Clarity C50 and C80 targets?

[thothsong]

Are there recommended targets for Clarity C50 and C80 in a home listening room?

 

[AudiocRaver]

I have not seen any published recommended targets for a home theater or 2 channel listening room. Using recent measurements taken in Sonnie's Cedar Creek Cinema, which is excellent for movies and for music, a good mid-band (1 kHz) target range would be is follows:

Clarity (C50, C80) Target Range for High Controlled Directivity Speakers (Panel, Horn, Open Baffle) in a well-treated domestic home theater or listening room:

• Target C50 @ 1 kHz: 16 to 20 dB
• Target C80 @ 1 kHz: 24 to 27 dB

Clarity (C50, C80) Target Range for Medium Controlled Directivity Speakers (well-designed Cone/Dome Monopole) in a well-treated domestic home theater or listening room:

• Target C50 @ 1 kHz: 14 to 16 dB
• Target C80 @ 1 kHz: 20 to 24 dB

The C50 and C80 numbers are hard to design to, i.e. not very intuitive, you have to go down the rabbit hole a ways into the derivation methods to get a feel for what they mean, unless you are an acoustician who deals with this stuff all the time. Reverb Time - RT60 - is a bit easier to get one's head around, easier to grasp for most of us, and is closely related,

I will add that these numbers reflect somewhat my own preferences, which lean toward heavy treatment, lots of absorption, and elimination of early reflections. Also, I would lean toward the C50 number as being more meaningful for a home theater with good speech intelligibility.

 

[thothsong]

Thanks!