LS 0.8 experience with active stand mounted speakers

aubreyBobb

Well-Known Member
Apr 22, 2021
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9
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LS 0.8 experience with active stand mounted speakers



Summary



The intent was to see if, i) active, and ii) stand mounted speakers could benefit from the LS 0.8’s. The answer is simply yes, in the case of the Kii3 loudspeaker. Money well spent.

The LS literature rather elegantly promises a removal of entropic effects. Does this literally mean the winding down of energy, rather than transfer or conversion of that vibrational energy? I do not know, but they effectively do remove vibration. The effects of using the footers are:
  • Interaction between the speakers and room through the marble floor has vanished. Very little is leaking out through the floor to excite room resonances. Bass is clean and prodigious. Rebecca Pidgeon’s version of Spanish Harlem does not boom anymore, and the pluck of bass strings is obvious.
  • Keeping in mind these are active, heavily DSP’d speakers, internal vibration within the box should be hyper critical. These do, in fact, seem to be drained away. When playing simple music, the black background is almost tactile and easily visualised. Grungy edging to music peaks and voices is non-existent. Tonal colours are deeper, especially on Piano and choral voices. Much more detail heard, vocals particularly articulate.
  • The soundstage is wall to wall and floor to ceiling. This was there before, but somehow it is now more relaxed. Fully immersive

Some contextual points:

The stand is the one sold by the company (cast iron pillars and plates) dedicated for the Kii 3; pillars sand filled.


With stands, each side weighs about 50 kg. The LS 0.8’s are a mm or two shorter than the earlier footers, so given the absolutely genius, brilliant, height adjustment feature in them it was a matter of minutes to install all 4 per side between the stand and the marble floor. A few months ago, the old footers were moved from between speaker and stand to speaker/marble floor. Huge improvement, never going back. So, the caveat here is that I have not tried the LS footer at the speaker/stand interface.

The LS 0.8’s replace Anzus dark DTC footers stacked on single Aurios (predecessors of Stillpoints), which combination is about twice as expensive as the LS 0.8’s.

All electronics, except for plastic components, router etc, but including power supplies/conditioner, are on CS2 footers. Improvement there led me to try the LS.

The LS/CS2 combination is transformational and represents one of the biggest improvements I have seen in over 50 years of trying out nearly every tweak us OCD’s can imagine, including many component upgrades. The only other upgrade that compares is the correct implementation of audiophile switches (in digital systems), and I rather think there is a synergistic effect between the two.


Daily log

Day 0:
They arrived late evening and the first 2-3 hours were a delight. Noise floor dropped, leading edges of notes (particularly bass) cleaner, decays more audible, peakiness reduced. Sweeter air around voices. Staging improved, noticeably in the height dimension. Separation and resolution slightly enhanced.
This sounds like the previous footer set up was lousy. It was not. I was thrilled with it at the time and those improvements were enormous compared to the supplied spikes.

Day 1. When very loud some of the sonic benefits were still apparent, but at general listening levels it was confused, bass was muddy. Played for 14 hours.

Day 2. Worst I have ever heard my system. No joy, everything flat, detail vanished, no dynamics. The less said the better. 14 hours.

Day 3. All is not lost! Noise floor starting to drop, subtle details occasionally heard. There were moments of brilliance in the treble where cymbals were crisp and had a definite attack. Air around voices was like one had just had a wax plug extracted. This reminded me of my Apogee ribbons from 30 years ago. But it did not last. There was a slightly improved definition on bass. Finally, at days end it was sounding very ordinary and still not up to pre LS2 sound quality. 14 hours

Day 4. Morning. Odd. Everything very clear and good separation today but no extended hi's or lows. No attack on cymbals, no air around voices. Fine detail missing. Bass definition getting better. Wow factor zero. If the pre LS2 baseline was 5 (number chosen at random), this now rates a 4. For the improvement in clarity and separation but the thrill is gone.

Early afternoon. Almost over the course of just one song things starting to change for the better.

Evening. Room effects have been much reduced, separation now good and tonal colours coming back, particularly Piano. On simple recordings, music emerges from a blackness. Instruments hanging in space, but overall, it is still a little hard with images etched and musicians not in the room. Score now 5.5. Total 14 hours today

Day 5. Some air, musicians starting to come forward into the room. Hardness a little reduced. Subtle new details being heard on many tracks (some of them familiar recordings which I have been listening to for over 50 years). In all cases the interactions between musicians are far easier to follow, like they are being laid out for inspection! Big sounds can be felt in the chest, without driving the system too high. But it’s still a little hard and does not bring the music into the room like earlier. No ‘flow’’. Still waiting for immersive effects. 14 hours. Score 6.

Day 6. Musical flow still a little short of magic, but no complaints. The fabled sense of inclusiveness is still only being hinted at and one gets a sense that it will come in in the next day or two. Today it played for about 12 hours. Score has improved to 7.

Day 7. Mild roller coaster effect. Some good, some bad, but overall fun day. During the day, treble was crisp with lots of clean attack, mid bass was just OK, but deep bass was attenuated, not enough to lessen enjoyment, but noticeable. Leading edges of notes brilliant. Beatles sounding fresh – thrill almost the same as discovery days. Radio Paradise MQA channels great. Subtle improvements of MQA less subtle now – in fact quite obvious. Quality dropped slightly in the evening, complex harmonies (CSNY) a tad less separated. Speech intelligibility in movies slightly less than yesterday. Playing time 14 hours. Score 7

Day 8. Played about 7-8 hours but did not get a chance to listen seriously. Had a quick impression that that it was all good.

Day 9. Yes, all back. In fact, detail, clarity, enhanced today with not a trace of hardness. Pace and timing suddenly prominent. For instance, the Mark Knopfler track, ‘Sailing to Philadelphia' is always very rhythmic, but now that aspect suddenly has improved and makes you want to move. Foot tapping definitely getting out of control. Willie Nelson sounds large, rich and wonderfully un-nasal. Cannot detect room overload even at very loud levels. A sense of ‘immersion’ in the music came in properly for the first time today but went away by late evening. That may have been subjective, so need to check tmw. Not a straight line thing? Today played 14 hours. Score 7.1-2

Day 10-14. More of the same with minor changes. No change in score 8-12 hrs per day

Day 15. Happened very suddenly. Listening for a couple of hours when I realised the immersive effect was full on. I had experienced this earlier with the CS2 footers on electronics, but there was a difference. Earlier I had mistaken the great separation from the CS2’s for resolution. Have a new take on this now. Understand the concept of resolution better now.

Downside: I would say that, funnily enough, it is now clear to me on acoustic music how far the reproduction is from real life. Earlier I had always thought resolution and flow together was everything, but now that they are both there, it’s clear there is something missing…there is deep crisp bass, silky and detailed high’s extremely articulate mid-range, life size representations on good materiel, staging presents musicians mostly in the room, music flows. But it’s not the same as real life.

For electric music, one easily was reminded of the real event. Score 7.5

Day 21. There were minor reversions during the last few days, but it now seems to have stabilised. Well recorded materiel sounds great, average and poorly recorded stuff is still very listenable. Final score on whole system 7.5, improvement 50%
 
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Addicted to hifi

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LS 0.8 experience with active stand mounted speakers



Summary




The intent was to see if, i) active, and ii) stand mounted speakers could benefit from the LS 0.8’s. The answer is simply yes, in the case of the Kii3 loudspeaker. Money well spent.

The LS literature rather elegantly promises a removal of entropic effects. Does this literally mean the winding down of energy, rather than transfer or conversion of that vibrational energy? I do not know, but they effectively do remove vibration. The effects of using the footers are:
  • Interaction between the speakers and room through the marble floor has vanished. Very little is leaking out through the floor to excite room resonances. Bass is clean and prodigious. Rebecca Pidgeon’s version of Spanish Harlem does not boom anymore, and the pluck of bass strings is obvious.
  • Keeping in mind these are active, heavily DSP’d speakers, internal vibration within the box should be hyper critical. These do, in fact, seem to be drained away. When playing simple music, the black background is almost tactile and easily visualised. Grungy edging to music peaks and voices is non-existent. Tonal colours are deeper, especially on Piano and choral voices. Much more detail heard, vocals particularly articulate.
  • The soundstage is wall to wall and floor to ceiling. This was there before, but somehow it is now more relaxed. Fully immersive

Some contextual points:

The stand is the one sold by the company (cast iron pillars and plates) dedicated for the Kii 3; pillars sand filled.


With stands, each side weighs about 50 kg. The LS 0.8’s are a mm or two shorter than the earlier footers, so given the absolutely genius, brilliant, height adjustment feature in them it was a matter of minutes to install all 4 per side between the stand and the marble floor. A few months ago, the old footers were moved from between speaker and stand to speaker/marble floor. Huge improvement, never going back. So, the caveat here is that I have not tried the LS footer at the speaker/stand interface.

The LS 0.8’s replace Anzus dark DTC footers stacked on single Aurios (predecessors of Stillpoints), which combination is about twice as expensive as the LS 0.8’s.

All electronics, except for plastic components, router etc, but including power supplies/conditioner, are on CS2 footers. Improvement there led me to try the LS.

The LS/CS2 combination is transformational and represents one of the biggest improvements I have seen in over 50 years of trying out nearly every tweak us OCD’s can imagine, including many component upgrades. The only other upgrade that compares is the correct implementation of audiophile switches (in digital systems), and I rather think there is a synergistic effect between the two.


Daily log

Day 0:
They arrived late evening and the first 2-3 hours were a delight. Noise floor dropped, leading edges of notes (particularly bass) cleaner, decays more audible, peakiness reduced. Sweeter air around voices. Staging improved, noticeably in the height dimension. Separation and resolution slightly enhanced.
This sounds like the previous footer set up was lousy. It was not. I was thrilled with it at the time and those improvements were enormous compared to the supplied spikes.

Day 1. When very loud some of the sonic benefits were still apparent, but at general listening levels it was confused, bass was muddy. Played for 14 hours.

Day 2. Worst I have ever heard my system. No joy, everything flat, detail vanished, no dynamics. The less said the better. 14 hours.

Day 3. All is not lost! Noise floor starting to drop, subtle details occasionally heard. There were moments of brilliance in the treble where cymbals were crisp and had a definite attack. Air around voices was like one had just had a wax plug extracted. This reminded me of my Apogee ribbons from 30 years ago. But it did not last. There was a slightly improved definition on bass. Finally, at days end it was sounding very ordinary and still not up to pre LS2 sound quality. 14 hours

Day 4. Morning. Odd. Everything very clear and good separation today but no extended hi's or lows. No attack on cymbals, no air around voices. Fine detail missing. Bass definition getting better. Wow factor zero. If the pre LS2 baseline was 5 (number chosen at random), this now rates a 4. For the improvement in clarity and separation but the thrill is gone.

Early afternoon. Almost over the course of just one song things starting to change for the better.

Evening. Room effects have been much reduced, separation now good and tonal colours coming back, particularly Piano. On simple recordings, music emerges from a blackness. Instruments hanging in space, but overall, it is still a little hard with images etched and musicians not in the room. Score now 5.5. Total 14 hours today

Day 5. Some air, musicians starting to come forward into the room. Hardness a little reduced. Subtle new details being heard on many tracks (some of them familiar recordings which I have been listening to for over 50 years). In all cases the interactions between musicians are far easier to follow, like they are being laid out for inspection! Big sounds can be felt in the chest, without driving the system too high. But it’s still a little hard and does not bring the music into the room like earlier. No ‘flow’’. Still waiting for immersive effects. 14 hours. Score 6.

Day 6. Musical flow still a little short of magic, but no complaints. The fabled sense of inclusiveness is still only being hinted at and one gets a sense that it will come in in the next day or two. Today it played for about 12 hours. Score has improved to 7.

Day 7. Mild roller coaster effect. Some good, some bad, but overall fun day. During the day, treble was crisp with lots of clean attack, mid bass was just OK, but deep bass was attenuated, not enough to lessen enjoyment, but noticeable. Leading edges of notes brilliant. Beatles sounding fresh – thrill almost the same as discovery days. Radio Paradise MQA channels great. Subtle improvements of MQA less subtle now – in fact quite obvious. Quality dropped slightly in the evening, complex harmonies (CSNY) a tad less separated. Speech intelligibility in movies slightly less than yesterday. Playing time 14 hours. Score 7

Day 8. Played about 7-8 hours but did not get a chance to listen seriously. Had a quick impression that that it was all good.

Day 9. Yes, all back. In fact, detail, clarity, enhanced today with not a trace of hardness. Pace and timing suddenly prominent. For instance, the Mark Knopfler track, ‘Sailing to Philadelphia' is always very rhythmic, but now that aspect suddenly has improved and makes you want to move. Foot tapping definitely getting out of control. Willie Nelson sounds large, rich and wonderfully un-nasal. Cannot detect room overload even at very loud levels. A sense of ‘immersion’ in the music came in properly for the first time today but went away by late evening. That may have been subjective, so need to check tmw. Not a straight line thing? Today played 14 hours. Score 7.1-2

Day 10-14. More of the same with minor changes. No change in score 8-12 hrs per day

Day 15. Happened very suddenly. Listening for a couple of hours when I realised the immersive effect was full on. I had experienced this earlier with the CS2 footers on electronics, but there was a difference. Earlier I had mistaken the great separation from the CS2’s for resolution. Have a new take on this now. Understand the concept of resolution better now.

Downside: I would say that, funnily enough, it is now clear to me on acoustic music how far the reproduction is from real life. Earlier I had always thought resolution and flow together was everything, but now that they are both there, it’s clear there is something missing…there is deep crisp bass, silky and detailed high’s extremely articulate mid-range, life size representations on good materiel, staging presents musicians mostly in the room, music flows. But it’s not the same as real life.

For electric music, one easily was reminded of the real event. Score 7.5

Day 21. There were minor reversions during the last few days, but it now seems to have stabilised. Well recorded materiel sounds great, average and poorly recorded stuff is still very listenable. Final score on whole system 7.5, improvement 50%
Congratulations on them.
 

Blackmorec

Well-Known Member
Feb 1, 2019
747
1,271
213
Downside: I would say that, funnily enough, it is now clear to me on acoustic music how far the reproduction is from real life. Earlier I had always thought resolution and flow together was everything, but now that they are both there, it’s clear there is something missing…there is deep crisp bass, silky and detailed high’s extremely articulate mid-range, life size representations on good materiel, staging presents musicians mostly in the room, music flows. But it’s not the same as real life.

For electric music, one easily was reminded of the real event. Score 7.5

Day 21. There were minor reversions during the last few days, but it now seems to have stabilised. Well recorded materiel sounds great, average and poorly recorded stuff is still very listenable. Final score on whole system 7.5, improvement 50%
From recent experience, I would say that the most important element for music to sound live is dynamic response, which must be incredibly fast and limitless. The reason its so important is two fold……first it provides a pinpoint accurate positioning for the start of each note, before thge note blooms, so your brain is able to differentiate notes of very similar tone by accurate spacial placement. Second, the loudest part of any note is typically a few milliseconds after the note is struck, drawn or plucked and its that very initial timbre and sometimes percussive explosion of sound that is so often missing from recorded/replayed music. When the system responds instantaneously to capture the immediacy of each note it mimics the sound of live instruments.
 

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