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8. Room Acoustics and Speaker Position
Introduction
The listening room forms the final link of the playback system, as important as any other component in
the chain. Just as an otherwise superb system is handicapped by an inferior pre-amplifier (for example),
so can a well-matched system be hindered by poor room acoustics. It is not necessary to listen to your
system in a specially-designed sound chamber in order to enjoy it. In fact, a dedicated listening room
usually requires additional sound treatment, due to a lack of other items in the room that can help
provide proper acoustics. However, attention to the listening environment can greatly increase your
system’s performance.
Listening in a properly set-up room can be a startling experience. Due to the limitations of the two-
channel format and the listening environment, the illusion of actually being transported to the recording
site cannot usually be achieved. However, an uncanny sense of realism can be created. Perhaps it is best
described as if the front half of your listening room has been removed, so that it now opens out into the
recording site.
To optimize your equipment set-up and the listening-room acoustics requires a basic understanding of
the principles that affect the propagation of sound in the room. Also, we will discuss the way in which
our brain interprets spatial cues, and how the room acoustics can affect our sonic perceptions.