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10 Room Acoustics / 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, only due to a lack of other items in the room that can help provide
good acoustics. However, a degree of attention to set-up can greatly
increase your listening satisfaction, no matter what your listening situation.
Listening in a properly set-up room can be a startling experience. Perhaps it is
best described as if the front half of your listening space has been removed,
so that the recording site now occupies this part of your room. This can ideally
be an entirely three-dimensional space with dense, palpable instruments that
are spatially arrayed.
To optimize your equipment set-up and the listening-room acoustics requires a
basic understanding of the principles which 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.