The musical coffee table demonstrated in our workshop

The place you listen in changes the result

A workshop is a tall volume with hard surfaces, often cluttered with equipment. It is not a living room, and listening done in that context gives a picture of the product that is neither false nor transposable as it stands.

What a workshop demonstration shows well

The timbre, the ability to fill a volume and the behaviour at high level. Those three points depend on the product itself and are perceived in any sufficiently large space.

What it shows badly

Reverberation and perceived tonal balance. They depend on the space and will change completely in a furnished room, which is not a fault of the demonstration but a property of acoustics.

What to listen to first

The voice. It is the signal the ear knows best, the one whose colorations it spots instantly, and it says more in thirty seconds than a piece of music does in five minutes.

Moving around the room

Listen while walking rather than seated in one place. An omnidirectional source is judged on how steady the sound stays as you move, and that is precisely what static listening does not reveal.

What still has to be checked at home

The behaviour in the real space, with its furniture and its surfaces. A demonstration convinces on the principle; listening on site settles the question of level and placement. That is why a serious installer offers a listening session at the client's home rather than closing the sale in the workshop.

The principle is presented on the Magic Speaker page, and room acoustics on the R'Acoustic 20 page.