Originally Posted by
jpw
So I broke out my 1/3 octave RTA and measured them this time in a couple of different positions to try to fix the problem through relocation. BTW, the room is irregularly shaped and large at 24 foot by 22 foot with a 9.5 foot suspended ceiling. As I suspected, they do not measure with a recessed midrange, at least not the midrange frequencies the midrange compression driver covers which is about 1.5khz to 5khz. What makes them sound recessed in the midrange is a preponderance of upper bass and lower midrange (about plus 6-7db) in the 100-250hz region. This region simply overpowers the octaves on either side of it. The room is known to contribute only 2-3db error in this range.
Anybody that has learned to interpret frequency response curves with subjective listening knows that peaks that are followed by dips on either side always make the peak sound worse than it measures. This behavior repeats itself several times with the LS-80. The result is a muffled boxy sound with a distinct lack of presence coupled with a tinkly even sibilant top end on some recordings.
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