Sublime Sound

[PeterA]

Nice write-up.

What was the album?

What is the composition of the O-rings?

Thank you Tim. The album is the King's Singers, A French Collection. Great stuff. One of the indications that I was moving in the right direction with this latest change was hearing the ways in which this recording has changed relative to another choral recording I love, Host's Six Medieval Lyrics and Seven Part Songs. Both recordings were recommended to me by Myles Astor. Photos below.

When I first heard these recordings in my system, the spatial information was fairly distinct between the two recordings. The Holst chorus is larger and more distant and they are in a big space spread wide in my room pretty far behind and outside the speakers. The female soloists on side two stand clearly in front of the chorus. The chorus seems raised. There is an ethereal and grand scale. The King's Singers, all male, are more up close and intimate. They are positioned on the ground right in front of the listener. It is a small group and they are bunched up just behind and between the speakers. The mic is closer, and I had not quite been able to make out the character of the venue in which they sing.

As I have been making changes to my system, the Holst record has more or less remained the same while the King's Singers have become more articulate and present, I think indicative of the closer mic position. With this latest change of adding O rings underneath the turntable plate, the differences between the two recordings suddenly became much more distinct.

Now, the Holst singers are spread way back and cover the entire front wall of my room with the soloists clearly positioned in front with air and space around them, and with more presence. The voices are less flat and blended sounding. The sections are more distinct and the words much easier to understand. The King's Singers, on the other hand, remain just beyond the outer edge of my speakers, but they are now more layered than before, their individual heights are more distinct, their voices are more clear, they are much more present in front of the listener, and shockingly, it is now clear that they are singing in a large space because their voices now reflect against a wall way behind them. I had simply not heard that before. I had no idea what kind of a space they were in, and now it is much more evident.

The contrast between the two recordings has only grown with this latest experiment. I have not heard the recording venue information or sense of presence so clearly from these two superb recordings in any other system in which I have heard them. This is when I knew lifting that steel plate off of the rack's plywood topshelf and supporting it with these O rings was a huge step in the right direction.

Curiously, I have received pushback from someone who thinks I am actually introducing noise into the system with these plates because I observed an increase in their ringing when placed on the O rings and tapped with a metal stick. They had been much more damped with sitting on the wool felt right on the plywood shelves. I have never associated additional noise or colorations with an increase in clarity, information retrieval, and a more natural sound. To me, the sound seems less damped. It is more alive with much more resolution.

The results of my listening impressions of these two recordings, plus careful before and after listening to Art Pepper + ELEVEN, Holst's Planets, Beethoven's Violin Concerto, and various solo violin and cello recordings, indicates to me exactly the opposite of increased noise or colorations: there has been an increase in clarity and a decrease in colorations, leading to increases in resolution and naturalness and listening enjoyment. It is all for the positive with no tradeoffs that I have heard so far.

I do not know the composition of the O-rings. They are thick rubber, not too hard, not too soft. Here is a link to the product I ordered from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/413-Buna-N-Ring-Durometer-Round/dp/B0051XYDJA/ref=mp_s_a_1_10?

 

[PeterA]

I had a dealer come to my apartment many years ago to bring me some NBS and Kondo (silver!) power cables. I was not home but my girlfriend at the time (a professional violinist and electrostatic/ribbon speaker lover) let him in and she relayed to me the story that he came in and saw my system and started to criticize various aspects of how I had it setup. In particular, my lack of room treatment and glass equipment racks as well as power cables (of course since that is what he brought). My girlfriend was rather annoyed and asked if he would like to hear the system. The guy said yes and when the cd started his jaw hung open a bit and he shut up and looked quited bewildered at the sound (according to my girlfriend) and stopped his complaints immediately. She told me he admitted that the sound was very good indeed (Acoustat 1+1 (modded), Silvaweld SWC1000 preamp, Sphinx Project 14mkiii amp, Monarchy M24 DAC+DIP, all Goertz cabling...basic power cords, Monarchy power regenerator, Silvaweld phonostage). The power cords were good and helped the system but I gave them back as they were more expensive than the rest of the system! The sound was still quite satsifactory with lower level power cables.

I have been able to consistently get good sound without going to extremes with regard to damping and I have also found rooms and equipment that uses a lot to often sound a bit too dead. I think rigid is good to push the freuquency of resonances where it will mess stuff up less but too much damping seems to rob music as well.

That is quite a story, morricab. First, it must have been very annoying that this dealer behaved that way, especially toward someone other than his customer. And it is hilarious that his jaw dropped. He encountered the inconvenient truth as demonstrated by your girlfriend. I can just picture it. Wonderful story.

These recent experiments of mine have taught me first hand that one should not simply accept absolutes like "all dampening is good", etc. I have learned that good sound and best results can depend on many factors and that perhaps one should experiment to find a balance with resonance control, or whatever you want to call it, to serve the music and present it in the most realistic and or pleasing way possible, to the end listener. Isn't this what "voicing" or "fine tuning" a room or component is all about?

I know of too many examples from people who have discovered that they went too far in one direction: @Mike Levigne with room dampening/bass absorption, and so many others. I guy told me just last night that he read my comment about the damping fluid in my SME V-12 arm and that I preferred the sound without it. About two weeks ago, he had coincidentally removed damping fluid from his Kuzma arm, and snap, the sound improved too. He wonders why he never discovered that before. Some people think you can never have too much damping in a system. I have been discovering over the last few months, that I indeed did have way too much. What a revelation.

 

[Folsom]

Peter, technically ringing could bring results you find desirable. It's possible. That's one of the problem in the hobby is that assuming "improvements" are describable in a "positive" way. We have a lot of counter example that we know are true. Kitty Litter Boxes are the easiest one.

One should consider studios are imperfect, and maybe sometimes things we do bring our stereos back to the correct level of imperfection found in them.

 

[PeterA]

Peter, technically ringing could bring results you find desirable. It's possible. That's one of the problem in the hobby is that assuming "improvements" are describable in a "positive" way. We have a lot of counter example that we know are true. Kitty Litter Boxes are the easiest one.

One should consider studios are imperfect, and maybe sometimes things we do bring our stereos back to the correct level of imperfection found in them.

Yes. Do you think The way I have implemented the steel plates is introducing ringing into my system? Or is it simply lessening the effect of the plywood shelving which was overdamped? perhaps it is a little bit of both. As I say, I don’t really know, but I like the result.

 

[Folsom]

The result counts. Don't let paranoia change that.

Try tapping the plate when something is on it to see if it rings. A plate sitting on rings by itself is extensively more likely to ring. But if you put something on top of it, anything, it may not ring when tapped.

A rubber coaster on it might stop the ringing, for example. Your equipment might be enough as well, they have feet with a little compliance.

 

[bazelio]

I've been playing around with a large steel plate under my amp. Peter and I have had a few chats about our results, while @ddk has been acting in an advisory role. My rack, like Peter's, is a baltic birch plywood. My progression of substrates went something like this...

1. Small wood footers (mahogany maybe) Blue Tak'd to the bottom of the steel. Result: Better than the amp directly on the 1.25" plywood shelf. More lively, airy, and better bass. Maybe still a bit soft.

2. Small Sorbothane hemispheres applied via adhesive to the bottom of the steel. Result: Whoa. Big step in the wrong direction. Soundstage collapse, especially soundstage height, e.g. drum kit height. Everything is compressed between the speakers and shoved down towards the floor.

3. Thin layer of wool felt between the shelf and plate. Result: OK, probably the best result yet but bass sounds overdamped. Air and leading edge sounds good.

4. Four rubber O-rings between the shelf and plate. Result: Damped bass is gone. Bass is the best I've heard yet in my system. Everything else sounds great as well. Very linear, no highlighting. Great nuance. I'd stay here if PeterA hadn't convinced me the other night on the phone that I should try 7 O-rings next. McMaster Carr is delivering tomorrow.

I would have to conclude that the effect of the plate is a coloration. What the mechanism is, I really don't know. But it's obviously sensitive to substrate material, and so there's more than a mass loading effect in play here. And to be honest, I don't think I care. I'm not launching an assault on audiophile products; I'm just having fun and enjoying the results. You know, the HRS bases are granite (which rings like a bell) and aluminum. By all accounts they work very well, nevertheless. But they're tuned by someone who isn't me. And they're an order of magnitude more costly than steel plates. So I'm not saying that I've achieved ultra neutrality with a steel plate, but at least I'm the one doing the tuning using *my* system and the results are really the only thing I actually care about.

 

[tima]

Thank you Tim. The album is the King's Singers, A French Collection. Great stuff. One of the indications that I was moving in the right direction with this latest change was hearing the ways in which this recording has changed relative to another choral recording I love, Host's Six Medieval Lyrics and Seven Part Songs. Both recordings were recommended to me by Myles Astor. Photos below.

When I first heard these recordings in my system, the spatial information was fairly distinct between the two recordings. The Holst chorus is larger and more distant and they are in a big space spread wide in my room pretty far behind and outside the speakers. The female soloists on side two stand clearly in front of the chorus. The chorus seems raised. There is an ethereal and grand scale. The King's Singers, all male, are more up close and intimate. They are positioned on the ground right in front of the listener. It is a small group and they are bunched up just behind and between the speakers. The mic is closer, and I had not quite been able to make out the character of the venue in which they sing.

As I have been making changes to my system, the Holst record has more or less remained the same while the King's Singers have become more articulate and present, I think indicative of the closer mic position. With this latest change of adding O rings underneath the turntable plate, the differences between the two recordings suddenly became much more distinct.

Now, the Holst singers are spread way back and cover the entire front wall of my room with the soloists clearly positioned in front with air and space around them, and with more presence. The voices are less flat and blended sounding. The sections are more distinct and the words much easier to understand. The King's Singers, on the other hand, remain just beyond the outer edge of my speakers, but they are now more layered than before, their individual heights are more distinct, their voices are more clear, they are much more present in front of the listener, and shockingly, it is now clear that they are singing in a large space because their voices now reflect against a wall way behind them. I had simply not heard that before. I had no idea what kind of a space they were in, and now it is much more evident.

Very nice, I enjoyed seeing the photos and reading your account. I am a big fan of Gustav Holst and have several recordings of his music on the Lyrita label. His smaller pieces tend to be charming. I am also a fan of choral music and was not aware of the album on Argo. I found a sealed copy on Discogs, and based on yr account, gladly added it to my collection, so thanks for that.

Each person's system and listening context is different - such as the interface between one's components and what they rest on. And it seems to me that each warrants its own approach because of that and what its listener values. I applaud your 'tinkering' if I may call it that. I suspect trying different things and having the discovery that comes with them is satisfying, as is getting David's input. One size fits all things no doubt have their effect, but going beyond such to find a personal solution comes with a confidence of its own.

 

[PeterA]

With the recent improvements that the steel plates and O rings have brought, I am more able to hear the effects of very small changes to speaker position. I have been curious about direct sound versus reflected sound as perceived at the listening seat, because I recently removed the two ASC absorption panels from each of my first reflection points.

I sit 9’-4” from each tweeter. My ear to the first reflection point is 9’-8” and the reflection point to tweeter is 5’-6. So the distance to each tweeter is 112” and the reflection length is 182”. 182” - 112” = 70”.

According to a recent video I watched on room acoustics:

any delta between these two distances greater than 1.7M (67”) means the reflected sound reaches the listener at least 5 milliseconds after the direct sound reaches him, which is a good thing for clarity. That is the minimum delay required not to blur the sounds together. The video also points out that the reflected sound is lower in intensity generally because of the dispersion pattern of most cone speakers, so it is not such a problem with those distances. Of course an even longer delay would be better still. This is the minimum acceptable delay.

If the delay is less than 5 msec, then the author in the video suggests diffusion or absorption, but he prefers diffusion for liveliness. I have removed the absorption panels from my first reflection points in part because I could not hear much difference and also because they were ugly. Perhaps they were too small and did not really do much, I don’t know. I have wooden louvers on one side anyway, a lamp and the rack on the other, plus I just moved the two chairs right into those locations this week, though they are not as high as the tweeters. I am trying to clean up the room without messing up the sound too much.

I also tried again toeing in the speakers and did not like what it did for the soundstage. It did help super focus the center image but at the expense of stage width and depth and scale. Finally, I moved the speakers even more toward each other. This solidified and clarified the center image, added a bit of body and solidity with no penalty to stage width. It also helped fill in a bit of lower midrange, upper bass. Height is more accurate too. The speakers are about 6" closer together than I had them a month ago or so. Closer together also helps the ratio of direct sound to reflected sound and gets me slightly more in line with the tweeters, so more on-axis while maintaining zero toe-in.

I had always suffered from a bit of discontinuity in the soundstage on larger scale music, choral and symphonic because of the protruding fireplace behind and between the two speakers. It is not a problem with solo singers, or jazz groups were a few instruments are spaced at the plane of the speakers with not much depth, but for deeper presentations of larger scale works, the center was not as developed or defined as the sides, and I always presumed that was because of the fireplace and its mantle. My recent changes have solved that issue, and the fireplace no longer seems to be the compromise it once was. On large scale music, if the recording captures it, an orchestra can now be spread out behind the speakers with good depth and layering, and cover the entire front wall of the room, with a continuous image and sound, no longer compromised by the fireplace. This has been an important development.

So that is what I have learned about speaker placement in my particular room. These changes were not as audible before I added the steel plates and lifted them up on the rubber O rings. That move really cleaned up the sound and allows me to now hear slight changes to speaker position more clearly.

 

[PeterA]

Ron's Introspection and Hyperbole Police Force should be placed on high alert for this next progress report:

Another shipment of larger O rings arrived a few days ago. I replaced the few smaller O rings with more larger O rings under my turntable plate. I noticed a very slight difference in midrange fullness, but nothing like the difference from going from wool felt to the smaller O rings under the turntable plate.

I then spent some considerable effort lifting my amps (130 lbs) and steel plates ( 140lbs) in order to put some of the large O rings under those steel plates and on the top surface of the deflated Vibraplane pneumatic isolation platforms. Here I did notice a difference, but not as great as I did when replacing the felt with large O rings under my front end electronics, perhaps because they were already sitting on the steel surface of the 150 lbs of deflated Vibraplanes and thus separated from the birch ply amp platforms sitting on the floor. But, the improvement is worthwhile.

With the front end electronics and turntable, the effect was cleaning up the sound and filling in the midrange with body and weight. Distortion was llowered. Under the amps, it did a little bit of that, but it really added a sense of energy to the middle frequencies and upper bass. There is more push, drive, power, energy, whatever you want to call it without sounding heavy and thick. More like real music. It is almost as though I added watts. There seems to be slightly less effort to the sound. Best way to describe it is more energy from the music, and more room fill. For the same perceived volume level, I can lower the volume by 2 dB. I do not understand this.

This is going to take some getting used to and what I am about to write my be controversial. Most stereo systems I've heard have always struck me as artificial sounding, HIFI if you will. This is because everything is in a neat place, separated, outlined, and defined. Those are the good systems I've heard. Tang wrote about this describing it as a kind of "looking glass or something. Real progress is made when you walk through that glass and are no longer observing the music, but feeling it.

Anyway, these systems never sounded like real music to me because I felt I was not hearing the organic quality of real music making. DDK has written about how sound from real instruments overlaps and that sound can not be broken down into separate parts.

HP and these guys in the magazines got us thinking about and describing attributes. Breaking it all down into identifiable and describable parts. This certainly helps to convey meaning in reviews and communicating with others about what one hears, but this is removed from what real music sounds like. Real music is an organic whole, a gestalt. It is felt, not observed, and rarely well described.

These last few changes have taken my system much more in that direction. Harmonics, energy, and room fill are wild and all over the place now, but not as a congealed mess, more like in real life. I would go so far as to say that the sound reminds me of great headphones, except that there is still imaging in front of me, spatial layering and localizing, and the sound is not in my head. It is all around and outside of me. Rather than the sound being in my head, I am immersed in it while sitting on my sofa. I only got hints of that before all of these changes.

The Master Signature, properly set up, the speaker positioning with zero toe in, the rack and support changes, ditching the isolation and fancy cords and cables, and getting rid of the acoustic treatments, they have all contributed in slow and steady steps to a completely different sound. One that is more organic and natural. At least, this is how I would describe what I hear now from my system in its room context.

When this social isolation is over, and if my Boston audio buddies ever visit me again, they might run out screaming, who knows. Until then, I am getting used to this and can't stop spinning LPs.

My kids and I were putting together a wooden jigsaw puzzle the other day on the dining room table, and I was playing music from the other room trying to teach them about some great concertos: Beethoven's Violin, Brahm's Piano, Dvorak's Cello, plus Schubert's Death and the Maiden, ending with Scheherazade. Educating my daughters will never end. I guess this is a form of in-home schooling. Anyway, I could tell from how natural the sound now seemed from the next room through the open door and small hallway that my loading was wrong. I increased it from 1000 to 500 and it sounded even better. I’m not sure I would have been able to assess that before.

Anyway, more progress during these crazy times.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

so ddk is actually the 'tweak-meister'.

i have no doubt that these things work. lots of things work.

 

[PeterA]

so ddk is actually the 'tweak-meister'.

i have no doubt that these things work. lots of things work.

Yes indeed they do, Mike. I think I had to go back to bare bones without the audiophile stuff to get to a base line. This is what ddk encouraged me to do. I would view this now as fine tuning to the components and room to get the balance I prefer. You did this with your fabric on your walls. Others would describe it as tweaking. I guess it is semantics.

I am just not using audiophile stuff that has been tuned by others. Well I guess the steel foundry and rubber plant produce things that have a specific "voice". People can certainly do what they want. I'm just sharing what I am doing and what I am hearing. I enjoy reading about your adventures too. Have been for years.

 

[bonzo75]

so ddk is actually the 'tweak-meister'.

i have no doubt that these things work. lots of things work.

I tried rubber footers, though not O rings, sorbothane, wood, Townsend, etc before spending more when I had my Logans. The Townsend under speakers can improve sound, case by case dependent. Shun Mook aside, the symposium roller blocks worked well sometime

 

[MadFloyd]

Congratulations on your progress and happiness, Peter. I look forward to the day when we come out of hibernation and can hear each other's systems again!

 

[Folsom]

@PeterA

The description I like to use is: The difference between listening to the stereo and listening to the music.

I don't really know what your stereo sounds like, but I love reading these posts.

 

[PeterA]

@PeterA

The description I like to use is: The difference between listening to the stereo and listening to the music.

I don't really know what your stereo sounds like, but I love reading these posts.

I like that description, Folsom. And I am glad you enjoy reading my updates. I enjoy writing them. Well all I can say about the sound of my system is that I’m sure it’s not for everybody, but I like it.

That’s why we all have different set ups. And in specific terms, if an individual set up improves in its owner’s mind, then it is all good.

 

[Al M.]

@PeterA

The description I like to use is: The difference between listening to the stereo and listening to the music.

I don't really know what your stereo sounds like, but I love reading these posts.

Yes, I'm done too with pin-point imaging specificity, and enjoy my more realistic presentation after toe out of the speakers, inspired by ddk and Peter. There is still some toe-in, but rather little.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Analogue source sounds like stereo. That is it's pedigree.
Listening to music...that would be the realm of great digital.....

 

[Al M.]

Analogue source sounds like stereo. That is it's pedigree.
Listening to music...that would be the realm of great digital.....

Actually, I think listening to music can be achieved from both kinds of sources. Digital is easier to set up correctly, I'll grant you that, but a well set up vinyl rig can sound wonderfully musical as well, just as great digital does.

 

[PeterA]

Analogue source sounds like stereo. That is it's pedigree.
Listening to music...that would be the realm of great digital.....

I appreciate your perspective, but I have an all analog system. I do not have any digital in my system and I do not have plans to add a digital source in the foreseeable future. I have no interest in debating analog versus digital in my system thread.

 

[MadFloyd]

Yes Let's keep the subject on the sublime aspect of getting the most magic out of one's system which really isn't about the format but optimization.