Reviewers often conflate the room and program with the loudspeaker’s own sound
Evidence
In loudspeaker evaluations, listeners are presumed to be able to separate the sound signature of the loudspeakers from those of the room and the music programs. That is not easy. … All evaluations yield opinions, but not all opinions are answers to the question being asked. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 83
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- DEFINE: Establishes the core difficulty motivating the chapter’s methodology comparisons: separating loudspeaker signature from room and program contributions.
Related
- Room acoustics contaminate loudspeaker listening tests needing controlled environments (similarity 0.88)
- Listeners need some room sound but its required amount is unknown (similarity 0.88)
- Listeners perceptually normalize familiar rooms to judge loudspeakers clearly (similarity 0.87)
- Rooms shift absolute ratings but not loudspeaker rankings in multiple-loudspeaker comparisons (similarity 0.87)
- Human listeners can identify loudspeaker qualities through rooms, while microphones cannot. (similarity 0.87)
- Multichannel spatial information masks loudspeaker coloration in playback (similarity 0.87)
- Loudspeakers and rooms act as a combined system that cannot be judged separately (similarity 0.87)
- Room differences dominate loudspeaker differences when listeners cannot adapt (similarity 0.87)
- Loudspeakers and rooms function together as a single audible system (similarity 0.87)
- Listeners judge reproduced sound against accumulated experience of live sound (similarity 0.86)
- Room size and shape do not change multiple-loudspeaker sound quality ratings (similarity 0.86)
- Recorded room ambience may distract listeners from evaluating raw loudspeaker quality (similarity 0.86)
- Program material choice determines which loudspeaker or room flaws get revealed (similarity 0.85)
- Mismatched left-right speakers may degrade stereo imaging more than room effects. (similarity 0.85)
- On-axis response alone cannot predict how a loudspeaker sounds in a room (similarity 0.85)
Broader Connections
- Recorded room ambience may distract listeners from evaluating raw loudspeaker quality
#corroborates(0.90) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 463 - Loudspeakers and rooms function together as a single audible system
#expands(0.85) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 471 - Room acoustics act as another system modifying the instrument’s output
#expands(0.80) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 1059 - Listeners perceptually normalize familiar rooms to judge loudspeakers clearly
#qualifies(0.78) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 528 - Listeners adapt to loudspeaker flaws and still enjoy reproduced sound
#qualifies(0.75) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 50 - Anechoic chambers misrepresent how loudspeakers sound in normal rooms
#corroborates(0.72) — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 872 - Stereo and multichannel listening make listeners more forgiving of loudspeaker flaws
#corroborates(0.70) — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 488