Re: [ARSCLIST] Mostly for laughs

[phillip holmes <insuranceman@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Absolutely.  And I totally agree that actually building a listening room 
can be prohibitively expensive.  Improvements are easily made with small 
adjustments.  Too many people find some formula to use, set their 
listening room up and never listen to the results.  I've had epiphanies 
from moving the speakers a few inches.  The sound would come into focus 
or a bass problem would be ameliorated.  There's a lot of trial and 
error that you can't predict.  If you just go by room dimensions, you 
may be wrong.  Take into account what else is in the room (big 
sofas-metal chairs), what the walls are made of (plaster or concrete is 
a big plus over traditional drywall), what the floors are made of 
(concrete VS wood) and on and on.  I've noticed that many people are 
looking for different results.  Their ideal sound can be radically 
different from the next guy's.  For instance, I prefer to listen 
somewhere a little further out than "near-field", but not far enough out 
where the room's sound will be easily detected.  I've heard systems 
where the guy sat in a sofa placed against the back wall and the 
speakers were 15' away on the opposite wall.  I couldn't stand it.  You 
had to turn it up too loud for the speakers to overcome the sound of the 
room.  If he moved his chair out from the back wall and his speakers in 
from the front wall, he could've used 1/4 the power (less compression 
and distortion) and had, IMO, much better fidelity.  So maybe some of us 
hear these things in radically different ways.  I still haven't been to 
the orchestra and heard a good stereo image.  In some ways, the mediocre 
recordings from Columbia more closely resemble the sound at the cheap 
seats.  If only they could hang me from the ceiling like I was a microphone.
Phillip

Don Cox wrote:
> The room will always be the most important factor. However, building and
> treating a custom listening room is more expensive that buying snake-oil
> cables.
>
> I have heard lovely sound from cheap gear in good rooms, and horrible
> sound from good gear in the little back rooms of hi fi shops.
>
>      
>