Compact or Bookshelf speakers?

[Woochifer]

I say that subs don't integrate perfectly that I hear a lack of seamlessness - a separation --- people like you immediately say well it's not the sub and make excuses - which implies my statement is false - You have said they seamlessly integrate did you say perfect I don;t know - there's no difference seamless is perfect -- if it were not then it would not be seamless which means you should not have said that it was the room or lack of equalization that was the culprit or the dealers or all the other sub excuses you come up with for them.

Blah blah blah You still haven't stated who's talking about PERFECT sub integration. Either state who you're referring to, or fess up to that fact that you made an idiotic exaggeration that you can't back up.

All that I have said is that I've heard sub rigs that integrate as well as the best full range speakers I've heard. Never have I mentioned anything about perfection, whether you're talking about full range speakers or sub combos. Since you were talking about going to CES in search of perfect sub interation, I presume then that you have heard PERFECT driver integration before in a full range speaker. That would be news to me since I've never heard it before. Then again, I've never heard a perfect speaker before either.

Contrary to what you write, room modes CAN create major integration problems with a subwoofer because from the subwoofer location, the room mode will likely occur at a different frequency than with the main speaker. With a bass trap, you reduce the magnitude of the room mode with both the speaker and the subwoofer. With equalization, you attenuate the peaks at the frequencies where they occur. Smoothing out the in-room response curve improves the integration dramatically. That's how the room effects influence the sub integration. You think this is an excuse? Why don't you try it out for yourself sometime? It's pretty laughable that you keep talking about excuses when you obviously don't even know, or even want to learn, how to properly set up a subwoofer in the first place.

Post where I have ever said I can hear night and day differences in $10k cables --- This is clearly an attempt by you to put me into the camp where "some people" live.

Oh brother, making up yet more crap for argument's sake. You said that people were buying $120k systems based on hotel room listenings, as if their decisions to do so supported your contention about room acoustics. I'm simply citing it as another example of a wasteful decision that people can make. If you take that personally or read into it that I'm accusing you of that, then you really need to chill out.

But why are you bringing this up -- I already addressed it so you now want to bring up the same arguemnt that I already addressed - I"M NOT SAYING THE ROOM DOES NOT HAVE THESE AFFECTS. Who the hell ever said the room doesn't have an effect. I'm not talking about the F-ing room I'm talking about the speaker. The room isn;t going to convert a $4.00 Yorx speaker into Paradigm Studio100V2 no matter what F-ing room treatment parametric EQ you use....do you understand that a speaker is important to achieving quality sound - you must or you would not have listen to over 40 speakers. Audio Note has written more extensively on close to room boundries and why they get very consistant results --- of course one can hear it in action at Soundhounds at least partially in that they have four entirely different rooms. That does not mean they can be positioned EXACTLY in the same position and it does not mean they will sound EXACTLY the same but then who said that? I said they get fairly consistant results in different rooms even bad rooms for them they seem to do very well. The AN E is often used in the blind listening sessions at Hi-Fi Choice when testing amplifier or CD players etc --- and in a room not conducive to the speaker.

You can spin this all you want. What you are saying is plain and simple -- you are denying the importance of the room acoustics when it comes to speaker comparisons. And I'm telling you that kind of statement is ridiculous bull****. You clearly don't understand the topic, and have zero hands on experience with identifying the audible effects of room treatments. Just how you mangle the terminology and mix your words around indicates to me that you've never tried it, you've never read up on it, you've never done listenings to account for the room effects, you've never measured the effects, and you've never done any corrections yourself. Yet, here you are telling everyone that rooms are a copout. You say that it's a copout, why don't you demonstrate why? Oh don't bother, I already know the response -- "I have ears and I have Audio Notes."

And room acoustics is not all about the boundary effects. The boundary effects have the biggest influence in the low frequencies. When you get into the highs and the midrange, it's the reflectivity and absorption characteristics and how they impact on the room delay that have the biggest audible effect.

I don't care if Audio Note has written extensively on boundary effects, and if they claim to have consistent results. I've never heard a speaker that does not shift its tonal characteristics, especially in the lows, when you move it between rooms. Just because Peter Q says so doesn't make your contention about the "copout" influence of room acoustics any less ridiculous than it is.

How many times have I already said and agreed on the point that a "GOOD" room gets the most of the speaker --yes! --- This is why I find it odd that at a dealer who at least in Vancouver have professionally acoustically treated rooms and pay people a $100k a year to do home installs to set these rooms up for rich folk and then - have people like you argue you should take the speaker home to audition where most people would be in a disaster of a room with no bass traps no acosutic treatments, NOTHING, but it's better to know how the speaker performs at home? ie how the speaker performs in a BAD room. Now the rooms at my delaer don;t have 14 speakers on a wall - they're called high end dealers where there is one system only one system in the room at a time. Yes I understand that one wants to make sure the speaker will not be overly boomy at home blah blah blah --- but if we're going to judge the SPEAKER and only the speaker I'd rather judge it in a good environment - I like to know what the speaker is capable of which is why I try and audition it with excellent gear of varying kinds and not a $45.00 heavil distorting Sanyo amp.

Of course it's better to do the comparison at home. EVERY room will influence the speaker reproduction differently. Why would you not want to hear how your own room influences the sound? It was through this process that I identified the boundary effects of my room.

You keep trying to shift the topic back to the speakers because that's really all that you can speak on based on any kind of experience. The room acoustics are not a copout because each room influences the playback differently. If you're doing speaker comparisons based on listenings in different demo rooms (which most people do), then the comparability is very limited.

And I find it interesting that you bring up the "$45 heavil [sp] distorting Sanyo amp" because in other threads you've railed over and over about how a receiver, any receiver, can ruin the sound of a speaker, and make a good speaker sound like crap, even though the measured differences might be minor at best. Funny that you deny how the room, which has far bigger measureable and perceptible variations, might influence someone's perception of a speaker.

Yes he really self-promotes - it's not like he came to this thread or advertises. People are welcome to do that for him - people who like his stuff usually.

You mean all this self-serving propaganda that you're quoting with him taking shots at "conventionalists"? From what I've been reading, he's all about marginalizing the approaches that he disagrees with. Seems that others have taken to that approach as well. Being different does not mean that approach is therefore the only correct one.

Now I never said that did I? like I said if all you hear is a ford stock stereo for 5 years and you hear a Bose the Bose will sound like musical nirvanna in comparison and the Ford Stock radio will sound pretty bad --- even though you enjoyed ithe ford stereo for a long time. I can hear 40 speakers and pick the best one for me too and next year hear something that will remove my previous best.

Well I could agree with people who think the Harman Paradigm approach is right - or a speaker maker that makes realistic sounding music - wonder which I'll pick?

A statement like that is pretty self-explanatory, no? You're implying that the "Harman Paradigm" approach is not about "realistic sounding music".

Your example of a Ford system and a Bose system is pretty pointless. I know that you think my receiver-based system is crap because it's a receiver, but you ignore the fact that I've done a lot more listening than that. I auditioned close to 40 speakers in my price range when choosing my system, but I've listened to far more than that over the last 20+ years. Funny that you can't argue the points based on your knowledge of room acoustics, so you attack people based on what they own or what you imply that they listen to.

Again who the hell is sayingthat the room doesn't matter. It's not like I'm saying one should go listen to speaker #1 in store A and speaker #2 in store B because the room doesn't matter. Not so Speaker 1 and 2 in the same room the room is going to either be a good or a bad room so what? How does the speaker sound --- chances are for MOST people the bad room is going to be closer to what they have at home --- besides this is a moot point anyway because you can take the AN and the Paradigm or whatever home if you wish. And if your contention without ever hearing them is correct then any free standing speaker will outperform the corner loading of the AN's --- Peter doesn't mind the challenge.

You just don't get it, do you? When you say that a "bad room" is closer to what most people will have at home, that ignores that the cabin gain and the room modes depend on the room dimensions. That has nothing to do with bad room versus good room, it's simply the normal variation that room dimensions create in the low frequencies. The reflectivity characteristics of the room can indeed make for a "bad room" but simply referring to a "bad room" and saying that it's closer to what people have at home is an oversimplification.

And it doesn't matter how you speculate an AN and Paradigm would compare, the simple fact is that the room will make the comparison different from room to room. The bass characteristics alone can differ drastically.

Again so what? Most people are buying Bose - most peope apparently vote for George Bush, most people in many states support the death penalty - most people are against for abortion, most people as a percentage of the overall vote voted for Hitler but the popular vote isn't always the right vote. Yes a speaker isn't a as important and B most people don;t really care - which is why there are more Future Shps peddling garbage than High end stores - which by the way often have products just as inexpensive as Future Shop. Most people don;t listen I have asked every dealer here for the buying habits of most people and it's under 1/2 hour in the vast majority of cases and usually only between two speakers -- sometimes only the same brand. i don;t necessarily have a problem it's a busy world most people work Monday to Friday and only have weekend - weekends are busy the sales guy isn;t going to spend all day with ONE person looking at $300.00-$600.00 speakers.

Nice of you to equate buying Paradigms to voting for Hitler or supporting the death penalty. I take it all back. Your posts are always very well reasoned and level headed, you NEVER exaggerate or make stuff up.

Once again, you ignore the point that I'm making. People make buying decisions based on THEIR preferences and THEIR listenings. You just can't bring yourself to acknowledge that other people can make intelligent decisions that differ from your values. You think I or the majority of people who decided on Paradigm did so because of their brochures and bought them without listening to them first or comparing to other brands?

You were saying that most people in Vancouver buy what they buy without listening? Hmmm, maybe Canadian consumers aren't as smart as I thought they were. People I know in AV sales around Cali complain about customers who take up their time listening to product after product without buying anything. These sales guys would LOVE it if the majority of their customers would just walk in and buy something in less than 1/2 an hour. Maybe they should move to Vancouver, might make a better living selling to the customers that you describe.

No sacrificing the forrest for the trees is at issue. If I notice the imaging and soundstaging then I'm taken out of the music period. I gave you a recording and I'm also confident that it will apply to most any recordings pick ten decent ones of any genre - so verify away.

Sorry, but you gave me nothing but excuses and spin. If you notice the imaging and the soundstaging, then that means that you're more immersed in the music because the illusion that the musicians are in the room with you has been created. If the imaging and soundstaging are not there, then I'm listening to two point sources. Are you saying that something with poor imaging and soundstaging will sound "more like music"?

Like I said, you made note that "homogenous and compressed" speakers that focus on imaging and soundstaging lop off the dynamics. If that's the case, then how do they create that center funneling effect, which runs contrary to the very concept of imaging? Telling me to "pick ten decent ones of any genre" means that this center funneling phenomenon that you touted is bull****. I can pick 10 or 100 or 1,000 recordings out of my collection and I'll tell you that it's bull**** because I've never observed it in my system. Well, unless you're now saying that Paradigm is not one of those "homogenous and compressed" speakers you constantly deride.

This is the argument I made - the room doesn't change the instrument recreated by the speaker. Therefore, to blame the room for a bad speaker is a copout. If you're not addressing this specifically then you have created an argument where none should be for no other reason that to bother me and waste bandwith.

Well I want a speaker designed to be listened to in rooms - no one is saying the room doesn't affect the sound - in the SAME room properly positioned the better speaker will sound better. Wow so we should just get a good suitable room for Bose - why buy Paradigm because in the right room Bose can sound better than any other speaker in that room BS.

I didn't know that there was such a thing as speakers NOT designed to be listened to in rooms! Who knows, in certain rooms, it very well might be possible for a Bose speaker to sound better. And you are aware that "better" is a subjective assessment, aren't you? You may not like Bose, I may not like Bose, but that doesn't constitute the universe now does it?

Hmm I never claimed to be an expert on room acoustics.

Oh, but you're enough of an expert to KNOW that anytime someone observes that speakers compare differently in different rooms that it's a copout.

What does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Saying that room acoustics is a copout and that that room acoustics is not important is NOT THE SAME THING. Gee kinda like perfect and seamless maybe. You're awfully picky on when you want to be anal retentive over language usage.

Your little sematic spins are oh so amusing. Now, it's MY anal retentiveness over language usage that's at issue. And I thought you wanted to discuss room acoustics. I guess if you can't discuss the subject substantively, you gotta switch subjects.

Well that doesn't help if you move does it? So now we can't listen to speakers and fairly review them, because the reviewer's listening room is the culprit - No a speaker should perform well in a variety of listening environments including ones where the designer really doesn't want them placed like the AN E at Hi-fi choice and it should still sound pretty good. Pretty good enough to beat the other speakers in the blind listening sessions. anyway.

Well that does help if you move does it?

Truer words of inexperience have never been spoken. If you move, then the sound will change. That's just how it is. At that point, you figure out if the altered sound properties are still acceptable for your listening enjoyment. If you've already figured out how to measure the room effects and apply room treatments, then you simply do that process over at the new place. When I moved my rig to a different room, I made a new set of measurements, replaced the acoustical panels, and recalibrated my settings.

Just because your Audio Notes do well at Hi-Fi Choice (what happened to reviews being worthless and biased?), does not mean that the results will be consistent from room to room. Yeah, a speaker should perform well in a variety of rooms, but wishful thinking does not make it so.

[RGA]

Woochifer

You like to clutter the issue of room acoustics. I could not care less where you do the auditions so long as it's the same room - if one wants to do this at home so be it - but if speakers are built for a viariety of rooms - which they should be - then I want one that will perform in a variety of rooms fairly consistantly without the need of liberal room treatments. In normal carpeted rooms with average furnishings you SHOULD get reasonably good sound.

You imply that one speaker will do better than another speaker and it's all room dependant. So a Paradigm Studio 100 will be better than a $40.00 Yorx, but gee if you get the room right the $40.00 Yorx will beat the Studio 100 - please enlighten me where you got that notion - yes substitute Bose for Yorx if you wish. Makes me wonder why anyone would spend more than $200.00 on a ludspeaker if you can convert any speaker into the Dynaudio Evidence master by simply running a frequency sweep and a parametric eq - who cares if the De Capo has a 5db dip you can just morph that up to flat anyway.

If you can just move your speakers to any room like you did and adjust the room treatments to follow suit - then you can and should be able to do that for any speaker (assuming the speaker is designed for the room size). Yes if there is a sliding scale of potentiality where you can maximize a given speaker's best sound and such a scale is out of 100 where one room only gets 35% of the speaker's ability while using treatments or chaniging rooms or both can get 98% of the speaker's best I am not arguing. The room has an influence on the end resulting sound that hits your ears but it is not the actual tonality of what is being played -- a C on a piano is not affected to change it to some other note when it gets to the ear - you get room induced effects yes changing the characteristics of fundamental instruments no. And my contention is that it is here as to why my auditions led me to Audio Note over the B&W and Paradigm models.

Moving my speakers 2 inches will change the way the room acts upon the ending sound and that goes for many if not all speakers out there...but it's not to such a degree in any room i've been in auditioning as to adversely detract from getting a good idea of what the speaker can do. Our ears are quite forgiving over 1/3 octave bands and on frequency anomolies. Frequency response is changed at every listening position in the room at that position --- if you are one meter away dead center or 8 meters away and 5 feet over to the left - These can be HUGE differences no matter what the hell you do to the room you are not covering all your positions because a bass trap and other treatment that works at 1 meter may ruin the other position.

Granted these are extreme examples but it is true from one side of your head to the other to some degree. If Richard Green is correct then the Rat Shack SPL is also largely innacurate above 2khz. If we're talking about bass it can be done by ear. I found my speaker at one position had a frequency dip at 50hz and more prominant at 40hz - I could tell that by listening(well not the specific frequency but I could tell that there was something not quite right - running my frequency sweep several times and re-positioning one can easily "dial" in audibly what is sounding correct while also alternating with Piano recordings since we should know the piano reasonably well. Then run the frequency sweep again and deterimine audibly if it sounds right. Most speakers in vogue right now are positioned in a very very similar location with similar instructions ~2-3 feet from all walls toe in as desired blah blah blah.

Surely you're not saying the room is so disasterous that you ccannot assess any loudspeakers without the need for extensive room treatments and run computer programs to achieve a flat response at the listening position. Please

As for receivers - they affect what initially comes out of a speaker The room cannot fix it if it's ruined from note one. More to the game than just frequency response.

You say sub integration is seamless - you want me to retract the word perfect fine if it makes you happy consider it retracted --- so you say it's seamless have said its seamless and now say it's as seamless as the best 3 way speakers you've heard. I suppose that depends on what you've heard - I suppose I could agree that some subs I have heard integrate about as well as a number of speakers as well (the Snell B-Minor comes to mind) - that doesn't say much in itself however.

[Pat D]

Woochifer

You like to clutter the issue of room acoustics. I could not care less where you do the auditions so long as it's the same room - if one wants to do this at home so be it - but if speakers are built for a viariety of rooms - which they should be - then I want one that will perform in a variety of rooms fairly consistantly without the need of liberal room treatments. In normal carpeted rooms with average furnishings you SHOULD get reasonably good sound.

You imply that one speaker will do better than another speaker and it's all room dependant. So a Paradigm Studio 100 will be better than a $40.00 Yorx, but gee if you get the room right the $40.00 Yorx will beat the Studio 100 - please enlighten me where you got that notion - yes substitute Bose for Yorx if you wish. Makes me wonder why anyone would spend more than $200.00 on a ludspeaker if you can convert any speaker into the Dynaudio Evidence master by simply running a frequency sweep and a parametric eq - who cares if the De Capo has a 5db dip you can just morph that up to flat anyway.

If you can just move your speakers to any room like you did and adjust the room treatments to follow suit - then you can and should be able to do that for any speaker (assuming the speaker is designed for the room size). Yes if there is a sliding scale of potentiality where you can maximize a given speaker's best sound and such a scale is out of 100 where one room only gets 35% of the speaker's ability while using treatments or chaniging rooms or both can get 98% of the speaker's best I am not arguing. The room has an influence on the end resulting sound that hits your ears but it is not the actual tonality of what is being played -- a C on a piano is not affected to change it to some other note when it gets to the ear - you get room induced effects yes changing the characteristics of fundamental instruments no. And my contention is that it is here as to why my auditions led me to Audio Note over the B&W and Paradigm models.

Moving my speakers 2 inches will change the way the room acts upon the ending sound and that goes for many if not all speakers out there...but it's not to such a degree in any room i've been in auditioning as to adversely detract from getting a good idea of what the speaker can do. Our ears are quite forgiving over 1/3 octave bands and on frequency anomolies. Frequency response is changed at every listening position in the room at that position --- if you are one meter away dead center or 8 meters away and 5 feet over to the left - These can be HUGE differences no matter what the hell you do to the room you are not covering all your positions because a bass trap and other treatment that works at 1 meter may ruin the other position.

Granted these are extreme examples but it is true from one side of your head to the other to some degree. If Richard Green is correct then the Rat Shack SPL is also largely innacurate above 2khz. If we're talking about bass it can be done by ear. I found my speaker at one position had a frequency dip at 50hz and more prominant at 40hz - I could tell that by listening(well not the specific frequency but I could tell that there was something not quite right - running my frequency sweep several times and re-positioning one can easily "dial" in audibly what is sounding correct while also alternating with Piano recordings since we should know the piano reasonably well. Then run the frequency sweep again and deterimine audibly if it sounds right. Most speakers in vogue right now are positioned in a very very similar location with similar instructions ~2-3 feet from all walls toe in as desired blah blah blah.

Surely you're not saying the room is so disasterous that you ccannot assess any loudspeakers without the need for extensive room treatments and run computer programs to achieve a flat response at the listening position. Please

As for receivers - they affect what initially comes out of a speaker The room cannot fix it if it's ruined from note one. More to the game than just frequency response.

You say sub integration is seamless - you want me to retract the word perfect fine if it makes you happy consider it retracted --- so you say it's seamless have said its seamless and now say it's as seamless as the best 3 way speakers you've heard. I suppose that depends on what you've heard - I suppose I could agree that some subs I have heard integrate about as well as a number of speakers as well (the Snell B-Minor comes to mind) - that doesn't say much in itself however.

You don't know what you are talking about, RGA. Just because speakers sound good in the store (or elsewhere) doesn't guarantee they will sound as good at home. It is quite possible to find several speakers that sound great in the store (or a friend's house, etc.) and get them home and find some of them don't sound as good at home whereas some others may sound even better. That's just the way it is whether you like it or not.

BTW, you had better read Doctor Richard's pescriptions for the bass region again as you have the figures wrong . . .

It's hardly our fault if you, and apparently your dealer, don't have the skills to get good results with subwoofers.

[Woochifer]

Woochifer

You like to clutter the issue of room acoustics. I could not care less where you do the auditions so long as it's the same room - if one wants to do this at home so be it - but if speakers are built for a viariety of rooms - which they should be - then I want one that will perform in a variety of rooms fairly consistantly without the need of liberal room treatments. In normal carpeted rooms with average furnishings you SHOULD get reasonably good sound.

Clutter the issue of room acoustics? How would you know given that you've never demonstrated any kind of understanding of the topic in the first place? Your persistent attempts to bring the topic back to the specific brands of speakers is only indicative that you can't coherently discuss the topic of room acoustics and how it relates to what you hear.

You imply that one speaker will do better than another speaker and it's all room dependant. So a Paradigm Studio 100 will be better than a $40.00 Yorx, but gee if you get the room right the $40.00 Yorx will beat the Studio 100 - please enlighten me where you got that notion - yes substitute Bose for Yorx if you wish. Makes me wonder why anyone would spend more than $200.00 on a ludspeaker if you can convert any speaker into the Dynaudio Evidence master by simply running a frequency sweep and a parametric eq - who cares if the De Capo has a 5db dip you can just morph that up to flat anyway.

Resorting to your usual tactics when confronted with a topic that you can't talk your way out of -- exaggerate,attack, conjure up inneuendo -- yup, pretty familiar.

You seem to forget that "better" or "beat" is a subjective evaluation. When do I ever suggest that "it's all room dependant [sp]"? Yup, another strawman argument so you can bring it all back to brand identity. All that I've ever noted is that the room acoustics can make a huge impact on the overall performance of a speaker. Depending on the characteristics of a speaker and how it interacts with a room, it can easily shift how one compares different speakers.

If you really think that I'm saying that a room and a frequency sweep and parametric EQ will transform a $200 speaker into a Dynaudio Evidence Master, you REALLY need to take a step back and get back to reality. I'm not the one who makes reckless exaggerations, and attributing an idiotic statement like that to the points that I'm making is really stretching things. With a properly treated room, you will more assuredly figure out why that one speaker is at the $200 price point, and why the other one goes for $80,000.

If you can just move your speakers to any room like you did and adjust the room treatments to follow suit - then you can and should be able to do that for any speaker (assuming the speaker is designed for the room size). Yes if there is a sliding scale of potentiality where you can maximize a given speaker's best sound and such a scale is out of 100 where one room only gets 35% of the speaker's ability while using treatments or chaniging rooms or both can get 98% of the speaker's best I am not arguing. The room has an influence on the end resulting sound that hits your ears but it is not the actual tonality of what is being played -- a C on a piano is not affected to change it to some other note when it gets to the ear - you get room induced effects yes changing the characteristics of fundamental instruments no. And my contention is that it is here as to why my auditions led me to Audio Note over the B&W and Paradigm models.

I have no idea why you keep bringing up the instruments argument. The room has nothing to do with the actual note and I've never even implied as such, but it has everything to do with how the REPRODUCTION of that note compares from location to location.

If you prefer the sound of your Audio Notes, fine. Just don't go trying to impose that those speakers are somehow immune to room effects, especially when discussing the low frequencies.

Moving my speakers 2 inches will change the way the room acts upon the ending sound and that goes for many if not all speakers out there...but it's not to such a degree in any room i've been in auditioning as to adversely detract from getting a good idea of what the speaker can do. Our ears are quite forgiving over 1/3 octave bands and on frequency anomolies. Frequency response is changed at every listening position in the room at that position --- if you are one meter away dead center or 8 meters away and 5 feet over to the left - These can be HUGE differences no matter what the hell you do to the room you are not covering all your positions because a bass trap and other treatment that works at 1 meter may ruin the other position.

And your 2" or 4" argument further illustrates what you don't know about room acoustics. Absorption and diffracting treatments work across a wide spectrum because they reduce the decay time with the reflected sound waves. Bass traps can prevent standing waves from forming in the first place or substantially reduce their impact by not giving the sound reflections a chance to interact with one another at close to full amplitude. A bass trap will not "ruin" the sound at another position because their whole purpose is to even out the bass response throughout the room. (Well, unless peaky boomy bass is your preference or you got a very inaccurate speaker, in which case bass traps will "ruin" your listening) The effect of a parametric EQ is the only one that is closely tied to the position, but even there, the variation only occurs along the same axis as the modal frequency.

The wall, floor, and ceiling materials reflect and absorb sound differently at different frequencies. Wall panels can help to smooth out the frequency response by making the reflectivity and absorption more consistent throughout the room. And they reduce the time domain distortions by reducing the decay time in the room.

Rather than perpetuate false arguments that you don't fully understand, why don't you do something constructive like actually try learning about the effects of the room acoustics, and do some hands-on experimenting for yourself. For all the brain matter that you waste trying to conjure up new inneuendo to marginalize valid technical points about room acoustics, you could actually learn something and make a bottomline improvement to the sound quality of your system in the process.

Granted these are extreme examples but it is true from one side of your head to the other to some degree. If Richard Green is correct then the Rat Shack SPL is also largely innacurate above 2khz. If we're talking about bass it can be done by ear. I found my speaker at one position had a frequency dip at 50hz and more prominant at 40hz - I could tell that by listening(well not the specific frequency but I could tell that there was something not quite right - running my frequency sweep several times and re-positioning one can easily "dial" in audibly what is sounding correct while also alternating with Piano recordings since we should know the piano reasonably well. Then run the frequency sweep again and deterimine audibly if it sounds right. Most speakers in vogue right now are positioned in a very very similar location with similar instructions ~2-3 feet from all walls toe in as desired blah blah blah.

The Radio Shack SPL meter has two weighting positions. The A weighting constrains the frequency range to the midrange, while the C weighting is full range. The inaccuracies of the SPL meter are mostly below 60 Hz, but that's easy to get around by using the many adjustment charts that people have created by comparing the Radio Shack SPL meter with calibrated instruments. Rives Audio also produces a test disc that includes a set of test tones calibrated to the Radio Shack SPL meter. And if you really want to be a stickler for accuracy, the SPL meter can also accept an external mic.

Bass corrections are the one area that CANNOT be accurately done by ear. For starters, the human ear's sensitivity iprogressively decreases as the frequency goes lower. Also, you talk about 50 Hz and 40 Hz, but how do you actually know that those indeed are the frequencies that you're observing? A simple sweep test will identify that you got issues, but using just your ears it will not tell you precisely how big the problem is, or how wide or how narrow the frequency range that it affects is.

The three prominent low frequency peaks on my system not only vary by frequency, but in amplitude and bandwidth as well. The peak that occurs at 32 Hz is less than 1/6 octave wide. You talk about how the human ear smooths over differences, but a +10 db peak at 32 Hz is not one of them. You can do all of the repositioning you want, but in a small/medium sized room, the odds are that you won't get the bass right through repostioning alone because the room effects are what they are. With bass traps, you can reduce the room effects across the whole bass range. With the parametric EQ, you fine tune it for any remaining problem frequencies, or you can just use that as the primary room correction device. Furthermore, the best positioning for bass response does not necessarily match up with the best positioning for imaging coherency.

The option of the parametric EQ and the many more placement options IMO are the strongest argument in favor of a subwoofer. I subjectively test bass with a disc heavy on acoustic bass, and almost every speaker that I've heard will play back specific notes on that disc at way different levels than others. With just my rudimentary setup (I don't have a variable crossover frequency, variable slope, or timing correction available through my older receiver), the sound with the acoustic bass is more even and consistent than with just about every other speaker/room combination I've ever tried. That's what the parametric EQ brings to the table.

As for receivers - they affect what initially comes out of a speaker The room cannot fix it if it's ruined from note one. More to the game than just frequency response.

So you're saying that receivers make a bigger difference than rooms do? Sorry, but that notion is simply laughable. Very interesting that you always like to berate receivers saying that they "ruin" the sound, yet you're all too willing to ignore the room effects, which have far bigger variations in how they impact on the sound. Keep in mind that the speaker and the room are both part of the same acoustical mechanism. If you like to view the speaker and the room as completely separate entities that have little to do with one another, then you might as well regard the drivers and the enclosure/port as separate as well.

Room acoustics are also about a lot more than just frequency response, but the variations in the frequency response that they produce are the most clearly audible and verifiable effects. And the frequency response variation that a room can produce is huge. How much variation do receivers singlehandedly create? Oh, that's right, receivers create big enough differences to "ruin" music, but rooms are a copout.

You say sub integration is seamless - you want me to retract the word perfect fine if it makes you happy consider it retracted --- so you say it's seamless have said its seamless and now say it's as seamless as the best 3 way speakers you've heard. I suppose that depends on what you've heard - I suppose I could agree that some subs I have heard integrate about as well as a number of speakers as well (the Snell B-Minor comes to mind) - that doesn't say much in itself however.

You keep making these little semantic distinctions, yet you never answer my question. Who is talking about PERFECT sub integration? Those are your words! You claim that "some" people talk about PERFECT sub integration? Certainly isn't me, and I don't know of anyone on this board who talks about that. Either own up to that, or feel free to continue your pointless sematic exercises.

And you can do better than to try putting words in my mouth. When have I ever described sub integration as seamless in the absolute sense? You're accusing me of that, so I assume that you know what you're talking about. I use that term a lot in center speaker discussions, and I have used it to describe surround setups, but not in absolute terms with subs.