Doctor's Orders-Part Two-The New Listening Room Of Steve Williams

[Steve williams]

I forgot to mention one other change.....

5. We listened most every day with the subs off. It was David's feeling that the room doesn't need subs and I have to say it did sound good but my concern is that the Wilson X2's even though they are rated from 20Hz-20Khz the reality is they don't go below 40Hz. Hence true deep bass may not be appreciated without some supplement to the bottom end. Last night I played with the master volume control on the subs as well as the crossover point. I am not convinced at this point that I want to be without my subs as that lower octave as my subs go down to 16 Hz

 

[PeterA]

4. We changed a few other things ( that I will discuss later) in the room that also made some significant changes. David feels very strongly that tweaks serve little if any purpose other than to add coloration to a system thus preventing one from attaining his "it must sound natural" mantra. For David, less is always more.

This is a work in progress as I am so taken by listening to vinyl for the past 5 days that I am like a kid in toy land at Christmas so for now I am just trying to wrap my head around what I am hearing and the changes I hear. Stay tuned

This says it all. David must have a keen sense of what real instruments sound like and it seems he understands how to achieve that sound. You are very lucky to have had him there to do your set up. This is in line with my suggestion in the "system priorities" thread, that proper set up, given ones room and equipment, is of primary importance.

Listening for hours without fatigue can be done with very few systems that I have heard. Keep sharing your observations if you can get away from being engrossed by your music. I love to read these kinds of threads. So much to share, and so much to for us to learn.

 

[PeterA]

I forgot to mention one other change.....

5. We listened most every day with the subs off. It was David's feeling that the room doesn't need subs and I have to say it did sound good but my concern is that the Wilson X2's even though they are rated from 20Hz-20Khz the reality is they don't go below 40Hz. Hence true deep bass may not be appreciated without some supplement to the bottom end. Last night I played with the master volume control on the subs as well as the crossover point. I am not convinced at this point that I want to be without my subs as that lower octave as my subs go down to 16 Hz

Steve, Do you notice an appreciable difference of this bass response between your digital and analog? I have tried subwoofers in my limited frequency response system, and I came to the conclusion that bass extension and quantity are one thing and bass quality is often something else. If you can get it all, great, but if it is one or the other, I prefer the latter.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

I forgot to mention one other change.....

5. We listened most every day with the subs off. It was David's feeling that the room doesn't need subs and I have to say it did sound good but my concern is that the Wilson X2's even though they are rated from 20Hz-20Khz the reality is they don't go below 40Hz. Hence true deep bass may not be appreciated without some supplement to the bottom end. Last night I played with the master volume control on the subs as well as the crossover point. I am not convinced at this point that I want to be without my subs as that lower octave as my subs go down to 16 Hz

This is an interesting comment. Is it based on personal preference, which would indicate that "it must sound natural" is not the way you want the system to sound. Of course, 'natural" could perhaps be interpreted differently by any of us.

 

[jfrech]

Additions made to the system

TechDas AirForce One with Duralumin platter
Graham Elite tone arm
Ortofon MC Anna cartridge

Critical Mass Systems rack designed specially for the table and Phonostage. The CMS rack has a Black Diamond Upper shelf and three Black Platinum lower shelves

Owning the Lamm ML3/LL1 Signature series there was no doubt as to what phono stage I ordered which was the Lamm LP1 Signature thus completing the Signature Series which is an 11 box system.

I did order the LP1 with two identical SUT's for normal gain cartridges rather than a SUT for low output a cartridge and a normal output cartridge

A pair of Shunyata Sigma Analog PCs for the phono power supplies and a Shunyata Alpha Digital for the controller.

Shunyata interconnect from Phonostage to preamp.

Hi Steve, congratulations ! What a AWESOME addition to your system. I am sure you're vinyl just sounds killer !!

I rec'd my Triton v2 (and 2 Sigma Analogs) exactly a week ago...I am sure I have more break in...but it's everything you (and others) said it would be. Thanks for leading the way...

 

[ALF]

Well it's been 5 days now since the turntable was set up and I have to say that I am mesmerized as to how good things sound. I have been totally drawn in to the point where I have had 6-8 hour listening days since David has left. Most of us who know David know that his forte is not only vintage gear but so also the ability to understand room set up and to find where inadequacies are and/or where things can be made better. Having said that the two of us spent Tuesday and Wednesday making some minor changes to the system and my room most of which had surprisingly wonderful results so let me first list some changes we made based on David's evaluation of the room

1. After listening to a lot of music David felt that the room was too dead at the front end. There seemed to be a lack of cohesiveness between the upper midrange to the bottom end and some passages suggested some muddiness in the bottom end as well as some lack of modulation of string instruments we heard. One of the concerns by my acoustician was the room size with respect to my speakers and she always said that "we have to fool your speakers into thinking the room is twice the size. Hence the floor to ceiling drapes lined with Lumitex. As well with my sitting position close to the rear walls I was always worried about reflections off the back wall to my ears. My acoustician suggested that the drapes along both the front and rear of the room could be opened but TBH I never did this because of my concerns. At least not until several days ago. We opened the rear drapes such that they were open about 6" beyond the edges of the door frame on each side and listened. I was amazed at the return of natural timbre in the violin and guitar strings as well as the feeling now that these strings were vibrating and we could feel every bit of it. The soundstage seemed to fill in. Similar results also were gleaned by slightly opening the front drapes to the inner window frame on each side with similar results. Needless to say there was no negatives or downside to having the drapes open behind the sitting position.

2. I have Stillpoints Ultra 6's under both sides of my my amps and power supplies ( 3 under each for a total of 12). We removed those under the left and right amplifier but left those under each power supply. By leaving them under the power supply but removing them under the amp created once again a better sound for the mid bass and bass. When under the amplifier the sound seemed less well defined than when they were removed.

3. For years I have had three Aurios M1b under my Playback Designs. Having now 6 Ultra 6's not in use I removed the Aurios and put 3 Ultra 6's under the Playback Designs and interestingly IMO the bass was made worse so I removed them and after a few hours I came to the conclusion that the sound was actually better with nothing under the Playback Designs.

4. We changed a few other things ( that I will discuss later) in the room that also made some significant changes. David feels very strongly that tweaks serve little if any purpose other than to add coloration to a system thus preventing one from attaining his "it must sound natural" mantra. For David, less is always more.

This is a work in progress as I am so taken by listening to vinyl for the past 5 days that I am like a kid in toy land at Christmas so for now I am just trying to wrap my head around what I am hearing and the changes I hear. Stay tuned

Sweet, Steve...tweaks are like medications, they all have their side-effects; if you run into an internist, they become additive and cumulative .

Cheers!

 

[andromedaaudio]

Congrats steve with your exxcelent turntable set up , to speak from a speaker perspective , long live modern speaker composite materials they do an exxelent job at playing loud without smear.

Hey Bruce,

In the same vibration thread I wrote that I rarely come across air born vibration, or if its there its not causing a problem that I can identify or measure. One of the abilities of a system like Steve's is to play music at or near live levels, instead of smearing or blurring the sound would actually pop at higher levels and truly come to life. Everything falls into place, voice has the right bloom and liveliness, instruments are solid, real & three dimensional. There isn't a hint of smearing at any volume. So much of this is in the setup, there's quite a lot more to it than wiring boxes together.

david

 

[ddk]

Congrats steve with your exxcelent turntable set up , to speak from a speaker perspective , long live modern speaker composite materials they do an exxelent job at playing loud without smear.

Not quite there yet but they're finally catching up, at least some them!

david

 

[andromedaaudio]

Sure the road to perfection aint easy , i guess your analogue system finally pulled steve over
A shame you live so far away, id love to hear those bionors as well

 

[ddk]

Sure the road to perfection aint easy , i guess your analogue system finally pulled steve over
A shame you live so far away, id love to hear those bionors as well

He jumped head first into the deep end. You never know, I have a few Dutch friends who vacationed here a couple of times. Many Dutch during the summer touring the National Parks here.

david

 

[slowGEEZR]

Congratulations Steve! I thought your system was fantastic before, but now it really is over the top! I suggest you limit playing records in the direction shown in the video however, as you may damage the cantilever!

 

[microstrip]

I forgot to mention one other change.....

5. We listened most every day with the subs off. It was David's feeling that the room doesn't need subs and I have to say it did sound good but my concern is that the Wilson X2's even though they are rated from 20Hz-20Khz the reality is they don't go below 40Hz. Hence true deep bass may not be appreciated without some supplement to the bottom end. Last night I played with the master volume control on the subs as well as the crossover point. I am not convinced at this point that I want to be without my subs as that lower octave as my subs go down to 16 Hz

Just inserting your subs in the room can change the bass of your room - even if not driven they will behave like bass traps tuned to the resonance of the sub. I have read, but have no experience on it, that just switching the sub on and off should give a difference in sound, as the damping of the speaker will change a lot.

 

[Steve williams]

Just inserting your subs in the room can change the bass of your room - even if not driven they will behave like bass traps tuned to the resonance of the sub. I have read, but have no experience on it, that just switching the sub on and off should give a difference in sound, as the damping of the speaker will change a lot.

That is a very interesting thought Francisco

 

[RBFC]

The subs can also act as a passive radiator and reinforce the bass even when it is off.

Lee

 

[PeterA]

The subs can also act as a passive radiator and reinforce the bass even when it is off.

Lee

Yes, Jim Smith writes about this and it is the reason that I think he recommends auditioning speakers at dealers with only the pair of speakers under audition in the room. All unused speakers should be removed from the room.

 

[LL21]

Just inserting your subs in the room can change the bass of your room - even if not driven they will behave like bass traps tuned to the resonance of the sub. I have read, but have no experience on it, that just switching the sub on and off should give a difference in sound, as the damping of the speaker will change a lot.

That is a very interesting thought Francisco

In the July 1994 review of the Wilson X1/Grand Slamm, Martin Colloms remarks that the bass was nowhere to be found initially in Ricardo's (Distributor's) room...eventually they got nearly flat to 20hz...but not before they found that they needed to power up 2 jukeboxes in order to get their cones to have some resistance.

 

[Steve williams]

Well it's been 5 days now since the turntable was set up and I have to say that I am mesmerized as to how good things sound. I have been totally drawn in to the point where I have had 6-8 hour listening days since David has left. Most of us who know David know that his forte is not only vintage gear but so also the ability to understand room set up and to find where inadequacies are and/or where things can be made better. Having said that the two of us spent Tuesday and Wednesday making some minor changes to the system and my room most of which had surprisingly wonderful results so let me first list some changes we made based on David's evaluation of the room

1. After listening to a lot of music David felt that the room was too dead at the front end. There seemed to be a lack of cohesiveness between the upper midrange to the bottom end and some passages suggested some muddiness in the bottom end as well as some lack of modulation of string instruments we heard. One of the concerns by my acoustician was the room size with respect to my speakers and she always said that "we have to fool your speakers into thinking the room is twice the size. Hence the floor to ceiling drapes lined with Lumitex. As well with my sitting position close to the rear walls I was always worried about reflections off the back wall to my ears. My acoustician suggested that the drapes along both the front and rear of the room could be opened but TBH I never did this because of my concerns. At least not until several days ago. We opened the rear drapes such that they were open about 6" beyond the edges of the door frame on each side and listened. I was amazed at the return of natural timbre in the violin and guitar strings as well as the feeling now that these strings were vibrating and we could feel every bit of it. The soundstage seemed to fill in. Similar results also were gleaned by slightly opening the front drapes to the inner window frame on each side with similar results. Needless to say there was no negatives or downside to having the drapes open behind the sitting position.

2. I have Stillpoints Ultra 6's under both sides of my my amps and power supplies ( 3 under each for a total of 12). We removed those under the left and right amplifier but left those under each power supply. By leaving them under the power supply but removing them under the amp created once again a better sound for the mid bass and bass. When under the amplifier the sound seemed less well defined than when they were removed.

3. For years I have had three Aurios M1b under my Playback Designs. Having now 6 Ultra 6's not in use I removed the Aurios and put 3 Ultra 6's under the Playback Designs and interestingly IMO the bass was made worse so I removed them and after a few hours I came to the conclusion that the sound was actually better with nothing under the Playback Designs.

4. We changed a few other things ( that I will discuss later) in the room that also made some significant changes. David feels very strongly that tweaks serve little if any purpose other than to add coloration to a system thus preventing one from attaining his "it must sound natural" mantra. For David, less is always more.

This is a work in progress as I am so taken by listening to vinyl for the past 5 days that I am like a kid in toy land at Christmas so for now I am just trying to wrap my head around what I am hearing and the changes I hear. Stay tuned

I forgot to mention one other change.....

5. We listened most every day with the subs off. It was David's feeling that the room doesn't need subs and I have to say it did sound good but my concern is that the Wilson X2's even though they are rated from 20Hz-20Khz the reality is they don't go below 40Hz. Hence true deep bass may not be appreciated without some supplement to the bottom end. Last night I played with the master volume control on the subs as well as the crossover point. I am not convinced at this point that I want to be without my subs as that lower octave as my subs go down to 16 Hz

What a fabulous past few days reacquainting with my system. I can't believe how much time I have spent daily listening to these changes.......so much so that in my haste to post the room changes we made, I forgot to add one of the most notable changes we made......

6. One of David's comments was that he felt the room was too dead at the front even with opening the drapes at the rear of the room (which BTW improved the sound) so we wanted to hear what changes would occur without the Paradise Foam stuffed into the canvas painting on the front wall. Simple to do that as all we did was remove the picture from the wall. A smile came to both of our faces as soon as we played the same song without the picture on the wall. It was an immediate and simple decision. We removed the Paradise foam and put the picture back onto the wall and once again there was a significant increase in timbre and resonance in the sound stage that which we didn't appreciate before. In fact both of us felt that the sound was better with the picture off than on the wall but as I said to David I wasn't going to stare at a blank wall so perhaps down the line a different painting will occupy the front wall but for now the painting is on the wall sans Paradis Foam. Personally as a retired Ob/Gyn I like the picture so time will tell its fate

 

[Mike Lavigne]

What a fabulous past few days reacquainting with my system. I can't believe how much time I have spent daily listening to these changes.......so much so that in my haste to post the room changes we made, I forgot to add one of the most notable changes we made......

6. One of David's comments was that he felt the room was too dead at the front even with opening the drapes at the rear of the room (which BTW improved the sound) so we wanted to hear what changes would occur without the Paradise Foam stuffed into the canvas painting on the front wall. Simple to do that as all we did was remove the picture from the wall. A smile came to both of our faces as soon as we played the same song without the picture on the wall. It was an immediate and simple decision. We removed the Paradise foam and put the picture back onto the wall and once again there was a significant increase in timbre and resonance in the sound stage that which we didn't appreciate before. In fact both of us felt that the sound was better with the picture off than on the wall but as I said to David I wasn't going to stare at a blank wall so perhaps down the line a different painting will occupy the front wall but for now the painting is on the wall sans Paradis Foam. Personally as a retired Ob/Gyn I like the picture so time will tell its fate

Steve,

as you know I've been actively playing around with fabric over the walls in various places. the Three Amigos visit was right after I first started that direction. in the months since that time I've continued to play around with that direction and it has been a revelation how far it's brought my system performance. at one point a few weeks back I did try fabric draperies along the front of my room behind the speakers. it was clearly a wrong approach as it sucked the energy away from the system and I quickly retreated from it.

fabric directly over the walls (and don't forget about the all important ceiling either) has almost 100% positive effect and zero negative since it only knocks down high frequency reflections, it does not change the tone or the energy.

and it is cheap, cheap, cheap and easy to try. go to any fabric store and buy some remnants. get a color or tone that is not offensive in case you like it and you want to be able to live with it for awhile. but all you need is a pair of good scissors, a tape measure, some push pins, thumb tacks, and a ladder.......and an hour or so.

in your situation where you mind is open to change, this is a no brainer to try. in your somewhat smallish room but with all that driver surface you need something, but not very much of something. it might just be the perfect thing. forget about any treatment with any sort of mass or absorption, you just need to get control of those pesky reflections.

good luck and I'm very excited and happy for your direction.

 

[Steve williams]

Steve,

as you know I've been actively playing around with fabric over the walls in various places. the Three Amigos visit was right after I first started that direction. in the months since that time I've continued to play around with that direction and it has been a revelation how far it's brought my system performance. at one point a few weeks back I did try fabric draperies along the front of my room behind the speakers. it was clearly a wrong approach as it sucked the energy away from the system and I quickly retreated from it.

fabric directly over the walls has almost 100% positive effect and zero negative since it only knocks down high frequency reflections, it does not change the tone or the energy.

and it is cheap, cheap, cheap and easy to try. go to any fabric store and buy some remnants. get a color or tone that is not offensive in case you like it and you want to be able to live with it for awhile. but all you need is a pair of good scissors, a tape measure, some push pins, thumb tacks, and a ladder.......and an hour or so.

in your situation where you mind is open to change, this is a no brainer to try. in your somewhat smallish room but with all that driver surface you need something, but not very much of something. it might just be the perfect thing. forget about any treatment with any sort of mass or absorption, you just need to get control of those pesky reflections.

good luck and I'm very excited and happy for your direction.

Thanks Mike. Indeed I was thinking of you when this revelation occurred

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Thanks Mike. Indeed I was thinking of you when this revelation occurred

don't forget the ceiling.

the last thing I have done in my room turned out to be the coup de grace........48" x 24" of fabric directly above (front to back on a center drop ceiling) and behind my seating position. it was a 'Holy Grail' treatment and I've been over-the-top happy since I first heard the effect. it was one of those major 'ah ha' 'forehead slap' moments.......and I am humbled by how much I did not get cause and effect.

certainly every room and system is different. but my 'opinion' that reflections directly above and behind my head (which logically are not first refection points) would cause such an epic change was dead wrong. it's so easy to try how can one not?

attaching fabric to a ceiling is not trivial, but it's not rocket science either.

and forget about 'wall hung' diffusion products for the most part. they seem to reflect and absorb too. fabric over walls is better. I ditched my middle triple stack of skyline diffusers between my speakers and have not looked back.