Control Room Reverberation Is Unwanted Noise

It has been customary practice is most situations to produce control rooms with reverberation times approximating to, or slightly less than some statistical "average" domestic listening room.Numerous methods have been used in attempts to remove peaks and dips in the reverberation times of the rooms, which create idiosyncratic colouration of the monitoring conditions.This has led to musical balances which may not "travel well" when reproduced in other rooms.Despite fifty years of efforts to produce rooms which subjectively sound both consistent between themselves and "typical" of the outside world, the general state of inter-room compatibility is still not good.This paper argues that only by minimising control room monitoring RT can greater commonality be achieved; but this requires the abandonment of any adherence to the old policy of mimicking any perceived domestic "norm".