Near-wall listening positions create early strong rear reflections

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

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: Sitting near walls creates repetition-pitch coloration in perceived sound; Leaving the first side wall reflective reveals off-axis loudspeaker behavior in tests; In small rooms RT target 0.2-0.5 s; early reflections dominate mid-high frequencies (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Listening seats placed near rear walls create early strong reflections that degrade imaging #corroborates (1.00) — , Toole, Floyd E - Sound reproduction-…, 1117
• Early wall reflections pin perceived sound space to room size #expands (0.85) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2283
• Small playback rooms impose their own early reflections on recorded sound #exemplifies (0.80)