In My Room
Listening rooms are real, imperfect places. Their character arises from their defects. I like real, imperfect things.1 Not that there’s such a thing as a perfect listening room. Every domestic listening room shares the same basic problem: Its most fundamental nature—its size and shape, the amount of space it carves out—results in resonances that can profoundly alter the sound of reproduced music, especially in the bass.2 Favorable dimensions, sound-absorbing furnishings, room treatments, signal processing—many things can mitigate the problem, but it can never be eliminated. Play an immaculately recorded piece of music, in any room, and no matter how fancy and expensive your audio system is, some bass notes will be too loud while others are too soft. The only thing in doubt is whether those deviations from neutrality are serious…
