Lyngdorf Audio Room Perfect TDAI 2200 - Manual (Page 8)

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dimensional measurement – obviously that it requires acoustical skills and possibly also some
luck to reach the right conclusions based on that methodology. Even if you measure in a
number of positions around the listening position and then take an average, our tests have
shown that moving the microphone just 10cm/4in relative to the listening position easily
results in 20 - 40dB deviations. So, unless you are a very skilled in acoustics, the chances of
making a wrong decision are huge.
Another crucial decision is how to define on the ideal target response – logically, if you don’t
know what the target is, it is impossible to get there!
Instead of making measurements at the listening position, some systems measure the way the
loudspeaker couples to the room (the acoustic impedance). And very often such a power
response measurement can correct the issues you have ‘globally’ in the room, i.e. across the
room. However, it will never perfectly solve the problems at the listening position.
Our goals with RoomPerfect
TM
“The ideal response is flat and without reflections” is very often the statement you’ll hear if you
ask people what the perfect sound would be for them.
However, for various reasons it is not our goal to create that… just take a look at the
frequency response examples cited later in this document – they are not flat as a
mathematician would like them and not smoothed to look nice. However, they represent sound
in the real world! To an acoustic engineer they look extremely good!
So, why not flat and without reflections?
First of all, we are used to listening to music inside a room – everyone knows that if you listen
to your preferred audio system outdoors something is missing – bass and impact. In other
words what we define as the generic in-room bass enhancement sounds natural to us, which is
precisely why this shouldn’t be compensated for.
Secondly, listening to a speaker with a flat in-room power response would sound terribly
bright. Measuring the direct on-axis response will look flat, but at the listening position the
sound will roll off towards the high frequencies – due to distance, directivity, off-axis listening
and general high frequency absorption and reflections in the room.
Thirdly, reflections are a big part of how we determine directionality and ambience – i.e. if
there are no reflections, a lot of the 3-dimensional information would be lost. If you are trying
to simulate how something will sound in a given position in a room, you need to simulate a
minimum of 100.000 reflections – otherwise it just doesn’t reflect a real life situation.
Therefore the challenge is not to remove the room and the reflections – but to adapt to them.
The speaker designer obviously had an idea of how he wanted his loudspeaker to sound when
he was designing the speaker - it has an identity we want to preserve, no matter in which
room or how the speaker is placed. This is what RoomPerfect™ is all about.
In other words, since we assume that you bought your speakers because you liked the sound
of them, our goal is not to make every audio system sound the same. The tonal balance of
your speakers will be kept intact – but we will then match them to your room by compensating
for the room’s influence.
Generally, room influence can be defined as peaks and dips in the frequency response. Some
can – and should - be compensated for, other can – and should – NOT be compensated for.