The intended use of a listening room can be divided into two general groups depending on the way of evaluating the product.
The first purpose of a listening room is to implement an evaluation, experiment and comparative listening according to the auditory sense while the process of designing, developing and manufacturing the company's own products. A comprehensive evaluation of the finished product, a comparative listening of a prototype under development and a comparative listening and evaluation of each device and parts which composes the product will be the purpose of the room.
The second purpose of a listening room is to demonstrate the company's products to the customers. Not only excellent sound quality, but also creating a comfortable environment and livability for listening and viewing, design policy that reflects the company's brand image is required for the room planning.
As well as sound insulation performance which is decided by the location and selection of sound field using absorption, reflection and diffusion technique which have influence on comfort of audibility, the grade of the specification including the design will differ depending on the purpose of use.
We will offer a proposal fit for the needs of the customer during the planning, presentation and construction phase and at the time of validation of its performance. We hope you utilize our exclusive acoustic techniques.
By the International Electrotechnical Commission IEC, recommended standard is provided concerning a reference room for listening test of a speaker and others.
As a clause concerned with acoustical performance and characteristic, room size, background noise and reverberation time is shown to be defined
Recently, Japanese manufacturers often require specification of the listening room to be based on this standard. However, this is not a de facto standard yet.
Regarding the background noise, to secure signal to noise ratio enough to discriminate dynamic range, operating noise or a minute abnormal noise of the equipment to check, the serene silence in a recording studio is often demanded for a listening room.
Moreover, a clean power source is required because quality of supplied power source is greatly related to severe evaluation of audio equipments,
To supply a stable power source with fine regulation, we use special power cables with less voltage drop from a cubicle and adopt outlets with good contact such as the one used for medical equipment. About lighting, too, the influence to the audio equipment should not be ignored. Since the fluorescent light tube produces noise, an incandescent lamp is used in most times.
In case of using a fluorescent light, although sometimes, we put the tube out of the room considering the noise which it produces, there still seems to be a magnetic influence from the wire of the appliance.
Like this, not only the architectural acoustics, but also a various considerations are required as well.
A basic way of thinking in designing a sound field of a listening room is to combine the 3 elements, sound absorption, reflection and diffusion paying attention to the shape, position, balance and the quality of the material to incarnating them into the construction of room acoustics quality fit for the usage.
In the case of audio manufacturers in particular, since they handle a variety of products, the design which corresponds to each products will be needed.
Depending on whether the subject to be evaluated is a 2 channel stereo system or a 5.1 channel surround system such as a DVD, thinking about the balance of sound absorption, reflection and diffusion will differ. Whether it is for consumer use or for professional use they are all the same, therefore the sound field which is simulated to the environment where each end user would use the products is sometimes demanded. Moreover, when the subject is equipment including a picture such as DVD, it is common that a permanent projector screen or a display is used.
Recently, there are many kinds of equipment in which sound quality adjustment function or sound field creation function using digital signal processing have been installed by loading DSP component in an AV amp. or decoder and then a listening room is sometimes used as a place for the parameter study of them or inspection of the device itself.
Even if it has already been confirmed that in the listening room which has constructed on the basis of sound field design, a designated acoustic characteristic would be gained in a completion measurement after the construction, we always do the final tuning by auditory sense in our customer's presence. Because our company has designed and constructed many acoustic rooms such as recording studios up to now, taking advantage of our experiences and know-how to the fullest, we intend to carry out the sound field tuning work to make it as unlimitedly close to the sound quality that our customer demands. This is an important process to adjust the delicate nuances of sound that cannot be expressed in a physical quantity such as the reverberation time or the frequency response under repeated listening with our customer who have various needs for sound quality, aiming at the ideal sound field.