Detailed Speaker Setup and Optimization

[treitz3]

In a far, distant world....it sure would be swell to have like minded people speak of the discoveries they have had without the measuring contest that is completely irrelevant.

We are all in the same hobby. Love it. Embrace it. Learn from it and share what you have learned, instead of the, "mine is bigger than yours" mantra.

That gets us nowhere.

Tom

 

[PeterA]

It is interesting. The best room/system I have heard is just a large room with carefully set up gear. It has nice furniture and decorations, carpeting and paintings, no conventional acoustic treatments. It is not even sealed, but open in two corners. The listening experience was extremely convincing, with each recording played at its optimal volume, from moderate to very loud, for the most convincing presentations I have heard. The only thing more remarkable than the quality of the components comprising the system was the skill with which the owner set up the speakers in the room and addressed every detail from power delivery to equipement support and cartridge tuning.

The key is that the information embedded in the recording remains intact and is released into the room. This energy is then controlled and managed, not removed by absorption. I had no compulsion to analyze the sound or break it down into pieces. The music simply existed in the room to be experienced. And the curious thing was that I did not need to sit nearfield for the music to feel immersive. I could walk around the room as one does at a club venue, or choose from a number of different seats, all presenting a slightly different perspective.

 

[PeterA]

On the contrary, uncontrolled reflections blur detail. I know from experience in my room.

I can’t speak for others, but I am not suggesting uncontrolled reflections. The sound in the room should be controlled or managed, just not removed, in my opinion.

 

[treitz3]

One of the best, if not the best system I have heard had no reflections. Just a backwall, listening nearfield with a valley below.

When I say a valley? I mean a 200 foot drop in elevation immediately.

"The best" for one? Well, it doesn't really equate to the "best" for others. It is completely situation dependant.

Tom

 

[adyc]

I can’t speak for others, but I am not suggesting uncontrolled reflections. The sound in the room should be controlled or managed, just not removed, in my opinion.

Not removed? If the sound is not removed, you can hear the music even when you turn off your system. Or until your eardrums absorb all the air vibrations.

 

[AudioHR]

In a far, distant world....it sure would be swell to have like minded people speak of the discoveries they have had without the measuring contest that is completely irrelevant.

We are all in the same hobby. Love it. Embrace it. Learn from it and share what you have learned, instead of the, "mine is bigger than yours" mantra.

That gets us nowhere.

Tom

Hmmm...since joining I have observed a few runaways where there was no give or take just relentless justifications of why they were right but everyone else was wrong. It usually got heated and personal. So I do understand your words of wisdom and good quidance.

Having said that in this thread overall I was enjoying the passionate but controlled way in which different viewpoints were being expressed. As I read I was ping ponged between viewpoints that had me thinking yes I agree with that only to read a rebuttal that had me thinking good point. Very instructional actually!

 

[bonzo75]

so would you view a purpose built concert hall as seemingly artificial or unusual or a theatrical environment ?

and a listening room built and tuned to act like one also seemingly artificial or unusual or a theatrical environment?

These look similar, but there are no similarities between the two. Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and most rock groups used Altecs with Crown type amps, so you should too, is a similar analogy.

The Simon Rattle guidance built Birmingham hall has relatively poor acoustics compared to many others. The Sheldonian at Oxford built in 1600s is the best acoustic I know, and is just a very different concert hall, an old building where Haydn used to compose and perform. Some churches form the best acoustics, others suck. Neither of them are planned.

That said, all concert halls are dependent on seats filling up for acoustics, and in all of them only some seats sound good. They are not built to a seat, you have a seat of choice. An audiophile listening room is built with much lower talent than a concert hall, and it is completely arrogant for any audiophile to assume that by putting up a purpose built room he has applied science to art. As you know it took you years of work after building your room, you will never know if you would have got the same results spending years find tuning a non-purpose built room with furniture with different gear. Moreover, most audiophiles will do what Ron did, build purpose built room, but have different speakers in it over their time, kind of defeating the purpose of which speaker it was built for. Marty's room was built for digitally corrected Pipedreams, now has passive crossover Wilson Alexx. What helps it is 35*25*14.

Concert halls sound good for many reasons, not necessarily the hall acoustic. The performers also rehearse there, they might be adjusting to each hall. There is a enough room for the listener to adjust his seat. And there might be other factors not acoustic related in play, i.e. just listening to a real direct instrument that is well performed. I don't know a single hall that hasn't disappointed or that hasn't awed. How can we be disappointed and awed in the same acoustic?

 

[bonzo75]

the best rooms I heard were not treated at all, but all were relatively large. And had very good gear - yamamura, Pnoe Mayer Vyger, 6 dual FLHs including 2 Altecs, Leif's, Silvercore, another German one. There were too many Rives built or completely SMT done rooms that just sucked the life out of everything but also had very poor gear, much more expensive. In non-horns, the Sigma MAAT with Kondo. Of the good sounding treated rooms, Mike's Room and Chris' Diesis Kondo room are also quite large

 

[Mike Lavigne]

These look similar, but there are no similarities between the two. Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, and most rock groups used Altecs with Crown type amps, so you should too, is a similar analogy.

The Simon Rattle guidance built Birmingham hall has relatively poor acoustics compared to many others. The Sheldonian at Oxford built in 1600s is the best acoustic I know, and is just a very different concert hall, an old building where Haydn used to compose and perform. Some churches form the best acoustics, others suck. Neither of them are planned.

That said, all concert halls are dependent on seats filling up for acoustics, and in all of them only some seats sound good. They are not built to a seat, you have a seat of choice. An audiophile listening room is built with much lower talent than a concert hall, and it is completely arrogant for any audiophile to assume that by putting up a purpose built room he has applied science to art. As you know it took you years of work after building your room, you will never know if you would have got the same results spending years find tuning a non-purpose built room with furniture with different gear. Moreover, most audiophiles will do what Ron did, build purpose built room, but have different speakers in it over their time, kind of defeating the purpose of which speaker it was built for. Marty's room was built for digitally corrected Pipedreams, now has passive crossover Wilson Alexx. What helps it is 35*25*14.

Concert halls sound good for many reasons, not necessarily the hall acoustic. The performers also rehearse there, they might be adjusting to each hall. There is a enough room for the listener to adjust his seat. And there might be other factors not acoustic related in play, i.e. just listening to a real direct instrument that is well performed. I don't know a single hall that hasn't disappointed or that hasn't awed. How can we be disappointed and awed in the same acoustic?

my point was only that if a concert hall was designed with an acoustic agenda, and not just a big box, why can't a listening room also have some acoustical design behind it? both might be good or bad, or even both good and bad from time to time. rooms start out one way but sometimes evolve.

whether those ideas have anything to do with great sound or not is a different point. only those intensions don't disqualify it as artificial out of hand as Graham inferred.

and great sound is a personal judgment, not any objective truth. but some groups of listeners might tend to have a bit of convergence about stuff, but not always.

 

[the sound of Tao]

and you know these things about how all our rooms work how?

that greater musical truth is found in a more casual haphazard approach than in a planned purpose built approach? and you assign 'good' to a small living room, and 'artificial' to the planned tuned approach? that somehow it's a construct, and the small living room is not?

i've had a small good sounding room which was a 12' x 18' x 10.5' Den. was in there for 9 years (1994-2003). great intimate sound. but could not do scale, authority or deep bass. limited SPL's to get to 'live'. but anyone who heard it loved how things sounded. how could anything get any better? had the Rockport Sirius III and the Kharma's and Tenor's. great sound.

my current room is way more capable, does deep bass, soundstages and scales the heights, and better at intimate too. but my world view in 2003 did not see beyond that room. then i started to want more. eventually after going backwards for a few years i did reach my ultimate room goals. for me.

so i see both sides of this. it was tempting to view where i was as truth. and it was based on my view from there. but not from where i am now. yet i respect where i was that it was something special. and had it's attributes.

i'm with you that there is more than one way to do it. but throwing around words like "artificial" is just wrong. and polarizing.

i think it's tempting to confuse (1) a purpose built, dedicated space with (2) particular types of gear, or maybe (3) a particular musical viewpoint. they are three different things. and it's also a mistake to assign some sort of immersive attribute to a living room beyond what the user might bring. neither one is exclusively successful. the purpose built larger space demands more attention from the system builder since it's got less living accessories to tame it naturally. i can agree there. more efforts are required to humanize it. but with a higher performance ceiling. can reproduce bigger music, handle higher SPL's naturally, and be way more physical and immersive. it has another gear.......or three.

Having a bigger space for listening is brilliant opportunity, I really wasn’t talking about small scale spaces… the best residential listening room I’ve encountered belongs to a friend and I’ve listened in it plenty and would love a room like his as it has plenty more scale than my space and also has great proportions and height to work with.

I regret the artificial reference but it was genuinely not meant as a negative in intention or meant to be judgemental at all. It’s not my nature to be judgemental like that. It would have been better in hindsight to say a less unconventional residential room style instead but the original intention was just to point to the difference in the style being an overtly specialised room rather than a more typical room in spirit. Poor wording definitely mea culpa… I’m used to working in design analysis so the language used to capture the spirit of a style of a room is genuinely intended as non judgemental and respectful of clients preferences and choices on style.

The main weight of the point was just that more obvious room treatment isn’t what I choose for myself and it comes out of a quite conscious strategy to frame an experience in a certain way that is more comfortable for my mindset and that it has psychoacoustic benefits that work better for me feeling at home in listening rooms where treatments are invisible or less overt or less high function acoustic kind of aesthetic. The why of that I’m not exactly sure. It’s also not just about the materiality and features of room acoustic treatments. I could draw up a functional diagram of a listening space that doesn’t aim to be a typical theatre listening layout because for me it allows for a more relaxed framing of seating and standpoints and view lines and aims to create interactivity and at times a shared listening space.

I recognise that my choices do cause constraints and possibly sonic limitations or additional challenge in getting best sound but the case for listening value of a more normalised room style isn’t that often made beyond its a preference for some. That acoustically treated rooms can look a certain way is often discussed and the case of that value is more often made.

Looking back I think of the rooms I’ve had really great experiences in and quite a few of the better rooms I have enjoyed music in mostly did just integrate normal furnishings and not utilised visible or obvious acoustic treatments. If they then could be bettered still with bass traps or acoustic tiles I can’t say Mike but the summative experience in best listening for me was all I was referring to.

 

[Argonaut]

Randomly strewn planks are where it’s At … Apparently !

 

[Al M.]

the best rooms I heard were not treated at all, but all were relatively large. And had very good gear - yamamura, Pnoe Mayer Vyger, 6 dual FLHs including 2 Altecs, Leif's, Silvercore, another German one. There were too many Rives built or completely SMT done rooms that just sucked the life out of everything but also had very poor gear, much more expensive. In non-horns, the Sigma MAAT with Kondo. Of the good sounding treated rooms, Mike's Room and Chris' Diesis Kondo room are also quite large

The best rooms are always large.

In my medium sized room I simply have no choice but treatment, especially since I also want loud sound without distortion. Impossible without treatment.

But that also depends on the room. For example, in PeterA's also midsized room, the ceiling, even though lower, is much more benign acoustically than mine. A simple hand clapping test, listening for the type of ceiling echo, is instructive in that regard. -- Obviously, the ceiling is not the only pain point.

Yet even large rooms can benefit from some room treatment. That also depends on the room nodes, on the wall acoustics and on the speaker type.

 

[bonzo75]

But that also depends on the room. For example, in PeterA's also midsized room, the ceiling, even though lower, is much more benign acoustically than mine. A simple hand clapping test, listening for the type of ceiling echo, is instructive in that regard. -- Obviously, the ceiling is not the only pain point.

I consider Peter's 15x16 room to be small. Especially given that it is a living room. Difficult to put anything there. I would go with old Tannoys or in new, the Audionec Evo 2 (which can be driven by the same electronics he has). Those who like AN-E can use AN-E

In London there is such a small room (dedicated, not living room, not purpose built either) that sounds very good with CH Precision and Stenheim Ultime 2, again no treatment. Well he has the schnerzinger tweaks.

And of course, I am not saying every mid or large room is ideal either, with or without treatments.

 

[Argonaut]

Elements of this thread remind me of being Doorstepped by Scientologists !

 

[Al M.]

In London there is such a small room that sounds very good with CH Precision and Stenheim Ultime 2, again no treatment. Well he has the schnerzinger tweaks.

And of course, I am not saying every mid or large room is ideal either, with or without treatments.

It always depends on the room what is needed and what is not.

It also depends on the listening volume. If my average listening volume were 10 dB lower, the room problems would come into play much, much less.

I just wanted more out of my room in terms of SPL capability, and I was able to get it (and no, I'm not listening as loud as to ruin my ears, I'm careful).

 

[bonzo75]

If my average listening volume were 10 dB lower, the room problems would come into play much, much less.

That is also a speaker issue.

 

[Al M.]

That is also a speaker issue.

Sure, cone speakers excite a room more than other speaker types, and not all cone speakers are equally capable in terms of intrinsic distortion.

Regardless, my current cone speakers can play loudly without distortion in my room. This also depended on carefully choosing the position in the room.

 

[bonzo75]

Sure, cone speakers excite a room more than other speaker types, and not all cone speakers are equally capable in terms of intrinsic distortion.

Regardless, my current cone speakers can play loudly without distortion in my room. This also depended on carefully choosing the position in the room.

Inefficient speakers can lose out on details during the quieter orchestral passages if not well driven with good control. the adjustment for quieter passages distorts the louder ones. Also, with inefficient, low sensitivity cone speakers, often the woofer seems out of whack with the upper range drivers, causing the listener to adjust the volume for the lowest common denominator, leading the other driver to sound louder and distorted.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Having a bigger space for listening is brilliant opportunity, I really wasn’t talking about small scale spaces… the best residential listening room I’ve encountered belongs to a friend and I’ve listened in it plenty and would love a room like his as it has plenty more scale than my space and also has great proportions and height to work with.

I regret the artificial reference but it was genuinely not meant as a negative in intention or meant to be judgemental at all. It’s not my nature to be judgemental like that. It would have been better in hindsight to say a less unconventional residential room style instead but the original intention was just to point to the difference in the style being an overtly specialised room rather than a more typical room in spirit. Poor wording definitely mea culpa… I’m used to working in design analysis so the language used to capture the spirit of a style of a room is genuinely intended as non judgemental and respectful of clients preferences and choices on style.

The main weight of the point was just that more obvious room treatment isn’t what I choose for myself and it comes out of a quite conscious strategy to frame an experience in a certain way that is more comfortable for my mindset and that it has psychoacoustic benefits that work better for me feeling at home in listening rooms where treatments are invisible or less overt or less high function acoustic kind of aesthetic. The why of that I’m not exactly sure. It’s also not just about the materiality and features of room acoustic treatments. I could draw up a functional diagram of a listening space that doesn’t aim to be a typical theatre listening layout because for me it allows for a more relaxed framing of seating and standpoints and view lines and aims to create interactivity and at times a shared listening space.

I recognise that my choices do cause constraints and possibly sonic limitations or additional challenge in getting best sound but the case for listening value of a more normalised room style isn’t that often made beyond its a preference for some. That acoustically treated rooms can look a certain way is often discussed and the case of that value is more often made.

Looking back I think of the rooms I’ve had really great experiences in and quite a few of the better rooms I have enjoyed music in mostly did just integrate normal furnishings and not utilised visible or obvious acoustic treatments. If they then could be bettered still with bass traps or acoustic tiles I can’t say Mike but the summative experience in best listening for me was all I was referring to.

Thankyou Graham, I appreciate it.

 

[sbnx]

On the contrary, uncontrolled reflections blur detail. I know from experience in my room.

Al, I agree 100%. But there are two ways to control the reflection. One is to add an absorber (or diffuser) and get rid of the reflection. This is what most people do on the sidewall at the point of first reflection. The second way to control the reflection is with speaker placement. This is actually the main idea -- very small, controlled movements to remove the "blur" caused by interactions.