I must say room treatment is phenomenal - no way am I joking and I will attach pictures to illustrate.
The grey rectangles are called Soffits and I have them range limited. These absorb room mode and standing waves, wow, after that… what the low frequencies mask become revealed, the sound opens up with detail and decay even with high frequency tracks like Four Seasons and that artist who sings Angels (after Smashing Pumpkins guy dying).
Then.. adding the Alphas with slats by seating position- the clarity of high frequencies click. Honestly guys to get your sound as the recording engineer intends, your room needs treatment - but judiciously!
Also, on a much cheaper point, I know many more do this, isolation pods under components. I’ll picture that too.
Jon
PS The objective test is using REW and a good microphone and ChatGPT 5 to analyse frequency decay times and all that esoteric babble - immune to electricity quality variations due to time of day!!
My listening room is my lounge, so I accept the compromise of the look I want against slightly worse sound. I wouldn’t enjoy listening to music in your room because of how it looks. You probably wouldn’t enjoy my room either, but that is ok as long as we are both happy with our choices.
And that’s the answer to why I have not done this. I would never under any circumstances want a dedicated listening room. Certainly wouldn’t want anything which looked like that and am more than happy with the compromises made to have music in a happy shared living space.
Of course that’s fine, yet bizarre as I thought this was a site dedicated to high end music reproduction and enjoyment - Naim being the backdrop. What I share above way exceeds item upgrades as it deals with issues many are blind (deaf) to. (And wouldn’t know unless they heard/experienced!)
I am sure there are sites focused on home decor, so each to their own.
I agree. However, there are things that can be done to help a room’s acoustics and improve a room that has issues with the sympathetic arrangement of furnishings. Wall hangings such as tapestries/quilts can make an attractive but effective barrier to unwanted reflections of sound. So can well-placed artwork.
If that’s judicious I hate to think what going the full Monty would look like. It’s fine if you have a dedicated listening room and want to get the best from your system, but in a normal living room it would look ridiculous.
When we bought our house I made sure the sitting room was the right size and shape and that the basic acoustics were good. We’ve been here over 30 years with various systems and have never used any acoustic treatment. We have a concrete floor, brick walls, heavy doors, a nice wool fitted carpet, upholstered furniture and heavy curtains, and the sound is excellent, with no weird stuff going on. Various forum members have visited over the years, someone from Naim has visited and everyone has been happy with the sound. So there is no way I need any fancy room conditioning and to suggest I do and that it’s some sort of universal panacea is just silly.
And talking of silly, I tried some IsoAcoustics once and all they achieved was to make the sound shrill and etched. Natural it wasn’t. Naim go to great lengths to design their equipment to work as one, and that includes the isolating feet. While the IsoAcoustics may change the sound for better or worse, one thing they certainly do is make the Naim equipment look very silly indeed, tottering in the air like overfed pugs.
If you could hide the hole in the roof and put off the black central panel, it would look much better I feel.
Glad the sound is great now. It’s the goal indeed.
Whilst many resist the idea or for domestic reasons can’t or won’t, there are plenty of threads by those who have “discovered”room treatment. This is probably the main one:. The Listening Room Reality
I’m absolutely dedicated to high end music reproduction but I look at your room and can’t help but think, as others are beginning to note, that the only reason room treatment has had a profound impact for you is that other aspects are, to put it politely, not where they should be.
I have an imperfect room, an incredibly simple system, great sound and, having had my room measured, concluded that I could get greater improvement from better valves than I ever could from room treatment.
The hi fi is in our living room. It’s nicely decorated with art, mid-century modern Danish furniture . . . and the Magico speakers and 2 Fraim racks certainly are significant but they at least fit with the decor.
Room treatment panels and freestanding cylinders and the like would destroy the aesthetic of the room.
You’ve only shown the rear and a a bit of the right side wall of your room…
It does seem that many people are not interested in room treatment, even in rooms sometimes shown in some people’s posts suggest that if nothing else early reflections are almost certainly limiting sound clarity. As for your thread question, reasons are obviously varied, from aesthetic or domestic acceptability to simple belief that treatment would have no benefit even though they may not have tried, and all manner of arguments between. And of course people’s tastes differ in both sound and rooms acceptability, though in terms of aesthetics panels do not have to look like yours, but can be colour keyed to blend in as part of the stricture of the room, or can have any picture of choice printed on them to hang as mounted art or photographs. And on aesthetics, though nothing to do with acoustic treatment, racks of electronics can even be hidden inside cabinets.
We used to have pillows, triangles, wall hanging rugs and acoustic panels. Our living room looked like Stonehenge. We took out everything and chose equipment that worked will in our LR without treatment. Less is more.
Sound reply, thanks Innocent_Bystander - your comment also matches your monicker!
Yes the first reflections side walls and ceiling hsve all been addressed, I will attach a couple more pictures. The last thing I am going to do is put the right 244 full range above the left (making the first reflection far speaker twice the size) and putting a 100mm 1d Alpha 60 cm by 120 cm on this first reflection near speaker.
Now we can all justify why we alter whatever acoustically and I have seen many tweaks folks have done, but your listening room is your best and worst friend. Chat GPT 5 gave me a figure way over six figures (£108,000) for the MSRP of the electronics, cables, speakers, stands, separate spur - everything but room treatment and my tolerant partner gave me full range of the lounge if she had the rest of the house and garden. Suited me.
So if I spent so much, then why not hear it. I am sorry guys even if you heard the Statement in a hifi show, there are room modes they most likely frustratingly cannot address.
Get yourselves a good mic, use the free REW app and see. But yes each to their own.
PS it is judicious, because I messed up with foam originally- to my partners chagrin as getting off foam glue is where I procrastinate! The height of the rear wall Alphas was also a key alteration, as being on the same level of the black Gothams interfered horizontal diffusion, ths sound became clearer but the sound stage width truncated.
Yes, but some of us have done exactly that. Did I hear a difference? Yes. Was it “better”? Arguable. Was it a big difference? Absolutely not. Cost to achieve that difference? Far less than any single component in my system.
Why then would I not do this?
Because I took huge care choosing my components. My system is the best I’ve ever heard it already. Because I live in my house and my living room with other people. Because a lot of this stuff is fugly. Because audiophile or not, life is far too short to chase incremental improvement when I could just be enjoying the music eight hours a day anyway.
Great to see your update on the success you have had.
Also, doing room treatment in a lounge situation is very tricky to get the aesthetic just right and to your liking. If I may say so, to my eyes, given your previously reported starting position you have done a fantastic job!
Personally, I always had a problem with what the GIK Acoustics cloud mounts do to the perceived ‘height’ of a treated ceiling. Recognising of course that the velocity trap technology needs the gap to work more effectively at low frequencies. But in my own case - a dedicated media room - I simply could not accept the reduction in height - and as a result have suffered the acoustic consequences!
Please accept my apologies in advance, but I am unlikely to post any more on this thread (unless you message me directly) as I feel you don’t need to persuade me of the effectiveness of what you have done.
Naim gears if setup right, given full stack of hi end products, it should sound very natural and balanced, that ‘LFs mask’ shouldn’t happen.
As HH said Naim gears are very sensitive to what they sit on, and the feet are part of the sound. Now seeing all those Isoacoustics feet and platform I could imagine the Naim sound has substantially changed, and no bass! – based on my previous experience with Iso.
If OP like many HF I sincerely recommend Japanese gears – Esoteric, Accuphase etc all very good at that – I went from those. Now that’s a rabbit hole just to squeeze as much HF as from your Naim.
I would only do room treatment when all my gears match with my taste, setup right but constantly don’t feel right with reflections.
