A small listening room’s first reflections mask the recorded acoustic space

Evidence

Because of the precedence effect, this reflection dominates, and the replayed sound is perceived as coming from a space the size of the listening room, which is clearly undesirable. What is required is a means of making the sound from the loudspeakers appear as if it is coming from a larger space by suppressing the early reflections from the nearby walls, as shown in Figure 7. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2283 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Shared room acoustics let 1920 phonograph demos fool live audiences; Small listening rooms lack diffuse reverberation and contain only early reflections — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 477; Listening seats placed near rear walls create early strong reflections that degrade imaging — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1117 (+6 more)

Related

• Early wall reflections pin perceived sound space to room size (similarity 0.93)
• Near-wall listening positions create early strong rear reflections (similarity 0.92)
• Early reflections must be suppressed about 15 dB to stay inaudible (similarity 0.91)
• Small playback rooms impose their own early reflections on recorded sound (similarity 0.91)
• We mostly listen to recorded sound in small rooms, not performance halls (similarity 0.90)
• Listening seats placed near rear walls create early strong reflections that degrade imaging (similarity 0.90)
• In small rooms RT target 0.2-0.5 s; early reflections dominate mid-high frequencies (similarity 0.89)
• Room boundary reflections are the second loudest sounds a listener hears (similarity 0.89)
• Larger recorded spaces perceptually dominate smaller playback spaces (similarity 0.89)
• Multichannel and immersive audio reduce the perceptual importance of small-room reflections. (similarity 0.89)
• Room acoustics requires modeling direct sound then early reflections (similarity 0.88)
• Early side-wall reflections range neutral to beneficial with well-designed loudspeakers (similarity 0.88)
• Envelopment in small rooms must come from recordings rather than natural reflections (similarity 0.88)
• Small listening rooms lack diffuse reverberation and contain only early reflections (similarity 0.88)
• In small rooms reflections arrive early and never form a diffuse field (similarity 0.88)

Broader Connections

• Small playback rooms impose their own early reflections on recorded sound #corroborates (1.00)
• Early wall reflections pin perceived sound space to room size #expands (0.85) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2283
• Smaller listening areas require less acoustic absorption treatment #contradicts (0.85)
• We mostly listen to recorded sound in small rooms, not performance halls #expands (0.80)
• Humans can perceptually separate a sound source from its room. #qualifies (0.75) — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1858
• Early side-wall reflections range neutral to beneficial with well-designed loudspeakers #qualifies (0.70) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 845