I hope we are still a bit in the topic…I imagine that an extreme acoustic treatment which would looks like a bit like this anechoic chamber would be the negative side . Not very natural or lively.
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frenchrooster,…Such a room is an anechoic chamber,.so if you are not used to it,it can be experienced a bit uncomfortable to be in such a room.
You can experience a sweltering feeling.
My friend,.the acoustic and sound professor,permanently had a music-system in this room at the university.
I gave him advice on what cables he would have in that system 
.
He was able to conjure up fascinating musical effects from that music-system,just by changing the acoustics of the room.
One time we were eight people,who would sit exactly after each other from an exact point in this room.
He had changed the acoustics of the room,.so when he played an A Cappella-song.
So where we sat,.we felt that the singer’s mouth was 1 meter wide,and 40-50 cm in front of the face,.a fascinating experience.
So it is possible to “conjure” a lot with acoustics,.I personally have learned a lot from all these sound-experiments.
A knowledge that I have with me when I install systems.
Hope this gives you a picture of how these rooms work.
/Peder🙂
I don’t see the link here Peder. Experimenting such anechoic room and installing systems is different.
I don’t understand your point.
I hope you will comment as promised the link I posted on audiophile style review, on installing and set up of acoustic treatment. You said there is an error.
We have experimented a lot with different factors and acoustic conditions.
How things depend on each other,.or maybe counteracts each other
Without going into more details,.but this has increased my understanding,of how to fix problems that arise during a system-installation in a room.
/Peder🙂
It will probably depend to some extent on the speaker and how it is designed. A true anechoic chamber would be highly unpleasant to occupy in silence [Link]. I suspect that it wouldn’t seem great for music playing, at least not with most speakers, and if playing quietly the lack of normal room ambience would likely intrude. However, getting close to anechoic, in effect removing the room, can be highly beneficial, as I found and reported in another thread, linking early in this one but tge key part copied here for convenience:
The relation here should be easy to see.
The anechoic chamber example shows how the complete elimination of room effects - changes perception - much like the opposite, of a very lively reverberate room.
If you want to just hear the hifi.
IMO if you want to hear the music, some scaled down resemblances of naturally recorded material containing acoustic artefacts, that then have some resemblance to the acoustic artefacts of your room - should sound more real.
As well as the speaker design I guess it may also depend on the recording, particularly how much ambience it has. A good hifi system should just play the music and let you hear it. The problem with room effects is they then modify the sound, such that the music may sound different in every room, rather than sounding as it was laid down in the recording.
But as I said, totally anechoic may be an extreme and sound unnatural.
It’s a bit what I felt in some very treated rooms . The sound was very accurate on hifi terms, clear, soft, with no hardness. But something was missing. It lacked life and vibrancy. The sound was too homogeneous.
You were probably playing the wrong album.
If you played something inherently strongly recorded that was homogeneously clear, soft and no hardness. It would no doubt have sounded like whoever was recording it was just there in the room.
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Nope, I went with a few favorite albums. The sound was a bit aseptic and sterile.
Sounds as if the listening end has been over damped in those rooms ( easily done). Also we all hear replayed music very differently ( something I always find a bit peculiar, but hey ) ATB Peter
Hi Peder.
Does this mean that you can make a system linear in its replay, without the help of acoustic treatment? ATB Peter
It’s seems very common to hear that a room has been over treated.
That’s why I did my room in stages. Do one stage and live with it for a while then try the next stage.
I did the corner bass traps first , then side wall first reflection points, then side wall bass traps , then front and rear bass traps , and finally ceiling reflection points. After that I found adding more panels initially seemed to improve things but soon found the sound to be too dead and analytical.
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This is very good advice. I have currently carried out steps 1 and 2 with the corner treatment having the most impact. I plan to live with this for a while to get used to the ‘new’ sound but so far very pleased with the overall improvement.
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In stages is also the approach I took Folkman. It seems that we are also learning as the process goes on, as we hear what various products do. Errors are easily made, but get corrected as we go along also. This is where ‘ the journey’ expression creeps in, it is certainly an exercise, which is not done overnight. Also I have found it helpful to use other old Forum member friends’ ears, when I was getting stuck with the room. All good Peter
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The best approach arguably is the reverse, start fully treated then if it seems over-damped remove different bits, allowing you to fully assess - but unless you can get everything on a sale or return basis with a return window of maybe a month minimum, preferably more, then adding in stages would seem an eminently good approach, and was my plan.
If I were doing my current room which has been fully assessed (I’m not because my current plan is to move home within a couple of years), I’d start with the bass traps in the easy-to-do-corners (two vertical corners plus one ceiling/wall horizontal), ceiling and wall first reflection points, plus rear wall.
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Hi FR,
No, it will be hideous for the vast majority of people.
Many people find the absence of any sound reflections to be disorientating to the point of starting to lose their sense of balance.
Apart from the above, it should be fine, so long as you don’t have to do the vacuuming yourself…
Best regards, BF
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Yes, overdamped. Sometimes it can be the case.
Very interesting thread! I watched this video some time ago and after I had already started to do some acoustic experiments myself. For now I focus on the first reflection points as well as furnishing. I moved into a new apartment 6 months ago and since then I have been trying out some stuff. I focus on broadband absorption with 10 cm thick panels. As for most of us I aim to find a balance between stuff that improves the sound but also does not make a negative impact on the feeling of the room itself.
Getting a new sofa in wool with an ottoman replacing a sofa table made a big and positive impact on both the visual feel of the room as well as the sound quality. The picture on the wall is a drawing by my girlfriend and is a custom ordered absorption panel, also 10 cm thick. She loves it and not only does it improve on the look and feel in the room but it also has a positive impact on the sound. A win win for everyone involved!
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