Flat-response speakers unavoidably produce a bass-heavy steady-state room sound

Evidence

Whatever the shape of the spectrum of the direct sound from musical instruments, or loudspeakers reproducing recordings of those musical instruments, the steady-state sound in a normal room will exhibit a version of that spectrum that rises at lower frequencies. Highly reflective concert halls attempt to preserve the limited sound output of musical instruments and voices in reflections, delivering as much of it as possible to listeners, while not masking temporal details in the music, and still creating a pleasant sense of envelopment. It is a difficult acoustical balancing act. Sound reproduction spaces are much less reflective: the principal cues to space and envelopment are in the multichannel recordings, and a volume control changes loudness at will. Loudspeakers designed with flat on-axis frequency responses, so as to accurately reproduce the initial timbral signature of the recorded sounds, will therefore exhibit a rising sound power output at lower frequencies. — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1216

Categorization

• SEED: Angle for a hi-fi explainer: why ‘flat’ loudspeakers still sound boomy in most rooms, and why you shouldn’t blame the speaker or the balance knob.
• XREF: connects to: Loudspeakers and rooms function together as a single audible system; Flat on-axis speakers naturally produce rising bass power and downward-tilted room curves.; Room pressurization creates a compliant bass boost below the first axial mode (+4 more)

Related

• Flat on-axis speakers naturally produce rising bass power and downward-tilted room curves. (similarity 0.94)
• Bass rises in reflected room sound for all forward-firing loudspeakers (similarity 0.91)
• Room pressurization creates a compliant bass boost below the first axial mode (similarity 0.88)
• The steady-state room curve should tilt downward while the direct sound stays flat (similarity 0.87)
• Room reflectivity at low frequencies determines bass elevation in measured steady-state curves (similarity 0.86)
• A flat-response speaker still shows boundary-induced frequency changes in room (similarity 0.86)
• Room reverberant fields typically rise in bass, necessitating bandwidth-matched equalizer cuts for distant miking (similarity 0.86)
• Equalizing for a flat in-room response requires adding a high-frequency boost. (similarity 0.85)
• Gently rising bass response is both natural and preferred in loudspeakers (similarity 0.84)
• A flat steady-state in-room response boosts high-frequency direct sound (similarity 0.84)
• Bass rise in reflected sound is physically unavoidable with forward-firing speakers. (similarity 0.84)
• The listening room, not the loudspeaker, determines perceived bass quality. (similarity 0.83)
• Highly regarded hifi loudspeakers had wildly non-flat anechoic responses (similarity 0.83)
• Room resonance excess masks loudspeaker bass deficiency to listeners (similarity 0.83)
• Room acoustics dominate perceived bass response below roughly 250 Hz (similarity 0.83)