Well the photo's don't show his WHOLE room. Plus, while I am an advocate of room treatment it can EASILY be over done.

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I am quite surprised that Mr. Fremer does not have enough room treatments.

He does have his room treated. The Tube Traps etc are not shown in the Gizmodo photo.

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Shouldn't Mr. Fremer, as passionate as he is, (and Stereophile) know better?

He does, despite your "gotcha".

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Furthermore, why doesn't Stereophile put in pictures and measurements of their reviewers' rooms?

We used to publish a feature on our reviewers' rooms but haven't done so for some years. Yes, it would be a good idea to do so again. Some of our rooms are pictured in our website gallery, however.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Practically every review you read, especially with speakers, the reviewer sites his room size. Ofter he may even mention something like "in my 12 x 18 room they sounded xyz, and in my 16 x 24 room they sound ZYX." They usually will explain where their seat was, near of far field, and other information. Also, in the equipment list at the end of reviews you can see a listing of items such as room treatments.

I would think that most people do use their living room for daily living, and they (and the others sharing the space) have restrictions on how to organise that space. Most people are not even able to place their hifi/speakers in the optimum location, let alone put up room treatments that are usually socially unacceptable.
Although there are known guidelines, the best solutions are tailor made for a particular room. Haphazard efforts might fix one aspect and ruin another.

the OP brings up a very good point. If a room is not properly treated, one is not really hearing the equipment at all, just a compromised, crippled facsimile.

The room is the MOST important aspect. more important than speakers , transport, anything.

and I would think any domestic situation that allows(period!) a gazillion dollar system , would by the same token, also allow room treatments. i know if i had the gall to spend money that way, i damn sure wouldnt care about treating the room to the hilt!

I love this thread.

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I love this thread.

I guess no one else does - no response from the Stereophile guys.

I responded earlier in the thread. You even replied to my posting.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Let me see if I have this straight:

You, curiousmind, misread a few photos of Michael Fremer's room and assume he has no room treatments and comment accordingly on Stephen Mejias

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Likewise, some dumb audiophile will go out this weekend and purchase a Wilson Maxx3 for their system. The audiophile may take the ancillary electronics into account, but will likely not consider the room. It may be a likely scenario that if he did the room and upgraded the electronics while going with a lower model of speaker he will have better sound. But he does not know that, of course.

Thanks for your contribution, Stereophile.

Yes, some dumb audiophile who was otherwise smart enough to earn enough green to be able to afford the speaker, who was smart enough to find out about the Wilson line, was smart enough to find a dealer, who is smart enough to know that his Wilson dealer will deliver and install the speakers and help with appropriate placement and room considerations?

(All of which have been discussed by Stereophile in the past, which the dumb audiphile may have used to discover this information.)

You mean that kind of dumb audiophile?

What were you thinking, some dumb audiophile would take his iPod down to the local Wilson Speaker outlet and toss a pair of Maxx speakers into the trunk of his Hyundai?

Yeah, I really love this thread.

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No one has still addressed the issue of the post - how much effect does the room have? How much should one spend on room treatments vs. equipment/ speakers?

Based upon the title of your thread, combined with the content of the first post and taking into consideration your comments on SM's blog, I was under the impression the issue of the post was:

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Why not publish pictures of reviewers' rooms?

Which I felt was clearly answered.

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Why not test equipment in rooms of various levels of treatment so that people can make the right decisions with their hard earned money?

One does not follow from the other, but given the asinine nature your commentary has taken on, I don't suspect that matters much to you. It's obvious to me that you have an agenda that transcends what you've been harping about.

I can't say I've, "been in the hobby for a short time," because I haven't even received my equipment yet. This is all new to me. I can't comment on room treatments or demagnetizers or DBTs or power cords...so I read everything I can and try to learn. And it's plainly represented in this thread that you ask questions, ignore answers and thus far have only responded to what you perceive to be personal attacks. Do you just not read what people have said in response to your queries?

Ultimately that type of behavior destroys any credibility your expressed concerns may have garnered, and quite frankly makes them no longer seem like concerns at all. They have taken on the air of machinations towards an agenda.

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No one has still addressed the issue of the post...

As has been pointed out, both Michael Fremer and I addressed your specific point, which concerned the acoustic treatment of his room.

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- how much effect does the room have? How much should one spend on room treatments vs. equipment/ speakers?

This subject has been examined at length by Stereophile over the years and almost all that coverage is available in our free on-line archives.

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Why not publish pictures of reviewers' rooms?

Again, I answered this specific question in a posting to which you then responded, meaning you had read it. Why are you now saying the question was not answered?

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Why not test equipment in rooms of various levels of treatment so that people can make the right decisions with their hard earned money?

On the face of it, this is a good suggestion, but it is perhaps too simplistic an approach for a complex subject. You can find in our archives measurements of the same speaker's behavior in different rooms, as in Fred Kaplan's review of the Verity Sarastro 2 in our May issue or my follow-up on the Revel Salon2 in March 2009 (both reviews available in our on-line archives).

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile