I have looked through system photos and listening positions and only a couple have shown room treatment, which I find bizarre. I have got to the former pinnacle of Naim, with all associated cables, power leads, and then….
Ok it is embarrassing showing this as ChatGPT led me down the wrong path - see my foam mistakes (irritating my partner no end), but tackling first reflections, ceiling reflections, rear wall reflections, now with guidance from an expert and, woah - the sound flys way outside the listening room, a big factor was rear wall corners, that widened the soundstage. Q sound recordings are now adjacent to my ears.
I’m just saying guys, if your partners are tolerant…
If you can do it so it doesn’t show then fantastic, but once it looks like that then, sorry i am out.
Plus as above my wife would go crazy, plus i also wouldn’t have it.
But as said if you can build it into the room then fine, but obviously this is far harder to do and costs much more.
But i agree it can be dynamically better with treatment if done right, rather than just buy stuff and hope it works, when you haven’t a clue what treatment might be needed.
Is the radiator in your picture dampened in anyway?
As I have two radiators in my room that used to ring until I placed custom made studio sound panels in from of them which solved the problem and improved my overall sound.
Not for me. I used to have all manner of pillows, panels, traps etc. Our LR looked like Stonehenge. Took it all out There’s life beyond Audio. Things sounded fine without. Whether it was actually better without or I just got accustomed, I can’t say. Less is more.
I have two GIK Acoustic 242 free standing panels, had them a few years now. They do help and don’t get in the way of every day living. My wife doesn’t complain about them.
No room treatments for me, except carpets on the floor. Then again I have a small room with a low ceiling, non parallel walls and seven recesses, and I sit almost in a near field location.
I look forward to visit this guy in some time. Many say this is the best allround system in Norway. The room is only 30m2. Flat from 5Hz. Reverberation time is 30ms. Loads of acoustic treatment. Many m3 of isolation.
Looks good, what was the sweep duration to generate those graphs?
Reverb time looks higher than 30ms, more like 120ms, though still excellent and even. However I can’t see from the graphs posted what is happening below 48Hz?
For all the money people spend on Naim gear it is surprising to me as well how little room treatment I see in photos. Just removing echo makes an incredible difference in sound quality and listening experience. There are many discrete ways to treat a room, but it’s oddly the least fashionable tweak on this forum.
Please be assured, it isn’t a myth. While many issues and room intolerances can be managed by choosing 'the right ‘speaker’, there are some ‘quick wins’ which can be achieved from treating reflection points (including behind ‘speakers’) and other aggravating features e.g. glass.
But, trying to manage a 'speaker in to a room on the basis some room treatment will enable this, can be a fool’s errand e.g. some room modes, especially around 100hz IME, can be very difficult to treat effectively.
Hardly surprising - best avoided for anything serious as there is no intelligence there, readily gets things wrong.
Room treatment indeed seems to be largely ignored, surprisingly considering the amount of money some people spend on systems, to be further limited by the room. People say “it sounds fine to me” or “my room doesn’t have problems” – rarely if ever having compared with appropriate room treatment in place. Some people do use DSP to address some room effects, evening out the response, though of course no DSP can fix issues like early reflections or bass cancellations. As for aesthetics, you can get panels either coloured to blend with your wall decor, or “art” panels with your own choice of paintings or photographs printed on them, which can greatly help with appearance.
