Mike Lavigne’s room and neutrality

[Mike Lavigne]

This is the key sentence. There are folks that do not like the sound of his room....... Mike is happy and that's all that matters!!

no doubt true....especially in past years.

but lately (last few years) it seems much less true (or conversely/cynically everyone is more intimidated). my biggest room critic is my most frequent long term visitor who my room has never really hit home with.

people will always just think what they think.

 

[microstrip]

I would say that 'real experts' are the ones who realize it's just not that predictable. you have to try things, and then try more things. and when it works then you are viewed as a 'real expert' when you were just relentless.

maybe 95% of the people would have figured out the bass in my room in half the time or less. but 99.99999% never even seriously considered doing a room like mine.

I claim only commitment and effort as attributes.

We fully agree on the "real experts" definition. As far as I remember your room was originally designed by Rives Audio. Did you make in depth modifications to their original design, or just small changes? The tuneup of the room, not of the speakers, was carried by listening or by measurements?

BTW, IMHO some readers will get a better overall appreciation of your system from your system Audiogon pictures - such as the one at the top right (view from left rear). https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/615?page=133. It gives a much better overall perspective of the work involved in your room.

 

[morricab]

Yup, that is why Rowen HATES Bass reflex design here where virtually everything built here is with thick concrete. One just has to furnish the room accordingly. I am Lucky that my ports are all downfiring.

How do people here deal with standing wave creation in their rooms. Symmetry being your enemy here?

I hate bass reflex designs too.

 

[DaveyF]

No matter how perfect a room may be and sound, there will always be someone who does like the sound. Kind of the way things are.

+1.

What is the perfect room..an anechoic chamber? A large theater, a symphony hall built into your home? ( if that was even possible??)
I believe that we have to make do ( and that is IMO really what it is) with what we are given in this hobby. All rooms are going to have some issues, just some more than others.
My very small room has a lot of benefits and --an inescapable drawback...its size. I can never get large scale in this room, just is not going to happen. However, I can get great 'intimacy'. So, depending on the music, there will be times that it is more realistic than others. Having it all....if someone has achieved that, i would be pleased for them; but also dubious that I would agree.

 

[Pb Blimp]

Yup, that is why Rowen HATES Bass reflex design here where virtually everything built here is with thick concrete. One just has to furnish the room accordingly. I am Lucky that my ports are all downfiring.

How do people here deal with standing wave creation in their rooms. Symmetry being your enemy here?

Nyal designed my room from greenfield and had the option to make the room asymmetric. He strongly encouraged symmetry because it allows for much greater predictive accuracy in the modelling which of course drives the choice of length, width and height ratios as well as reflection, absorption and Helmholtz placement et al to achieve the a better net result than asymmetry in his opinion. FWIW.

 

[Pb Blimp]

I deal with standing waves (and other room issues ) 3 ways .. bass trapping in corners , siting the listening chair and speakers in a neutral space and a Trinnov room correction unit .. at one time I also used a swarm of subs to smooth the room.
The trinnov is amazing , it fixes amplitude , phase , impulse response and group delay as well as compensating for early reflections and has the ability to remap your speakers if there is asymmetry (level, delay etc) and you can apply any manner of target curve or eq you wish.
There are issues that physical treatment cant cure and some that DSP cant cure either so using both is mandatory for me.
My walls are all clad with slotted and grooved mdf panels atop battens with fibrewool behind the panels
This stuff

http://www.acousticsolutions.co.za/product.htm

Ya but I have trouble carving those correction files into the teeny little vinyl grooves.

 

[Rodney Gold]

What I discovered is that the level of music dictates the room build .. mine was designed to handle lifelike and beyond levels .. the room responds best when pressurised as does the system. I want an immersive experience
You might build a different room if you were listening at lower levels...

 

[Rodney Gold]

Ya but I have trouble carving those correction files into the teeny little vinyl grooves.

Sigh..yes I know what you mean...but sometimes the advantages are too big to ignore .. a juicy hamburger out the mincemeat .,.,so to speak

 

[spiritofmusic]

I am considering some GIK Gotham duffuser panels on the walls and eaves behind spkrs, first and second reflection points.

A friend here on WBF who knows how much I love my acoustic, is convinced it’ll make it even better.

I had to scrap my GIK 242 panels, made things too dead.

 

[Pb Blimp]

Sigh..yes I know what you mean...but sometimes the advantages are too big to ignore .. a juicy hamburger out the mincemeat .,.,so to speak

Yes, I couldn't resist...... I understand Trinnov to be exceptional.

 

[Folsom]

This is the key sentence. There are folks that do not like the sound of his room....... Mike is happy and that's all that matters!!

Well, of coarse! It is not my dream stereo & room, or even preference over my smaller stereo & room, but it's still nothing short of world class - in one very nice room/building. I suspect it will continue to evolve, and only continue to stretch into more of what Mike wants it to be.

Well, I never read anything other than favourable reports.
Maybe the naysayers are too polite to criticise publicly.

If you would allow word wrap to naturally happen, I'll converse all you want (maybe I will anyway, but you drive me nuts, Marc). But I think "naysayer" would imply that I think the stereos is a bad one, and I don't. I just have different preferences, different values. So, I ask do you really want a "naysayer" or would the opinion of someone that recognizes an incredible system, but also has differences in preference be of value?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Folsom, I have no idea what you mean by “word wrap”.
Sorry to be so opaque.

There’s never been a negative report on Mike’s room although I’m not naïve enough to believe everyone loves it.

Makes no difference to me, I haven’t visited Mike, so reports good (or bad), I have no point of reference for.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

We fully agree on the "real experts" definition. As far as I remember your room was originally designed by Rives Audio. Did you make in depth modifications to their original design, or just small changes? The tuneup of the room, not of the speakers, was carried by listening or by measurements?

my room was designed by acoustician/record producer (engineer on LZII) Chris Huston, of Rives Audio. here is a very entertaining transcribed interview of Chris about the early Liverpool rock 'n roll scene. worth the time to read.

the shape and bones of the room have been wonderful all along. in retrospect, the 'mistakes' made in the design were mainly too much bass trapping designed into it. to be fair to the designer, he warned me to begin with, we were over-spec'ing the bass traps and I would need to tune to taste. other than the removal of those bass traps and the addition of the Quietrock 458 on the front walls, the other changes were the virtually zero-cost surface cloth treatments. all the built in diffusion has been excellent as has the shape and structure. the room has to-die-for energy retention and super low noise floor.....and always has had those attributes.

measurements did play a role 2 significant times. in 2010 Gary Koh did a waterfall plot which led me to remove some bass traps then, and a year later I removed more.

then when my speaker designer measured the room in 2014 and found a 12db suckout at 25hz-32hz that led me to close up the last of the ceiling bass traps. I've posted extensively about both those events.

-4- floor to ceiling built-in original bass traps remain....two on each side of the built in LP storage.

current speaker adjustments and all the wall and ceiling cloth treatments have been done by ear exclusively.

BTW, IMHO some readers will get a better overall appreciation of your system from your system Audiogon pictures - such as the one at the top right (view from left rear). https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/615?page=133. It gives a much better overall perspective of the work involved in your room.

 

[Folsom]

Folsom, I have no idea what you mean by “word wrap”.
Sorry to be so opaque.

There’s never been a negative report on Mike’s room although I’m not naïve enough to believe everyone loves it.

Makes no difference to me, I haven’t visited Mike, so reports good (or bad), I have no point of reference for.

It's worth a visit. You get:

A reference that runs deep within the forum.
Exposure to lots of music, Mike has a big collection with many gems.
To hang out with a gracious host that makes it a lot of fun, and shares a passion you do.
Visit a really pretty area, in a quaint little town.
Inspire LENGTHY threads on the forum.

So, would it be important for you to get a negative review? I find negative reviews... difficult. Like when looking at new cars. If you only bought cars that had no negative reviews, you wouldn't own a car. I think descriptive is more useful. If I tried to give a + and a - to every attribute of a stereo, you'd have to accept anyone else could swap all of those around and still be just as honest.

Maybe you could ask people if they think you'd like it. Based on your preferences towards Zu's and some of what I know, no I don't think it'd float your boat. But I wouldn't believe you if you went to listen, and walked away thinking the stereo had nothing to offer to anyone.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Folsom, first apologies if my written format is hard to follow, I type from my IPhone, and it comes out how it comes out.

I’m not looking for any negative reviews, I just commented on one post that mentioned not everyone is as endeared to Mike’s sound as the vast majority of visitors. I have no real comment on that.

Unlike Ked, I really don’t have the time to make the visit, but never say never.

I’m fully aware of Zu naysayers, from JA’s terrible FR data on the Essence in Stereophile, to multitudes of “love ‘em or loathe ‘em” comments in forums, show reports.

And of course our very own Ked has made his less than convinced views on my Zus known to me.

No way do I ever say Zus are for all, or even many.

 

[Pb Blimp]

Well, I never read anything other than favourable reports.
Maybe the naysayers are too polite to criticise publicly.

Well in hope of making a bit of a joke to lighten things up, I just spent about 10 minutes scrutinizing all of the Audiogon photos of Mike's room looking for some silly visual or aesthetic flaw (of course totally unrelated to its acoustic prowess) about which I could make a snide comment.......sadly I failed.

 

[bonzo75]

Mike's room aside, Marty's room is also a beautiful acoustically done room, at 35*25*14

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Well in hope of making a bit of a joke to lighten things up, I just spent about 10 minutes scrutinizing all of the Audiogon photos of Mike's room looking for some silly visual or aesthetic flaw (of course totally unrelated to its acoustic prowess) about which I could make a snide comment.......sadly I failed.

let me help you guys out here.

over the years there have been plenty of people who at various times sincerely were turned off by my room/system. and looking back I don't blame them one bit. when you have all this energy and space the default mode will be chaos. and for years I was in various degrees of default/chaos.....typical of most any room's gestation period. I was not immune. the room always had it's strengths and unique things it could do other rooms could not quite do, it was always special in certain ways. but it had issues too.

some of this feedback was told to me, other feedback got back to me indirectly, or when I would fix something then the beans might get spilled about true feelings. and all of the above. sour grapes sometimes were involved, and all other normal human interface ideas. and some people just avoid getting negative on a room they visited and accepted the hospitality from.

when I think about some of the things I wrote or said about my room, and then later realizations by me caused me to seriously and honestly reflect, there are lot's of embarrassing things to recall. people would look at what my room looked like, and see the level of commitment I made, and likely give me a 'hall pass' on their real feelings hoping someday my efforts would bear fruit. and I'm not saying that it's all good now. only that I am happy now......and those various drum beats of the chaos and default times seem to be passed.

so it's not all unicorns and puppy dogs in the history of my room. lots of doggy bon-bons too.

 

[bonzo75]

I think you should sell off and start again otherwise it will get boring

 

[bonzo75]

Well, I never read anything other than favourable reports.en a warning and the
Maybe the naysayers are too polite to criticise publicly.

One of the companies I worked for, only the top 5% outstanding got promoted. The Exceptional were kept, the very good were given a warning and the good were shown the door. That is how you read reviews too. Pics, nice room, = good