Room Acoustics

[3db]

How much affect do room acoustics have as a function of SPL? What I mean is this, if I play my music in around 80 -85 db which is fairly loud, my system sounds pretty good. Now if I play the exact same piece of music between 85 and 90db, I find that highs and mids become really shrill and etchy sounding, less clear. I know my system is part of the blame for this but I also wonder if room acoustics plays a significant role in this. When people build dedicated HT rooms, does the acoustic treatment's effects hold constant across the entire volume range for a given system? Lets say we're using 90db efficient speakers and a 100wx5 or 6 amp/receiver just to narrow down some of the variables.

[erics0531]

How much affect do room acoustics have as a function of SPL? What I mean is this, if I play my music in around 80 -85 db which is fairly loud, my system sounds pretty good. Now if I play the exact same piece of music between 85 and 90db, I find that highs and mids become really shrill and etchy sounding, less clear. I know my system is part of the blame for this but I also wonder if room acoustics plays a significant role in this. When people build dedicated HT rooms, does the acoustic treatment's effects hold constant across the entire volume range for a given system? Lets say we're using 90db efficient speakers and a 100wx5 or 6 amp/receiver just to narrow down some of the variables.

My guess would be that the more likely culprit would be the amplifier beginning to distort at that volume level. My old Pioneer had 100 watts per channel but would distort at lower volume levels than my new Yamaha with "only" 80 watts per channel, and shrill is a perfect description of distortion. Once you have a reasonable amount of power, THD is a more important spec.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

How much affect do room acoustics have as a function of SPL? What I mean is this, if I play my music in around 80 -85 db which is fairly loud, my system sounds pretty good. Now if I play the exact same piece of music between 85 and 90db, I find that highs and mids become really shrill and etchy sounding, less clear. I know my system is part of the blame for this but I also wonder if room acoustics plays a significant role in this. When people build dedicated HT rooms, does the acoustic treatment's effects hold constant across the entire volume range for a given system? Lets say we're using 90db efficient speakers and a 100wx5 or 6 amp/receiver just to narrow down some of the variables.

When a room doesn't have sufficient diffusion or absorption, it will begin to sound hard(shrilly and overly bright) at high volumes. This room will also have problems with clarity and will have a slap echo problem(clap your hands, if you a boing or ping sound afterward you have a slap echo problem). The best way to deal with this problem is to add acoustical treatment to the front, and side walls. If you can't do that, curtains will help. If you cannot use acoustical treatment at all, keep the volume down

Yes the acoustic treatment does hold constant over the entire volume range.

I must say that if you have a speaker sensitivity of 90db and 100 watts, it would have to be awful loud for the amp to overload.