While listening to my Ultra X-12 and thinking about subwoofer sound, another thought popped into my head: listening room construction. When I lived in NYC, Manhattan all of my apartments had thick plastered interior/exterior brick walls, rather than the sheet rock over 2X4 wood studs construction of my house here in Texas (which my English friends referred to as �stick and wattle�). I remember having to use a rotary impact drill with a long carbide drill bit, and a lot of force, to drill holes to run wire from room to room. My first experience here with that drill here resulted in a drill chuck size hole, with the drill bit protruding into the next room as soon as I started the drill!
Thinking that over, I am fairly certain that the flimsy, thin wallboard vibrates with low bass frequencies, absorbing then releasing energy which may make low bass sound �muddy�. I do not have a laser interferometer to measure wall �bending� modes, so my thoughts are not confirmable. Could wrong, but there may be some truth in this as I have read about loudspeaker manufacturers using interferometry to measure and control cabinet resonances. And, loudspeaker cabinets are a lot smaller than my large listening room walls and, especially, the much less braced ceiling. Thoughts?