Quote from: KozmoNaut on 2015-11-18 13:54:51

the Bang & Olufsen headquarters in Struer, Denmark. I've been there, and the acoustics are terrible.

You saw this, you heard that, you're "insulted" for being an audiophile....

Quote from: KozmoNaut on 2015-11-17 18:22:14

E2: And by referring to AJ's post, we can answer the current thread title question: Why are room treatment so often considered necessary? Because the big million-dollar studios use them, of course. But why do they do that? Beats me.

Room treatments are band aids. Listening rooms are supposed to be designed to have the function of room treatments inherently built in.

There appear to be some designers who can actually build rooms that fully exploit the audio gear housed therein without visible room treatments.

In the case of recording studios, the room treatments are often part of the marketing of the room. A well-designed room with no visible treatments (which is possible if not desirable) would not impress the visiting firemen and therefore not be as commercially attractive.

Expressing something as an opinion does not absolve you from TOS #8.

I fail to see what is so controversial about me stating that I have actually been in that room and have actually listened to music (and speeches, live piano etc.) there, and that my experience is that it was a terrible room, acoustically.

One thing I did note about the papers that were discussed here (the McGill paper in particular), is that the listening tests..

Quote from: greynol on 2015-11-14 22:40:39

Expressing something as an opinion does not absolve you from TOS #8.

Quote from: KozmoNaut on 2015-11-18 14:55:33

I fail to see what is so controversial about me stating that I have actually been in that room and have actually listened to music (and speeches, live piano etc.) there, and that my experience is that it was a terrible room, acoustically.

Add basic reading comprehension to your suggested further education.

Quote from: KozmoNaut on 2015-11-18 14:55:33

One thing I did note about the papers that were discussed here (the McGill paper in particular), is that the listening tests..

..were done blind. Controlled. Statistically analyzed. It didn't matter what the studiophiles "knew" about treatments, rooms, etc. It didn't matter what they believed, saw/heard at B&O or in some ad copy. This, you seem incapable to comprehend.

5 pages, much blathering, zero evidence for efficacy of "treatments".

Anyone who reads through it will draw their own conclusions.

The only treatments in that B&O room is the 'room eq' function built in to each of those robo-speakers.

I don't expect that would do much to ameliorate the massive reverb times I *predict* would exist in that room.

But who knows, someone sitting in the sweet spot might think it sounds great.  Maybe because it 'really does', or maybe because they spent a sh*tload on it.

Maybe. IIRC, Moulton was involved with those and did some demos, though can't recall if blind, although the effect on studiophiles sighted, would have been interesting also.

I would spend even ten times the price if it meant my room wouldn't look like this."?

Quote from: greynol on 2015-11-18 17:54:35

I would spend even ten times the price if it meant my room wouldn't look like this."?

I personally would rather not have mattresses on my ceiling

and may have poked a wee bit of fun at Ethan on AVS (which Arny still holds a grudge about apparently),

but to each their own. These are personal preferences, why can't they be held as such and not try to have real science like Toole et al dismissed?

What always puzzled me, if studiophiles crave that studio/treatments/ "accuracy" business, why aren't the (completely different) speakers mounted much higher and the massive reflective elephant....excuse me, mixing board, not shown on Ethans floor between speakers and LP?? What am I missing here?

Quote from: ajinfla on 2015-11-18 19:12:25

I personally would rather not have mattresses on my ceiling

..and the author of this has the guts to complain about straw men.

No grudge here about your war with Ethan. Just observing the facts - it existed.  Now your ongoing campaign of lies, deceptions and misrepresentations of me and my words - different matter.

Again, the best way to hear what the mix engineers heard is to have the same setup. This applies for two-channel music as well as HT surround.

So Toole proved that all room treatments were snake oil with DBTs?

Floyd's statements about early reflections defy my own personal experience, and the experience of almost every other audio engineer I know.

Quote

What always puzzled me, if studiophiles crave that studio/treatments/ "accuracy" business, why aren't the (completely different) speakers mounted much higher and the massive reflective elephant....excuse me, mixing board, not shown on Ethans floor between speakers and LP?? What am I missing here?

Obviously, real world experience with recording.

For the record, the above picture not even vaguely related to Ethan's actual workspace to the point of just being another deception.

Furthermore, the target acoustics of an Ethan Winer style studio are completely OT in any reasonable discussion of listening room acoustics.

Quote from: ajinfla on 2015-11-18 19:12:25

Quote from: greynol on 2015-11-18 17:54:35

I would spend even ten times the price if it meant my room wouldn't look like this."?

I personally would rather not have mattresses on my ceiling

..and the author of this has the guts to complain about straw men.

Quote from: ajinfla on 2015-11-18 17:37:56

Maybe. IIRC,  Moulton was involved with those and did some demos, though can't recall  if blind, although the effect on studiophiles sighted, would have been  interesting also.

As in, "Wow! I can't believe they could possibly sound so good given everything I know about room treatments.  I would spend even ten times the price if it meant my room wouldn't look like this."?

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2015-11-18 19:35:00

Quote from: ajinfla on 2015-11-18 19:12:25

Quote from: greynol on 2015-11-18 17:54:35

I would spend even ten times the price if it meant my room wouldn't look like this."?

I personally would rather not have mattresses on my ceiling

..and the author of this has the guts to complain about straw men.

I'm not sure who, exactly, you think is the "author," but if you believe it was I, then have a gander at the full quote in order to see that I was merely suggesting something a "studiophile" might say...

Quote from: Arnold ABX. Krueger on 2015-11-18 19:35:00

Furthermore, the target acoustics of an Ethan Winer style studio are completely OT in any reasonable discussion of listening room acoustics.

Finally! So now Arnold ABX. Krueger will tell us how to "treat", based on reliable evidence as provided by DBTs like Toole does.
Arny?

The first problem is that a lot if not most of the evidence that Toole relies on was not developed using DBTs.

Sayers, B. McA. And F.E. Toole, "Acoustica Image Lateralization Judgments with Binaural Transients", J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol. 36, pp. 1199-1205, (1964).
F.E. Toole and B. McA. Sayers, "Laterization Judgments and the nature of Binaural Acoustic Images", J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol. 37, 319-324 (1965).
F.E. Toole and B. McA. Sayers, "Inferences of Neural Activity Associated with Binaural Acoustic Images", J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol. 37, 769-779 (1965).
F.E. Toole, "In-Head Localization of Acoustic Images", J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol. 48, 943-949 (1970).
F.E. Toole, "Listening Tests, Turning Opinion Into Fact", J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 30, pp. 431-445 (1982 June).
F.E. Toole, "The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Headphones", 2nd International Conference, Audio Eng. Soc. , preprint C1006 (1984 May).
F.E. Toole, "Subjective Measurements of Loudspeaker Sound Quality and Listener Performance", J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol 33, pp. 2-32 (1985 January/February)
**F.E. Toole, "Loudspeaker Measurements and Their Relationship to Listener Preferences", J. Audio Eng, Soc., vol. 34, pt.1 pp.227-235 (1986 April), pt. 2, pp. 323-348 (1986 May).
**F.E. Toole and S.E. Olive, "The Modification of Timbre by Resonances: Perception and Measurement", J. Audio Eng, Soc., vol. 36, pp. 122-142 (1988 March).
F.E. Toole, "Principles of Sound and Hearing", in K.B. Benson, ed. "Audio Engineering Handbook", chap. 1 (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1988).
S.E. Olive and F.E. Toole, "The Detection of Reflections in Typical Rooms", J. Audio Eng, Soc., vol. 37, pp. 539-553 (1989 July/August).
S.E. Olive and F.E. Toole, "The Evaluation of Microphones - Part1: Measurements", 87th Convention, Audio Eng, Soc., preprint no. 2837 (1989 October).
F.E. Toole, "Listening Tests - Identifying and Controlling the Variables", Proceedings of the 8th International Conference, Audio Eng, Soc. (1990 May).
F.E. Toole, "Loudspeakers and Rooms for Stereophonic Sound Reproduction", Proceedings of the 8th International Conference, Audio Eng, Soc. (1990 May).
F.E. Toole, "Binaural Record/Reproduction Systems and Their Use in Psychoacoustic Investigations", 91st Convention, Audio Eng, Soc., preprint no. 3179. (1991 October).
P. L. Schuck, S. Olive, J. Ryan, F. E. Toole, S Sally, M. Bonneville, E. Verreault, Kathy Momtahan, "Perception of Reproduced Sound in Rooms: Some Results from the Athena Project", pp.49-73, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference, Audio Eng. Soc. (1993 June).
F.E. Toole, "Subjective Evaluation", in J. Borwick, ed. "Loudspeaker and Headphone Handbook - Edition", chap. 11 (Focal Press, London, 1994).
**S.E. Olive, P. Schuck, S. Sally, M. Bonneville, "The Effects of Loudspeaker Placement on Listener Preference Ratings", J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 42, pp. 651-669 (1994 September).
F.E. Toole and S.E. Olive, "Hearing is Believing vs. Believing is Hearing: Blind vs. Sighted Listening Tests and Other Interesting Things", 97th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., Preprint No. 3894 (1994 Nov.).
F.E Toole and S.E. Olive, "Listening Test Methods for Computer Workstation Audio Systems", 99th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., No Preprint (1995).
F.E. Toole, "The Future of Stereo", Part 1, Audio, Vol.81, No.5, pp. 126-142 (1997, May), Part 2, Audio, Vol. 8, No. 6, pp. 34-39 (1997 June).
F.E. Toole, "The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Workstation Audio Systems", 16th International Congress on Acoustics and 135th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA, Session 4pSP, (1998 June).
S.E. Olive, B. Castro and F.E. Toole, " A New Laboratory For Evaluating Multichannel Systems and Audio Components", 105th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., preprint no. 4842 (1998 Sept).
S.E. Olive, B. Castro and F.E. Toole, "A New Laboratory and Methodology for the Subjective Evaluation of Workstation Audio Systems" presented at the 106th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., Munich, (1999 May).
F.E.Toole, "The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms - The Stereo Past and the Multichannel Future", an invited paper at the 109th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., Preprint no. 5201 (2000 Sept.).
F.E. Toole and S.E. Olive, "Subjective Evaluation", in J. Borwick, ed. "Loudspeaker and Headphone Handbook - Third Edition", (Focal Press, London, 2001).
F.E. Toole, "Sound Reproducing Systems", in McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 9th edition (2002).

There are no "perfect book answers" for any of these.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2015-11-19 00:04:02

The first problem is that a lot if not most of the evidence that Toole relies on was not developed using DBTs.

Sayers, B. McA. And F.E. Toole, "Acoustica Image Lateralization Judgments with Binaural Transients", J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol. 36, pp. 1199-1205, (1964).
F.E. Toole and B. McA. Sayers, "Laterization Judgments and the nature of Binaural Acoustic Images", J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol. 37, 319-324 (1965).
F.E. Toole and B. McA. Sayers, "Inferences of Neural Activity Associated with Binaural Acoustic Images", J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol. 37, 769-779 (1965).
F.E. Toole, "In-Head Localization of Acoustic Images", J. Acoust. Soc. Amer., vol. 48, 943-949 (1970).
F.E. Toole, "Listening Tests, Turning Opinion Into Fact", J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol. 30, pp. 431-445 (1982 June).
F.E. Toole, "The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Headphones", 2nd International Conference, Audio Eng. Soc. , preprint C1006 (1984 May).
F.E. Toole, "Subjective Measurements of Loudspeaker Sound Quality and Listener Performance", J. Audio Eng. Soc., vol 33, pp. 2-32 (1985 January/February)
**F.E. Toole, "Loudspeaker Measurements and Their Relationship to Listener Preferences", J. Audio Eng, Soc., vol. 34, pt.1 pp.227-235 (1986 April), pt. 2, pp. 323-348 (1986 May).
**F.E. Toole and S.E. Olive, "The Modification of Timbre by Resonances: Perception and Measurement", J. Audio Eng, Soc., vol. 36, pp. 122-142 (1988 March).
F.E. Toole, "Principles of Sound and Hearing", in K.B. Benson, ed. "Audio Engineering Handbook", chap. 1 (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1988).
S.E. Olive and F.E. Toole, "The Detection of Reflections in Typical Rooms", J. Audio Eng, Soc., vol. 37, pp. 539-553 (1989 July/August).
S.E. Olive and F.E. Toole, "The Evaluation of Microphones - Part1: Measurements", 87th Convention, Audio Eng, Soc., preprint no. 2837 (1989 October).
F.E. Toole, "Listening Tests - Identifying and Controlling the Variables", Proceedings of the 8th International Conference, Audio Eng, Soc. (1990 May).
F.E. Toole, "Loudspeakers and Rooms for Stereophonic Sound Reproduction", Proceedings of the 8th International Conference, Audio Eng, Soc. (1990 May).
F.E. Toole, "Binaural Record/Reproduction Systems and Their Use in Psychoacoustic Investigations", 91st Convention, Audio Eng, Soc., preprint no. 3179. (1991 October).
P. L. Schuck, S. Olive, J. Ryan, F. E. Toole, S Sally, M. Bonneville, E. Verreault, Kathy Momtahan, "Perception of Reproduced Sound in Rooms: Some Results from the Athena Project", pp.49-73, Proceedings of the 12th International Conference, Audio Eng. Soc. (1993 June).
F.E. Toole, "Subjective Evaluation", in J. Borwick, ed. "Loudspeaker and Headphone Handbook - Edition", chap. 11 (Focal Press, London, 1994).
**S.E. Olive, P. Schuck, S. Sally, M. Bonneville, "The Effects of Loudspeaker Placement on Listener Preference Ratings", J. Audio Eng. Soc., Vol. 42, pp. 651-669 (1994 September).
F.E. Toole and S.E. Olive, "Hearing is Believing vs. Believing is Hearing: Blind vs. Sighted Listening Tests and Other Interesting Things", 97th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., Preprint No. 3894 (1994 Nov.).
F.E Toole and S.E. Olive, "Listening Test Methods for Computer Workstation Audio Systems", 99th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., No Preprint (1995).
F.E. Toole, "The Future of Stereo", Part 1, Audio, Vol.81, No.5, pp. 126-142 (1997, May), Part 2, Audio, Vol. 8, No. 6, pp. 34-39 (1997 June).
F.E. Toole, "The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Workstation Audio Systems", 16th International Congress on Acoustics and 135th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Seattle, WA, Session 4pSP, (1998 June).
S.E. Olive, B. Castro and F.E. Toole, " A New Laboratory For Evaluating Multichannel Systems and Audio Components", 105th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., preprint no. 4842 (1998 Sept).
S.E. Olive, B. Castro and F.E. Toole, "A New Laboratory and Methodology for the Subjective Evaluation of Workstation Audio Systems" presented at the 106th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., Munich, (1999 May).
F.E.Toole, "The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms - The Stereo Past and the Multichannel Future", an invited paper at the 109th Convention, Audio Eng. Soc., Preprint no. 5201 (2000 Sept.).
F.E. Toole and S.E. Olive, "Subjective Evaluation", in J. Borwick, ed. "Loudspeaker and Headphone Handbook - Third Edition", (Focal Press, London, 2001).
F.E. Toole, "Sound Reproducing Systems", in McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 9th edition (2002).

Quote from: greynol on 2015-11-18 22:48:13

I'm not sure who, exactly, you think is the "author," but if you believe it was I, then have a gander at the full quote in order to see that I was merely suggesting something a "studiophile" might say...

I would hope that for most humans with normal perceptual capabilities, a simple count of quotes would lead to the conclusion that I thought I was quoting AJ.

What's missing is a solid technical analysis of each and every one showing conclusively that their conclusions are solely based on DBTs.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2015-11-19 00:53:24

What's missing is a solid technical analysis of each and every one showing conclusively that their conclusions are solely based on DBTs.

Like your "treatments"? Where are the DBTs?

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2015-11-19 00:53:24

What's missing is a solid technical analysis of each and every one showing conclusively that their conclusions are solely based on DBTs.

Like your "treatments"? Where are the DBTs?

Which of my room treatments are you talking about, AJ?

The first problem is that a lot if not most of the evidence that Toole relies on was not developed using DBTs.

He is clearly calling the ceiling panels mattresses in jest, though they are every bit as much as an eyesore.

It's not exactly the straw man you wish to make it appear.

It is a real-world example for the entire world to see.

It would be hilarious if a blind test showed they worsened Ethan's experience and I would not bet against such an outcome.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on 2015-11-19 00:04:02

The first problem is that a lot if not most of the evidence that Toole relies on was not developed using DBTs.

So you claim studiophile. Evidence to support this belief?

I have a lot more faith in sighted evaluations of things that are as clearly audible as acoustical effects can be, than that.

Most of the audio industry does and that faith pays off in improved sound quality fairly often.