Constructing a $2 Million Dollar Audio Listening Room, TV Show

Sounds very interesting. Any apartment that is 18,000 square feet in size is already special; a separate house that big would ordinarily be considered a mansion. I can only imagine what $2 million buys today, in the way of a listening room.

Wish I could find a way to watch that show, but it doesn't seem to stream anywhere online. :sigh: If anyone knows of a link that allows viewing of that segment, it would be appreciated.

UPDATE: I found a link, but it turned out to be flagged as a dangerous malware site!

UPDATE EDIT: OOops! I should read the additional posts in the thread, before updating my post...it seems you probably found the same site I did. :D
 
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It was an 18,000 sq ft penthouse apartment! They don't come cheap, especially in NYC.

I've seen that episode twice now on Dish Network, and I still can't make out the equipment (most of it hidden - but maybe ARC). The speakers didn't look familiar either! :no:
 
I did message the moderator of this forum to move it to the "Listening Rooms" forum because it might be of more interest to those guys reading there . . . ? :dunno:



It looked like he did have a pair of these Rockport Akaris speakers (?)


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If you're into listening rooms & high end gear then be sure to check out the episode if you get the chance :yes:

Looks like he's ready to start dancing with them, then probably ply them with a few drinks before settling down.

Jeeze, an 18,000 foot apartment??? That's the equivalent of an entire floor of a hotel!
 
DVR is set. I'm very interested in this. I wonder if they hired anyone I know to do the acoustics.
 
I just watched it during my lunch hour.

I think they could have done a lot, lot better for $2 million. Why did they use reflecting panels for a 2-channel system? That seems like a really bad idea to me. They basically just took an auditorium design and shrunk it down to listening room size.

Auditoriums and listening rooms work in different ways. In an auditorium you have a large audience and you often have live performers. That's why you use reflectors, because they reinforce the sound that comes from the stage. When the user is looking directly at the performer there's no need for a stereo image, your ears and eyes work together to know what you're hearing.

In a listening room or theater localization depends completely on the ability of the stereo image to fool your ears into thinking you're hearing sources coming from locations other than the speakers. This means the timing of the sound waves arriving from the left and right speakers is critical. If you bring in reflections from the ceiling or walls you muddy up the timing and it damages the image. When your sound is amplified in a small space, there's no need for reinforcing reflections.

Still, you don't want a room to be too dead, which is the point of diffusers. Those indirect background reflections do make a sound seem fuller and engulfing, so that's good. The radial diffuser behind the system was a good application of this, and a clever way to hide the AC diffuser (same word, different meaning).

The big absorptive panel behind the listening position made sense. So did the one in the ceiling. The side diffusers I guess would make sense, as long as they're not angled in a way that creates an early reflection for the listener.

For $2M, I'm not impressed. Gear aside, I think a significantly better sounding room could be built for 3% of that cost.

Here's the AV consultant that was in the episode, Tom Curnin. Nothing against Mr. Curnin, I'm sure he's very bright and professional, but if I was about to spend 7 figures on a listening room I would probably look for an actual acoustician, not someone with an education in finance and only 6 years experience in AV.
 
The headliner for the show states "a team of audio engineers" were involved in the design/construction and "engineers tests confirm perfect audio clarity"
Both of those statements could mean a lot of things. "Audio engineers" is kind of a generic term that's often used by folks who don't understand that there's a difference between acoustical engineers and AV designers. A lot of firms have both acoustics and AV people, but it's not too common that one person does both. Obviously at Bravo the main guy has the final say on everything, but I'm sure he has people helping him that would make up a "team." Maybe that team includes acoustical engineers, or maybe it's all AV and home theater people.

Doing meaningful tests for "audio clarity" requires some pretty serious equipment or software, and of course they would have the budget for that type of thing. But there are also a myriad other measurements they could have made and convinced themselves and everyone else that it meant something. All I mean to say is you can't know what testing was done or how useful it was with the information we have.

I really don't intend to sound negative or bring down AV designers. They have to carry around a lot of information that is constantly changing with the market, and they do have to know a considerable amount of acoustics. That's not an easy job by any stretch. And it's definitely not always the case, but I have seen AV or home theater design or installation people overestimating their knowledge of pure acoustics with some regularity. It's not that they're trying to deceive people, it's just that they don't use acoustical principles at as fundamental a level as people who do pure acoustics all day every day, so they're not always aware when they're missing a piece. So even with a huge budget, it's still possible that no hardcore acousticians were brought in. Just so there's no confusion, there are definitely AV people with a very serious understanding of acoustics, I'm not at all saying that's not possible or even common.

It's also possible that they brought in an acoustical engineer that's done a lot of performance spaces, but doesn't know as much about building a room that's specific to a 2-channel system. There are some acousticians who do nothing but performance spaces and rarely deal with this type of project. I've been doing acoustics for 10 years and I've never done a true listening room professionally, though I did help on one serious home theater in Beverly Hills. I have helped friends with their listening rooms and I would love to do that kind of work, but I don't think there's much of a market for it. I think it's pretty rare that someone has the money to bring in an acoustical firm for a personal listening room.

And I could totally be wrong about the room in the show. There could be a reason for those ceiling reflectors that I haven't thought of. Maybe the room is much smaller than it seems on TV, and the path length difference between the ceiling and direct isn't great enough that directionality gets confused. Obviously I haven't heard the room, so I can't say for certain whether it's good or bad. I'm sure it sounds better than mine.
 
I'd figure for 2 xtra large you ought to get a custom-designed driver installation for your space. But no product placement $ in that, probably....
 
Heh. Kipnis' 6-million dollor room is a audio gearhead fantasy made real. It's basically my basement with more and better stuff--with basement-full-of-gear aesthetics. The video is sort of secondary, despite the amount spent on it. It's clear the way he goes on about jet-plane sound-levels and stuff--he goes there to see and hear his Mcintosh amps.

125,000 LPs, did you note? He's anyman from AudioKarma--fed unlimited amounts of Food of the Gods.
 
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