After having owned a fair amount of speakers I have come to conclusion that that out of room speaker measurements - relative to response - are almost useless and generally misleading below 60hz. I currently own Triangle Celius speakers. Their anechoic bass response is (+/- a couple db) flat to 43hz. However in room, using an RTA, I get flat response to 35hz and only 3db down at 30hz when they are set up right. When I owned Mirage 3si's for a short period the bass below 50hz was way too heavy and could not be corrected. (I suppose a DSP to lower the entire range could be used or copius amounts of room treatment. However it seems to me that the speaker/room interface should solve 95% of the issues and the other remedies should be used very selectively and minimully.) My room is 24X14 and opens on one long side to the entry way which is extremely large - so my room is not small and bass has a bit more room to breathe than in most rooms. I think much more emphasis needs to be placed on in room response and reviewers should not only mention the size of the room they are in but try the speakers is rooms of various size and show us the in room responses. (Another vary important issue is port placement. I have had to make drastic set up changes depending on whether the units had front or rear ports). As such I suggest a minimum of 2 rooms be used and we are provided not only specific set up data - both on where the speakers sound best and where they sound worse (assuming a standard triangular set up). Additionally we should be provided in room response curves for the best set ups in the 2 rooms. Finally - I would like to know what in room responses people are getting from Class A speakers and to see their associated in room response curves. It seems to me that these speakers - which are supposed to be flat to about 20hz - can not sound good unless the owners have very large rooms, employ heroic room treatmment or DSP assistance. Or maybe they just ignore it because they are unaware that they bought too much speaker for the room? (Audio shows are an excellent example of this. Vendors more often than not bring their larger speakers and then expect you to ignore the problems the rooms induce. The only rooms I have heard that had good sound employing large speakers (or subs) were larger rooms. Only stand mounted speakers tended to sound good in the smaller rooms)
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