[Strangelove424]

Ethan is a good friend and I have debated these issues with him at length over many years. As I mentioned, his frame of reference is different than vast majority of listeners. And no, studio needs are not at all what we want at home. A studio is a workplace. Home is for entertainment.

Sadly in forums this myth that reflections are bad continues leading to tons of wasted money to buy acoustic products, leading to uglier spaces and rooms that at the end of the day, sound worse.

Ethan Winer's products and methods are aimed at home listening primarily, but can also be used for studios for those on a budget. A true studio would have acoustic structures beginning from the studs phase. The way Winer markets his products, using home environments as examples and speaking in terms of entertainment use, his LiveTraps products seem very obviously to me to be aimed at home use. His array of diffusion products, and his suggestion to use them over absorption to create better sound, is to me another indicator of this. Note: diffusion is even reflection without peaks and nulls. So in fact Ethan Winer does believe in full sounding rooms with reflection, but he believes in achieving that with even dispersion. You have fundamentally misrepresented Ethan Winer's ideas and products, which can be considered slander. Amirm, I think you have the opportunity to be very helpful here, but you go too far sometimes, and stretch the truth till it breaks. In this instance, you seem to be taking an unfounded swing at a respected engineer. And you say he's a close friend of yours, which makes that statement and/or your attitude hard to believe.

 

[bigshot]

That's my impression of Winer's approach too. And I think his advice is very good. He is actually a bit of a hero to me. Back in the old days when he participated in this forum, I was constantly impressed by his knowledge and willingness to share it. He is extremely valuable.

 

[amirm]

Ethan Winer's products and methods are aimed at home listening primarily, but can also be used for studios for those on a budget. A true studio would have acoustic structures beginning from the studs phase. The way Winer markets his products, using home environments as examples and speaking in terms of entertainment use, his LiveTraps products seem very obviously to me to be aimed at home use. His array of diffusion products, and his suggestion to use them over absorption to create better sound, is to me another indicator of this. Note: diffusion is even reflection without peaks and nulls. So in fact Ethan Winer does believe in full sounding rooms with reflection, but he believes in achieving that with even dispersion. You have fundamentally misrepresented Ethan Winer's ideas and products, which can be considered slander. Amirm, I think you have the opportunity to be very helpful here, but you go too far sometimes, and stretch the truth till it breaks. In this instance, you seem to be taking an unfounded swing at a respected engineer. And you say he's a close friend of yours, which makes that statement and/or your attitude hard to believe.

What is a "full sounding room with reflection?" This is Ethan's own listening/living room:

Where are you seeing diffusion products?

And how do you know Ethan again?

 

[bigshot]

He must have a very tolerant wife.

 

[Strangelove424]

See video:



Please quote me where I said I know him personally. I've read his material and learned from him. You're the one who said you know him, so I'll ask you that question... how?

 

[Strangelove424]

He must have a very tolerant wife.

From the videos she seems like a nice lady. They both seem like very regular people with their own interests and hobbies, one of them audio. I always thought they seemed like a very sweet couple. I'm a fan of his too. He has integrity and intelligence.

 

[bigshot]

Aha! He's a puppeteer too! I love puppets. His eyebrows work like my vent figure! I'm curious what the parrot is on the right. Is that an audio animatronic from a movie?

 

[amirm]

A rug was helpful in my listening room because I had a concrete slab floor. A different kind of floor might be better without a thick rug.

Research indicates that floor reflections are sufficiently strong and have the type of delay that cause timbral shifts in the 500 Hz to 2000 Hz. See Soren Bech's Journal of ASA paper, Timbral Aspects of Reproduced Sound in Small Rooms, II:

We don't want the timbre of our loudspeakers to change this way. Fortunately we can effectively filter that out with a thick carpet. Here is a quick simulation I just ran for a 2 inch absorber:

We see that the alpha rises to 0.5 at 500 Hz and keeps getting better after that. Here is the same simulation for 1/4 of an inch carpet:

We see that it really is not effective until 2500 Hz and above which is not good for this application.

So you do want to have a carpet on the floor and should make it rather thick.

 

[amirm]

Please quote me where I said I know him personally. I've read his material and learned from him. You're the one who said you know him, so I'll ask you that question... how?

I didn't ask you if you knew him personally. You were telling me his acoustic views with authority and I was curious how you had determine that. Based on what you have posted, it seems you have a very casual exposure to his views.

As to me, I have interacted, argued, and ran experiments with him over the years. I know his views inside and out and he probably knows mine just the same. Here is an example from his writing: http://ethanwiner.com/forums.htm

"Most people who agree with my views on audio don't get banned because they're careful to precede every statement with "I might be wrong, but" or "it seems to me" and so forth. Then again, my friend Carl Engebretsen (DUP in the forums, known for misspelling "the" as "teh") is banned from even more forums than me. And not all audio forum moderators are anti-science audiophiles. Amir Majidimehr is an industry professional who co-owns the What's Best Forum (WBF), and together we authored several productive and educational threads. Ron Party, another mod at WBF, pretty much agrees with all of my posts, and has backed me up many times. But the forum's other co-owner, Steve Williams, believes in the most nonsensical "audiophoolery." Steve finally banned me when I asked for proof, in the thread quoted above, that putting isolation pads under CD players and wires improves the sound. Amazingly, Steve is a retired doctor, so his hostility to the scientific viewpoint is surprising."

FYI I have nothing to do with WBF anymore.

So no, I do know Ethan and his views on audio acoustics. That you have read a post or two of his and watched some youtube video doesn't make you a representative of his.

 

[bigshot]

The one thing I can say for Ethan is that he does clear experiments in his videos. You can immediately see what he's talking about. He doesn't just cut and paste books. Does that book you're quoting say what the floor was made of? Have you ever been banned from any forums? (I have!)

 

[amirm]

The one thing I can say for Ethan is that he does clear experiments in his videos. You can immediately see what he's talking about. He doesn't just cut and paste books.

I appreciate his experiments too. As to it being better than a book, can you spot a flaw in his experiment just posted?


Is quoting audio research frowned upon in this forum?

Does that book you're quoting say what the floor was made of?

There was no floor! :eek: And that was no book. It was peer reviewed research published in the Journal of Acoustic Society of America.

How fast scientific audio research loses its value when it disagrees with our views.....

 

[bigshot]

The material a floor is made of can affect its acoustic properties. The same goes for the construction of walls.

 

[amirm]

The material a floor is made of can affect its acoustic properties. The same goes for the construction of walls.

Not in this context. At bass frequencies, there is a lot of energy and if the surface is flexible, it can indeed act as an absorber and help reduce modes.

Even there, floor are are never flexible enough to provide any difference there. Walls yes, not floors.

Floors whether made out of stone, wood, tile, concrete, etc. all act the same way above 500 Hz. They reflect the wave the way it came. Losses are very minimal because wavelength of sound at 500 Hz is 27 inches so any irregularities in the surface are transparent to it. Even at 20,000 Hz where the wavelength is half an inch, the scattering effect of floor texture is minimal to non-existent.

And remember, at low frequencies sound expands in practically all directions so we are not talking about any reflections in this manner. Two different domains of acoustics.

What matters then is how we can filter out 500 hz to 2000 hz timbre changes that occur due to "floor bounce. " And there, a shag carpet, or a thinner one over some kind of padding that allows air to go through it work well to eliminate that impact. No hard surface can do that. It simply reflects the sound with tiny bit of scattering at ultrasonic frequencies.

 

[Strangelove424]

So no, I do know Ethan and his views on audio acoustics. That you have read a post or two of his and watched some youtube video doesn't make you a representative of his.

Yet you don't even know he offers diffusion products. I never claimed to speak for him but certainly wouldn't rely on your representation of his views. You don't even know the products he offers, or methods he suggests to use them.

I've noticed you never admit when you are inaccurate, just make the argument about something else. I imagine you'll go on ignoring facts, and painting Winer as an anti-diffusion dead-room advocate. As utterly unfounded as that representation is.

I find intellectual integrity to be one of if not the most important things about interacting with people on forums. I have tolerance for ignorance, but a lack of intellectual integrity is the only thing that leads me to ignore certain people.

 

[bigshot]

I suppose he could put in indoor/outdoor carpet, but I doubt a shag carpet is going to be very practical when half the room is a kitchen.