Small speakers for small rooms, really?
That’s what I thought too.
The reality is rather different 
A nice and educational video :
→ Speaker Size vs Room Size: Looking At The Science - AcousticsInsider.com - YouTube
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Definitely lining this one up for later, thanks for posting. Having a bit of a dilemma re potential speaker upgrade and this sounds really useful - cheers 
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Hi Thomas, very interesting to hear the difference between the 2 scenarios, but to be honest it was the echo version, that did it for me all the way 
ATB Peter
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This is really funny, same here
Each time I “tweaked” my system with acoustic treatment, another 555PS, the EtherRegen, etc. I always felt somewhat the same thing: cleaner but thinner sound.
I suppose there is always some kind of ear/brain adjustment. For me, it takes at least a week 
I tried once or twice “going back” : removing the second 555PS, removing the EtherRegen and even removing the bass traps behind the speakers.
When I go back, I realize how “noisy” , “grainy”, etc. the sound was before.
And the funny thing is that I did enjoyed this supposedly “fuller sound”, which was, in fact, “noisy” and “grainy”
I no longer seek to understand it…
And that’s why A/B testing is a delicate thing : what I like isn’t necessarily objectively/technically “better”.
Do we really like a certain type of sound or are we simply used to it?
I suppose there are a few papers on the AES website related to psychoacoustics and sound perception that could explain that.
….I suspect most people look upon us as The King in ‘The Emperor’s new clothes’. Hey ho we have to live with ourselves 
Very happy with my sound and can’t even be bothered to try to go back to the beginning with my room. Something I’m sure the spiders in there entirely support. Just enjoy and stop looking at waterfall graphs Thomas 
Best Peter
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I am coming to the same conclusion the room treatment is definitely worth doing but you will never get it perfect…I measured with REW which does look a little alarming…I set up a filter which gave a much better frequency response…results…hmmm both good and bad. I have now after much experimentation decided that just using one simple parametric filter manually configured just to tackle the low frequencies…is the way to go. I am looking at the waterfall and applying a curve as accurately as I can to achieve a suitable slope. I just need to get Roon to play the REW tone to check things are working…as intended
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The treatment that I added…when checking the original plot…has massively improved the decay times…which inturn makes my single filter simpler and less aggressive…will let you know how I get on with checking the results through roon and rew…
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Be careful with Roon’s Convolution you easily blow your speakers… 
The problem with that is that his advice is SPECIFIC to dedicated mixing sudios, and not intended for domestic living rooms used for general listening.
First, the logic of not limiting low end extension is predicated on FULL room acoustic treatment and this FULLY controlling all the room modes. If you don’t have this in a mixing studio… well why haven’t you done this yet, it’s vital part of a dedicated mixing studio! In a domestic room in a house having that amount of bass trap and other acoustic treatment isn’t always viable.
Second, in terms of achieving 105db+ in a critically damped room such as a mixing studio, he’s completely right; however very few of us have critically damped listening rooms (because they sound acoustically dead and that isn’t the best environment for day-to-day living), so again the advice is very much targeted on dedicated mixing sudios.
I’ve no argument with what he says… for mixing studios. Just don’t expect things to work quite that way in a real domestic environment.
I agree with this post. The video was suffocatingly elementally dry.
How long was that piece of string again??
I see it a bit differently.
I believe Jesco presents things in an interesting way.
Most, if not all, of what he says applies to any room or environment, not only mastering rooms. It’s a matter of perspective.
He points out a simple reality: the room is both the first piece and the weakest part of an audio system.
Whether the room is treated or not, this leads us to a choice:
Do I want, or not, to fill my room with frequencies under ~80Hz ?
If the answer is yes, then bigger (or many) drivers will do a better job.
If the answer is no, there are many choices: DSP, less capable speakers, less capable amp, etc.
Ultimately, it is a rhetorical question.
Where lies the problem, the room or the speakers?
Hi Thomas, hmm…… my PMC Fact 12s manage to go down to 25 Hz with 2x5.5 inch woofers (equals1x8 inch driver). Considering the challenge I’ve had to smoothen out the bass just enough to not kick too much up audibly into to the midrange, I dare not think what would have happened, if say I had introduced say 2x8 inch drivers or more into the volume of my mid sized listening room.
I simply think we have to consider and be real about, how much pressurisation our rooms can withstand and still have a fighting chance of ending up with an enjoyable listening experience, this taking the sheer required volume of bass absorption into account.
I convinced myself the other day that I could play my bass pots flat, but now found that the best compromise lead by some tricky bass loaded tracks, is to actually use the -3DB setting and enjoy as is.
Admittedly my head is full of Covid after a positive diagnosis Tuesday, so am maybe not the best judge pt of how the system is sounding I guess. I shall not digress, but this is the second time I’m down with Covid ( 1st was January last year) and after being double jabbed and having been taking 3000 iu of Vitamin D daily the last 15 months, I’m now beginning to feel a bit sorry for myself. If you ask my wife she will tell you……
Man Flu does exist 
Best Peter
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The problem i found with the first untreated part was the mushy sound made everything sound artificial . With the treated room vocals were much clearer and easy to hear and understand, and backing musicians easier to follow.
The thing is that that room signature will impose itself on everything you play , studio recordings , live concerts , outdoor recordings , etc. That signature will drown out the natural acoustic captured on the recording.
I appreciate that to treat a room fully is something most would find visually unacceptable , but that doesn’t mean it cannot be done successfully.
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His conclusion remains predicated on having a FULLY acoustically treated room all the way down to around 25Hz, and that’s simply not practical for most domestic spaces.
The question isn’t just rhetorical:
1 Do you really want to spend many thousands of pounds on bass traps, and have at least 30% of your walls covered in bass traps and another 5 to 10% covered with other acoustic panels?
2 Do you need to listen at 95dB (105dB peaks) with the concomitant risk to your hearing?
If the answer to either of these questions is no, then his conclusion is not valid for your circumstances.
By the way I really do understand the physics involved.
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I never doubted it 
Not sure I heard Jesco mentioning mastering rooms treated down to 25 Hz, in that particular video, nor listening at 95dB SPL. Neither did I raise these questions.
Most of Jesco’s audience has a limited budget and therefore uses essentially porous absorbers for their room treatment.
To treat down to 25 Hz with a porous absorber, we need a thickness of roughly (343/25)/4 = 3,4 meters…
As I understand it, it is more about speakers’ choice than room treatment.
And for that matter, we see a variety of tastes and choices, which is nice; full-range speakers in untreated rooms to tiny speakers in treated rooms.
It all comes down to personal taste and choices, and I hope you understand I’m not advocating one against another, or saying one is better than another 
The thread is dedicated to acoustics in general and room treatment in particular, and trying to help and share with others about those not so trivial topics 
He mentioned below 50Hz and he mentioned listening at 105dB peak, in fact the ability to reach 105dB peak SPL at very low frequencies was the mainstay of his argument (as shown in the graphs he displayed to justify his conclusions concerning transducer size - which he confuses with drive unit size). He also failed to mention that a smaller cone with longer throw can equal or exceed the performance of a larger cone with shorter throw.
I didn’t specify porous absorbers - I don’t put bass traps in the middle of the room, so for bass traps, I recommend pressure mode absorbers rather than flow mode (i.e. porous absorbers).
We were also both down with covid, twice. Wish you a speedy recovery, it is not nice…
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The PMC Fact 12 are fine speakers! No doubt about their performance in terms of low end. And they look nice. 
PMC was one of the brands I considered when changing speakers before narrowing the choice to Focal and Magico.
In terms of “problems”, nothing really changed with the new speakers (now 2 x 9 inches). Most of my problems are between 55Hz and 78Hz, and I mostly listen at 75 to 85 dB SPL. What the bigger drivers brought is a nice control all the way down to 30Hz, and they didn’t exacerbate existing problems.
To be honest, I was worried about those big 9 inch drivers. I bought the Magicos because my dealer in Zurich (Sound Loft) agreed to take them back if I wasn’t satisfied. I believe he was pretty sure I wouldn’t complain about more room issues. The guy not only is friendly, he knows his job 
My previous speakers sounded nice down to 60Hz, but were able to go down to 30-35Hz. But those JMR Abscise were nice speakers for the price; fantastic for voices and chamber music. But not for a big orchestra 
What do you mean by flat pots. Have you a “manageable” crossover like in some Focals or Tannoys?
Sorry to hear that Peter 
I hope you’re alright and that it won’t be too serious. I wish you a quick and complete recovery!
I got sick myself last year. In fact, it’s been one year exactly (October 2020). I had a pretty rough week in bed… didn’t recover completely. Not as strong as before. In terms of climbing grades, I lost 1-2 letters 
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Hi Thomas, thank you for your well wishing Sir. 
Yes my speakers have pots built into the xovers at the bottom speaker terminal rear plates. They enable the tweeters +/- 1.5 Db and the woofers +/- 3Db to somewhat ‘tune’ them to ears and room. Very handy really but you do loose a little bit of body on deep male voicing as a result of tweaking it down. I don’t actually know from what frequency they drop off (a gentle slope I assume) or for that matter increase ATB Peter
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Wishing you a swift and complete recovery Peter.
Rob
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