| Hometheaterphile April 2008
 Coming to Grips
with the Room
When it comes to the sound of music, what’s right?
Since your rebirth as an audiophile, has your perception of "right" changed?
Mine has.
I recall one pivotal experience that took place when I was
a mere audiophile infant. During a visit to Circuit City, birthplace of many great
audiophiles, I recall how an entry-level system from Polk Audio was reproducing
"Money," from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The song is
distinctive for the way the bass line thumps its way through, and providing the punch was
a small Polk subwoofer with a 10" cone and costing about $100. To me, the song
sounded perfect. The way this showroom demo rig affected me and changed the path of my
musical tastes was profound.
Reviewing my audiophile past, I see other moments like that
one at Circuit City. Whether they steered me in the right direction or led me to take a
detour, the combined effect of all of them has led me to where I am today.
At this point, I covet a stereo system that is accurate --
or, to put it another way, neutral. But what is "accurate"? What is
"neutral"? Along the way, I had no idea. In the beginning, I couldn’t
define what my tastes were in the reproduction of music, but in retrospect it looks as if
I preferred stereo systems that were a little heavy in the bass. I think most people start
in a similar place.
I spent my audiophile adolescence running in circles, but
it all changed the first time Jeff Fritz dropped by my house to listen to my system. This
was three years ago. I considered myself an "experienced" audiophile, but what I
learned from that visit turned out to be my first step in the right direction.
My system at that point was pretty good. I had an Anthem
AVM 20 preamp-processor, a pair of Energy Veritas V2.3i floorstanding speakers, and a tiny
Sunfire subwoofer. I was proud of my purchases; each component had been very well
reviewed, and in terms of sound, my system was head and shoulders above any other system I
had knowledge of, at least in my town. If I had such a great system, what could Jeff do to
improve it?
He introduced me to room acoustics. Before Jeff’s
visit, I’d never heard of a "bass peak" or a "bass null," and I
was unaware that my subwoofer was 5dB louder than my main speakers -- a setting well
suited to a closet bass head. I was clueless about the purpose of the Phase setting on the
back of my sub, or how it could be used to integrate the sub’s output with that of my
main speakers. Basically, all I’d done was buy each component of my system, hook them
up, and press Play. But Jeff explained that what I was hearing was boomy, bloated bass
that overshadowed much of the detail in the music’s midrange and treble.
Jeff had brought along a RadioShack sound-pressure-level
(SPL) meter and a test disc, with which he conducted several tests to discover the effects
my room was having on the sound of my system. He then tweaked my system to increase the
sharpness of the imaging, and changed the sub’s crossover point so that its output
handed off to the main speakers and integrated with their output as seamlessly as
possible. After he’d determined that the sound was as good as he could get it, he
left. I walked him out, then quickly returned to the living room to listen to the results.
I was horrified. What had he done to my system? If this was
"right," I wanted to be "wrong" -- truly, ignorance was bliss. Where
was the bass?
Since then, through many system upgrades and placing my
speakers in many different positions in the room, I have learned much. I also helped Jeff
build the sound treatments for his Music Vault.
With the addition of each treatment to Jeff’s room, I could hear a very noticeable
difference. The room’s hollow, echoey sound disappeared, leaving a space that had
been designed to interfere as little as possible with the sound of the speakers. This
process helped me take my next big step in the right direction: I learned that what has
the greatest single effect on my system’s accuracy is my room.
Once I’d accepted that my room could make or break my
enjoyment of my music, I had to change my approach. Like those of many other audiophiles,
my main system is in my living room, where optimal speaker positioning is seldom the
highest priority. Décor rules (just ask your significant other) -- speakers must be
placed where they are least obtrusive, not where they’ll sound best. But my
living room is also my dedicated listening room, so décor takes a back seat. I’ve
placed my speakers in locations that maximize the imaging and soundstage depth. I’ve
also now ascended to the next level by treating my room, a process you’ll soon read
about here. The result is that my interest in in-room frequency response is now almost
obsessive.
In my opinion, optimizing the in-room frequency response is
a major key to achieving my overall goals for my stereo system. I have bought software for
my laptop that lets me measure the frequency response of my speakers in my room. This has
provided scientific data that help me further dial-in my system’s performance by
tweaking the speaker positions and integrating the subwoofer to achieve a result that
I’m happy with. This doesn’t mean that I desire a ruler-flat frequency
response, but that I can tailor the response to my musical taste, striking a balance
between a relatively linear response and musical satisfaction. When it comes to accuracy,
achieving a response devoid of huge peaks and troughs is essential. The reason linearity
is important is that it keeps the timbre and pitch of the music closer to what the
recording engineer intended, and being faithful in the reproduction of recorded music is a
universal audiophile goal, isn’t it? After all, the second word in high fidelity
means faithful.
The last year has been a time of great growth for me in
this hobby. After several months of measuring and tweaking, I got my system adjusted as
accurately as I could, in terms of measurements; then, I did the final bit of tweaking by
ear. I could go on doing this forever to elicit minor improvements, but at some point I
have to stop and get back to the enjoyment of listening to music.
Few audiophiles take such time getting the details right.
Instead, they throw money at their systems, buying cables and power conditioners and
expecting their new purchases to provide the results they seek. And sometimes, I regret
the time and energy it has taken me to attain the elusive "target curve." It
took time away from my listening sessions, and made me overanalyze each detail. While this
can be fun, it can also be mind-numbing.
But my system now sounds much better than it ever has. With
what I’ve learned through this process, I know that my system’s sound is tied to
my room, and that to achieve my ultimate goal of accuracy, I have to adapt and compromise.
The key to maximizing a system’s performance is to understand room acoustics and the
effect they have on the sound.
To be continued . . .
...Randall Smith
randalls@hometheatersound.com
- October 2007 - A Conversation
with Nick Platsis of Anthem
- July 2007 - HDMI: A Talk with
Joe Lee of HDMI Licensing, LLC
- June 2007 - The State of My
High-Definition Experience
- April 2007 - A Conversation
with Tom Dixon of DTS
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