[Mogens V.]

William Sommerwerck wrote:
No matter how much you spend on equipment, you will
never hear the detail that is in the recordings if your room
is not acoustically optimized.


This is a misleading statement -- its opposite (or contrapositive) is not
true -- good room acoustics do not guarantee the audibility of detail if the
electronics and speakers don't deliver it. Ideally, you want both good (that
is, appropriate for playback) acoustics, and good equipment.

Well, he has a point, despite some choise of phrasings...
'won't hear _all_ detail' and 'acoustically treated' would be better.

If rooms would have to be fully optimized, not many private homes would
have a decent musical experience. I agree that large expenditure on
equipment may be a halfways waste in a less than adequate room, but even
so, it will help - it's just the wrong way around, of cause.


Many years ago I was totally broke and couldn't afford good gear.
All I had was a Kodak Photo CD player into an Aiwa gettoblaster with
somewhat decent amplifier, provided modest listening levels.

I was working in a shop building amps, speakers and lights for band
rental, and grapped hi quality filter components and a set of Wifa
trebles for my set of seemingly crappy Philips speakers with 6½" drivers
and slaves. I modified the drivers/slaves spider suspension, treated the
paper cones against breakups and reinforced the boxes. Put the whole
setup up on mic stands to get it off floor coupling.
The room was quite good with a large carpet and bookshelves to partially
break refelctions. A bass problem in a corner was solved with a large
foam matress wrapped in thick velvet cloth behind a bookshelve.

We had a bunch of hifi freaks in'n'out of the shop. One of them paid me
a visit and was all open mouth in shock over the sound quality from such
crappy gear.
Once I got my used Hieraga class A amp copy, things changed incredibly.

This is of cause nothing but a totally irrelevant (high end wise) story,
but still serves to point out the importance of even just very modest
room treatment and especially decent (modified) speakers.

--
Kind regards,
Mogens V.