Sounds ok in our anechoic chamber Sir, must be your living room...

[MajorFubar]

When people join here looking for help with a poor-sounding HiFi, more often than not after all the obvious errors have been discounted, the problem is attributed yet again to poor room-acoustics.

I'm slightly paraphrasing (well, lots, probably), but one contributor recently wrote something along the lines of "don't complain about your hifi sounding shrill, forward or otherwise insubstantial when the same components in a well-treated room like mine will sound fine". Which in other words says, it's not the manufacturer's fault that your listening environment is not worthy, its yours. But I don't agree with that. In my opinion, if a HiFi component only performs well in an acoustically-treated room, it's worthless to all but the lucky few, no matter how perfectly it measures.

Maybe the manufacturers should throw away their measuring gear, dismantle their anechoic chamber and instead listen to their products in some listening environments that are more like the living-rooms where their typical customers will expect their products to perform well. Such nasty environments include small rooms, irregular-shaped rooms, rooms with suspended floors, mixed soft/hard furniture, big windows, and - God forbid - corners.

And if that means their future products sound horrible in a perfectly-treated anechoic chamber but absolutely fantastic in Bob’s new flat, well who gives a wotsit?

 

[drummerman]

Two wrongs dont necesseraly make right ...

... one wrong/one right dont necesseraly make a right ...

... two rights should make a right but we all know that isn't always the case ...

but two wrongs almost always make a wrong.

regards

 

[RobinKidderminster]

Whilst I understand and agree with your argument, I think it impossible to compensate significantly for the variance found in homes. I guess amps & speakers are designed principally to output as linearly as possible a given input. We are talking frequency response I guess but other factors which are less room dependant maybe come into the equation too. I see room acoustics as an absolute limit in which components try to deliver their optimum sound. Room treatment or equalization aims to give equipment an opportunity to deliver its 'best's sound. An interesting debate I think with some parallels with exotic cars which perform well on a track but will always be limited in their performance by 70mph limit or the potholed tarmac which we call uk roads.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Manufacturers have to use anechoic chambers because they need to know that their product isn't doing something it isn't supposed to, and that it is doing what it is supposed to. In theory, a manufacturer is trying to produce a flat response, but many will also conduct listening tests to see how they sound, and to make tweaks to the end result.

 

[RobinKidderminster]

Recording engineers in their studios & near field monitors. Do they mix with hifi or headphones or iPod in mind? And film editors? The discussion goes on ....

 

[MajorFubar]

All good valid points. But still...

I remember in the 1980s when, for example, WHF had a nice modest listening-room which they purposefully kept nice and modest because they said their results would then more accurately represent what we would likely get when listening in our own rooms. I always thought that was a darn good idea, at least in principle, even if their partnering-gear was necessarily high-end and hyper-analytical so that they could hear the differences between various products.