Listening seats placed near rear walls create early strong reflections that degrade imaging

Evidence

A lot of effort and talk goes into getting the right acoustical setting for the loudspeakers, but little, it seems, for the listener. Just today I was perusing a high-end audio magazine, and saw a photo of a reviewer’s listening room. My first impression was that it was probably not a bad room: the loudspeakers were well away from the boundaries, the walls were geometrically irregular with many large shelving units full of books and recordings, and there was what looked like a good carpet. But, the solitary chair was very close to the back wall. It is an unfortunate fact of many home listening rooms, and I have experienced it in some hotel room audio-show demonstrations. The ideal solution is to move the listener away from the wall, but with limited space this may not be possible. Figure 9.15 shows what happens; a whole new set of reflections is created, and the ones immediately following the direct sounds from the loudspeakers are very early and very strong. There will be ceiling reflections as well. — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1117

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the chapter’s adjacent-boundary theme, extended from loudspeaker to listener — a symmetric treatment. — connects to: Near-wall listening positions create early strong rear reflections; Excess uncorrelated rear-wall sound can destroy the phantom center image — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 702; Small playback rooms impose their own early reflections on recorded sound (+9 more)

Related

• Near-wall listening positions create early strong rear reflections (similarity 0.96)
• A small listening room’s first reflections mask the recorded acoustic space (similarity 0.90)
• Sitting close to a rear wall creates early strong reflections that corrupt perceived sound (similarity 0.89)
• Early side-wall reflections range neutral to beneficial with well-designed loudspeakers (similarity 0.89)
• Early reflections must be suppressed about 15 dB to stay inaudible (similarity 0.89)
• Room boundary reflections are the second loudest sounds a listener hears (similarity 0.87)
• Early wall reflections pin perceived sound space to room size (similarity 0.85)
• Room acoustics requires modeling direct sound then early reflections (similarity 0.85)
• Excess uncorrelated rear-wall sound can destroy the phantom center image (similarity 0.85)
• Ceiling-reflected diffuse sound cannot substitute for real side-wall reflections (similarity 0.84)
• Early lateral reflections are attenuated by loudspeaker directivity, not harmful. (similarity 0.84)
• Small playback rooms impose their own early reflections on recorded sound (similarity 0.84)
• Room boundaries alter loudspeaker output through reflected image sources (similarity 0.84)
• Leaving the first side wall reflective reveals off-axis loudspeaker behavior in tests (similarity 0.83)
• Sitting near walls creates repetition-pitch coloration in perceived sound (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Room boundaries alter loudspeaker output through reflected image sources #expands (0.82)
• Early side-wall reflections range neutral to beneficial with well-designed loudspeakers #qualifies (0.82) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 845
• Reflecting walls are equivalent to mirror-image virtual sound sources #expands (0.80) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 515
• A small listening room’s first reflections mask the recorded acoustic space #expands (0.80)
• Small playback rooms impose their own early reflections on recorded sound #expands (0.78)
• Fan-shaped halls discourage early side reflections and tend to fail acoustically #corroborates (0.78)
• Early wall reflections pin perceived sound space to room size #expands (0.75) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2283
• A single sound source near a reflecting surface creates interference via an image source #expands (0.72)
• Small listening rooms lack diffuse reverberation and contain only early reflections #expands (0.72) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 477