Non-environment listening rooms isolate direct sound to reveal low-level audio detail

Evidence

These rooms have speakers, which are flush mounted in a reflecting wall, and a reflecting floor. The rear wall is highly absorbent, as are the side walls and ceiling. The combined effect of these treatments is that sound from the loudspeakers is absorbed instead of being reflected so that only the direct sound is heard by the listener, except for a floor reflection. However, the presence of two reflecting surfaces does support some early reflections for sources away from the speakers. This means that the acoustic environment for people in the room, although dead, is not oppressively anechoic. Proponents of this style of room say that the lack of anything but the direct sound makes it much easier to hear low-level detail in the reproduced audio and provides excellent stereo imaging. This is almost certainly due to the removal of any conflicting cues in the sound, as the floor reflection has very little effect on the stereo image. — David Howard, Jamie Angus, coustics and Psychoacoustics, 2294

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the non-environment room concept and its psychoacoustic rationale for revealing detail.