Changing variables in a review

[racerxnet]

You don't have to do that. You can get damn close by ear and then if you want to fine tune using a measurement system go for it.
All you need is a slow sine sweep and an SPL meter do give you a snapshot at the listening position. It also depends on what extent you are willing to use for "room correction" or just plain EQ which seems to be a dirty word for some.

I have tried DIRAC in my HT and it turned my spacious and enveloping HT into a flat non dimensional shadow of it's former self. This was a few years back and sure it has improved but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Rob

Sorry,

But your ear cannot discern the phase matching, decay time, etc. as well as verify if ANY improvements have been achieved without some form of documentation from start to finish. Your basic SPL and sine sweep (at what frequency?) appear extremely crude. Maybe your experience with Dirac was due to operator error or not. Care to show the sweeps from it??

 

[Kingrex]

PS- I don't like or recommend anything like Quietrock, IME it will always over dampen the room!

Thats a big statement .


I would be very interested in a thread on room design. Dealing with a non optimum room.

I was actually thinking of a steel building and filling in the interior. I would apply extensive grounding to the shell to shield against RF. Maybe even spray down the bare steel with RF paint. I'm not copper coating it. That would be crazy expensive.

 

[ddk]

So how do you correlate any improvment to the room response if you are not using REW/Rephase, Accorate, Audiolense or Dirac?? Are you "tuning" by ear? I see that some recommend cinder block for constructing a room, except that may not be doable on a second floor in a normal home considering the load bearing and weight. You can properly decouple with clips and Green glue along with rockwool bats on the back side of sheet rock/studs. For mic centering you can use LSR2 before measurement. Do you look at the step response, room decay, phase, and other items.

We're coming at this from very different directions I'm not concerned about room response measurements nor do I have a final target on a graph to hit. If I touch the room then all I'm interested with is balancing it out and ameliorating the big problems. IMO and IME speaker placement, system tuning, room treatment and even final cartridge setup is best done by ear no other tool can do the job as well. I don't have anything against room measurements if you want to gauge what you've accomplished but I find measurements as a starting point not only useless but actually hindrance if that's all you're depending on. I can't tell how many measurement based listening rooms I walked into only to end up removing most of what was done based on measurements. We have accounts of at least two people on this forum with acoustician measurement based rooms that in the end found it counterproductive. These are complete rooms done by professionals with carte blanche just imagine your average audiophile trying to make sense of measurements and fix a problem that might not even exist.

Unfortunately for decades the blind have been led by the so called "expert" blind in this hobby and continue to do so. People need to learn how to hear and trust their own ears above all so not to be taken or led down the rabbit holes. If one can't hear to setup your speaker/listening position and don't know what component is doing what how's dropping a mic in a room going to help? How would you know the actual cause of your measurements and what to do about it from a graph?

david

 

[microstrip]

If you start with a solid foundation, you can always "soften" up the sound with treatment.(...)

If you have plenty of space and are ready to loose a significant part of it. Quality room treatment typically needs at less 30 cm (1 foot) depth, more for tuned bass traps in low bass. And we still need to hide it and forget about hanging large paintings in the walls! .

 

[ddk]

Sorry,

But your ear cannot discern the phase matching, decay time, etc. as well as verify if ANY improvements have been achieved without some form of documentation from start to finish. Your basic SPL and sine sweep (at what frequency?) appear extremely crude. Maybe your experience with Dirac was due to operator error or not. Care to show the sweeps from it??

If you can't hear it then why bother?

Thats a big statement .

It's neither big nor small it's just an experienced based statement based on my preference of a livelier space vs a damp one.

I would be very interested in a thread on room design. Dealing with a non optimum room.

I was actually thinking of a steel building and filling in the interior. I would apply extensive grounding to the shell to shield against RF. Maybe even spray down the bare steel with RF paint. I'm not copper coating it. That would be crazy expensive.

Room design specially from scratch is a different subject using your local home depot for some meaningful improvement than anyone can do on their own. The center point of everything is setup wether dealing with a crap room or the best designed hifi listening space, that's the constant.

david

 

[microstrip]

(...)

I was actually thinking of a steel building and filling in the interior. I would apply extensive grounding to the shell to shield against RF. Maybe even spray down the bare steel with RF paint. I'm not copper coating it. That would be crazy expensive.

Do you have any evidence that such shielded room would sound better or it is just a feeling?

Should we ask sail boat onwers if their stereo sound systems sound better when they are in the middle of the ocean, all control, localization and communications switched of?

 

[Lagonda]

If you have plenty of space and are ready to loose a significant part of it. Quality room treatment typically needs at less 30 cm (1 foot) depth, more for tuned bass traps in low bass. And we still need to hide it and forget about hanging large paintings in the walls! .

My " large paintings" are actually 2 windows covered with shutters made of MDF with wallpaper and posters on top, they open up on warm summer days. !

 

[matakana]

If you can't hear it then why bother?

It's neither big nor small it's just an experienced based statement based on my preference of a livelier space vs a damp one.

Room design specially from scratch is a different subject using your local home depot for some meaningful improvement than anyone can do on their own. The center point of everything is setup wether dealing with a crap room or the best designed hifi listening space, that's the constant.

david

The center point in my particular room and setup are these IMHO.

 

[Robh3606]

Sorry,

But your ear cannot discern the phase matching, decay time, etc. as well as verify if ANY improvements have been achieved without some form of documentation from start to finish. Your basic SPL and sine sweep (at what frequency?) appear extremely crude. Maybe your experience with Dirac was due to operator error or not. Care to show the sweeps from it??

Hello

So you can't hear if a new speaker position gives you a suck out or drops you into a position that excites a room mode??? All you need is a good pink noise source or run the sweeps to hear it. So no I don't need a measurement to hear something as extreme as that.

My ears don't need to hear phase matching beyond a polarity reversal when I am setting up a pair of speakers in a room.

Beyond that phase is way overrated as far as audibility. Just how many passive speaker are phase coherent?? When the are it's a point in space.

Once I get them sounding reasonably good then I will look at SPL measurements as the smaller the deviations are the more difficult they are to hear.

The sine sweep is a sweep from 200Hz down to 20Hz you can also used narrow band pink noise in 1/8 octave bands.

It is crude but it works just fine. How do you think people set-up speakers before all this software was available??

Do you really think that people had no method for set-up before them??

Do you think that they couldn't get a room to sound good or measure decently??

I now longer have my Dirac measurement all I can say is it met the target curve.

This hobby has been around a long time and there is more than one way to get it right.

Room Correction is just a new age name for EQ. Certainly digital is much more powerful but the end game is still your target curve.

Rob

 

[Kingrex]

Do you have any evidence that such shielded room would sound better or it is just a feeling?

Should we ask sail boat onwers if their stereo sound systems sound better when they are in the middle of the ocean, all control, localization and communications switched of?

No, all I have is conflicting information. Similar to room design. Some people love Quiet Rock. Seems others do not. Some love stone rooms. Others say to reflective. Some say shielded wire, others say it sounds closed in. Some say shield the room. Others say it only works at certain frequency. I can always find someone who will tell another person they are full of it. Just read any audio thread.

A metal building.is a good frame. Its durable. And it may be an excellent shield. If done correct. There is a great thread on this forum about a room build in a metal shell building.

I am also considereing autoclaved aerated concrete blocks or HempBlocks. I have time to figure it out.

 

[Robh3606]

A metal building.is a good frame. Its durable. And it may be an excellent shield. If done correct. There is a great thread on this forum about a room build in a metal shell building.

Hello

What kind of a shield??

Rob

 

[Kingrex]

Hello

What kind of a shield??

Rob

I'm hoping an RF shield.

 

[tima]

Magazine reviews aren't any different than someone posting a comment on this forum. Both are just someone's opinion, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Granted there are plenty of mediocre reviews as there are with forum comments.

And there are differences. Reviews are vetted for technical accuracy by manufacturers. Reviews have editors and are often (not always) better organized. Reviews include the associated equipment used by the writer for the review along with the product MSRP. (Many commenters here won't disclose their systems.) Review opinions are for products the writer has actually heard in his own system and listened to, typically, over the course of 2-3 months. Lot's of forum opinions based on 20 minutes to maybe a couple hours of listening; lot's of hearsay opinion on forums. I could go on.

 

[Tango]

Is the site being attacked?

 

[stehno]

I don't understand. Your one of the most experienced members on this forum. ....

What's not to understand?