This is exactly why Paul won't promote the review and data Erin Harding produced on the Aspen loudspeakers, while promoting a less objective review (still valid, albeit less) from Jay's Audio Lab. The performance doesn't match the price.
@ i am not have a dig at anyone, all I said is a professional is simply someone who gets paid for what they do as their “profession”. It is no guarantee that they are good at it or can be trusted. although if they weren’t then they would soon be struggling. I recently had 2 companies come around to advise/quote on a repair to my house, I got 2 wildly differing opinions on what needed to be done; one said there was damp that needed to be sorted, the other said there was no damp and everything was fine. Both were professional companies, but which one was correct?
For /smaller/ rooms, it's hard to beat the classic LEDE (Live end/dead end) approach where yes, indeed, the speakers go into a dead end. Putting speakers into properly built & aligned soffits is a big step forward as well. The objectives here are removing those detail-smearing early reflections and cabinet diffractions/movements. How well all this works also depends on what happens at the back wall live end -- targeted diffusion, various LF traps, even a touch of ideally focused reflection can impart pleasant sonic wonder. When all is done properly things such as vocals seem as if you could reach out and feel the contours of the singer's face. Pin-point imaging left to right, front to back, and even up and down (classical music ensembles properly mic'd) is possible. The speaker wall simply disappears and you're looking/hearing into the original concert hall with whatever dimensions it happens to be. I've built two such spaces, each rather amazing, with multiple people astonished at what they hear. Because of the imaging, one listener kept getting up to examine the speaker end, wondering where I'd hidden the center channel speaker (no such beast), then claimed I'd lied about *not* having a center channel! Some audiophile rooms make me a little crazy because of how much resolution/detail is smeared away -- often wonderful impact and spectral balance but lacking in the imaging and detail I'm used to. If you have the real-estate, a much larger room can be successful without the treatments noted (reflection issues are far enough out in time so that they're less damaging). But, still, I'd want to do much careful listening before mixing in such rooms. "Mixing to a target environment" is a nice idea, but without the best resolution and room balance from the get-go this can be a moving target. Give me a properly treated room with a good monitor chain and I can mix/master for *any* final delivery -- because I know exactly what's going on.
I have a 10’X16’ room and the speakers are too close to the side walls. I noticed echo off the walls. I got a set of absorption panels on my side walls next to the speakers and that solved my problem. The music sounds so much better.
Very well spoken, Paul has pointed out the difference in objective of listening music, acoustic professionals look for the numbers like RT-60 hoping to bring it down as low as possible to 0.2sec at different spots in a studio, but we don't need that tight requirement for our lively music enjoyment
Since switching from mainly listening to headphones to now spending the majority of my time listening on a 2 channel system I now realise just how important the room interaction is and how it can affect the sound I’m hearing. The differences I hear in my room with speaker placement alone are huge.
The way my room is set up, I prefer no sound absorption on the back wall. My speakers are extremely revealing, and the back wall provides just enough slap reverb to color the sound perfectly. No two rooms require the same treatment.
I agree with most everything of what you say. I was an engineer for years. Studios are usually not meant to reproduce a particular listening environment. They are designed to be as neutral in a sense as possible so as an engineer I can rely on what I’m hearing to be what is actually there. Personally I don’t like these perfect rooms. I like character in a room to a small degree. I simply, as many do, listen to the end product in as many environs as feasible. On an iPhone, on small speakers, in a car, a high fi setup, mono, a friend’s average living room etc. All to make sure the music translates reasonably as intended. But more important to me as a listener is that what I’m hearing excites me. Years ago there was a room I had the pleasure of working in and this room as well as the control room, both had produced some very notable records. Most engineers and audiophiles could hear a record and say yep I know that room. This was a long time ago and the control room walls were filled with cut up surf boards, the back of the control room was reasonably live. You just knew that sound. In the ensuing years after that, studios were being designed LEDE. The first thing I noticed was they all started sounding the same. And everybody loved it. But all this was missing character those earlier recordings had. These days as an old fart, I am currently, this year, cross my fingers, building a new home studio. And I will consult with GIK acoustics certainly. But as usual I hope to end up with a compromise room. One that is reasonably free of standing waves etc but one that has its own character. Thank you for your honest video.
Paul summed that nicely, in his closing statement:- “It’s all a matter of personal taste”. It has taken me more years than I care to think about, to assemble an audio system that reproduces music the way I like to hear it. Note, I did not say treat a room to reproduce music the way I prefer to hear it. The nature of my work means that I’m frequently on the move. Different house, different town, different state. My hi-fi always accompanies me. So I’ve experienced listening to that hi-fi in numerous listening environments. Different shapes, dimensions and construction materials. Without exception, it is always my hi-fi which dictates the sonic character of what I listen to, not the room. If, like mine, your hi-fi has to fight for it’s right to be in the family lounge, then in my experience and humble opinion, the ‘stuff of life’, rugs, cushions, curtains,carpets, pets, partners, children and sofas are more than sufficient to tame the RT60 levels. If you are fortunate enough to have a dedicated listening room. A moderately sized room containing just your hi-fi and listening chair, maybe subtle room treatment would benefit. All room treatment actually does, is alters the ambience of your room. Whether you find that altered ambiance preferable, is surely down to personal taste. Don’t get room anxiety. You wouldn’t treat your room in order to sit and chat with your wife and children, would you?
Hi.I pretty much agree with you here.Soft furnishings etc usually do a pretty good job without absorbing too much power.Low frequencies can be more troublesome,but given the amount of treatment that may be required to handle those,they'll take up alot of space and look pretty unsightly for everyday living. A "thumbs up" and Merry Christmas.
Strangely enough, I recently replaced my 2 & 3 seater leather recliner sofas for a 2 & 3 seater fabric, but static pair. They killed the room. Asborbed too much bass. They were here for the long hall, wife’s choice. I invested in another sub, located centrally at the rear of my lounge. That restored equilibriu! Thanks for your positive response. I’ve made similar comments previously, tends to provoke a lot of esoteric negativity. You have a great new year, filled with positivity and good music.55?
@@howardskeivys4184Happy new year to you and family too. You're right that there's too much negativity on social media. OK for differing views,but qualified ones made constructively is the way forward,I feel. I have too have had things set up in different rooms and fortunately found more consistency than variety.Given that our experiences with live bands are very rarely acoustically optimised ie in bars,halls etc,if attaining realism is the goal,then it should be OK to have a less than textbook environment for our systems to work in.Most rooms will have a combination of absorbents aswell as bare surfaces and books etc.Bass can be harder to deal with in some environments.
Hi !! You touch the crux of the problem when you said ' mixing studios are steriles and I don't want that in my living room '. Too much of a good thing can be detrimental, like it is the case with acoustic treatment. If there obvious resonance problem in your listening room, then of course we should make a concious effort to damp it. In my living room, I did it with furnitures, plants and also a nice big rug because of the hardwood floor. It is now working quite fine without having to invest thousands in acoustic treatment. Thanks Paul !!
hi all: As someone who deals with room acoustics professionally both in the studio and in professional or home listening rooms, in the end we have to think about what the goal is that we want to achieve... and indeed the goals are different and they all have different limitations My goal for example is to always try to ideally combine the objective and subjective side of the room's acoustics and the final result in relation to the listener If I simplify the matter when I design acoustics for a listening room only, the only thing that really matters to me is the subjective side of the listener (from a psychoacoustic point of view) the changes will be made from an objective point of view and I will try to adapt as much as possible to what the specific listener hears (different people have specific demands and desires as well as they really hear in terms of Technically a little different (topic in itself) The subject of psychoacoustics is a subject in itself and one can talk about it for many hours... When we plan a mixing room it is different from a dedicated mastering room because the purpose is slightly different For example, a mixing room will be designed almost exclusively according to the objective result as much as possible and I will give less weight (but very important) to the psychoacoustic side and the preferences of the person himself Because we are all human and are usually quite similar in our preferences, when planning each room acoustically, there will usually be a balance between absorption and diffusion of the sound in the room, as well as a large acceptance of the objective and subjective side of the "correct" result If you have specific questions on the subject, I will be happy to try to answer them😁
Disagree. I thought I knew what I liked in a number of areas -- wine, food, acoustics -- but others with more experience helped me understand what else I could be tasting or listening for. Taste can be educated -- that's why we're not all drinking soda and eating at McDonalds. Of course, some people are stubborn and don't want to learn. For those folks, you're right -- it doesn't matter what others say.
I recently went overboard on acoustic absorption panels. ~85% coverage. Corners, front wall, ceiling, first reflection, side walls behind the listening position, no coffee table, extra rug over the carpet. It’s fantastic, but definitely too much. I’ve decided that it really needs to be diffusers behind the speakers on the front wall
" ... fantastic but definitely too much" Care to elaborate? I suspect your "85% coverage" may be too thin, not broadband enough. Mere speculation, however ... I'd suggest the diffusion would be put to much better use in front of the speakers, ie., rear wall or side wall. I'd not recommend your next step be diffusion behind the loudspeakers.
@ in the front corners I made a pair of modular panels. Each corner consists of five 8’ height and 15” wide panels that are 10” deep (three batts thick plus air gap). Total corner panel size is 8’ tall x 6.5’ wide. The ceiling has a modular panel that measures 8’ x 7’. It is one batt deep, but is hung from the ceiling with a 12” air gap and a gigantic piece of MLV hanging from the ceiling above the panel. Each left and right side wall has five panels, 4’h x 15”w x 4”d. The room is 13’w x 17’d x 9’h on an open floor plan and the back of the room extends another 25’ where the dining room and kitchen are located. Previous iteration was ~20% coverage. What I hear now is more clear and precise, but less lively. There were some wall reflections that were positively impacting the sound. (Crazy, I know). If I had higher quality speakers I may feel different. These R7’s use iron core inductors… For whatever reason the speakers sounded better with less absorption, despite the room sounding miles better and the bass being miles better. I do notice I run 4-6 extra clicks of volume now too. The diffusion panels will be another experiment, I’m sure I’ll try them in different places. But my thought rn is that you don’t necessarily want to deaden directly behind the speaker in a room this quiet 🤷🏼♂️
@@Tsxtasy1 I'll respond with more detail shortly. However, simply facing any bass trapping w/visqueen or equivalent will limit absorption to below 600hz or so. Or any method of low-passing the bass traps will help liveliness.
Most rooms need help in the bass response. To control bass you need mass and lots of it. Large panels that are atleast a foot thick. Most rooms that you need to live in don't have space for that. The only available space is often the front wall behind the speakers. The catch 22 is you really want dispersion there instead. It opens the sound stage and adds depth. For dispersion to work you also need distance from the listening position so it's ideal. Many companies make thick bass traps with dispersion on the fronts
Pro audio, domestic audio acoustics - the goal is the same. You want to hear the system and not the room. Decent studio control rooms obliterate most domestic listening spaces - but some domestic listeners are waking up to that. There is no percentage in audio equipment manufacturers telling people that they need to spend money on room treatment - not least because it costs a fraction of what equipment costs. For clarity, studio control rooms are an entirely different environment to the actual recording spaces.
The ultimate acoustic absorption results in an anechoic chamber - if you've ever been inside one of those, with the door closed, you'll know why you don't want your living room to be like that. It's a deeply weird feeling and a great relief to leave. A normal silent room is lovely but an anechoic chamber feels quite unnatural - a totally dead room. That said I've never experienced a good 2 channel system in such a space - perhaps it is the perfect hifi experience but I like a room I can also enjoy when the audio is off.
A mixing room only needs to be learned and understood by a mix engineer. Once an engineer knows how the room sounds vs. translates to everything else, it doesn't matter what the room sounds like.
@anotheryoutubed Definently wrong. Mix on actual speakers set up properly is by far the definetive best way, period. And using headphones still would not have anything at all to say for a recording in a really bad room so your comment makes no sense either way.
@@Oystein87 again, doesn't matter what you mix on as long as it translates. You're not telling me I'm wrong, you're telling mix engineers that mix hit records from all genres and artists they're wrong. I'm literally just repeating the messages. You're a dolt.
Thing is that if it sounds good on a high-end system if will automaticly sound as good as it can on lower end systems too.. Even a little wireless BT speaker. So everyone should care a bit more about good recordings
studios and professional audio environments are completely different from home listening, i work in many studios, very different set of requirements to your house or listening room
Paul strongly suggested that Octave Records setup is like a house setup with sub-optimal acoustics. In my opinion mastering in an environment designed to mimic audiophile setups could indeed risk skewing the mix towards that specific setup’s characteristics. The sterile studio environment exists precisely to avoid this kind of bias. A well-mastered track should sound good in a wide range of environments, not just in one particularly sub-optimal room.
Acoustics, as a branch of physics, deals with the behavior of waves in gases, solids, and liquids. Through mathematics, we can predict and understand these interactions with remarkable precision. While an audiophile like Paul may not delve into the technical details of wave propagation and reflection as a physicist would, they bring an equally valuable perspective-an intuitive sense of what sounds most enjoyable to them. Paul captured this distinction well, emphasizing that the objectives of audiophiles and studio professionals are fundamentally different. Studio engineers aim to ensure that the recorded sound is as accurate as possible, often relying on acoustically controlled environments or monitor headphones to achieve this. By contrast, audiophiles focus on creating a listening experience that feels vibrant and emotionally engaging, tailored to their personal tastes. Paul suggests that mastering rooms for studios like Octave Records could benefit from setups that mimic audiophile environments, even if this means less-than-ideal acoustics. His argument is rooted in the idea that mastering should reflect the listening conditions of end consumers. While intriguing, I find this perspective questionable. The primary purpose of a mastering studio is to provide a neutral, controlled space that eliminates room-induced coloration. This ensures that the mix translates accurately across diverse playback systems and environments. Introducing reflective surfaces, as Paul advocates, might enrich the sound within a specific room, but it introduces variability. A mix that sounds beautiful in one reflective environment might lose its magic-or worse, sound imbalanced-in another. By tailoring the mix to the unique characteristics of a specific room, there’s a risk of creating a product that doesn’t hold up universally. The “perfect” sound in that room could be the result of reflections aligning in just the right way-a serendipity that won’t exist elsewhere. Ultimately, the sterile, acoustically optimized studio setup is not a limitation but a necessity. It provides a reliable foundation for crafting mixes that sound great in as many settings as possible. While reflective surfaces and audiophile-style setups can offer insights into how a mix might sound in a real-world scenario, they should complement the mastering process, not define it. By minimizing variables, studio professionals preserve the integrity of the recording, ensuring it resonates with audiences everywhere.
I listened to several studio’s (and worked). Paul is right. A studio system is like a microscope. Which is considered necessary for getting everything dialed in properly. But that is not the same as a system meant for reproduction. It is a bit like dancing…for learning the steps is not the same as actually dancing..
A recording studio is not a listening room. A control room is designed for the recording engineer to hear the live room and not mask problems in the recording. Very few acousticians even design studios, most work in noise control. I don't even know if any of the ones that design studios have ever consulted on a listening room. A mastering room is typically designed to be close to an ideal listening room. Which is one of the many reasons mastering should be done another person in a another room for the formats the recording is to be released. Each format should have a different master optimized for that format. If you are "mastering" in the same control room what is the point? Why not do the mastering in the final mix down. Mastering for the most part is being skipped to save costs. That being said the only places I ever heard believable playback of recordings in studios. It has only happened a few times in my life and I work in recording, live and design of audio systems for 40 years now. I can tell the people that have experienced believable playback by the way they describe it, it not what people expect it to be like. The idea of recording in the room that matches the final listening room is pretty much a Dolby Atmos concept. Not the home version, the professional mix rooms. Those translate between locations very well, the problem is the room a built the exact standards, takes hundreds of hours in design, thousands of hours to build, and hundreds more hours the test and adjust till they are right. So that starts at about $500,000 plus the cost of room you put it in. The old BBC guidelines had the control rooms sized and treated to match an average UK living room. The problem is that acoustics is an afterthought in most cases. Even studios are shoehorned into a space that is the wrong size, shape and volume for what they are trying to do. For a control the questions are, what type of recording is being done in the room, music, film, broadcast, pop, classical, surround, ambisonics, Atmos. What equipment will be in the room? how many people will be in the room? That determines the size of the room, now I need to find ratios that fit in the building. Now where are the door going to be? support columns? and so on, will any of that have to move? All this is calculated before first shovel of dirt is moved, it is inspected and measured during the construction. One person with a better idea can ruin the whole project. Calculations will tell you the best case, it will aways be worse than calculated. In small rooms many are over treated with absorption. Many rooms are not acoustically symmetrical if you cannot correct that, find another room. Geometric solutions are my preferred starting point, if I can't move walls, then diffusion is my next choice since it can reduce uncontrolled reflections without excessively reducing reverb times. Think of acoustic treatment like EQ that can only make cuts, absorbers is most your highs, diffusors are more mid range, leaving drywall , doors and windows are your bass absorption. Not an exact analogy because they all overlap but it helps some people get the idea. More like a parametric eq. absorbers will cut the high frequencies first. The common 1" thick panel and lightweight drapes is like turning down the treble knob, if I have glass everywhere and hard floors it might be exactly what is needed. Thicker panels will increase the bandwidth of the absorption, to get down to the bass they have to be tricker than what is practical in most rooms.
I'd be really interested to hear what you consider "believable playback." Do you have a high end listening room where you listen to music yourself? I often wonder how many of the best music producers listen on a system that is as well set up and that presents music as beautifully as what I have created in my home. Neither my Grado RS2e's nor my Focal Bathys even come close to the amount of detail and realism. I'm doing sound for a live swing band tonight and often hear people refer to "being there with the band." I wonder how many of those people have actually been on stage with a band before. I know exactly what an unmic'd drum set sound like because I am on stage with one at least a couple of times a month. I'm never going to get the same detail and realism in a 4,000 square foot dance hall that I can get in my listening room. It's a different thing. But a trumpet sounds like a trumpet and a sax like a sax and a huge drum hits like a huge drum would hit in a much bigger room. I also went from listening to a friend play in a local symphony to my home listening room listening to the same composition. I think that the recording of the Cincinnati Pops playing it, in the hall they were in, with very good production had a lot of aspects that were better than listening in old hall where I saw the live symphony. They did some acoustic panels behind the band, but the hall had some acoustic issues. I also think there's a lot more affect from absorption than just tone control like you're suggesting. The panel on my ceiling, for instance, really brought the sound stage down and made instruments come from a much more precise location. That wasn't tone control.
Regarding recording studio mix rooms, over 90% of the music at present is played either on Bluetooth, portable speakers or earbuds and cars. The industry is not going to Prioritize the process for 10% of the market.😢
Whether a listening space requires absorption or diffraction depends on the purpose of the room, but mainly the size of the room. Small rooms, as found in most modern houses, require mostly absoption. Placing thick panels behind the speakers, at a distance from the walls, helps reduce the boominess that would otherwise present. In a bigger room, where you can place the speakers far away from front and side walls, the need become less important. Mostly you need absorption to the side walls were reflections would bring the reflected midrange sound to the listener. This is because the time difference of sound arrival will blur the sound. Talking about diffusion, you need space to implement it. And large size diffusers to be effective at midrange frequencies. And space between the diffusers and the listener. And one final comment. I find that the companies that make diffusers tell you you need them. And companies making absorption panels tell you you need absorption.
People don't ALL hear the same . Our audio group has done A-B comparisons of cables & while the majority prefer ONE , I usually prefer another . Treat your room for your hearing .
That's not true @ person who wrote to Paul. All the real experts who go around building music rooms, cathedrals and other places will never recommend absorbers on the front wall. 1) They would recommend only diffusers on the front wall. 2) Even on the first reflection points on the side walls, it's a combination of ab-fusers and 1-D diffusers. 3) Only in the back walls and the ceiling first reflection points, they would recommend broadband absorbers. Lastly, if you had an unltd budget, you'd cover the entire room with activated carbon absorbers and then cover the room again with Quadratic Residue Diffusers (QRD). Vicoustic and the likes are not experts. They just sell products and have an "engineer" recommend the products that they make. For e.g.: ask anyone who builds real cinema rooms/ theatres. They will tell you that bass traps (corner) are nonsense. What they would recommend instead is to budget for 60-70% of the surface area to be treated with broadband absorbers that measure well between 80-200 Hz.
The topic of the video is not cathedrals, theaters, cinemas, tracking rooms or other spaces where instruments are being played. It's about studio control rooms which have a very different approach to acoustics.
All these rooms listed have completely different acoustical requirements. There is exceptions to every one of them. Typically we want sound to reflect out into music rooms, auditoriums, halls, and churches. However I have needed absorbers to be installed the front of cathedrals, nobody calculated the acoustics by hand when these places were built, and they were designed for a completely different service. The acoustical have requirements changed over time. Small room acoustics is very different from large room acoustics and without either knowing the construction of the room or having trustable well documented measurements any rule of thumb is just a guess which just a likely to make thing worse. There is nothing wrong with corner traps in a small room if they are needed and unlike many DIY treatments they have documented acoustical specifications made by Riverbank. It is just another tool. In the typical US construction of sticks and 1/2" gypsum board the low frequency absorption dominated by the construction. Block, brick or concrete construction will have far more low frequency issues.
Disagree? Well.. Depends.. Many agree and many disagree. Depends what real experience they have with music listening experience at home vs just depending a room to "make it sound good in general" etc..
I feel the same way about class D amplifiers. I have a Nad M33 amp, and it may be "perfect" but it sounds a bit too sterile and lean to me. I have had other class D amps going all the way back to the Bel Canto 200.2 and they could never quite float my boat.
I am working on a daily basis in different recording studios and different postproduction studios (these are not necessarily equal) and running a label for classical music. Mixing and mastering a recording only for audiophiles creates a very small audience and saying ‘I don’t care how my recording sounds on earbuds’ is frankly said, quite arrogant. You want to have your recording translate on every system, to have the musicians represented on cheap and expensive playback systems. That’s your goal as an engineer 😊 And that’s why you need an uncolored monitoring system in the studio that you understand and trust. It’s just that simple.
Paul gives reasonable advice, for that kind of sound it is good general advice. the room i have my speakers in are used for many things. so i had some speakers in there and no acoustic treatment, then i added something, and kept going over the years. now it pretty much full with absorption, my room limitation require more treatment and my preference for a dead room lead me to this point. an i know it limits the realistic reproduction of some music but i struck a compromise, some has the circumstances to find the balance in the opposite direction. and to keep on topic, my deepest absorbers are on first reflection.
Great point Paul. To an audio engineer, an anechoic chamber might be the perfect room. Guaranteed it would not sound so good. High quality electrostatic headphones are likely the best way to put undistorted sound from 2 channels into 2 ears. But I don't like it as much as listening to my very average room with a wonderful sound stage illusion behind the speakers.
Let's not exaggerate. An anechoic chamber is used by some, not all, speaker designers/engineers. Recording studios and mastering labs are not anechoic chambers. Room acoustics has its place in a well rounded audio playback system, surprised Paul has an opposing viewpoint, although in one of his recent videos he had an acoustic panel leaning against a huge glass window in an untreated room with a lot of huge glass windows, a complete disaster for room acoustics, perhaps he's slowly coming around.
Studios are in 2 parts, one to record clean sound, one to search for problems so it's why it's dead rooms so you don't hear reverbe from the room your are in. Often they listen of the "final" mix in cars and headphones to feel the "in situations" mix. So like Paul said it's different goals. A "clean" sound played in very different types of situations will sound better than a live sound in different types of situations. Keep in mind that modern tracks can be a assembly of 40 takes like Billy Eilish does. Of course very optimised sound for a certain situation can in fact be better ! It's also why you have live and church recordings !
Fair answer. What does home theater acoustics have anything to do with listening to full spectrum audio with all of the inner detail, proper soundstage, image specificity and accurate harmonic structure that a great two channel music system possesses?
Not an expert myself but I believe these 'acousticians' are mostly working on trying to get the reverb down to somewhere around 0,3 seconds across the spectrum.
No, you wouldn't want sterile. I think of sterile as overly detailed and "dead" sounding. You need more of the room in the sound for it to sound "alive."
Paul "dont want sterile". It is the same as saying that you like the reverberation of your specific room with its given Dimensions. Yes, that might be fun for a while.. But when you have identified what it sounds like and then EVERY track and recording will have this the SAME "spaciness".😂 And that will get tiresome in the long run. But the more severe issue is that all that reverberation that has nothing to do with the recording and are artificial added after the sound left the speakers (note that audiophiles with headphones dont have this issue) is hiding masking (playing over) the recorded reverberation that the microphone captured at the recording session! I want to hear the room (Church/cathedral/venue) where the "Real" reverberation took place. And there is plenty of those recordings not all is made at octave record little little recording room. (But of course there is many many "studio" recordings). So if you want to get closer to what headphones audiophiles get for this specific aspect and not getting the SAME couloration then treatment is the way to go😅❤
The purpose of a studio control room isn't to sound good, it's to be able to make it better. In particular, if the actual performance (tracking) room is live, I would want to be able to monitor it in a dry setting. But too dry during mixing could cause overcompensation. Also a studio can start out more live than a furnished living room. Interesting thing I saw recently, some of the long time "standard" studio monitors, notably the NS-10, sometimes don't sound that great but have super tight decays on waterfall plots, showing no stored resonance.
Don't know about the "experts" - but there Is a thing called empirical observation ==> what is "actually" happening trumps the most perfect "scientific-theory" 🙂🙂
I think here the starting information available is not sufficient to give professional answer and therefore the answer renders to pure marketing/sales pitch. No one in their right mind would mix in perfect room with perfect gear and expect it to translate. But the propability is higher than zero that a room will benefit from absorption. Also i think it’s quite difficult to have too much absorption. That takes some effort and is hardly practical in most rooms.
In music control rooms it is still the norm. It has evolved, reducing the absorption in the front, to balance the improved diffusion we now have that did not even exist when the LEDE concept was invented. The absorption tends to be in the front moving to diffusion in the rear. First refections are mostly controlled with absorbers, sometimes you can knock them down enough with diffusers, and that would be preferred.
@@dannelson6980 Respectfully, LEDE is not the norm, and hasn't been for some time. Sidewall or otherwise, early reflected energy isn't addressed via absorption, it's typically addressed via geometry.
@@FOH3663 I didn't explain it right. The LEDE concept was created by Chips Davis around 1977 but once TEF measurement systems became available a year or two later that quickly evolved in the RFZ concept. At the same Peter D’Antonio was working new diffusor designs commercializing them into RPG acoustics in 1983. The true LEDE design was only built for a few years and was heavy handed approach that went away once it was practical to measure TDS outside the lab. That said we still follow the basic concept of controlling the refections in the front and letting them return from the back.
@@Fastvoice In a small Atmos authoring rooms like 7.1.4 we are still doing most of the absorption in the front and moving to diffusion as we go down the sides and to the back wall. In the large cinema mixing theaters with full Atmos behind the screen is full absorption, we already have the problem of the rear channel bouncing off the pref screen. The side and rear wall will have alternating absorbers and reflectors to give some diffusion.
You should examine what the acoustic treatment people are doing. It isn't essential you agree with them, but you should have a solid foundation of what they are trying to achieve and see if it has any benefits to what you are doing.
An old school and stubborn way of thinking that has been found to be correct the opposite way. Kind of like eliminating starches is now the opposite of the former government established food pyramid. I see and hear too many TH-cam reviewers that aren’t experimental/adventurous enough to provide some form of room treatment. I’m sure, Paul uses diffusion in his studio mixing room. Have these studios attempted to use diffusion or just accept what they have?
When you tear down a speaker you find that "absorption" inside the speaker. Whether it is foam rubber or some kind of insolation, which absorbs everything behind the woofer, mids and tweets. THUS, I do not think I need to change my room to cater to make more "absorption", when it is built into the speaker. Engineers of these speakers already have taken care of this issue. LOL
@4:15 -- Studios do not have to mix and master for ear-buds, and cars, etc. If their mix sounds fantastic on a properly set-up, high-end stereo, then their mix will sound great no matter where it is played. Paul, are you concluding that your best sound Octave Records releases will fall short in cars and with ear-buds? -- That some over-processes mix for ear-buds would sound better with ear-buds? My best sounding digital songs make my computer's powered speakers sound their best, and make my car's stereo sound its best. So there is no such thing as a mix made to sound better for one place vs a different place. My best sounding songs would make the speakers in an elevator sound their best. Any studio personnel that claim that they mix for ear-buds, etc, should be fired. Mix for a high-end stereo (because it will reveal what the mix really sounds like). And when it sounds fantastic on that stereo, it will make any other stereo sound its best, too.
They have to be at least 18-24 inches deep to do anything in the lower frequencies, most people don't have that kind of space to give up, or the expense. What company do you recommend?
Too much absorption isn't the problem. Actually, essentially every room needs more absorption, typically a lot more. The challenge is to adequately absorb the LF, to achieve appropriate decay times ... while maintaining ample liveliness and envelopement. This best practices approach is facilitated by low-passing the LF treatment.
What is an "expert" in the audio world? I do not believe that good sound is a commodity that we can just buy. Sure we can buy stuff to make our system bring out details that the audiophile press and marketing departments advertise. Paul is right. We need to educate ourselves FIRST. Then WE can make a decision that is really based on our acquired preferences!
They have it backwards, recording studios have a sterile environment because they want the sole focus of the microphone to be musician's voice/instrument.
Wrong. Good tracking rooms for music don't have a "sterile environment" - au contraire. Especially for drums, brass, woodwinds, strings and piano you need a good sounding room and some room/ambient mics in addition to the close mics. Think of Abbey Road studios 1 and 2 or AIR studios (former cathedral). They are the opposite of sterile. The control room OTOH has to be more or less "dry".
Good musical reproduction sounds would have the characteristics of mixed reflection, diffraction & diffusion, with overall good clarity BALANCE of warm reverberation & ambient hifi sounds. Actually, let the true experts do the job. 🍻
All that matters is Dark Side of the Moon reproduction. But never try to use pink Floyd to eq. Thats what Sargeant Peppers lonely hearts club band is for
I removed bass traps from my music room, and heard the bass become ‘muddy’. I put them back into the room and the bass tightened up. Just my experience.
@@Enzo-d8q You have good bass traps. Many absorption bass traps (wrong technology for corner or wall placement) work for medium and high frequencies. These are too thin and too close to the wall. Rooms with strong room modes need gigantic abortion bass traps (velocity) that wouldn't fit in. It's just how acoustics work. Pressure bass traps are quite different; thinner and go against wall. For smaller and problematic rooms, serious manufactures explain that they are too small for them. Many absorption graphs are measured in perfectly diffuse fields (big reverberating test rooms); our rooms aren't like that. Some may feel that low rooms modes have improved, whereas only 100 Hz and above frequencies have been reduced (reverberation time). Just my experience too.
Don't mix up control rooms and tracking rooms in studios. Paul was talking about control (mixing and mastering) rooms AFAIK. A lot of tracking rooms in bigger studios sound really lively.
😂Paul always manages to turn the "question & answer" video into a sales pitch for his own interests and simultaneously racking up points on TH-cam! PTB
that is wrong to say it's sterile misinformation. using an absorption panels doesn't have to make a space sterile its all on the degree of how many you use and where you put them. that won't sound sterile not in the average home listening room. 2 to 4 panels is all that's needed and placement. you're concentrating on the 1st reflections below a certain frequency usually 300 Hz, diffusers don't. really work very well at low frequency below 100 hearts. people don't concentrate on and that's the ceiling, in a way that's more important than the walls. going back behind the speaker to the wall 3 in away, and at least 3 ft in front of the speaker staggered in height.
Nobody is right or wrong. There is no right and wrong. Every room, system, and listeners are unique from one another. What works in one room could be complelete garbage in the next. To say Pauls way is the only way and other guys is the wrong was is hilarious! Theres pros and cons no matter which direction you go and thats the fun of this hobby. To figure out what YOU like best. Who cares what someone else thinks. They aren't listening to your system.
Re right vs wrong; Most all room acoustics advice largely falls into the "well, it depends" category. However, there are a few best practices that apply to most all rooms. - absorb below the transition (achieving tighter LF decay times) - redirect, scatter or diffuse above the transition (achieving an enveloping liveliness) If the LP is relatively close to the rear wall, absorb that surface in a broadband manner. Essentially nothing worthwhile is generated from the ceiling, between the listener and the mains. Absorb as much as possible there. - Room resonances/modes are fixed. - Which resonances are excited is determined by loudspeaker placement. - Which resonances are experienced is determined by listener location.
Everyone should be seeking the wisdom of Anthony Grimani on the subject of room acoustics here on youtube. Years ago he was going on channels offering real solutions.
You forgot to mention the #1 reason acoustic treatment companies recommend filling your room with their products...and the reason should be obvious. Stop trying to be politically correct Paul, and just give straight, blunt answers. Also, the answer you gave is wrong. Those companies know darn well the products they are recommending are for a home playback environment, not a recording studio.
One thing to always remember about professionals - being a professional does not mean you are right, it just means you get paid for whatever you do.
This is exactly why Paul won't promote the review and data Erin Harding produced on the Aspen loudspeakers, while promoting a less objective review (still valid, albeit less) from Jay's Audio Lab. The performance doesn't match the price.
And no one pays anyone anything for being wrong
experts is what he said too
Yet those professionals are the ones who produce and mix records that sound particularly good. So yeah. Talk is cheap and proof is in the pudding.
@ i am not have a dig at anyone, all I said is a professional is simply someone who gets paid for what they do as their “profession”. It is no guarantee that they are good at it or can be trusted. although if they weren’t then they would soon be struggling.
I recently had 2 companies come around to advise/quote on a repair to my house, I got 2 wildly differing opinions on what needed to be done; one said there was damp that needed to be sorted, the other said there was no damp and everything was fine. Both were professional companies, but which one was correct?
For /smaller/ rooms, it's hard to beat the classic LEDE (Live end/dead end) approach where yes, indeed, the speakers go into a dead end. Putting speakers into properly built & aligned soffits is a big step forward as well. The objectives here are removing those detail-smearing early reflections and cabinet diffractions/movements. How well all this works also depends on what happens at the back wall live end -- targeted diffusion, various LF traps, even a touch of ideally focused reflection can impart pleasant sonic wonder. When all is done properly things such as vocals seem as if you could reach out and feel the contours of the singer's face. Pin-point imaging left to right, front to back, and even up and down (classical music ensembles properly mic'd) is possible. The speaker wall simply disappears and you're looking/hearing into the original concert hall with whatever dimensions it happens to be.
I've built two such spaces, each rather amazing, with multiple people astonished at what they hear. Because of the imaging, one listener kept getting up to examine the speaker end, wondering where I'd hidden the center channel speaker (no such beast), then claimed I'd lied about *not* having a center channel! Some audiophile rooms make me a little crazy because of how much resolution/detail is smeared away -- often wonderful impact and spectral balance but lacking in the imaging and detail I'm used to. If you have the real-estate, a much larger room can be successful without the treatments noted (reflection issues are far enough out in time so that they're less damaging). But, still, I'd want to do much careful listening before mixing in such rooms. "Mixing to a target environment" is a nice idea, but without the best resolution and room balance from the get-go this can be a moving target. Give me a properly treated room with a good monitor chain and I can mix/master for *any* final delivery -- because I know exactly what's going on.
I have a 10’X16’ room and the speakers are too close to the side walls. I noticed echo off the walls. I got a set of absorption panels on my side walls next to the speakers and that solved my problem. The music sounds so much better.
Very well spoken, Paul has pointed out the difference in objective of listening music, acoustic professionals look for the numbers like RT-60 hoping to bring it down as low as possible to 0.2sec at different spots in a studio, but we don't need that tight requirement for our lively music enjoyment
Since switching from mainly listening to headphones to now spending the majority of my time listening on a 2 channel system I now realise just how important the room interaction is and how it can affect the sound I’m hearing. The differences I hear in my room with speaker placement alone are huge.
The way my room is set up, I prefer no sound absorption on the back wall. My speakers are extremely revealing, and the back wall provides just enough slap reverb to color the sound perfectly. No two rooms require the same treatment.
I agree with most everything of what you say. I was an engineer for years. Studios are usually not meant to reproduce a particular listening environment. They are designed to be as neutral in a sense as possible so as an engineer I can rely on what I’m hearing to be what is actually there. Personally I don’t like these perfect rooms. I like character in a room to a small degree. I simply, as many do, listen to the end product in as many environs as feasible. On an iPhone, on small speakers, in a car, a high fi setup, mono, a friend’s average living room etc. All to make sure the music translates reasonably as intended. But more important to me as a listener is that what I’m hearing excites me. Years ago there was a room I had the pleasure of working in and this room as well as the control room, both had produced some very notable records. Most engineers and audiophiles could hear a record and say yep I know that room. This was a long time ago and the control room walls were filled with cut up surf boards, the back of the control room was reasonably live. You just knew that sound. In the ensuing years after that, studios were being designed LEDE. The first thing I noticed was they all started sounding the same. And everybody loved it. But all this was missing character those earlier recordings had. These days as an old fart, I am currently, this year, cross my fingers, building a new home studio. And I will consult with GIK acoustics certainly. But as usual I hope to end up with a compromise room. One that is reasonably free of standing waves etc but one that has its own character. Thank you for your honest video.
Paul summed that nicely, in his closing statement:- “It’s all a matter of personal taste”. It has taken me more years than I care to think about, to assemble an audio system that reproduces music the way I like to hear it. Note, I did not say treat a room to reproduce music the way I prefer to hear it. The nature of my work means that I’m frequently on the move. Different house, different town, different state. My hi-fi always accompanies me. So I’ve experienced listening to that hi-fi in numerous listening environments. Different shapes, dimensions and construction materials. Without exception, it is always my hi-fi which dictates the sonic character of what I listen to, not the room. If, like mine, your hi-fi has to fight for it’s right to be in the family lounge, then in my experience and humble opinion, the ‘stuff of life’, rugs, cushions, curtains,carpets, pets, partners, children and sofas are more than sufficient to tame the RT60 levels. If you are fortunate enough to have a dedicated listening room. A moderately sized room containing just your hi-fi and listening chair, maybe subtle room treatment would benefit. All room treatment actually does, is alters the ambience of your room. Whether you find that altered ambiance preferable, is surely down to personal taste. Don’t get room anxiety. You wouldn’t treat your room in order to sit and chat with your wife and children, would you?
Hi.I pretty much agree with you here.Soft furnishings etc usually do a pretty good job without absorbing too much power.Low frequencies can be more troublesome,but given the amount of treatment that may be required to handle those,they'll take up alot of space and look pretty unsightly for everyday living. A "thumbs up" and Merry Christmas.
Strangely enough, I recently replaced my 2 & 3 seater leather recliner sofas for a 2 & 3 seater fabric, but static pair. They killed the room. Asborbed too much bass. They were here for the long hall, wife’s choice. I invested in another sub, located centrally at the rear of my lounge. That restored equilibriu!
Thanks for your positive response. I’ve made similar comments previously, tends to provoke a lot of esoteric negativity. You have a great new year, filled with positivity and good music.55?
@@howardskeivys4184Happy new year to you and family too. You're right that there's too much negativity on social media. OK for differing views,but qualified ones made constructively is the way forward,I feel. I have too have had things set up in different rooms and fortunately found more consistency than variety.Given that our experiences with live bands are very rarely acoustically optimised ie in bars,halls etc,if attaining realism is the goal,then it should be OK to have a less than textbook environment for our systems to work in.Most rooms will have a combination of absorbents aswell as bare surfaces and books etc.Bass can be harder to deal with in some environments.
The room is the biggest challenge
This is why I gave up and went near field for the time being. It's so much easier.
Hi !! You touch the crux of the problem when you said ' mixing studios are steriles and I don't want that in my living room '. Too much of a good thing can be detrimental, like it is the case with acoustic treatment. If there obvious resonance problem in your listening room, then of course we should make a concious effort to damp it. In my living room, I did it with furnitures, plants and also a nice big rug because of the hardwood floor. It is now working quite fine without having to invest thousands in acoustic treatment. Thanks Paul !!
hi all:
As someone who deals with room acoustics professionally both in the studio and in professional or home listening rooms, in the end we have to think about what the goal is that we want to achieve... and indeed the goals are different and they all have different limitations
My goal for example is to always try to ideally combine the objective and subjective side of the room's acoustics and the final result in relation to the listener
If I simplify the matter when I design acoustics for a listening room only, the only thing that really matters to me is the subjective side of the listener (from a psychoacoustic point of view) the changes will be made from an objective point of view and I will try to adapt as much as possible to what the specific listener hears (different people have specific demands and desires as well as they really hear in terms of Technically a little different (topic in itself)
The subject of psychoacoustics is a subject in itself and one can talk about it for many hours...
When we plan a mixing room it is different from a dedicated mastering room because the purpose is slightly different
For example, a mixing room will be designed almost exclusively according to the objective result as much as possible and I will give less weight (but very important) to the psychoacoustic side and the preferences of the person himself
Because we are all human and are usually quite similar in our preferences, when planning each room acoustically, there will usually be a balance between absorption and diffusion of the sound in the room, as well as a large acceptance of the objective and subjective side of the "correct" result
If you have specific questions on the subject, I will be happy to try to answer them😁
Well said 👍😊
Doesn’t matter what anybody else says, it’s all about what you like 👍
Disagree. I thought I knew what I liked in a number of areas -- wine, food, acoustics -- but others with more experience helped me understand what else I could be tasting or listening for. Taste can be educated -- that's why we're not all drinking soda and eating at McDonalds. Of course, some people are stubborn and don't want to learn. For those folks, you're right -- it doesn't matter what others say.
I recently went overboard on acoustic absorption panels. ~85% coverage. Corners, front wall, ceiling, first reflection, side walls behind the listening position, no coffee table, extra rug over the carpet.
It’s fantastic, but definitely too much. I’ve decided that it really needs to be diffusers behind the speakers on the front wall
" ... fantastic but definitely too much"
Care to elaborate?
I suspect your "85% coverage" may be too thin, not broadband enough.
Mere speculation, however ... I'd suggest the diffusion would be put to much better use in front of the speakers, ie., rear wall or side wall.
I'd not recommend your next step be diffusion behind the loudspeakers.
@ in the front corners I made a pair of modular panels. Each corner consists of five 8’ height and 15” wide panels that are 10” deep (three batts thick plus air gap). Total corner panel size is 8’ tall x 6.5’ wide.
The ceiling has a modular panel that measures 8’ x 7’. It is one batt deep, but is hung from the ceiling with a 12” air gap and a gigantic piece of MLV hanging from the ceiling above the panel.
Each left and right side wall has five panels, 4’h x 15”w x 4”d.
The room is 13’w x 17’d x 9’h on an open floor plan and the back of the room extends another 25’ where the dining room and kitchen are located.
Previous iteration was ~20% coverage.
What I hear now is more clear and precise, but less lively. There were some wall reflections that were positively impacting the sound. (Crazy, I know). If I had higher quality speakers I may feel different. These R7’s use iron core inductors…
For whatever reason the speakers sounded better with less absorption, despite the room sounding miles better and the bass being miles better.
I do notice I run 4-6 extra clicks of volume now too.
The diffusion panels will be another experiment, I’m sure I’ll try them in different places. But my thought rn is that you don’t necessarily want to deaden directly behind the speaker in a room this quiet 🤷🏼♂️
@ also, the speakers are currently 30” off the front wall
@@Tsxtasy1
I'll respond with more detail shortly.
However, simply facing any bass trapping w/visqueen or equivalent will limit absorption to below 600hz or so.
Or any method of low-passing the bass traps will help liveliness.
@@Tsxtasy1 It's not crazy that reflections were positively impacting the sound. You have to have the room as part of the "instrument."
Paul that was a truly outstanding explanation...
Most rooms need help in the bass response. To control bass you need mass and lots of it. Large panels that are atleast a foot thick. Most rooms that you need to live in don't have space for that. The only available space is often the front wall behind the speakers. The catch 22 is you really want dispersion there instead. It opens the sound stage and adds depth. For dispersion to work you also need distance from the listening position so it's ideal. Many companies make thick bass traps with dispersion on the fronts
Learned a lot thanks Paul.
Pro audio, domestic audio acoustics - the goal is the same. You want to hear the system and not the room. Decent studio control rooms obliterate most domestic listening spaces - but some domestic listeners are waking up to that. There is no percentage in audio equipment manufacturers telling people that they need to spend money on room treatment - not least because it costs a fraction of what equipment costs. For clarity, studio control rooms are an entirely different environment to the actual recording spaces.
This is why we listen to your videos every day! You call them as you see them.
The ultimate acoustic absorption results in an anechoic chamber - if you've ever been inside one of those, with the door closed, you'll know why you don't want your living room to be like that. It's a deeply weird feeling and a great relief to leave. A normal silent room is lovely but an anechoic chamber feels quite unnatural - a totally dead room.
That said I've never experienced a good 2 channel system in such a space - perhaps it is the perfect hifi experience but I like a room I can also enjoy when the audio is off.
A mixing room only needs to be learned and understood by a mix engineer. Once an engineer knows how the room sounds vs. translates to everything else, it doesn't matter what the room sounds like.
Well.. To a degree, yes.. But nothing can compensate for a really shitty room
@Oystein87 wrong. Mix on headphones.
@anotheryoutubed Definently wrong. Mix on actual speakers set up properly is by far the definetive best way, period. And using headphones still would not have anything at all to say for a recording in a really bad room so your comment makes no sense either way.
@@Oystein87 again, doesn't matter what you mix on as long as it translates. You're not telling me I'm wrong, you're telling mix engineers that mix hit records from all genres and artists they're wrong. I'm literally just repeating the messages. You're a dolt.
@@Oystein87 also the discussion was never about a recording room so GTFO with your goalpost shifting. Damn dude get a life.
Great take. Would say differently.
"Sterile" studio playback exposes the recording chain. HiFi playback exposes the source.
Happy New Year!
Thing is that if it sounds good on a high-end system if will automaticly sound as good as it can on lower end systems too.. Even a little wireless BT speaker. So everyone should care a bit more about good recordings
Paul gave the most obvious answer to the question.
Okey Dokey.
studios and professional audio environments are completely different from home listening, i work in many studios, very different set of requirements to your house or listening room
I agree.
The focus of the sound in the studio is on the microphone, the focus of our stereo setup's sound is on our ears.
Exactly.
Paul strongly suggested that Octave Records setup is like a house setup with sub-optimal acoustics. In my opinion mastering in an environment designed to mimic audiophile setups could indeed risk skewing the mix towards that specific setup’s characteristics. The sterile studio environment exists precisely to avoid this kind of bias. A well-mastered track should sound good in a wide range of environments, not just in one particularly sub-optimal room.
Acoustics, as a branch of physics, deals with the behavior of waves in gases, solids, and liquids. Through mathematics, we can predict and understand these interactions with remarkable precision. While an audiophile like Paul may not delve into the technical details of wave propagation and reflection as a physicist would, they bring an equally valuable perspective-an intuitive sense of what sounds most enjoyable to them.
Paul captured this distinction well, emphasizing that the objectives of audiophiles and studio professionals are fundamentally different. Studio engineers aim to ensure that the recorded sound is as accurate as possible, often relying on acoustically controlled environments or monitor headphones to achieve this. By contrast, audiophiles focus on creating a listening experience that feels vibrant and emotionally engaging, tailored to their personal tastes.
Paul suggests that mastering rooms for studios like Octave Records could benefit from setups that mimic audiophile environments, even if this means less-than-ideal acoustics. His argument is rooted in the idea that mastering should reflect the listening conditions of end consumers. While intriguing, I find this perspective questionable. The primary purpose of a mastering studio is to provide a neutral, controlled space that eliminates room-induced coloration. This ensures that the mix translates accurately across diverse playback systems and environments.
Introducing reflective surfaces, as Paul advocates, might enrich the sound within a specific room, but it introduces variability. A mix that sounds beautiful in one reflective environment might lose its magic-or worse, sound imbalanced-in another. By tailoring the mix to the unique characteristics of a specific room, there’s a risk of creating a product that doesn’t hold up universally. The “perfect” sound in that room could be the result of reflections aligning in just the right way-a serendipity that won’t exist elsewhere.
Ultimately, the sterile, acoustically optimized studio setup is not a limitation but a necessity. It provides a reliable foundation for crafting mixes that sound great in as many settings as possible. While reflective surfaces and audiophile-style setups can offer insights into how a mix might sound in a real-world scenario, they should complement the mastering process, not define it. By minimizing variables, studio professionals preserve the integrity of the recording, ensuring it resonates with audiences everywhere.
I listened to several studio’s (and worked). Paul is right. A studio system is like a microscope. Which is considered necessary for getting everything dialed in properly. But that is not the same as a system meant for reproduction. It is a bit like dancing…for learning the steps is not the same as actually dancing..
A recording studio is not a listening room. A control room is designed for the recording engineer to hear the live room and not mask problems in the recording. Very few acousticians even design studios, most work in noise control. I don't even know if any of the ones that design studios have ever consulted on a listening room. A mastering room is typically designed to be close to an ideal listening room. Which is one of the many reasons mastering should be done another person in a another room for the formats the recording is to be released. Each format should have a different master optimized for that format. If you are "mastering" in the same control room what is the point? Why not do the mastering in the final mix down. Mastering for the most part is being skipped to save costs.
That being said the only places I ever heard believable playback of recordings in studios. It has only happened a few times in my life and I work in recording, live and design of audio systems for 40 years now. I can tell the people that have experienced believable playback by the way they describe it, it not what people expect it to be like.
The idea of recording in the room that matches the final listening room is pretty much a Dolby Atmos concept. Not the home version, the professional mix rooms. Those translate between locations very well, the problem is the room a built the exact standards, takes hundreds of hours in design, thousands of hours to build, and hundreds more hours the test and adjust till they are right. So that starts at about $500,000 plus the cost of room you put it in.
The old BBC guidelines had the control rooms sized and treated to match an average UK living room.
The problem is that acoustics is an afterthought in most cases. Even studios are shoehorned into a space that is the wrong size, shape and volume for what they are trying to do.
For a control the questions are, what type of recording is being done in the room, music, film, broadcast, pop, classical, surround, ambisonics, Atmos. What equipment will be in the room? how many people will be in the room? That determines the size of the room, now I need to find ratios that fit in the building. Now where are the door going to be? support columns? and so on, will any of that have to move? All this is calculated before first shovel of dirt is moved, it is inspected and measured during the construction. One person with a better idea can ruin the whole project. Calculations will tell you the best case, it will aways be worse than calculated.
In small rooms many are over treated with absorption. Many rooms are not acoustically symmetrical if you cannot correct that, find another room. Geometric solutions are my preferred starting point, if I can't move walls, then diffusion is my next choice since it can reduce uncontrolled reflections without excessively reducing reverb times. Think of acoustic treatment like EQ that can only make cuts, absorbers is most your highs, diffusors are more mid range, leaving drywall , doors and windows are your bass absorption. Not an exact analogy because they all overlap but it helps some people get the idea. More like a parametric eq. absorbers will cut the high frequencies first. The common 1" thick panel and lightweight drapes is like turning down the treble knob, if I have glass everywhere and hard floors it might be exactly what is needed. Thicker panels will increase the bandwidth of the absorption, to get down to the bass they have to be tricker than what is practical in most rooms.
I'd be really interested to hear what you consider "believable playback." Do you have a high end listening room where you listen to music yourself? I often wonder how many of the best music producers listen on a system that is as well set up and that presents music as beautifully as what I have created in my home. Neither my Grado RS2e's nor my Focal Bathys even come close to the amount of detail and realism.
I'm doing sound for a live swing band tonight and often hear people refer to "being there with the band." I wonder how many of those people have actually been on stage with a band before. I know exactly what an unmic'd drum set sound like because I am on stage with one at least a couple of times a month. I'm never going to get the same detail and realism in a 4,000 square foot dance hall that I can get in my listening room. It's a different thing. But a trumpet sounds like a trumpet and a sax like a sax and a huge drum hits like a huge drum would hit in a much bigger room.
I also went from listening to a friend play in a local symphony to my home listening room listening to the same composition. I think that the recording of the Cincinnati Pops playing it, in the hall they were in, with very good production had a lot of aspects that were better than listening in old hall where I saw the live symphony. They did some acoustic panels behind the band, but the hall had some acoustic issues.
I also think there's a lot more affect from absorption than just tone control like you're suggesting. The panel on my ceiling, for instance, really brought the sound stage down and made instruments come from a much more precise location. That wasn't tone control.
Regarding recording studio mix rooms, over 90% of the music at present is played either on Bluetooth, portable speakers or earbuds and cars. The industry is not going to Prioritize the process for 10% of the market.😢
Whether a listening space requires absorption or diffraction depends on the purpose of the room, but mainly the size of the room.
Small rooms, as found in most modern houses, require mostly absoption. Placing thick panels behind the speakers, at a distance from the walls, helps reduce the boominess that would otherwise present. In a bigger room, where you can place the speakers far away from front and side walls, the need become less important.
Mostly you need absorption to the side walls were reflections would bring the reflected midrange sound to the listener. This is because the time difference of sound arrival will blur the sound.
Talking about diffusion, you need space to implement it. And large size diffusers to be effective at midrange frequencies. And space between the diffusers and the listener.
And one final comment. I find that the companies that make diffusers tell you you need them. And companies making absorption panels tell you you need absorption.
People don't ALL hear the same . Our audio group has done A-B comparisons of cables & while the majority prefer ONE , I usually prefer another . Treat your room for your hearing .
That's not true @ person who wrote to Paul. All the real experts who go around building music rooms, cathedrals and other places will never recommend absorbers on the front wall.
1) They would recommend only diffusers on the front wall.
2) Even on the first reflection points on the side walls, it's a combination of ab-fusers and 1-D diffusers.
3) Only in the back walls and the ceiling first reflection points, they would recommend broadband absorbers.
Lastly, if you had an unltd budget, you'd cover the entire room with activated carbon absorbers and then cover the room again with Quadratic Residue Diffusers (QRD).
Vicoustic and the likes are not experts. They just sell products and have an "engineer" recommend the products that they make.
For e.g.: ask anyone who builds real cinema rooms/ theatres. They will tell you that bass traps (corner) are nonsense. What they would recommend instead is to budget for 60-70% of the surface area to be treated with broadband absorbers that measure well between 80-200 Hz.
The topic of the video is not cathedrals, theaters, cinemas, tracking rooms or other spaces where instruments are being played. It's about studio control rooms which have a very different approach to acoustics.
All these rooms listed have completely different acoustical requirements. There is exceptions to every one of them. Typically we want sound to reflect out into music rooms, auditoriums, halls, and churches. However I have needed absorbers to be installed the front of cathedrals, nobody calculated the acoustics by hand when these places were built, and they were designed for a completely different service. The acoustical have requirements changed over time.
Small room acoustics is very different from large room acoustics and without either knowing the construction of the room or having trustable well documented measurements any rule of thumb is just a guess which just a likely to make thing worse. There is nothing wrong with corner traps in a small room if they are needed and unlike many DIY treatments they have documented acoustical specifications made by Riverbank. It is just another tool. In the typical US construction of sticks and 1/2" gypsum board the low frequency absorption dominated by the construction. Block, brick or concrete construction will have far more low frequency issues.
Disagree? Well.. Depends.. Many agree and many disagree. Depends what real experience they have with music listening experience at home vs just depending a room to "make it sound good in general" etc..
How you treat the room also depends on the listening volume level.
I feel the same way about class D amplifiers. I have a Nad M33 amp, and it may be "perfect" but it sounds a bit too sterile and lean to me. I have had other class D amps going all the way back to the Bel Canto 200.2 and they could never quite float my boat.
I am working on a daily basis in different recording studios and different postproduction studios (these are not necessarily equal) and running a label for classical music. Mixing and mastering a recording only for audiophiles creates a very small audience and saying ‘I don’t care how my recording sounds on earbuds’ is frankly said, quite arrogant. You want to have your recording translate on every system, to have the musicians represented on cheap and expensive playback systems. That’s your goal as an engineer 😊 And that’s why you need an uncolored monitoring system in the studio that you understand and trust. It’s just that simple.
Paul gives reasonable advice, for that kind of sound it is good general advice.
the room i have my speakers in are used for many things.
so i had some speakers in there and no acoustic treatment, then i added something, and kept going over the years.
now it pretty much full with absorption, my room limitation require more treatment and my preference for a dead room lead me to this point.
an i know it limits the realistic reproduction of some music but i struck a compromise, some has the circumstances to find the balance in the opposite direction.
and to keep on topic, my deepest absorbers are on first reflection.
Great point Paul. To an audio engineer, an anechoic chamber might be the perfect room. Guaranteed it would not sound so good. High quality electrostatic headphones are likely the best way to put undistorted sound from 2 channels into 2 ears. But I don't like it as much as listening to my very average room with a wonderful sound stage illusion behind the speakers.
Let's not exaggerate. An anechoic chamber is used by some, not all, speaker designers/engineers. Recording studios and mastering labs are not anechoic chambers. Room acoustics has its place in a well rounded audio playback system, surprised Paul has an opposing viewpoint, although in one of his recent videos he had an acoustic panel leaning against a huge glass window in an untreated room with a lot of huge glass windows, a complete disaster for room acoustics, perhaps he's slowly coming around.
Beauty is in the Ears of the beholder. 👂👂💯👍
thats a BIG "Failed", Paul, LOL😄
Okey Dokey.
Sound bouncing off a wall is just an opportunity to hear great music twice.
Studios are in 2 parts, one to record clean sound, one to search for problems so it's why it's dead rooms so you don't hear reverbe from the room your are in. Often they listen of the "final" mix in cars and headphones to feel the "in situations" mix. So like Paul said it's different goals. A "clean" sound played in very different types of situations will sound better than a live sound in different types of situations. Keep in mind that modern tracks can be a assembly of 40 takes like Billy Eilish does. Of course very optimised sound for a certain situation can in fact be better ! It's also why you have live and church recordings !
Cars? Thats scary....
Fair answer.
What does home theater acoustics have anything to do with listening to full spectrum audio with all of the inner detail, proper soundstage, image specificity and accurate harmonic structure that a great two channel music system possesses?
Not an expert myself but I believe these 'acousticians' are mostly working on trying to get the reverb down to somewhere around 0,3 seconds across the spectrum.
I really hope I wind up in CO one of these days so I can listen to how you like a room set up.
Sterile? or accurate? As intended? or as re-presented? True to the source? or true in an environment?
No, you wouldn't want sterile. I think of sterile as overly detailed and "dead" sounding. You need more of the room in the sound for it to sound "alive."
I prefer bass resonances in my listening room.
GIK recommended diffusers on the front wall for my setup.
Paul "dont want sterile".
It is the same as saying that you like the reverberation of your specific room with its given Dimensions.
Yes, that might be fun for a while..
But when you have identified what it sounds like and then EVERY track and recording will have this the SAME "spaciness".😂
And that will get tiresome in the long run.
But the more severe issue is that all that reverberation that has nothing to do with the recording and are artificial added after the sound left the speakers (note that audiophiles with headphones dont have this issue) is hiding masking (playing over) the recorded reverberation that the microphone captured at the recording session!
I want to hear the room (Church/cathedral/venue) where the "Real" reverberation took place. And there is plenty of those recordings not all is made at octave record little little recording room. (But of course there is many many "studio" recordings).
So if you want to get closer to what headphones audiophiles get for this specific aspect and not getting the SAME couloration then treatment is the way to go😅❤
The purpose of a studio control room isn't to sound good, it's to be able to make it better. In particular, if the actual performance (tracking) room is live, I would want to be able to monitor it in a dry setting. But too dry during mixing could cause overcompensation. Also a studio can start out more live than a furnished living room.
Interesting thing I saw recently, some of the long time "standard" studio monitors, notably the NS-10, sometimes don't sound that great but have super tight decays on waterfall plots, showing no stored resonance.
The NS 10's never sound good irrespective of the room.....
Don't know about the "experts" - but there Is a thing called empirical observation ==> what is "actually" happening trumps the most perfect "scientific-theory" 🙂🙂
Got to like the irony of the word "FAILED" on the monitor in this video.
Question is : Who failed...? ;)
Cheers!
I think here the starting information available is not sufficient to give professional answer and therefore the answer renders to pure marketing/sales pitch. No one in their right mind would mix in perfect room with perfect gear and expect it to translate.
But the propability is higher than zero that a room will benefit from absorption. Also i think it’s quite difficult to have too much absorption. That takes some effort and is hardly practical in most rooms.
The "live end - dead end" concept for studio control rooms was a mantra for a long time but isn't really used any more.
In music control rooms it is still the norm. It has evolved, reducing the absorption in the front, to balance the improved diffusion we now have that did not even exist when the LEDE concept was invented. The absorption tends to be in the front moving to diffusion in the rear. First refections are mostly controlled with absorbers, sometimes you can knock them down enough with diffusers, and that would be preferred.
@@dannelson6980 I don't think this LEDE concept works very well with Dolby-Atmos or other surround setups.
@@dannelson6980
Respectfully, LEDE is not the norm, and hasn't been for some time.
Sidewall or otherwise, early reflected energy isn't addressed via absorption, it's typically addressed via geometry.
@@FOH3663 I didn't explain it right. The LEDE concept was created by Chips Davis around 1977 but once TEF measurement systems became available a year or two later that quickly evolved in the RFZ concept. At the same Peter D’Antonio was working new diffusor designs commercializing them into RPG acoustics in 1983. The true LEDE design was only built for a few years and was heavy handed approach that went away once it was practical to measure TDS outside the lab. That said we still follow the basic concept of controlling the refections in the front and letting them return from the back.
@@Fastvoice In a small Atmos authoring rooms like 7.1.4 we are still doing most of the absorption in the front and moving to diffusion as we go down the sides and to the back wall. In the large cinema mixing theaters with full Atmos behind the screen is full absorption, we already have the problem of the rear channel bouncing off the pref screen. The side and rear wall will have alternating absorbers and reflectors to give some diffusion.
I don't have a ton of of experience in room treatment but doesn't some absorption help with attack and decay? Do diffusers do the same thing?
That was as clear as a bell. /sarc
You should examine what the acoustic treatment people are doing. It isn't essential you agree with them, but you should have a solid foundation of what they are trying to achieve and see if it has any benefits to what you are doing.
An old school and stubborn way of thinking that has been found to be correct the opposite way.
Kind of like eliminating starches is now the opposite of the former government established food pyramid.
I see and hear too many TH-cam reviewers that aren’t experimental/adventurous enough to provide some form of room treatment.
I’m sure, Paul uses diffusion in his studio mixing room. Have these studios attempted to use diffusion or just accept what they have?
Paul doesn't know what he doesn't know...
Beacause those are only professionals and Paul considers himself as a Guru. And as such he can talk whatever he wants and be always right.
But he said he wasn't an acoustician.
When you tear down a speaker you find that "absorption" inside the speaker. Whether it is foam rubber or some kind of insolation, which absorbs everything behind the woofer, mids and tweets. THUS, I do not think I need to change my room to cater to make more "absorption", when it is built into the speaker. Engineers of these speakers already have taken care of this issue. LOL
LOL
@4:15 -- Studios do not have to mix and master for ear-buds, and cars, etc.
If their mix sounds fantastic on a properly set-up, high-end stereo, then their mix will sound great no matter where it is played.
Paul, are you concluding that your best sound Octave Records releases will fall short in cars and with ear-buds? -- That some over-processes mix for ear-buds would sound better with ear-buds?
My best sounding digital songs make my computer's powered speakers sound their best, and make my car's stereo sound its best. So there is no such thing as a mix made to sound better for one place vs a different place. My best sounding songs would make the speakers in an elevator sound their best.
Any studio personnel that claim that they mix for ear-buds, etc, should be fired.
Mix for a high-end stereo (because it will reveal what the mix really sounds like). And when it sounds fantastic on that stereo, it will make any other stereo sound its best, too.
Plenty of good diffusers have bass absorption, so there's that option.
They have to be at least 18-24 inches deep to do anything in the lower frequencies, most people don't have that kind of space to give up, or the expense. What company do you recommend?
Too much absorption kills music. It should always be about diffracting music interfering waves, high to low
Every room is unique. So is personal taste
Too much absorption isn't the problem. Actually, essentially every room needs more absorption, typically a lot more.
The challenge is to adequately absorb the LF, to achieve appropriate decay times ... while maintaining ample liveliness and envelopement.
This best practices approach is facilitated by low-passing the LF treatment.
What is an "expert" in the audio world? I do not believe that good sound is a commodity that we can just buy. Sure we can buy stuff to make our system bring out details that the audiophile press and marketing departments advertise. Paul is right. We need to educate ourselves FIRST. Then WE can make a decision that is really based on our acquired preferences!
A true expert is someone that knows what they don't know.
They have it backwards, recording studios have a sterile environment because they want the sole focus of the microphone to be musician's voice/instrument.
Wrong. Good tracking rooms for music don't have a "sterile environment" - au contraire. Especially for drums, brass, woodwinds, strings and piano you need a good sounding room and some room/ambient mics in addition to the close mics. Think of Abbey Road studios 1 and 2 or AIR studios (former cathedral). They are the opposite of sterile. The control room OTOH has to be more or less "dry".
The disconnect is live room, vs. control room.
Many hifi enthusiasts conjure up control room when "studio" is the topic.
Musicians even talk about how they regretted recording in "dead" studios, some travel half way across the world for studios with the right acoustics.
@@Fastvoice Tracking rooms are not the listening environment, the control room should be neutral.
@@dannelson6980 Don't tell that to me - I already wrote that in other words. 😉
This is a bit like "ye olde" copper versus silver cables debate.
absorption sales get a bigger commission.
Good musical reproduction sounds would have the characteristics of mixed reflection, diffraction & diffusion, with overall good clarity BALANCE of warm reverberation & ambient hifi sounds. Actually, let the true experts do the job. 🍻
All that matters is Dark Side of the Moon reproduction. But never try to use pink Floyd to eq. Thats what Sargeant Peppers lonely hearts club band is for
Some "experts" sell snake-oil "bass traps".
I removed bass traps from my music room, and heard the bass become ‘muddy’. I put them back into the room and the bass tightened up. Just my experience.
@@Enzo-d8q You have good bass traps. Many absorption bass traps (wrong technology for corner or wall placement) work for medium and high frequencies. These are too thin and too close to the wall. Rooms with strong room modes need gigantic abortion bass traps (velocity) that wouldn't fit in. It's just how acoustics work. Pressure bass traps are quite different; thinner and go against wall. For smaller and problematic rooms, serious manufactures explain that they are too small for them. Many absorption graphs are measured in perfectly diffuse fields (big reverberating test rooms); our rooms aren't like that. Some may feel that low rooms modes have improved, whereas only 100 Hz and above frequencies have been reduced (reverberation time). Just my experience too.
This is why live recorded music often sounds better.
Don't mix up control rooms and tracking rooms in studios. Paul was talking about control (mixing and mastering) rooms AFAIK. A lot of tracking rooms in bigger studios sound really lively.
It's all a crap chute. It's always been a crap chute. It always will be a crap chute.
😂Paul always manages to turn the "question & answer" video into a sales pitch for his own interests and simultaneously racking up points on TH-cam! PTB
that is wrong to say it's sterile misinformation. using an absorption panels doesn't have to make a space sterile its all on the degree of how many you use and where you put them. that won't sound sterile not in the average home listening room. 2 to 4 panels is all that's needed and placement. you're concentrating on the 1st reflections below a certain frequency usually 300 Hz, diffusers don't. really work very well at low frequency below 100 hearts. people don't concentrate on and that's the ceiling, in a way that's more important than the walls. going back behind the speaker to the wall 3 in away, and at least 3 ft in front of the speaker staggered in height.
LOL!
Nobody is right or wrong. There is no right and wrong. Every room, system, and listeners are unique from one another. What works in one room could be complelete garbage in the next. To say Pauls way is the only way and other guys is the wrong was is hilarious! Theres pros and cons no matter which direction you go and thats the fun of this hobby. To figure out what YOU like best. Who cares what someone else thinks. They aren't listening to your system.
no one is trying to be right, people ask for advice and others give advice.
Re right vs wrong;
Most all room acoustics advice largely falls into the "well, it depends" category.
However, there are a few best practices that apply to most all rooms.
- absorb below the transition (achieving tighter LF decay times)
- redirect, scatter or diffuse above the transition (achieving an enveloping liveliness)
If the LP is relatively close to the rear wall, absorb that surface in a broadband manner.
Essentially nothing worthwhile is generated from the ceiling, between the listener and the mains. Absorb as much as possible there.
- Room resonances/modes are fixed.
- Which resonances are excited is determined by loudspeaker placement.
- Which resonances are experienced is determined by listener location.
Everyone should be seeking the wisdom of Anthony Grimani on the subject of room acoustics here on youtube. Years ago he was going on channels offering real solutions.
Absorbsion only on side and back walls
So is the Hokey Pokey!
You forgot to mention the #1 reason acoustic treatment companies recommend filling your room with their products...and the reason should be obvious. Stop trying to be politically correct Paul, and just give straight, blunt answers. Also, the answer you gave is wrong. Those companies know darn well the products they are recommending are for a home playback environment, not a recording studio.