Detailed Speaker Setup and Optimization
- Thread starter sbnx
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Why don't you do one and report back. Todd owes you (or anyone else here) nothing.
Dogs have very fine hearing. I am sure he was trying to get better sound out of your system. Give him a "good boy" and tell him to keep trying. If he keeps bumping it eventually he will find something that sounds good.
I don't know the exact physics. Mostly because the way our ear/brain system work is not that well understood. Don't get me wrong, we know some things about how the ear/brain work to interpret sound but on a scale of 1-10 I think a 3 or 4 is optimistic.
What we do know is that the speakers are emitting sound waves in a non-uniform radiation pattern both macro and microscopically. In the macro sense we have the off-axis reponse of the speaker and the fact that sound falls off unevenly to the sides and vertically. We also have that the drivers in a multi-driver speaker overlap in frequency and these drivers are separated by some distance. We also have phase shifts induced by the crossover network. On the micro level we have frequency dependent lobing (interference patterns). We then put this speaker into a room that has refelctions that are frequency dependent and those reflections cause phase shifts compared with the direct sound. The sum of all of this is what we experience here ever we sit.
I think of moving the speaker a very tiny amount as changing the sound pattern in the room. Small changes can have a dramatic effect on the trajectory of waves in the room. Play around using the ray trace program in amroc and you will see what i mean. Put various things in the drawing that would represent small obstacles to the sound. Then place your listening postion. moves the speaker and watch how the rays change.
If you want to play around with this the easiest is speaker height. Very few seem to adjust the height of the speaker but it has a very profound effect on the bass. Get the speaker as level as you can. listen to a bass track. Go over to the speaker and turn all of the spikes 1/2 turn tor raise the speaker. Listen again. Do this 3 or 4 times. Raising the speaker a 2-3mm from the floor effects bass articulation in a pretty dramatic way. You can "micro" tune this to your liking. Raise a little to make the bass leaner. Lower a little to make the bass fuller.
The burden of proof lies on those that claim it, not those that question it.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” ...Carl Sagan
Why would you optimize height WRT bass response? In almost all instances speakers are voiced on the tweeters axis or between the mid and tweeter.
Speaker height should always aligned and be placed be on the designed listening axis so it coincides with seated listening height.
In addition there are nulls in the vertical axis due to crossover and driver physical distance.
You go too high or too low and you will be listening in one of the nulls.
So in all cases you should adjust height where the listening axis is. I almost all cases except for the largest systems this will automatically raise the speaker off the floor higher than what spikes alone can do.
2-3 mm WRT bass response? A foot OK not 2-3mm we are talking wavelengths is feet.
Rob
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
I can't speak for all dealers or in fact for any of them choose to do business. I think the consumer needs to decide from whom they want to buy and what they want as far as service. I personally would not want to buy something that doesn't sound good and if the dealer can't make good sound then why would you expect anything beyond that from them in help?
IMO many dealers carry a laundry list of products and have no possible way to demonstrate properly what they have listed. That is not what I do and others may choose however there are those who's business is different. It's your choice who to support and buy from.
I will say this if the cheapest price is the goal then the service offered is usually a minimum. There are good dealers who care and have expertise. There are audio dealers that offer a supermarket type approach. Its the consumers right to choose wha tthey want.
I can say that I take pride in what I show and how I show it. We may not always succeed at an event but rest assured we try our best. I think now we have a really good team and our results have been excellent. In my showroom I don't just wheel things in and out and play it. I want to try to show our products in the best way possible. We want to deliver and set up what we sell and do that when it is possible and of course it makes sense. ( Speakers/systems etc.)
My father you to tell me research who you want to do business with rather than just what you think you want to buy.
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You seem to be confused. I am not trying to "prove" anything. There are a lot of things in audio that don't make a lot of sense and science would claim are utter nonsense. Yet they are clearly audible. No one that I am aware of has proven why some cables sound different or clearly better than others. Science says LRC is all that matters to a cable and that in the audio band even that is negligable so long as the they fall into a "reasonable" range. What about footers or racks? The levels of vibration we are talking about should have no audible effect. But they do.
What about speakers. Why do you have expensive speakers? The speakers from GR research measure very flat and have great specral decay and off axis resposne with high quality crossover parts. What else is needed?? If we are going to base everything on measurements then we should stop there. Clearly something else is needed. Is it just vanity?
I am simply conveying my observations on how small movements of the speakers matter. This has been demonstrated to others who shake their head in disbelief but the results speak for theirself. As I stated, I have tried correlating this to measurements with very limited success. I believe the measurement system is inadequate and needs work if that is what someone wants to use to dial in a speaker. The main problem I see is that the gated window is open far too long. I am making listening decisions well below 1ms.
As for the comment that "we hear what we want to hear". I disagree with this. If that were the case then every time I moved a speaker I would think it was going to be better and that is not true. There are many cases where I expect to need to move the speaker on a particular direction based on what I am hearing. I go and make that movement and that was not it. I have to put it back and the reassess. There are also many cases where I try some "tweak" and it makes the sound worse. Expectation bias would make me beleive every "tweak" would be better. After all I just spend money on that thing.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
There is a difference between science and art.
We can't measure Art and yet people want to define art with scientific terms.
HP used to say what is the absolute Chesseburger?
I can't explain many things in audio yet I can hear them.
Sometimes you either have to respect and believe in the Art or you don't. There is NO proof.
This forum has many that don't believe, that will not use their curiousty to learn.
You can learn to listen, you can learn to taste, you can learn to smell etc. Yes we all can hear but that is not the same thing as listening.
I play Golf. I know a lot of golfers that go to the range and bang balls all the time and never improve. Why? well practicing to do it wrong never makes you better. Audio is much the same.
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Dutch people use apple sauce on their french fries
True , if they run out of money for mayonaise.
Anything goes in NL
I'm not skeptical. I was only making a joke.
I can hear changes when friends move things. What is hard is knowing when a change is positive or negative.
I can hear changes when friends move things. What is hard is knowing when a change is positive or negative.
why do minute changes in speaker location matter?
switch to mono with a single speaker and small location changes will not matter so much. but mono with two speakers is a good way to understand this. anything other than dead solid perfect center with the image and the bass and highs that are also perfectly coherent. the only problem is we don't have a good reference for how that is suppose to sound. so you can't do it so casually.
but with stereo getting timing and phase right is critical for our senses and reality. stereo requires exact side to side ratios and exact timing. and we do naturally recognize reality. there is close, and there is spot on. and when this is messed up that is by definition distortion. distortion is non musical information locating the sound coming from the driver, and lowering the realism. the significance will vary somewhat from recording to recording. the magic comes when the recording maintains this timing and phase optimally (as simple as possible is best....and least mucked with) so that can be properly delivered. which ideally also requires a symmetric room and proper acoustics. in theory.
not every system/room will reveal minute changes equally.
but even in an imperfect room we go a long ways with ideal speaker adjustment. and compared to all our other investments, it's quite a reasonable ROI. a friend with a laser might just cost you a couple beers.
regarding Todd's experience, i think 2 issues are important.
1--the Trio's, especially with the i-tron, are maybe the most detailed speaker existing today. so that level of knife edge precision is unique and audible.
2--and combine that with the aspect that the location of the tweeter relative to the other drivers is ADJUSTABLE.
switch to mono with a single speaker and small location changes will not matter so much. but mono with two speakers is a good way to understand this. anything other than dead solid perfect center with the image and the bass and highs that are also perfectly coherent. the only problem is we don't have a good reference for how that is suppose to sound. so you can't do it so casually.
but with stereo getting timing and phase right is critical for our senses and reality. stereo requires exact side to side ratios and exact timing. and we do naturally recognize reality. there is close, and there is spot on. and when this is messed up that is by definition distortion. distortion is non musical information locating the sound coming from the driver, and lowering the realism. the significance will vary somewhat from recording to recording. the magic comes when the recording maintains this timing and phase optimally (as simple as possible is best....and least mucked with) so that can be properly delivered. which ideally also requires a symmetric room and proper acoustics. in theory.
not every system/room will reveal minute changes equally.
but even in an imperfect room we go a long ways with ideal speaker adjustment. and compared to all our other investments, it's quite a reasonable ROI. a friend with a laser might just cost you a couple beers.
regarding Todd's experience, i think 2 issues are important.
1--the Trio's, especially with the i-tron, are maybe the most detailed speaker existing today. so that level of knife edge precision is unique and audible.
2--and combine that with the aspect that the location of the tweeter relative to the other drivers is ADJUSTABLE.
Post 239 paragraph 4 hits the nail on the head. Mike does too in 255. Make a minute movement. What DID you hear?
Then there is Elliot talking about dealers who can't even set up a room in their own store. Who has the Experience to hear it and know what is right and wrong. Where do you get the training. As a trademan myself, if takes 3 to 5 years to learn something. Then you think you know it. At year 7 you realize you don't know squat. At year 9 you realize your starting to get it. At year 11, your getting very good.
I bought Jim Smiths video. I would say that is a solid foundation and gets you in the ball park.
Minutiae changes from there is where the problems arise. Skepticism abounds as people don't hear it, or don't know what they really heard. Was it good, bad, indifferent. To make matters worse, you have to get up from your chair, make a movement, get back and start the music over. I know from grain orienting wire this is a nightmare. I hate doing.it. Its stressful. It takes serious concentration. I have to walk away, jot down notes, then come back another day and do it again, and I do this 4 or more times to have any validation the direction I went is correct. Now your talking a speaker that has multiple plains your moving in. With a wire its one way or another. Simple in comparison. But stressful non the less.
If your able to hear very minute movements, you probably have a golden ear. If you know what you heard, you are a skilled listener. If you know what to do with the information you heard, you are a seasoned individual with skills very few will ever have.
My 2 cents.
Then there is Elliot talking about dealers who can't even set up a room in their own store. Who has the Experience to hear it and know what is right and wrong. Where do you get the training. As a trademan myself, if takes 3 to 5 years to learn something. Then you think you know it. At year 7 you realize you don't know squat. At year 9 you realize your starting to get it. At year 11, your getting very good.
I bought Jim Smiths video. I would say that is a solid foundation and gets you in the ball park.
Minutiae changes from there is where the problems arise. Skepticism abounds as people don't hear it, or don't know what they really heard. Was it good, bad, indifferent. To make matters worse, you have to get up from your chair, make a movement, get back and start the music over. I know from grain orienting wire this is a nightmare. I hate doing.it. Its stressful. It takes serious concentration. I have to walk away, jot down notes, then come back another day and do it again, and I do this 4 or more times to have any validation the direction I went is correct. Now your talking a speaker that has multiple plains your moving in. With a wire its one way or another. Simple in comparison. But stressful non the less.
If your able to hear very minute movements, you probably have a golden ear. If you know what you heard, you are a skilled listener. If you know what to do with the information you heard, you are a seasoned individual with skills very few will ever have.
My 2 cents.
Rex, Post 239 only has 1 paragraph. Is that the post you mean?
Jim's book/video is very good and will get most people very far down the path. He offers some great advice and most notably the advice on finding (and how to find) the best place to sit. Similarly, his method and other posts that advise measuring the distance from centerline to speaker and from nose to speaker as accurately as possible. If people would do these two things they would have better sound.
There is the issue of finding the best spot from the front wall and laterally where the speakers work best with the room. A poor choice here and you can work all you want and never really achieve great sound. I think there are actually very few spots that work and even fewer that work well. For example, I setup a pair of speakers a few weeks ago where I explored many spots from the front wall that had potential to work. No matter how badly I wanted a spot that was farther from the wall it just did not exist. I had to go back to one that was closer to the wall to find the one that worked well. (Actually the first spot that I wanted to work was a huge fail. I had to go back again and find the actual correct spot).
It is exhausting to do this. Very mentally and even physically taxing. Getting up and down off the floor to adjust spikes and twisting your body to get into tight spaces is laborious. Careful listening to the same snips over and over and then have to make an assessment and decide which one of the six directions the speaker needs to move makes the brain work very hard. If it is your system in your room then you can spread this work out over days, weeks or months. There is not rush.
I don't believe I have some kind of "golden ear". I believe that most people could train their listening skill to hear finer and finer things. It does take a lot of time and effort as you mentioned.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
Rex,
with all dues respect one has to learn skills . These skills aren't something that is easy or simple or that everyone is good at. People learn through various methods like having a mentor or a teacher or watching and learning from other experts. This is not rocket science. It takes time, experience and lots of work thats really tedious. The position that many take to dismiss that these skills exist is hard to understand.
It also helps to listen to live music so that you can understand what certain things sound like .
I had lots of great mentors and teachers.
This is not different than learning about wine or food. It does help to have a guide and to actually know what you are trying to listen for.
Just reading a book might help but its not the whole story.
I do suggest that rather than just DIY that if you want to learn hire someone that knows how. I promise you that if hire Stirling for example you will learn and be pleasntly surprised at the result.
Sorry that many audiophiles are just in denial about there skills and or lack of. Anyone can buy a sports car but very few can drive it on a track. I learned that first hand LOL
My back hurts just thinking about it. It's a labor of love....and it does take quite some time to get it right. Even with tools that help you out along the way.
Tom
Hello Rob,Why would you optimize height WRT bass response? In almost all instances speakers are voiced on the tweeters axis or between the mid and tweeter.
Speaker height should always aligned and be placed be on the designed listening axis so it coincides with seated listening height.
In addition there are nulls in the vertical axis due to crossover and driver physical distance.
You go too high or too low and you will be listening in one of the nulls.
So in all cases you should adjust height where the listening axis is. I almost all cases except for the largest systems this will automatically raise the speaker off the floor higher than what spikes alone can do.
2-3 mm WRT bass response? A foot OK not 2-3mm we are talking wavelengths is feet.
Rob
The "why" is because it works. Why it works I don't know but here is some attempt. The closest boundary to the woofer is likely the floor. In some speakers about a foot away. The boundaries in a room are extremely high pressure zones and as we move away from the boundary the pressure drops rapidly. We all know this from the front wall as we all pull our speakers away from it. The most common reason to pull the speaker away from the boundary is boomy bass. The floor is the exact same thing. Because the speaker is so close to the floor moving the speaker a few mm away from the floor is changing the way the speaker interacts with it. I don't know any other or better explanation than this.
Being on the tweeter axis depends on how the speaker is designed. But lets assume your speaker was designed for listening to occur on axis. If the tweeter is below your ear level then you could always raise the speaker up in some way (e.g. put books under it) to get the tweeter up to your ear level. What about speakers where the tweeter height is above your ear height when seated? I suppose you could raise your sofa by several inches and again be on the tweeter axis. But there is a different way.
If the tweeter is low then you simply rake the speakers back until the tweeter points at your ear. You are still listening on axis. You can still adjust speaker height independent of rake.
The effect of raising the speaker height is very obvious in the bass. All I ask is that you try it. We need to move past the stopping thought of "bass waves are measured in feet so how could moving the speaker up 2-3 mm matter?". It is a simple experiment that would take maybe 30 minutes. Here are the steps:
1. pick a track with bass that is played relatively fast. Electric bass or stand up bass. You could use the stereophile test CD that has the bass guitar.
2. Listen to this track several times with your speakers the way they are. Make notes if necessary. Pay close attention to how articulate the bass sounds. Is it muddy or murky sounding in certain areas.
3. Go over to the speakers and get each speaker as level as you can. Both front to back and side to side.
4. Come back and listen to the track again. Note any differences.
5. Go over to the speakers and give each of the spike 1/2 of a turn. You can go full turn if you want.
6. Listen again and note any changes.
7. Keep raising the spikes and noting changes. Assuming you have enough thread you should run into a spot where the bass starts to sound too lean. This is usually within a few turns of the spike but it depends on the speaker. sometimes there is so much bass you can not get it to really lean out until you are already out of thread.
7. if you hit the too lean part then go back down 1/4 turn and reassess.
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