Simply put, no one factor impacts the sound of your audiophile system more than the acoustics of your listening room. Some audiophiles are blessed to have a dedicated listening environment where they can address their acoustical issues without much push-back or spousal approval. Many more of us have no choice but to install our audiophile systems into rooms that we also live in. In many ways, the latter option is best, in that the audiophile hobby suffers from the malady of one person listening at a time in an often-messy room that is poorly installed and/or poorly thought-out. We’d be better off as a hobby if listening to music in rooms where others (aka: wife, kids, friends, guests …) can enjoy music as part of being in our homes. We don’t need to be blasting Steely Dan Aja on our Wilsons to make our point. Just being able to bring low-volume, high-resolution sound to our everyday and/or social interactions would expose so many more potential audiophiles to the benefits and joys of listening to music.
As a publisher in the business for over a generation now, I have been beyond blessed to own many (close to all) of the AV components that money can buy. Wilson Audio speakers (five pairs, but who’s counting), Revel Salon IIs, top of the line Paradigms (among the best I owned, and far from the most expensive), big MartinLogan ESLs, and today Bowers & Wilkins 802 D4s. On the electronics front, there are even more awesome components from the likes of Mark Levinson, Meridian, Cello, Faroudja, Krell, Audio Research, Bricasti, Anthem, Pass Labs, SVS, and countless other makers of lust-worthy equipment. I’ve even had the opportunity to build my own audiophile-grade screening room, complete with modest stadium seating, fabric walls, Middle Atlantic rack-mounted gear, and all of the right RPG room treatments. But much of that was in the past.
Today, my reference audiophile system is in my living room and, respectfully, isn’t anywhere close to optimal in terms of acoustics.
So, How Imperfect Is Your Audiophile Listening Room, Jerry?
It is less than optimal, to be polite. Let’s start with where the speakers are placed … on the front wall, my right speaker stands alone in open air, thus no back wall or side wall. Its left-leaning sibling is stuck in a corner on the other side of a $20,000 ultra-modern, Israeli rectangular fireplace. The wall beyond that left speaker is basically all glass. While automated Crestron roll-down shades can soften the effects of the glass, that benefit is sonically modest.
My carpet subcontractor installed a half inch of cork below the carpet to deal with the shoddy construction of the McMansion that I currently live in. That was a cute idea, but barely effective for the room below (more for footsteps than audio), so there goes that money.
Things get much worse at the seating position where my head is (check out the photo of my wife, Krista, sitting in the “hot spot”), as the back wall in my listening room couldn’t be more than 18 inches away from my head/ears. That wall is also simple, painted drywall. The seating in the room, as photographed for this article, is 100 percent IKEA. We sold our $4,000 Room and Board sofa about six weeks ago to a young man from SpaceX, who I found on Craigslist, as he was outfitting his apartment (that is a pending story, that I will tell here, too, as he loved the music that he heard, but had no idea that such sound was even remotely possible). We have yet to figure out what luxury (within some modicum of reason) sofa that we want here, but I can safely tell you it ain’t going to be an IKEA love seat for much longer.
Other factors that impact my sound include very high ceilings (12-plus feet), which I view as a positive factor. What is more sonically detrimental is where my equipment is located, which is in a mechanical room. When I first moved into this home, I took out a big-ass coat closet and blew out the wall to allow access to the front of my rack, and then put doors on it. Behind the double eight-foot-tall Middle Atlantic Racks is ample room to neatly install and manage cables that would/should be the envy of most audiophiles. So, what’s the issue with the rack? Noise, for starters, is an issue. My audiophile electronics are silent. My first-generation $40,000 Kaleidescape sounds like a 1971 Gulfstream III taking off without a hush kit. My Crestron Home system is, equally and concerningly, just as noisy. The doors being closed help mitigate this issue, as does the 20-plus-foot distance that separates my gear from my seating position, but there’s still a pretty high noise floor in the room, which can get a lot higher if the dryer is running on the other side of the house, which is even more noise.
The last factor of sub-optimal performance for my electronics has yet to bite me, but likely will soon. That factor is heat. While I love these new Class-D GaN (and other varieties) amps, I still run a sexy-sounding Class-A Pass Labs XA-25, which some argue is Nelson Pass’ finest-sounding amp (for about $5,000?!!!), but man, does that son of a bitch get hot. And then close the doors and it gets even hotter. To save energy and to reduce heat, I shut the Pass Labs amp down when I am done listening and power it back up an hour or so before any reviewing or serious listening. Can I hear a difference that the warmup period made? Nope, I just do it out of habit and respect.
How Can I Fix These Audiophile Acoustic Problems?
One of the first ways for any of us to look at this is via physical upgrades – specifically room treatments. I was able to purchase a $369 GIK Acoustics Turbo Trap Pro (read my review) bass trap for the left speaker (corner), and it made a massive improvement in the mid and lower bass. That was a cheap, easy and effective sonic solution. The folks at GIK were great to me (the company better known for “tube traps” was anything but nice when I call them – yikes) as GIK offers FREE acoustical design help for any of us. That is a good deal, as are their mostly affordable treatments. They suggested that I add another bass trap behind the speaker in open space and recently sent me one. That’s still on its way, but I trust them and, with the success of the first Turbo Trap Pro, I am willing to try it.
Millennials have strangely made house plants trendy. Oddly, plants also help with the enjoyment your audiophile system. My wife effectively bought a whole bunch of pretty nice yet reasonably priced, self-watering (you fill up the reserve once per month) house plants at Costco, of all places. Not only do these plants help me hide the all-white GIK bass traps, but they provide a modicum of acoustical diffusion, which is an added benefit. How big is that sonically? Again, this isn’t anywhere near the WOW-factor from the GIK Turbo Trap Pro upgrade, but for the money, a spattering of nice house plants isn’t the worst idea that I’ve ever heard for your audiophile system. They also bring in a non-linear, organic feel to the room, as well as a little green color. For those who couldn’t make live plants work, there are fake plants that I’ve see sold at places like our local high-end plant store (Rolling Greens in Culver City) that are not cheap, but look great. They had plastic fig trees that were pretty damn nice and solve this issue nicely.
Diffusion or absorption isn’t easily installed on the back wall of my audiophile listening room. The idea of installing a simple track system that would allow me to put fabric and absorption on my back wall makes sense, until you look at the price. That’s a big wall, thus that “upgrade” is going to cost thousands of dollars and yield minimal results, as well as not add a penny of value to my home. A little absorption on the back wall would be nice, but for me, it is a bit cost-prohibitive.
Diffusion often helps on a back wall. You’ve seen those “cityscape” products in recording studios and audiophile salons alike. They work like a charm for diffusing sound, but again, logistics and aesthetics come into play here, as well as cost. There’s no elegant way to install cityscape treatments behind my seating position, although that likely would benefit the sound in my room. Hint: a bargain way to accomplish this feat in other, less extreme room layouts is to line the back wall with bookcases, and pack your CDs, LPs and/or books there. That will nicely diffuse sound and an IKEA Billy bookcase isn’t too spendy. Even a custom bookcase made by a local carpenter isn’t too crazy in terms of price. Maybe this option will work in your room? It sure as hell won’t work in mine, sadly.
Room correction in the digital domain is another real-world way to get better sound in an imperfect room. My Anthem STR Preamp (read the review) has ARC (Anthem Room Correction) built in, which is a powerful tool and makes that $4,000 audiophile preamp an extremely good value. I own one, and so do my fellow writers, Mike Prager and Andrew Dewhirst. Here’s the problem in my world as a reviewer … If I run room correction when reviewing another component, then what am I actually hearing? Is the performance coming from the room correction or the component? Respectfully, it is close to impossible to tell, so I don’t use ARC during reviews. I also am lusting for a Pass Labs XP-22 designed by Wanye Colburn, as I had one of these $10,000 ultra-simple, two-chassis audiophile preamps in my system, and it was stunningly good. It brought me much closer to the recording. My wife noticed within seconds of switching back to other preamps that the sound “wasn’t the same.” She was right (women have great hearing by the way, even if they aren’t much a part of our hobby … yet). I am selling blood and dabbling in some drug/human/puppy trafficking to make the money needed for a $10,000 preamp in my system, but as they say, “I’ve got mortgages and homes (and stiffness in my bones),” to poorly quote Freddie Mercury and his colleagues in Queen.
So If You Can’t Fix Your Acoustical Problems Easily or Affordably, What Should an Audiophile Do?
This is the operative question that flies in the face of most historical audiophile clichés like “The Preamp of the Month Club,” where we are made to feel bad by the establishment press, who tell us that our systems are somehow not good enough. Bullshit. My system kicks ass – flaws and all. I would play my system for a Grammy Award-winning mastering engineer and not think twice about it. Is my room a mastering lab? Not even close. It is a living room. It has a 65-inch Samsung Frame 4K UHD monitor between the speakers. It is a real room in a real house and we use (and love) it.
You should feel the same way.
We are all looking to improve our audiophile systems. That is the core concept behind the audiophile hobby. What needs to be extracted from the audiophile hobby is the idea that you need to have a perfect room or the latest advertiser’s gear installed in order to really love your audiophile system. That is just lame. If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you got, I think …
The audiophile hobby is about appreciating and enjoying every stop on your journey. Your life, your budget, your room logistics and other factors all go into how good your room sounds. You likely can’t optimize all of those in the real world. I wrote a story about what I would do with my pending Powerball winnings (I am a repeat Powerball and MegaMillons loser) in terms of audio. I would build a perfect room with top acousticians with the best materials, with a sick art collection, Ketra lighting and the most awesome furniture. The problem is that I keep losing at Powerball, and that leaves me with the audio system that I have now.
After selling my last group of AV publications over five years ago, I kinda got away from high-end audio and home theater while my three year non-compete was in effect. When I decided to get back into the AV publishing business (that didn’t seem likely in late 2019, when I sold HomeTheaterReview.com and AudiophileReview.com after founding and growing them), I decided to build my audio system back up into a more traditional and highly respectable setup, and I’ve been having an absolute blast in the process. I make mistakes. I review products that I don’t love, but I always love the reviewing process, regardless of the product. I love each and every part of the process and try to enjoy every detail as if I was sitting down to an omakase sushi experience. Each bite is unique in the restaurant, just as each audiophile system upgrade or change is worthy of your consideration and attention. My best advice to you is to eat your sushi slowly (don’t just wolf it down, as most Americans do) and savor each bite. Do the same for your audio system as you work on perfecting your rig. Perfect is a stupid concept in life. The process of getting closer to (or chasing) perfect is far more fun and rewarding to chase.
How is your room? What challenges do you have that you can’t easily change? What are the reasons why you can’t make the upgrade? Are there any acoustical or other changes that made a really notable difference? Let us know in the moderated comments. We will approve your comments quickly, as we love to hear from you!
