Is the room really that important? With Galion, Fiio and Rega.
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- čas přidán 11. 09. 2024
- In this video I try to dispel the myth that the listening room is the most critical component in your system.
Components used:
Galion Audio Voyager TL speakers: www.galion-aud...
Rega Brio R integrated amplifier: ca. 2016 Discontinued
Fiio X1 DAP. ca: www.fiio.com/x1
A very interesting video. This gave me somethong to think about. Production value has gone up!
Thanks Thomas! I think that rooms are like other components, it's all about synergy and taste. There is a setup that will work in most rooms, the fun is to find what you like in your space.
I think one of the pitfalls of audiophile culture is a general instinct to want to be "right," "correct," or "know the best." This is another hobby of connoisseurship, like wine or cigars or cars or fashion or even pure art - you do need to understand the complex interplay of contributing values including everything from manufacturing processes to the process of informed, taste-based selection, and everything in-between. But some get fixated on a single point as if it defines the existence of the universe and the very nature of truth. People who are cynical and declare snake oil and audiofoolery, those who try to tell you in what fixed/numeric proportions to invest in the different parts of the signal chain (especially when they say "x system factor has the single biggest role and needs the most attention or money"), both the strict and unforgiving measurements crowd as well as those who fall blindly for marketing without any skepticism, and anyone else who takes on any pedantic/overly prescriptive soapbox platform, regardless of what camp they belong to, are all the ones most likely to be wrong. The truth is, it's a balance of all those things, plus the education and dedication to want to educate yourself, that together make a good audiophile system and a good audiophile. If you are detracting from the value of one thing and trumpeting the supremacy of another, you're doing it wrong. A good audiophile is a happy audiophile, one with a receptive, positive approach to appreciating the strengths and not ruing the weaknesses.
Wow, reason and critical thinking combined with optimism and integrity! Thanks for your thoughtful comment and I just have to say that I agree with you 100%. Can't add anything.
I'm enjoying your more sensible take on listening and equipment.
Thanks David! I appreciate your support.
Wow! You really went above and beyond to perform that test! Bravo!
You can certainly hear differences between each of those rooms and so, while I believe that the room matters, the “stuff” that’s in that room (and the quantity/composition of stuff) provides its own degree of “treatment” which may be sufficiently effective as to make real, actual “acoustic treatment” less important than thoughtful setup of the system and keeping it sufficiently furnished and decorated.
I was listening to the demos and not watching (I’m at work) and when it got to the small bedroom I quickly turned on my phone to see what the setting was because it was clearly the best sound of the bunch up to that point (and overall as it turns out). And that’s very interesting by itself as people always poopoo small rooms as being suboptimal. But that was clearly the best sounding room for this test.
Thank you for all the work you did to put this together! It was very enlightening.
Thanks Danny, yes that particular system did best in the small room, but any upgrades to the system would be audible and beneficial no matter where it is set up. Thanks for watching!
They all sounded good. The listening room had the most detail. Also Rega Brio R is a great sounding amp.
Yes, better in person as well. Review on this Rega Brio R coming, too!
Great video. Thank you for taking the time to do it.
I have a near field set up in a small bedroom and I LOVE the sound I get in there. Even using a small sub in the room. It’s a work in progress and fun to experiment with.
Yes, I was very surprised, and for about 30 seconds considered turning my entire system into a nearfield setup! If you don't have a big room you can get really good results with the right pieces in a NF system. What speakers are you using?
@@davelistenstohifi I tried three different pair…… Klipsch RP600m, Elac unifi ref bookshelf and a big pair of JBL L100 Classic 75th Anniversary
@@TM-fx2pi wow, stellar collection! Which ones did you prefer? Wide range of options :-)
@@davelistenstohifi honestly my favorite is the Klipsch set up. To be clear though, since this room is a work in progress, I haven’t been able to give all the speakers a fair chance because the room is a bit cluttered at this point with little room to move the speakers around. That will change soon though.
Have fun trying it out, enjoy the music, that's what it's all about!
Love this topic!! I think that the listening room really sets the tone for you to enjoy the music, and your listening room ROCKS!
Yes, good point! I didn't even get into the aesthetic considerations but I still have more to say on the topic...
Good video! I have a room that is OK, but have no choice but have one speaker in a corner and the other with no wall behind it for 10 '. I compensate by adjusting the balance.
No matter what anyone "thinks" as I upgraded my equipment, the sound gets better. Bad equipment in a fairly bad room doesn't sound as good as good equipment in the same space. Logical and provable. I say that because some of these comments seem to say it won't matter if I'm interpreting them correctly.
Yes, thank you I see you get my point. Room treatment is good, but you can create great sound and benefit from better equipment in a suboptimal room just fine.
The room means everything!🤯🤓😎 Not even sorta close. Thank goodness I have an A+ room with c+ B- equipment!🤔🤫🤪 Nice bathroom footage!😝
Hey Big Jay! I prefer a B room with A equipment since my tests confirmed what I thought. Glad your room is A+, did it take a lot of work to build it to that point?
A breath of fresh air, I love your perspective here. Hey real quick my friend, those speakers versus Kef LS50 Metas, your thoughts would be appreciated greatly.
Thanks Audfile, I appreciate you taking the time to comment! I have to say I have not experienced the LS50 Metas at home...I would venture that the TS Voyager TL would be smother and reach deeper, the LS50s probably more detailed but I think they are very different animals. I should get a set of the LS50s, that would be an interesting comparison!
Hi Dave, Glad to hear you address speaker placement vs audio rack placement. For over 30 years I've placed my speakers on the front wall. My turntable, and all my other components are placed10 to 11 feet from the left speaker, on the left side wall. I can count on one hand how many of the systems I've seen through the years are set up this way. BTW, if you haven't already, can you please do a video on your system?
Hi Bob, thanks for your comment! Yes, I have done a video on my system, a couple of updates since then but I'll probably cover that soon. Yeah, my equipment is to the (out)side of my opem baffle speaker, in the null spot and away from the acoustic center! Important to do this, if good sound is your priority!
Superb experience ✨️👍
Thanks Samuel, hope the video helped you!
I have a very cheap system and it sounds much nicer when I move the speakers away from the wall with not too much volume. Maybe having soft furnishings in the room absorbs some of the reflective hight notes.
Yes, sounds like you have the right setup so far. Moving the speakers out from the wall is a great step, try moving around the spot where you listen as well, move a bit forward or back and see if you get a balance of sound you like.
this is an excellent video and a unique view in the audiophile world .
IMO room conditioning is mostly relevant to those that are listening to their speakers and gear.
however for those that are focused on an emotional experience via lyrics , singers and melody , room conditioning is not very important or maybe completely unimportant .
the above internal reaction/s can occur under any and all circumstance .
The exception to room conditioning is the original Polk SDA speakers . you can plop those speakers down in any room , set up the required distances outlined in the manual and you get an instant soundstage with all of the various words used to describe such a thing.
Source - source is mostly relevant to those listening for extreme details in sound reproduction .
The source form my SDAs was a Sony Walkman Professional😂.
From Bach to peter gabriel to the horrendously bad recordings of little Richard , it all sounded fantastic .
Question- has any audiophile ever considered 'conditioning ' the listener ?
It is the listener that should be refined first and foremost over all externals .
if the listener is in a refined level of consciousness their senses will be able to experience subtle qualities emanating from external sources far greater than manipulating one's immediate environment .
ok i'll leave it there and wait for the thread to explode with a few truculent retorts .
Wow, that's possibly a subject for me to look into! A review of whisky and gummies to see what makes the sound better LOL. Good point though, that expands on what I was getting at, we can connect with the music even in an average room, takes a better room if you want to hear your equipment better.
Great video! I know this took a lot of time and effort and I really appreciate your hard work! And, I agree with a lot of what you said. No, you don't need a "perfect room" to really enjoy music, and yeah, I imagine you may be able to hear subtle differences in components even if the room isn't perfect. And I couldn't agree with you more that speaker placement within a room has a drastic effect on the quality of sound reproduction. But I respectfully believe your conclusion is not correct. You said that the room is not the end all be all. Can you give me any other component besides maybe speakers, that would produce such an audible difference as each of your rooms did? Like, the difference between each room wasn't subtle, it was jarring! I believe you could seriously ask 100 people to listen to this video blindfolded and most would be able to hear each and every time you switch rooms. Show me one other component swap out (with the exception of a sub maybe) that could get 100/100 people saying there is a difference in the audio.
I'm just kind of shocked. If you suggest that a cable, which at best has a subtle effect that no video here on CZcams has shown yet, or at worst has no effect on the sound, can make such a difference, why would you discount something such as the room that CLEARLY makes such a huge difference? Only one of those rooms was the closest to reproducing the most accurate sound that the artist intended you to hear. And that can be subjective. (But measurable too in terms of frequency response, bass gain, timing, etc.) And again, I do agree with a lot of what you say here. I do agree that someone starting out in this hobby doesn't have to spend a fortune on their room to get it perfect to start. But some care must be taken to treat the room to achieve the best results. And in some cases, they may be better off to spend more time and energy on the room, than on a particular upgrade, to achieve the best sound.
Again, great video and thank you for putting in as much time as you did. Even though I don't agree with your conclusion, I really do appreciate all the hard work you put into making this video and I wish you the very best of luck!
Hey Josh, thanks for your reply! I love that you don't just take what I say and that you have your own opinion. So, maybe to clarify my position I will use something you have said: "Only one of those rooms was the closest to reproducing the most accurate sound that the artist intended you to hear". I really believe that there is no one 'accurate' sound, even a lot of music that you can play really does not exist as audible music until it is played back. There is no 'absolute sound' to reproduce, and there is also no one 'correct sound'. There is no perfect speaker, and so there is no perfect room in which to place that speaker. And flowing from that, there is no perfect amplifier to drive that perfect speaker in that perfect room, etc.
Yes, rooms sound different, but I think that for 99.9% of recordings out there it would be impossible to determine the 'correct' sound when reproducing it, and so each playback system is optimised by the person who is setting it up. They can take most any domestic setting and achieve great results with good setup. Some acoustic treatment may help problematic situations, but I was kind of put off by all of the videos stating that you absolutely needed a treated room before you had any hope of getting good sound. I want to give people hope that they can get great sound in most rooms and even upgrade their system without thinking that they are wasting their money because the room is not 'correct'. Thanks for your feedback though, it's super valuable! With regards to the sound of cables, I'm going to tackle a video with sound samples soon that will explore this as well :-)
Always the Room and speaker placement is the Most Important !! ,, people forget it
Speaker placement can go a very long way in any room to changing how the system sounds!
Thanks for the food for thought. It’s an ongoing quandary… how to maximize what you have. Have a small room and while I have considered near field listening, I haven’t really tried it yet.
With the right setup it can be really really nice. It can give enhanced transparency, you really hear the speakers directly. Imaging depends on the speakers quite a bit, can be hit or miss. The Galion speakers were excellent, something like KEF LS50 is probably quite good, floor standers probably less so. Doesn't cost anything to try and it's fun to experience different sound like that!
@@davelistenstohifi I thought it worth following up for the sake of conversation. I decided not to play around with near field listening because I have Zu Omen DW's and they are just too big to be sitting in the middle of the room, close to my chair. It's an aesthetic thing really but I knew I wouldn't want to do it. But in thinking about it, I started walking around the room, listening for changes in frequency response. I noticed that the bass response was better when I stood behind my chair, and I noticed that one of the front corners had a massive build up of bass frequencies.
I'd been planning to invest in some more bass traps but after watching this video and thinking about it, I decided to see what could be done merely by rearranging the room. So I started by flipping the speakers and chair 180 degrees... back wall becomes front wall, etc. That was basically a wash, it all sounded very similar to my initial setup except the bass was building up in the opposite corner. So then I decided to try a 90 degree flip which would orient my 11x9 room with the speakers on the long wall. I'd never considered that previously because I figured you want as much potential distance between yourself and the speakers as possible. But it was a major improvement!
Not only is the bass response improved (I haven't measure yet so there are probably still issues to correct), but the sound stage and imaging are also better. And as it turns out, my distance to the speakers isn't really that different and I like the layout of the room a bit better. This layout allowed me to move the equipment rack out from between the speakers, maybe a factor in the improved sound stage.
In any event, I might still invest in some more room treatment but I don't think I have as far to go as I did before. So thanks for the spark of ideas!
That's amazing, so glad you went through the experimentation! I am surprised how often setting up on the long wall makes an improvement, helps with the first reflections as well. Keep it up, enjoy the music!
😬🤓@@davidtraube7921
Everything is important
The least important is audio consultant
I know, right?! Part of the fun is learning for yourself, making your own decisions and creating the system you want based on your experience. Letting someone else choose it for you takes away that certainty of experience.
Nice video. Cheers.
Thanks for your support!
Nice experiment ,but i find almost impossible to hear music in your garage ,it sounds horrible , sorry , my brain refuse to equalize the sound in those "BAD" rooms.....
Yes, the effect was less obvious in person, but for sure there are some rooms that just don't work! How is your setup?
Nice video. I don't think your testing really confirms your theory. If this was a paper, the conclusion would be "further testing is in order" lol. If it sounded best near field, that implies (to me) that minimizing room influences generated the best result. Almost going into a headphone scenario. Your tests showed, to some degree, that a good sound could be found in most rooms, but the room does have an effect. Maybe I can carry on a conversation with someone at a party, but it's a bit easier without background noise. My listening room is better than a garage, but that's about it.
Hey Steve, thanks for your thoughtful reply. Yes, I could have taken this to the next steps and started upgrading the system in each room but the increasing number of iterations required means I would still be recording the video! I guess I wanted to just give a counter to those who insist that the room is primary and if you don't have an ideal, treated environment then you have no chance at good sound.
. Well, Cocktail Party hearing exists & you have managed a psyhcoacoustic equivalency argument, however consider these couple factors which make Party hearing possible;
* Party audio sources are multiple and each transmitter has an unimpeded straight line to the ears, whereas stereo provides but two sources. It is easier to "filter" (focus) with clear voices rather than a mash-up of echos.
* Vision is important to clarity. Successful Party hearing necessitates observing the speakers' lips & facial expressions. Neither live nor dead rooms change that.
On a different note........................
. (12:38 to +-13.35) I applaud your observations of component arranging & placement.
I think it must have begun with early social media. Way back to MySpace, where one picture posts seem to have been ingrained.
Piling all the gear on the ground between the speakers, lol, is just the silliest thing except that it makes for an attractive thumbnail pic etc. If there were a poll done & we chose the worst place for a turntable, it would be right smack in the middle of the loudspeakers. I can't imagine tubes like it there much either.
Acid Jazz, Funk & Brass 🔈🔉🔊
Hey TriAmp, yes the visual element is important, but sometimes closing your eyes can help focus your hearing as well. The delayed time arrival of reflected sound, along with a different direction of arrival makes it easier for us to distinguish and 'deprioritize' room sound. I didn't realize the level of echo that was present in the big bedroom until I listened back to the recording-it was really not noticeable in person!
I wanted to check on your hypothesis about social media, so I started flipping through my 1990's TAS magazines...yup, mostly pictures of individual components, even the show reports had speakers with maybe an amp between! I think that you have a very good point there...
@@davelistenstohifi
Thanks for replying Dave. Seems like you've got a decent analytical brain upstairs. Should make for 'informative & entertaining' videos. We'll be watchin'!
Thanks for the support TriAmp, I appreciate it!
I think there are quite large differences between the sound in the different rooms. The highs were much more apparent in the large bedroom compared to your normal listening room. The sound in the small bedroom was more similar to your listening room. The garage as expected gave very poor sound. I suppose that is consistent with the tenet of your video that you could get a good sound in either your normal listening room, the large or small bedrooms if you played around with speaker placement etc. Even the bathroom didn't sound too bad to me.
Yeah, the rooms certainly sounded different in person compared to on the videos, differences were bigger and echoes were less noticeable but still had a negative effect on Soundstage.
@@davelistenstohifi presumably you mean the differences between the sound in person between for example the large and small bedrooms was bigger ? Which rooms were there less echo to you in person in ?
I mean that the difference in perceived sound quality between rooms was greater in person, and that the echoes were largely unnoticeable in person. The 'filtering' effect of listening in person brings out different qualities not heard in these recordings.
@@davelistenstohifi ok thanks for the clarification Dave
So I'm curios what do you think of the galion voyager TL? I'm really thinking on purchasing them. Also what's the minimum wattage U rwcvomend for those speakers? 50-60w at 8 ohm or more?
Hey User-dy7, thanks for your question! I see that a few reviews have come online for those speakers, Steve Huff, Nemo propaganda, Teejay has a set as well, and Thomas has made a few videos also. I just used them for the experiment, but as you can see they worked well in a number of different rooms. Without getting too far into it, when I used them in a nearfield setup in a small bedroom, I almost considered getting rid of my entire big system and going with these speakers in this type of setup. The sound and performance in that I achieved in the small room was astounding. I was getting goosebumps listening to Coleman Hawkins-it was incredible the detail, intimacy and expansive soundstage that I was able to hear. I used it with a Rega 50W solid state amp, depending on how loud you listen and how big your room is, I think that 30W class A or tube and 50W class AB is about the minimum to get the best out of them.
@@davelistenstohifion awsome good answer and I'm most definitely gonna order theese speakers. Just looking for a good amp to drive them. Not after to drive them at high volumes more after clarity and great sound.
I see Hifi Cave has posted a video about them as well, check it out! czcams.com/video/HX6UtDWkdAI/video.htmlsi=8I7-pVM1zJxr9Rjv
hi, I'm putting together my hi-fi, cables, DAC, amplifier, streamer, every piece of electronics affects the sound a little, but what really affects the sound the most is the room, you can change and buy the most expensive cables, speakers, amplifiers in the wrong room it will be useless
Yeah, that's what I tested. The room has to be really bad for your system to be useless, I think you can set up a system in most domestic rooms and obtain great results with careful setup.
@@davelistenstohifi but it is possible, of course, that you invest more money in an expensive system. but perfect sound can only be achieved if the room is perfect, otherwise even the best system won't help you, and you'll get better results in a perfect room with a cheaper system than vice versa
I'll give an example, a friend has the most expensive dynaudio speakers, but he doesn't have the same bass as me with much cheaper speakers, why? because he has the wrong room
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Well, I think that you can get much closer with correct setup, this is what I found when trying to setup speakers in my various rooms. I don't think there is a perfect room, just like there are no perfect speakers or amplifiers. Everything must work together. A 'Perfect room' may not let certain speakers perform their best...
@@davelistenstohifi what are perfect loudspeakers if we take into account the frequency characteristics and so on, and if the room does not have unwanted reflections and standing waves do not arise in it, then in that room the speakers
will play the best, and this can be achieved and the room can be adapted to the given speakers,
Well, I still think that small speakers and big speakers will favour different rooms, as will open baffle and ported and sealed speakers. Different speakers will do best in different rooms. Not often that someone can just build a room from scratch with whatever dimensions they like, so most people are starting with a specific size and shape of room and they have to choose the speakers that work best for them...then choose the amp that works with those speakers...etc.
In my listening room, I have floorstanding speakers (Transmission Line) where 1 speaker is 29'' from the side wall and 3 feet from the corner. On certain low frequencies, the bass 'hangs around' or reverberates. I am not really able to move the speaker to a better position. Do you know how I might reduce or eliminate this please ?
Hello Chris, that problem sounds like a tricky one, hard to solve just with setup. This might need bass traps...what is your furniture situation in the room? Maybe some extra cushions or carpet underlayment might help. Bring some soft padding into the room and fill the corners (couch cushions or a quilt) and see what effect it has. Let me know how it works out
@@davelistenstohifi Hi Dave. Thanks for your reply. The room is carpeted over a sold floor and has a leather sofa and armchair. Nearest the speaker where the issue occurs is a window and radiator. I close a curtain over the window in the evening but the issue still occurs. Thank you for suggestions. I will try some things out.
Leather sofa and armchair probably provide less absorption than fabric equivalents.
WELLCOME - DOBRODOŠLI?? WAAW!! NICE! :-))
I will be as short as possible. The stated theory is true in an evolutionary or capability sense of our nervous system, but in your case is very tailored to subjective interpretation and insufficient if we are regarding some other didactical and cognitive theories even in general about our responses to stimuluses and different sensitivities. Strictly or sarcastically we can then say that we (audiophiles or music lovers) can listen to our wife (and even talk to them) and do quality critical or relaxed listening to music. That would be a phenomenon or a lie. Or... how then a differentiation between gears and speakers also is not a kind of psychoacoustic phenomenon => it would mean that we are all, especially audiophiles in a psychotic state of mind.
In my study years I had subjects of didactic, pedagogy, psychology, anthropology, evolution of living systems, etc. And if I may boast, at my 53 and 54 year I had clinically 98% preserved hearing on my right ear and 92% on my left ear. This differentiation in hearing results in positioning of speakers or sweet spot, since my sensory system translates this in a bit stronger "right hearing" or slight leaning sound stage to the right.
But I can also agree with you, since you are a low volume listener and yes, it depends on room and speaker positioning... Here is my general opinion on this subject which I have already posted in variations on some other YT channels recently.
My observations are in acoustically untreated rooms - especially modern ones (treated room is at least absorption of first reflections on all four sides + some bass absorbers) at avg. listening volume over 72 or max 75 dB, its reflections starts to interfere with the sound stage in such manner that many finer frequencies (across all Hz spectrum), details, nuances, layering, imagining etc in the sound stage are getting messed up and somehow lost, especially at avg. listening volume 80 dB+.
It means it does smear the source qualities, so it also smears the gears' differences. If you can in untreated room hear clear difference between triode and linear or other modes with tube amp at cca avg. 70 dB listening volume, at over 80 dB or 85 dB would be almost the same sound stage mess, just "noise" - the wall of sound - and for me unbearable for focused or relaxing listening, especially with more open, brighter (a good ones) speakers.
But I can also notice that a part of listeners or audiophiles - their register - are not sensitive to such issues, they simply do not notice such changes in frequency responses in the music. They are more orientated on the main music lines, tactile effects of music presentation - mostly the bass amount or effect.
Volume= EQ. Somehow yes it is, or the volume can be also considered as adjusting the room's frequency response.
Kind regards, Maj
Zdravo Maj, thank you for your well thought out and highly informative comment on my video! Glad that others can perceive and elaborate on the subtext of the video, where perception trumps sound. It is in these deeper levels of perception that we recognize the subtle changes and differences in our systems. One thing that I have not factored into my exploration of the subject, that you most expertly have pointed out, is the effect that overall volume of the sound can change the perceived quality. Differences in overall volume will also change the relative intensities of the direct and reflected sounds, if not their arrival time or phase relationships. This is possibly a topic for another video!
You mention the discrepancy between your ears-have you found that setting up the left and right speakers differently has been an effective way of balancing this? Sorry, it was not clear in your reply.
Yes, I see also that some listeners are less sensitive to certain elements of sound quality but I am unsure if this is the result of inexperience, personal bias that does not allow for deeper perception or just inherent differences in individual senses. I am somewhat colour blind, and so I simply lack other's ability to pick up on colour-I cannot calibrate a display, choose a pleasing palette of colours or differentiate between 'correct' and 'incorrect' colour settings. I wonder if others are possibly 'soundstage blind' or somehow unable to pick up on the nuances of music reproduction. I am particularly sensitive to out-of-phase speakers, and I find that I notice it easily and often have to point it out to others when I hear it. Is this an example of this?
@@davelistenstohifi Yes, I then realised why I have had a problem with a juuussst a bit stronger right side of the soundstage. And of course I deal with this with the speaker's positioning.
Out of phase or not time aligmented drivers.. usually I was not happy with listening to multi drivers speakers from very different brands. There are also speakers which are horrible for my ears, like B&W 6 and 7 series.... even their's top floorstanders are wierd for my ears. Unnatural.
That is why I am going to explore full range drivers - speakers in a DIY or half DIY sense in a Voigt pipe, TL and OB speaker principles - models. First two fulrange drivers from MarkAudio are well played in and I will start to build first a variation of OB speaker based on Danny Richie - GR Research - advices.
A good debate would be why a dB meter shows the same dB value, but subjective perceptions of soundstage can be like cca 3dB or more different ones? Like minus (under 0 degrees) temperatures we fell different if it is a humidity different or wind...
Example is a different perception in loudness of triode or ultra linear mode or other modes with tube amps or between a good Class A amp and midiocratic A-B or digital amp.
The sound stage is more airy, bigger, more subtile, like a silky sound cloud, with fine articulated bass versus a bit louder, more congested harder baloon and or laid back or in your face sound stage.... but the dB value is the same... and this is not like a true dry/warm difference of a system...
I hope you understand what I mean. This can not be presented by playing samples in YT.
Kind regards.