually, 1/3 placement *does* in fact guarantee the least amount of room interaction (with 1/5 coming in a somewhat distant second place). The key is the word "least" and it should not be confused with "none". That is because *every* room requires treatment in order to optimize system performance. But the mathematics of exactly where is room is most -or least- excited, do not change.

 

As I've said elsewhere, frequency response measurements look at only some of *many* symptoms -- not at the cause. Room issues are time-based, not amplitude-based. So getting a "perfect" amplitude response - however one defines that - will have *zero* impact on all the other varied issues brought on by the room. Some frequencies will still be "held onto" by the room longer than others, longer than they exist in the recording. The room will "sing" in the bass and it will be out of tune with the recording. Low level details will be obscured as will soundstage focus. Musical dynamics will be stunted. I have often said that attempting to address a time-based problem by using an amplitude-based approach is like trying to fix a broken arm by wearing a different hat.

 

I recommend a tape measure to find optimal positions for speakers and listening seat, then continued use of the tape measure to find the fractional positions along the room boundaries for acoustic treatment to address resonant modes. Add an assistant holding a small mirror for location of the early reflection points. It works every time, in every room, with any speaker. (To be clear, it might not be what a given listener *likes* or it might not be possible for every listener, particularly if they cannot dedicate the room to music playback but if the goal is truly to hear past the room and system, all the way to the recording, my experience has been that this works, 100% of the time).

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

 

So true Barry.. Something else I ran across Sunday at a friends home, he was complaining about his "sound" so I went to his home and observed his setup while listening to music. Well right off the bat, I noticed his listening position was well, too darn low. He enjoyed his music in a chair that was 8" off the floor which placed his high's and med's well above his head. He was using 20" stands for his Harbeth SuperHL5 speakers (25"h). The mid and the tweeter were 11" -12" above his ears depending on how he sat. I got a chair from his kitchen and bingo his ears are now inline with the tweeter. Something so simple is often overlooked. He wanted to change speakers, add room acoustics but all he needed was a darn chair at the right height.

[mayhem13]

Hi Kiwi2,

 

 

 

Actually, 1/3 placement *does* in fact guarantee the least amount of room interaction (with 1/5 coming in a somewhat distant second place). The key is the word "least" and it should not be confused with "none". That is because *every* room requires treatment in order to optimize system performance. But the mathematics of exactly where is room is most -or least- excited, do not change.

 

As I've said elsewhere, frequency response measurements look at only some of *many* symptoms -- not at the cause. Room issues are time-based, not amplitude-based. So getting a "perfect" amplitude response - however one defines that - will have *zero* impact on all the other varied issues brought on by the room.

 

I recommend a tape measure to find optimal positions for speakers and listening seat, then continued use of the tape measure to find the fractional positions along the room boundaries for acoustic treatment to address resonant modes.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

 

If we were talking speakers with the same directivity patterns, your statement would be true.....but for a dipole or horn/waveguide system or line array, the interactions with the boundaries are quite different to say the least. Even a D'Appolito type speaker using a typical dome tweeter steers the forward and side lobes as well the vertical directivity. In fact these directivity characteristics are easily measurable with polar response plots and wavelets taken at varying degrees off 0 axis.

[spdif-usb]

The assumption that a real-world room affects neither the spectrum of reflected sounds nor the room modes is wishful thinking at its best. It incorrectly assumes the room consists only of hard reflective surfaces and is perfectly rectangular (i.e., has no doors, windows, curtains, carpets, wall coverings, furniture, alcoves, fireplace,...).

[bdiament]

Hi mayhem,

 

If we were talking speakers with the same directivity patterns, your statement would be true.....but for a dipole or horn/waveguide system or line array, the interactions with the boundaries are quite different to say the least. Even a D'Appolito type speaker using a typical dome tweeter steers the forward and side lobes as well the vertical directivity. In fact these directivity characteristics are easily measurable with polar response plots and wavelets taken at varying degrees off 0 axis.

 

The thing is, you can change from dipole to quasi-omni monopole or any other system you like and the physics of the room and how it responds to sound will not change in the slightest. All you might be doing is moving the early reflection points in the treble around. The resonant modes of the room itself and where pressure builds up, where pressure is maximized and minimized and how to deal with such do not, in my experience, change in the slightest.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

[bdiament]

Hi spdif-usb,

 

The assumption that a real-world room affects neither the spectrum of reflected sounds nor the room modes is wishful thinking at its best. It incorrectly assumes the room consists only of hard reflective surfaces and is perfectly rectangular (i.e., has no doors, windows, curtains, carpets, wall coverings, furniture, alcoves, fireplace,...).

 

Not sure who would make such an assumption regarding the spectrum of reflected sounds.

Still, with early reflections absorbed and late reflections diffused, I've found the listener gets well past the room and hears more of the recording itself.

 

Room modes however, are determined by the dimensions of the space. Changing the materials of the walls, adding or subtracting windows, carpets, etc., will not, in my experience, move those frequencies or their harmonics.

 

My point is that optimizing speaker setup in a room (and optimizing a room for audio) are not the complex, arcane processes some suggest them to be. In my experience, you don't need a microphone and you don't have to measure anything that a tape measure can't measure. I've seen this work for decades now, in many types and sizes of rooms, from studios to living rooms, with many different types of speakers. It works every single time and it is easy.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

[Kiwi2]

In my experience, you don't need a microphone and you don't have to measure anything that a tape measure can't measure.

 

How about speakers that come with tunable port plugs? Quite a few speakers are supplied with port plugs for the low and mid driver ports in order to help tune a speaker to the room. How would you know what gives the best response by using a measuring tape while trying different port configurations?

[Fokus]

Room issues are time-based, not amplitude-based. So getting a "perfect" amplitude response - however one defines that - will have *zero* impact on all the other varied issues brought on by the room.

 

I am sorry, but at a fundamental level that is simply not true. There are no separate time and frequency or amplitude domains. They are just different ways for looking at the same underlying reality.

 

A room mode is a minimum phase phenomenon, which is math-talk for saying that its temporal/phase and frequency behaviour are tightly coupled. Change one, you change the other, and in a predictable way. As such a room mode's boost in the frequency domain and its temporal overhang can be perfectly corrected by a matching minimum phase equaliser.

 

However, there are two snags:

 

1) the matching must be exact, which is something that most fail to do because of deficient measurement accuracy and/or ignorance. A mismatched equaliser will only exacerbate the problem.

 

2) the optimisation only holds for one listening point in space, and all other points in the room are compromised.

 

The thing is, you can change from dipole to quasi-omni monopole or any other system you like and the physics of the room and how it responds to sound will not change in the slightest.

 

Here is a simulation of a room with fully-reflective front and back walls, and fully-absorbing other boundaries (to make things clearer). In this room are placed a loudspeaker and a listener according to the 1/3s rule.

 

One graph is of a perfect dipole, the other of a perfect monopole.

 

 

 

BTW I run such simulations and can get decent correlation with measurements in actual rooms.

 

 

Not sure who would make such an assumption regarding the spectrum of reflected sounds.

 

I assume SPDIF-USB's point was that absorption is generally very frequency dependent, hence the low frequency part of reflections is not attenuated, while the high frequencies are. This skews the total sound power radiated into the room, something generally considered a Bad Thing.

 

Room modes however, are determined by the dimensions of the space. Changing the materials of the walls, adding or subtracting windows, carpets, etc., will not, in my experience, move those frequencies or their harmonics.

 

By the acoustic dimensions of spaces. Once boundaries start deviating from the ideally stiff and non-leaky norm the acoustic dimensions too deviate from the measured dimensions. This explains why the deepest room modes sometimes are off their pre-calculated values. Idem for the exact locations of nodes.

 

you don't need a microphone and you don't have to measure anything that a tape measure can't measure. I've seen this work for decades now, in many types and

 

I must say that without tape measure, microphone, and simulator I would never have gotten to the present situation in my room.

 

The simulator was particularly useful in finding potentially rewarding configurations without moving all sorts of stuff around.

[Jud]

I must say that without tape measure, microphone, and simulator I would never have gotten to the present situation in my room.

 

 

This makes me curious: What is "the present situation" in your room? Are you happy with the music? Anything you would care to say about the components of your audio system, or what types of equipment (some people like dipole speakers, some horns, some speakers in boxes, some active monitors, some passive with separate amplifiers; some separate DACs and amplifiers, some combined DACs and amplification...)?

[bdiament]

Hi Kiwi2,

 

How about speakers that come with tunable port plugs? Quite a few speakers are supplied with port plugs for the low and mid driver ports in order to help tune a speaker to the room. How would you know what gives the best response by using a measuring tape while trying different port configurations?

 

I thought the subject at hand is speaker positioning.

 

As to evaluating port plugs, I'd start (and finish) by listening.

The manufacturer would usually spec the response with and without the plugs.

 

Just my opinion of course but I would never assess "best response" for listening any other way than by listening.

To get back on topic, I have not found optimum placement for minimal room interaction to differ between ported speakers and non-ported ones.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

[bdiament]

Hi Fokus,

 

I am sorry, but at a fundamental level that is simply not true. There are no separate time and frequency or amplitude domains. They are just different ways for looking at the same underlying reality.

 

A room mode is a minimum phase phenomenon, which is math-talk for saying that its temporal/phase and frequency behaviour are tightly coupled. Change one, you change the other, and in a predictable way. As such a room mode's boost in the frequency domain and its temporal overhang can be perfectly corrected by a matching minimum phase equaliser.

 

However, there are two snags:

 

1) the matching must be exact, which is something that most fail to do because of deficient measurement accuracy and/or ignorance. A mismatched equaliser will only exacerbate the problem.

 

2) the optimisation only holds for one listening point in space, and all other points in the room are compromised...

 

 

No need to be sorry. I understand the theory. I just haven't heard any audible evidence to suggest it works in the real world. Perhaps it is simply that (a) no one has come up with an equalizer that is up to the task -- but I don't think that is the issue-- and (b) as you said, it "fixes" one point only and "compromises" (I'd say further wrecks) the rest of the room.

 

That last is why I always say that taking frequency response measurements makes the assumption that the listener has an extraordinarily narrow head with a single ear in the middle of their face. (Perhaps it would work for such a listener?)

 

There's another snag too: the assumption that we do not distinguish between the direct sound from the speakers and the sound after the room has responded to it. With that assumption, it would be okay to skew the response of the speakers in an attempt to create an algebraic sum with the room response that seems more toward the ideal. However, when that assumption proves baseless, what remains is that we've *added* a second problem (ruined the speaker response) rather than fixing the first one.

 

Over the years, I've heard a good number of attempts to fix room problems by using amplitude-based "solutions". In short, to my ears, they all failed dismally.

 

On the other hand, every single setup I've heard that worked -- that actually provided access to the recording itself and had the room and system "get out of the way" to the extent possible -- is done without EQ and with mechanical treatments to lower the Q of room resonant modes and to absorb early reflections.

 

For me, it comes down to fixing a problem at its source as being not only the most effective way to do so but the only way that works in real world practice. If I like my speakers but the room, like all rooms, will have issues, why mess with the response of the speakers. This is why I say trying to address room issues (i.e. the room "hanging onto" some sounds for too long) by using an amplitude-based approach (i.e. changing the frequency response of the speakers) is like trying to address a broken arm by wearing a different hat.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

[Jud]

There's another snag too: the assumption that we do not distinguish between the direct sound from the speakers and the sound after the room has responded to it. With that assumption, it would be okay to skew the response of the speakers in an attempt to create an algebraic sum with the room response that seems more toward the ideal. However, when that assumption proves baseless, what remains is that we've *added* a second problem (ruined the speaker response) rather than fixing the first one.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

 

I am thinking there has got to be academic research on such topics as human auditory system reaction to direct/first arrival vs. reflections.