great question, thank you @heavygweit!

the room is definitely a big contributing factor, for sure. imo under-looked relative to its importance. many audiophiles spend six figures on their equipment meanwhile their room looks (and sounds) like a medieval dungeon.

that said, a big three-way floorstanding speaker won’t suddenly sound like a sonos bluetooth speaker just because the room sucks. so there are certain unavoidable physical realities: how big is the speaker cabinet and driver(s), how efficient is the design, how many watts are driving it, ported vs. sealed enclosure, horn-loaded vs. dome tweeter, etc.

the room can certainly change how you experience a particular speaker or component, but it doesn’t change its fundamental sonic characteristics. for example, if a speaker has a bright/harsh top end, an untreated room will accentuate this and make it sound even more harsh. but even the best treated room can’t make the tweeter sound natural if it’s inherently bright and aggressive.

More great audiophile nerd-sniping from the nichemaxxer himself, @matthewb.

As usual, I'm taking notes. 

(The algo often misses quality casts like this. Need human curators to help them get seen).

figuring out my next thing | marketing, content, growth | prev. Juicebox, Nouns, RAW DAO | casting about coffee, hi-fi, and other rabbit holes

recently I’ve been using llms to analyze and compare speaker measurements like frequency response, impedance/phase, lateral/vertical response, spectral-decay plots, and step response.

there’s a longstanding debate in audiophile circles about the importance of measurements (“objective”) vs. listening in-person (“subjective”) when evaluating speakers and components.

the reality is far more complex because speakers are both an engineering problem and a psychoacoustic one, all wrapped up in the deeply personal realm of music.

pictured below are Rockport Avior II speakers with a Jadis integrated amp. you can also see a bunch of Pass gear in the silver cases.

"...speakers are both an engineering problem and a psychoacoustic one, all wrapped up in the deeply personal realm of music."

Writer, senior editor, music nerd, GenX eldergoth, monastery-bootstrapper. https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson https://tinyurl.com/Black-Stone-Wordsmith

"...speakers are both an engineering problem and a psychoacoustic one, all wrapped up in the deeply personal realm of music." 

https://warpcast.com/matthewb/0xee5cf4f1