Acoustic Measurement Standards for Stereo Listening Rooms published
Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 8:36AM Some of the many questions that can be found scattered across the internet and overheard in conversations amongst audiophiles today relate to room acoustic measurements:
- What are the key measurements?
- How do I interpret them?
- What does good look like?
- How do they relate to each other?
These questions arise from the recent availability of cheap and accurate 'consumer' acoustical measurement products like XTZ Room Analyzer, Room EQ Wizard and Dayton Audio Omnimic. Whist these packages allow you to measure your room they do not provide any guidance on how to interpret the results relative to the audiophile situation of two speakers in a room.
In April of 2011 Nyal Mellor of Acoustic Frontiers and Jeff Hedback of HdAcoustics recognized this and started work on creating a set of measurement standards specific to the requirements of the two channel audiophile. Many hours of hard work have culminated in the release of the white paper Acoustic Measurement Standards for Stereo Listening Rooms which you can download as a pdf by clicking on the link.
This paper is recommended reading if you are interested in understanding how room acoustics can influence sound quality. It also provides clear targets for the acoustic measurements that characterize your room's performance. We hope you enjoy it. We have definitely had a blast creating it!
Nyal @ Acoustic Frontiers.
Acoustic Frontiers is an acoustics company specializing in home theater and two channel listening rooms. We service customers all over the world from our base in Northern California. See our website for more details on our consulting services.
Reader Comments (3)
I would like to thank you so very much for putting such a wealth of information together in this document ! It's really connected lots of previously uncorrelated concepts all together very nicely for me!! Very powerfull ; Much Appreciated !!
Thanks so much Joe!
It was certainly a big undertaking but one that Jeff and I hope will really give people a procedure to follow and a set of standards to aim for with their two channel systems.
Hi Nyal, I have tried to read directly or download the document referred (Acoustic Measurement Standards for Stereo Listening Rooms) with no success so far. Could you please tell me if I need to do something special to gain access to it?
Thanks in advance.
Javier - Spain