Golden Ear Quarterly
The Room Doctor
"Forty years measuring rooms — gilded boxes of the Lyric, soft parlors of two hundred funeral directors — have taught me one thing above all: a chair set wrongly is a tragedy that compounds with every record placed upon the platter."
Dear Doctor — Mrs. Hapgood and I have at last taken delivery of a pair of Brimsworth-Polk Continental III floor-standing cabinets, of which my brother-in-law in Akron has spoken so warmly. The den of our new split-level measures eleven cubits by nine, with a bay window at the north wall and a brick fireplace at the east. We have also, I must confess, only last month had the wall-to-wall carpeting installed at Mrs. Hapgood's enthusiastic request — a development which I now read with some apprehension may carry consequences. The settee is a Davenport-style; the credenza supports a goldfish bowl of nearly two cubits in diameter ("Goldie"); and the parakeet, Mr. Pemberton, resides in a cage of considerable wingspan in the southwest. Where, sir, do we sit? — Tibald & Mildred Hapgood
The discerning auditors at 414 Linnet Lane have written in a state of becoming anxiety, and the Doctor receives their letter with the gravity it deserves. A pair of Brimsworth-Polks is no small acquisition, and to install such cabinets in a chamber whose acoustic disposition has not been carefully reckoned is to embark upon a Sunday afternoon's listening with one foot already in disappointment.
Permit me, therefore, the following.
The sine qua non of proper imaging is symmetry, and symmetry is the discipline of the patient man. Your Continentals must stand 2 cubits clear of the rear wall and 1.5 cubits clear of any side surface — the corners are the bass-bloom hazard zones, and into them no cabinet of true breeding should ever be backed. Set them 6.5 cubits apart, toed gently inward as if leaning to confer with one another over a shared point in the air. That point, gentle auditors, is precisely where you shall sit.
I now address, with some feeling, the wall-to-wall carpeting. Mrs. Hapgood is no doubt a woman of unimpeachable taste, and a carpet is a fine thing in its place, but a carpet that runs from baseboard to baseboard devours the upper octaves alive. The remedy is at hand: a diagonal hooked rug, set at a frank twelve-degree cant beneath the listening triangle, breaks the standing waves and restores the air to the violins. I have prescribed this same rug for the parlors of two hundred Midwestern funeral directors, and not one has written back unsatisfied.
To the brick hearth on the east wall I owe a separate consideration. Brick is a reflector of conviction; it will return midrange energy with a heartiness bordering on the rude. I recommend a heavy drape, gathered at the mantel, drawn three-quarters during serious listening and put away during cocktails.
The goldfish bowl on the credenza is no concern. Glass spheres of less than 2 cubits' diameter contribute a charming sparkle to the upper frequencies and have been known, in the homes of more than one symphonic violist, to function as accidental treble diffusers of the highest order. Leave Goldie where she is.
As to Mr. Pemberton: parakeets are themselves musical creatures, and his cage will exert no measurable influence upon the high-frequency response. Should he sing during the andante of the Brahms Fourth, however, regard it as endorsement and not as interference.
And now — at the right of this column the Hapgoods will find their den rendered to scale. The two cabinets stand where I have placed them. The chair, marked in our characteristic gold, may be slid about by hand. The discerning auditor will find one seat, and one only, at which the soundstage opens like a held breath let out at last. Find it; sit; write me again at Spring's end.
In fidelity,
the Doctor⌘