Falling reverberant energy makes a speaker sound duller and less present, reducing mix clarity.

Evidence

The dip in reverberant energy will make the speaker less “present” and may make sounds in this region harder to hear in the mix. The drop in reverberant field at the top end will make the speaker sound “duller.” Some manufacturers try to compensate for these effects by allowing the on-axis response to rise in these regions; however, this brings other problems. The reduction in reverberant field with increasing Q is used to advantage in speech systems to raise the level of direct sound above the reverberant field and so improve the intelligibility. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1812

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: why ‘presence’ is really a measure of reverberant-field energy, not on-axis flatness — an essay on how we hear rooms, not speakers.
• DEFINE: Clarifies the perceptual meaning of reverberant-field dips: dullness and reduced presence.