Andrew Jones at Audio Advice Live 2025: Every room is an acoustic fingerprint

Just got back from Audio Advice Live 2025. There were elements to it that were tons of fun, especially all the home theater systems (a dozen of them) available to demo. It’s more focused on home theater than other audio shows, which makes for a nice mix between two-channel and multi-channel systems.

This year, I ended the show listening to a deep dive on measurements featuring Andrew Jones. He covered a lot of ground that I happen to strongly agree with. But the core concept that matters to me is this:

Every room is an acoustic fingerprint. Size, shape, wall absorption, furniture, listener position, speaker position—all create a unique listening environment that can’t be replicated. This is why you could hear the same speaker in two rooms at the same show and think they were totally different speakers.

Now, that does not mean you can’t work to minimize the effect of the room. But at the end of the day, the room is the final component. A speaker doesn’t produce sound in isolation; it produces energy that bounces off walls, floors, ceilings, furniture, and even your body (or at an audio show, a dozen bodies packed into a small room).

And here’s the kicker: the listener is the final filter.

The shape of your ears, your age, your hearing loss from too many concerts where the band “really came alive,” and your personal sonic preferences all mean that even if a speaker could be presented in a vacuum (aurally, not literally), you still wouldn’t hear it the same way anyone else does.

That does not make the listening at shows any less fun. And there’s definitely more to audio and speakers than just the sound. But it is the reality of audio shows and dealer showrooms: The only way to really know if you are going to like a speaker is to take it home and listen to it set up in your listening space.