Sonus faber vs Marten

[Feanor]

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The presumption is that stores are bad and homes are somehow cure all solutions. That applies to "some" extent to audio shows. I never quite get why these people think they can set up speaker X in their home and achieve better sound than the speaker X head designer setting up a room at a dealer (which by the way is often the case).

Good speakers should be designed to operate in a variety of rooms. Hence why the "best" loudspeakers that I have heard sound very very similar (and also good to phenomenal) across a wide range of rooms sizes and shapes. ....

There's no such presumption on my part. But ultimately speakers have to work in my room, not some hypothetically ideal room, whether be the maker's, the dealer's, a hotel room, John Atkninson's, or the NRC's anechoic facility.

People talk about component synergies: the most important is the speaker with the room.

[RGA]

There's no such presumption on my part. But ultimately speakers have to work in my room, not some hypothetically ideal room, whether be the maker's, the dealer's, a hotel room, John Atkninson's, or the NRC's anechoic facility.

People talk about component synergies: the most important is the speaker with the room.

I kind of agree but only in a general way. A speaker designed for a small apartment sized living room versus a speaker designed to work 15 feet apart and 8 feet into a room that is 40 X 30 with 30 foot ceilings - and yeah room/speaker synergy trumps all. It doesn't if the rooms are all 12 X16 to 18 X 28 Whether you have carpets and Fred has hardwood - good speakers from good designers take those into account.

The vast majority of speakers on the market for example are designed for the anechoic room (or no room) response and are meant to remove the room effect - hence away from all room boundaries auditioned in the nearfield so you don't get the room's sound.

The only way the room is going to have a negative effect to these speakers is if you can't position the speaker in said "away from walls nearfield triangle" position, or if the room is outrageously out of whack in terms of size for the loudspeaker. If you hear said system in the correct set-up in the correct sized room and you can set the speaker up in your home the same way and the room size is appropriate then you can be (and should be if the maker is competent) fully assured you will get the same or very very very close to the same sound you heard at the dealer or show or buddies house.

And as I said the PROOF is the fact that people describe most speakers the exact same way - and that is because said speakers sound the same no matter what room they're in. Play a violin in your living room, bathroom and kitchen - the instrument still sounds the same. Sure there will be some difference but you're not mistaking it for a violoncello or cello - And a better instrument will sound better in the bathroom than a lesser instrument despite being a horrible acoustic space.

Room treatments fix rooms - not loudspeakers. If the room is bad and you fix it - it will be fixed for ALL loudspeakers that go into said room - especially if said loudspeakers are designed in the same general way - narrow baffle box for free standing position. A room that has a gross slap echo - has a gross slap echo no matter what speaker you put in the room. Get rid of slap echo it's gone for all loudspeakers you put in that room.

A speaker that sounds much better than another speaker sounds much better no matter what room you put it in (with room size the factor).