Recording Studio Design

Chapter 12

Flattening the room response

Subduing the room effects. Further discussion on electronic room equalisation. Standard listening rooms. The concept of a listening room. Close-field monitoring. The two near-fields.

From the discussion in Chapter 11, it can be seen that the influence of a room on the response of a loudspeaker is not trivial. In domestic circumstances, the degree of response variation is enormous, and ±10 or 12 dB is no exaggeration, even before the public get their hands on the ‘tone’ controls. Clearly, for critical listening, such response variability is absurd, so for professional recording studios an entirely different approach is needed if there is to be any hope of tonal consistency between recordings.

In the days ...