Audiophile small room acoustics: complex and essential.

In the post "What are the most important audio components?" a few years ago, I said that we need to understand the various audiophile "domains": audio hardware, room acoustics, quality of your music, and of course personal mental engagement. Each of these have a part to play in the achievement of and personal judgment around sound quality.

Of those domains, it's hard to speak about personal mental engagement as this is a highly individual exercise (and related to one's auditory acuity). The quality of the music we listen to again is related to not just personal preferences (like genre) but also what mastering quality and variants like hi-res, multichannel, and on what format (SACD, vinyl, etc.) the record label makes available of our favorite albums.

It's always tempting of course to get excited about audio hardware - the latest toys. For example, recently, I heard that Andrew Jones has another ported box speaker design with paper/fabric drivers, this time with a coaxial tweeter+midrange that's based on field coils / electromagnets, paired to the permanent magnet woofer at something like USD$34k. While I'm sure this could be a compelling design for many, I think we can also recognize that these days, as equipment fidelity has improved significantly to the point where a simplistic "high price = high quality sound" equation no longer works, it's maybe wiser to direct our attention to the other domains.

This then leaves the very important issue of sound room acoustics, an area that we can all to some degree optimize (see also previous discussion on the sound room). I have heard it said that the sound room is the "foundation" from which we build our hi-fi sound system. As with any project, without an adequate foundation, no matter how great the rest of the system may be, you can only achieve a ceiling of performance dictated by the limits of that foundation.

In this post, let's dive a bit deeper into the importance of typical domestic small room acoustics and general principles around achieving good sound quality.

MUSINGS: On high-end audio component prices, inflation, April Fools and peak "greedflation"?

 

Let's consider how over the last while even audiophile magazines have wondered about the High-End Audio Industry's escalation in suggested retail prices for their products.

A year ago, Stereophile attempted to answer "Why Hi-Fi Prices Have Risen". To be fair, I think Jim Austin in the article made some good points about inflation, tariffs, etc. I'm glad that the article also acknowledged the fact that for years now, each generation of "high-end" audio products seemingly have also been just getting more expensive, untethered from inflationary expectations.

Grab a nice beverage, have a seat. Let's talk about prices in audiophilia. Is it true that the "high end" has become much more expensive?

[Some of these thoughts will trickle into the psychology of other luxury products beyond audio. Also, we'll be talking about dollars and cents in this post. Since most audiophile goods are priced in US dollars, let's use that through this post, with early April 2026 currency conversion as needed.]

Crosstalk Cancellation/Ambiophonics: Updated CTXMatrix Lite with standalone processor & 60° speaker angle support.

Significant changes in the UI from the previous CTXMatrixBeta release.

I want to remind 2-channel "immersive sound" lovers about the potential for using stereo crosstalk cancellation (XTC) / ambiophonics playback to enhance the 3D soundstage. You might have already heard of uBACCH in the audio magazines and on forums - why not try a similar effect for free (or through a small coffee donation)?!

You might recall, last year STC contributed a post on CTXMatrixBeta DSP for Windows. Well, it's great to see that he has continued to develop the software with updated user interface and abilities, this latest edition renamed CTXMatrix Lite, currently at version 1.3. It now includes a standalone processor which I'll spend some time discussing in this post, along with the 64-bit VST3 plugin as shown above that can be used in JRiver, Audirvāna and DAW software like Reaper.

Furthermore, there is now a VST3 plugin for Linux. Since I primarily use Windows for my music listening and processing, I'll stick with the Windows variant here with the hopes that some of this will be applicable. In my discussions with STC, he's aware of interest from Mac OSX users.

Perhaps the most important update in the last few months is that there is now improved support for standard ~60° stereo speaker angle (typically, the recommendation is 20-30° in ambiophonics). As a result, one should have a much better experience with the effect on most set-ups. In particular, hopefully more desktop computer music lovers will give this a listen without needed to move the speaker position and explore what you might be missing in your existing music library.

[If you run a miniPC streamer in the sound room like I do, CTXMatrix can easily be used like with HAF X-talk Shaper DSP discussed a couple years ago.]