This hi-fi UPGRADE changes EVERYTHING (yes, really)

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🎥 Camera: John Darko
🎬 Editor: John Darko
🌈 Colour: Olaf von Voss
🕺🏻 Motion GFX: John Darko
💰 Ad segment: Jana Dagdagan

MORE INFORMATION:
Vicoustic

👉🏻 As seen in this video...

Samsung 'The Frame' 2022 55"

Cambridge Audio EVO 150

Cambridge Audio Alva TT2

Zu Soul 6

Buchardt A700

Veritasium on Clickbait

Steve Guttenberg 'The Audiophilliac'

👉🏻 What I use to measure the loudspeakers in the room...

Room EQ Wizard

Umik-1 microphone

👉🏻 More Darko.Audio coverage of room acoustics...

A new city, a new home and a new listening room

10 more thoughts on my new listening room ✍🏻 (‘Dear John’)

Your ROOM is messing up your SOUND (again):

Room to roam: from empty space to Vicoustic makeover

Vicoustic room makeover: installation day (as a short film)

Jesco Lohan (Acoustics Insider) explains WHY the room is critical to good sound

👉🏻 My sofa and rug...

IKEA Vindum rug

IKEA Vimle sofa

#listening #hifi #reverb

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[michaelweyrauch]

Those who cannot afford professional acoustic treatment of the room can try this with shelves full of books, carpeting and curtains. This is also more accepted by the partner.

[jvogel]

This was the most amazing transformation. Just your voice alone while recording was remarkably different. Stunning upgrade. Regarding price: I was prepared for you to say this cost 3x as much. 5 grand seems like a bargain given the dramatic improvement in the sound. My ancient and mid-level audio system might actually sound decent in your space! Thanks for doing what you do. I am always fascinated by your videos. Be well.

[brianlewis]

As soon as you spoke I heard a dramatic improvement. The series of video on your new space stresses how important room treatments are and their effects on the sound we hear in a particular room. Like everything in HiFi, if your budget allows and you get buy in with others, it just makes sense. Fun to watch and follow.

[SteveGuttenbergAudiophiliac]

Nice makeover, thanks for the shout out!

[simonjones]

Curtains and carpet have always made a huge difference in my experience, relatively cheap too !

[richardf]

John, this series of videos regarding how absolutely vital a tame(d) listening room is to the enjoyment of music through the hardware we buy has been excellent. The evolution of your Lisbon listening room from terrible sound to terrific sound, or "life-changing" sound, as you put it, has taught me a lot. I've had the wall behind my rig, as well as the first reflection points on my side walls treated, but not the ceiling, though I've wondered for years if I should go for it. Your positively gushing enthusiasm for the wonderfully positive effect that all of Vicoustics treatments have made, especially that massive ceiling absorber/diffuser, has me motivated to pull the trigger on a ceiling treatment for my listening room. I hope my venture is as successful as yours. Thank you.

[jetforcer]

You are absolutly right. I saw people spending thousands of dollars for cables or amplifiers, but didn‘t care much about their room. 5000€ for this result is much, but absolutly worth it.

[syanhc]

This was probably my favourite video to date made by John. I work in professional studios as I record my own albums there and I know the importance of room acoustics and room treatments. For those who can’t afford such treatments, the best way to get great audio is to either use cheaper materials DIY or if that’s just not an option, use quality headphones with a dac and something like the RME ADI-2 FS so that one could slightly EQ the sound and get the most neutral freq. response if that is desired. Love seeing those guys install the panels. The sound of John speaking in the room now is so much better.

[jim]

The clap test showed huge results. I think the wood look behind the TV looks really cool.

[robonzo]

Love this video. I can only dream of spending that kind of money on room treatment, but what I enjoy is that the aesthetic matters to you and I don't find the treatment obtrusive. It is very designed and almost art like, my partner would definitely approve.

I find the 'audiophiles' who do nothing but dump a system on an 'audio' stand in a corner, wires trailing everywhere, no room treatment and then bang on about spending £10k on a cartridge very odd, surely the first place to begin is placement, room, setup basics.

[Dwyanest]

5k for such a significant result really isn't expensive at all. especially consider the aesthetics these bring (that wood and dark green combo just works brilliantly, looking so elegant and premium). love it

[arrowzen]

The final link in your audio chain befor the signal hits your ears is the air in your room - it is also one big instrument. You are in effect listening to the interface between you and the room and the speakers and the room. The acoustics of the room will inevitably be a crucial. Clearly shows here…

[jimbrunsman]

I'm sure spending $5K for room treatments is better than many other hi fi purchases. I would do this if I had the funds. Thanks for an informative video.

[lehmanhill]

Thank you, John. Your Lisbon room series is very important. You explain to a very wide audience the key concepts in room acoustic and what you need to do about it. There have been others who have tried, but your series gets the message across for everyone. Top notch!

[WhiskyStuff]

I can’t see one person grumble about your room. You presented the facts in a way, why wouldn’t you condition the room? It was like night and day obvious. Great video John.

[stevemiller]

Yes this video is important, informative and entertaining! Bravo!

[tomfull]

Do you want a $250, 000 hifi sound but only have 2, 500?!… Read the end of this post! 😊

12 years ago I did this room treatment myself in my last home. The hifi-trade wasn’t there yet so I had to do the research and studying myself. I even tore down a wall, moved it, and in the corner left a big opening (only covered with a colour matched fabric) in which the really low frequencies (low frequencies LOVE corners! Corners work like 9 dbA amplifiers) could sneak out into “reversed organ pipes” (built in wood) length tuned to the different resonance frequencies I had problems with. A resonance wave would bounce inside at the end of the tube and on its way out meet its next wave peak but reversed a half wave length - cancelling it!
In the ceiling I installed wood “ribbons” wider than yours behind your telly, yet very good looking and a bit wider with rounded profiles. With the goal of keeping the sound energy but dispersing all the resonance sound waves the room dimensions created.

Not to dig too deep into my wallet I worked with “distance to wall” behind my dampers (normal house insulation mtrl - stone wool). Here’s a hint - 5 cm (two inch) stone wool 5 cm out from the wall is practically identical to 10 cm thickness of stone wool as regards damping effect. Moved out further, each cm of distance equals cm of stone wool not needed to buy.. you get the point..

Now to the 1/4 million hifi tips 😎

When choosing a hifi amplifier or loudspeaker people tend to scrutinise spec sheets chasing fractions of decimals in dbA in THD or flatness in frequency response curves. And yet, your listening room amplifies a number of frequencies by hundreds of percentages in volume!… and some frequencies are even cancelled out at your listening position 🤥🤣🤣🤣 ..filtering out mosquitoes but swallowing camels (Swedish saying..) 😂

Here are the free tips:
1) place your loudspeakers with EXACTLY 1/3 of the room width between and on each outside of the speakers! This eliminates up to the seventh degree of resonance the room width causes. (The brain can perceive up to 10’th grade but for each order of resonance grade the energy in the sound wave is lesser and lesser so the brain ignores it as irrelevant (thus you don’t “hear it” or perceive to be correct). Inches won’t do here. It’s ~ 1/4-1/2” accuracy!
2) move your listening position out from the wall behind you some 30 cm (12”). Early (in milliseconds) reflections creates sound porridge. There is a magic threshold in milliseconds where the brain no longer bothers with reflection as a disturbance. It’s only perceived as reverb. Not porridge! This secondary -indirect- sound comes to your ears from a direct bounce from the wall behind you but also from the floor and ceiling. Imagine the room as covered in mirrors. Your ears “sees” the direct sound from your loudspeakers but also all mirror reflections when the sound bounces towards your ears. A carpet on the floor takes care of the floor problem. The ceiling requires some hanging of either damping pads (on the spot where you would se the mirror reflections of your speakers) but rather diffusers in the ceiling not to get a too dead sound. Side walls the same but probably unnecessary as the reflection delay time in milliseconds is long enough to cause reverb instead of porridge (with my 1/3-1/3-1/3 trick).

3) Now to the last, very important hifi-refining tip!.. but most difficult WAF! wife acceptance factor! Distance between speakers and wall behind. By pulling out the speakers into the room. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. From the top of my head I think it was approx 38% of the room depth from back wall to speaker positions. This measure very efficiently eliminates porridge reflections!

You now have a $250, 000 sound gear in your home! Congrats!

With all the three measures done, this will change the way you perceive tunes you have heard thousands of times to an entirely new level of experience - now you are sitting in the mixing studio with the band. Or present at that precious concert moment. There is no going back now!

Kind regards
Anders
Sweden
HiFi nerd and physics nerd and just in general nerd.. 🤓

PS. 4) Frosting on the cake… put a bath towel or thicker yoga mat under your speakers. With step 1-3 already done, this silly little thing will change the bass sound of big floor standing speakers in particular. You will now hear that “wow, it is not an electric base guitar, it is a synth base!” The fluffiness of low frequencies are dried up! No joke! 😎😁

[madsmix]

John, I couldn't agree more.
I have never come across a monitoring system that made a bad room sound good.
I cannot recall how many times I have seen people spend way more than €50, 000 (ten times more) in a bad room and magically expect "good sound"!
Acoustics are grossly underrated in this HiFi world and more so in the Pro Audio world!
Happy listening!

[HD-susq]

It truly is night and day, and while the cost is significant I would say the treatment is essential for you or anyone serious about their music. As a layman I was surprised that the front wall treatment was above speaker level. Congratulations on having a listening room - that looks very nice too!

[peterlenz]

Very good video. As an engineer I appreciate that you can clearly demonstrate the benefit of the treatment. Like you indicated, not many other changes to the equipment will have such a dramatic effect.