Thanks Tom, thanks Lloyd
Greetings from Macau
We need a member named Jerry! LOLOL
My default audiophile state: dissatisfaction
- Thread starter Diapason
- Start date
We need a member named Jerry! LOLOL
A side note on room acoustics:
While it is true that rooms can and often do create many problems it is important to note that some of these problems may mask problems in the chain. For example strong first reflections falling within the precedence effect time window can cause "harshness" in the presence region but this harshness does not necessarily mean it is THE source of all harshness there. Once dealt with you may still be left with such things like drivers ringing, EMI/RFI hash, etc., etc. things you will have to deal with eventually. Long reverberation time in the midbass region can indeed give the impression of more fullness, in the deep bass more space but at the expense of articulation, in the worst case to the point of muddiness. I guess what I'm saying is that care should be taken when it comes to acoustics. Good acoustics allows a system to show its true colors. A well thought out system will sound better but it won't turn lead to gold. If anything it makes faults more easily heard. Of course this is a GOOD thing. After all, if you know what's wrong only then can you fix it.
In the end, as with anything in life, solutions tend to cause their own problems. As long as the new problems are more benign than the last, then we can be happy that we're headed in the right direction. In this paragraph where I am tripping out on cramming in as many cliches as I can, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Conversely, improvements in the electronics/speakers can reveal problems with the room that were masked before. The addition of external power supplies for my tube amps and the concomitant removal of electronic noise resulted, among others, in a much better retrieval of spatial information from recording venues (see the review linked in my signature), something that I am really excited about. Yet this in turn revealed that the space behind my speakers is too 'echoey', resulting in an artificially recessed image on some recordings, something that was not present before. I am now in the process of remedying the problem with a thicker carpet from natural fiber in the area behind the speakers, with ASC window plugs, and if needed, wall absorber panels. Darn power supplies
There are lots of good suggestions here, so maybe I should deal with them one at a time and let you know where I am with each of them. Obviously, I'm quite far into this situation, so I've experimented with a few things.
The Room
When I first moved into the house and earmarked this room for a dedicated listening space, I thought it might be tricky but I could never have guessed just how bad it would sound. The first attempt at playing my old system in there was HORRIBLE, due mainly to:
- dreadful "ringing" in the room. Clap your hands anywhere and the zinging was horrendous;
- a massive bass mode at around 80Hz. This was more than I could ever have imagined possible, an absolutely DEAFENING hump at or around this level that dominated everything;
- as you might expect given the above, huge problems with standing waves and the associated peaks and nulls at a variety of frequencies. Playing sinewaves was eye-opening (I could move forward a few feet and hear identically nothing, then back a few feet and hear tones clearly. I swear this room should be used for physics-in-action demonstrations.)
As I mentioned before, the room is effectively a narrow concrete box with plaster skimmed directly onto the walls (as best I can tell). It was an extension on the original house and tbh probably not done so well. The floor is a cheap wood laminate with some kind of underlay over concrete I think. You can feel it vibrate on bass notes. All in all, the whole thing is VERY reflective. In its original state it was unlistenable, and I can assure you, no amount of "just forget about the sonics and enjoy the music" would cut it in there. I'd never heard anything so bad in my life.
At around this stage I borrowed (from my long-suffering dealer) a Copland amp/processor that had a room measurement and correction system. I went through the set-up programs to map the room and examined different frequency responses myself, and with a combination of speaker positioning and software tried to deal with some of the problems. I wish I still had the graphs but sadly they're buried on a long-abandoned hard-drive in a previous place of employment. Anyway, they were bad, really bad. The Copland did some good things, but I didn't fancy it as a long term solution and besides, smoothing the frequency response was one thing but the ringing needed to be tamed. Also, to the ear the nulls seemed as much of an issue as the peaks, and that couldn't really be happily solved by room correction software. I felt like I really didn't have a good handle on what I was doing, and was basically out of my depth. The Copland went back to the dealer.
Next up I started dabbling in room treatment, first by putting in a bookcase at the wall behind my head (which did very little), then by sticking thin foam at first reflection points (which did a little more) and finally by contacting Glenn Kuras at GIK acoustics and buying a shed-load of absorbers. Glenn was very helpful and we came up with a plan for where the absorbers might go based on information I shared with him. This included putting some of the traps at the interface between ceiling and wall above the speakers, along the sides of the room, and at a 45 degree angle to both ceiling and wall (does that make sense? I dunno). Anyway, as soon as the absorbers were placed around the room it was obvious that they had a huge effect, but the ones on the wall/ceiling sucked so much midrange energy away they were taken down again almost immediately. However, the bass problems were improved if not solved, and ringing was definitely reduced.
Since then, I've added a bit more general "clutter" into the room, especially the walls behind my head, and that's probably had the best effect of anything. Speakers fire down the length of the room and while they're obviously too close to the side walls, it at least gives full control over distance to the rear wall. They started life very far into the room (8' at one stage) and have over time moved in all kinds of directions for testing purposes, but recently they've settled much closer to the rear wall (2 or 3 feet maybe, I'd need to check) and with minimal toe-in. This seems to give the smoothest bass response (further out seems to encourage peaks and nulls) and it's probably the best compromise position I've found. The listening seat is about 10' away from the speakers, which puts my ears at about 7' into the room. As for the sound treatments, they've been moved and stacked and turned landscape and portrait and hung on the walls and stood on the floor and removed completely and put back in and blah blah blah. These days I've a lot of trapping behind my head, a little behind the speakers, and probably too much on the side walls, although not directly at the first reflection points. To be honest, the room is reasonably well-controlled now but the sound is lacking in air, sounding slightly sucked-out and there's no real "bloom". Any time I try to remove any of the absorbers it seems to create more problems than it solves, so they always end up back in there. Oh, near the corners directly behind the speakers I have cardboard boxes filled with old college text books. Do they do anything? I think they do, but I could be imagining that.
It should be said that all of the speaker, listening seat and sound treatment positioning has been done by ear, I've never tried to measure the room again after that initial foray. It is almost certainly sub-optimal, but my patience with spending hours moving stuff around and listening, moving stuff around and listening, moving stuff around and listening ran out around the time our daughter was born.
I would love to improve the room further, but despite the conventional wisdom, doing anything room related seems very expensive and a bit haphazard to me, with no guarantee of success. Obviously if I could get acousticians in and design a proper solution that would be one thing, but I don't have that kind of budget and I'm not even sure such firms exist on our fair isle. The other thing (as alluded to above) is that component upgrades made along the way in this room have given genuine improvements. So while the room is the limiting factor, it doesn't mean that I can't get better sound by buying better gear.
I'm at the point now where even if the room were improved, I no longer believe my speakers would be the right choice anyway. Don't take that to mean that I don't think the room is a priority, that's not the case at all, but given a very finite budget, I'm reluctant to throw money at something I can't listen to in situ and decide not to buy if I don't like. If it were possible to actually sample potential room improvements before committing, I'd be all over it, but that's not a goer. I just can't drop several grand and find myself back in the same position.
Well, my posts are growing in size, and that's probably more than a thousand words, so here's a pretty awful picture taken from the listening seat. The absorbers have changed position since this one was taken but it's a reasonably good representation. I also forgot to mention Quad ESLs, they don't get played much.
There we are. All thoughts gratefully received. I'll be back to discuss preamps later!
The Room
When I first moved into the house and earmarked this room for a dedicated listening space, I thought it might be tricky but I could never have guessed just how bad it would sound. The first attempt at playing my old system in there was HORRIBLE, due mainly to:
- dreadful "ringing" in the room. Clap your hands anywhere and the zinging was horrendous;
- a massive bass mode at around 80Hz. This was more than I could ever have imagined possible, an absolutely DEAFENING hump at or around this level that dominated everything;
- as you might expect given the above, huge problems with standing waves and the associated peaks and nulls at a variety of frequencies. Playing sinewaves was eye-opening (I could move forward a few feet and hear identically nothing, then back a few feet and hear tones clearly. I swear this room should be used for physics-in-action demonstrations.)
As I mentioned before, the room is effectively a narrow concrete box with plaster skimmed directly onto the walls (as best I can tell). It was an extension on the original house and tbh probably not done so well. The floor is a cheap wood laminate with some kind of underlay over concrete I think. You can feel it vibrate on bass notes. All in all, the whole thing is VERY reflective. In its original state it was unlistenable, and I can assure you, no amount of "just forget about the sonics and enjoy the music" would cut it in there. I'd never heard anything so bad in my life.
At around this stage I borrowed (from my long-suffering dealer) a Copland amp/processor that had a room measurement and correction system. I went through the set-up programs to map the room and examined different frequency responses myself, and with a combination of speaker positioning and software tried to deal with some of the problems. I wish I still had the graphs but sadly they're buried on a long-abandoned hard-drive in a previous place of employment. Anyway, they were bad, really bad. The Copland did some good things, but I didn't fancy it as a long term solution and besides, smoothing the frequency response was one thing but the ringing needed to be tamed. Also, to the ear the nulls seemed as much of an issue as the peaks, and that couldn't really be happily solved by room correction software. I felt like I really didn't have a good handle on what I was doing, and was basically out of my depth. The Copland went back to the dealer.
Next up I started dabbling in room treatment, first by putting in a bookcase at the wall behind my head (which did very little), then by sticking thin foam at first reflection points (which did a little more) and finally by contacting Glenn Kuras at GIK acoustics and buying a shed-load of absorbers. Glenn was very helpful and we came up with a plan for where the absorbers might go based on information I shared with him. This included putting some of the traps at the interface between ceiling and wall above the speakers, along the sides of the room, and at a 45 degree angle to both ceiling and wall (does that make sense? I dunno). Anyway, as soon as the absorbers were placed around the room it was obvious that they had a huge effect, but the ones on the wall/ceiling sucked so much midrange energy away they were taken down again almost immediately. However, the bass problems were improved if not solved, and ringing was definitely reduced.
Since then, I've added a bit more general "clutter" into the room, especially the walls behind my head, and that's probably had the best effect of anything. Speakers fire down the length of the room and while they're obviously too close to the side walls, it at least gives full control over distance to the rear wall. They started life very far into the room (8' at one stage) and have over time moved in all kinds of directions for testing purposes, but recently they've settled much closer to the rear wall (2 or 3 feet maybe, I'd need to check) and with minimal toe-in. This seems to give the smoothest bass response (further out seems to encourage peaks and nulls) and it's probably the best compromise position I've found. The listening seat is about 10' away from the speakers, which puts my ears at about 7' into the room. As for the sound treatments, they've been moved and stacked and turned landscape and portrait and hung on the walls and stood on the floor and removed completely and put back in and blah blah blah. These days I've a lot of trapping behind my head, a little behind the speakers, and probably too much on the side walls, although not directly at the first reflection points. To be honest, the room is reasonably well-controlled now but the sound is lacking in air, sounding slightly sucked-out and there's no real "bloom". Any time I try to remove any of the absorbers it seems to create more problems than it solves, so they always end up back in there. Oh, near the corners directly behind the speakers I have cardboard boxes filled with old college text books. Do they do anything? I think they do, but I could be imagining that.
It should be said that all of the speaker, listening seat and sound treatment positioning has been done by ear, I've never tried to measure the room again after that initial foray. It is almost certainly sub-optimal, but my patience with spending hours moving stuff around and listening, moving stuff around and listening, moving stuff around and listening ran out around the time our daughter was born.
I would love to improve the room further, but despite the conventional wisdom, doing anything room related seems very expensive and a bit haphazard to me, with no guarantee of success. Obviously if I could get acousticians in and design a proper solution that would be one thing, but I don't have that kind of budget and I'm not even sure such firms exist on our fair isle. The other thing (as alluded to above) is that component upgrades made along the way in this room have given genuine improvements. So while the room is the limiting factor, it doesn't mean that I can't get better sound by buying better gear.
I'm at the point now where even if the room were improved, I no longer believe my speakers would be the right choice anyway. Don't take that to mean that I don't think the room is a priority, that's not the case at all, but given a very finite budget, I'm reluctant to throw money at something I can't listen to in situ and decide not to buy if I don't like. If it were possible to actually sample potential room improvements before committing, I'd be all over it, but that's not a goer. I just can't drop several grand and find myself back in the same position.
Well, my posts are growing in size, and that's probably more than a thousand words, so here's a pretty awful picture taken from the listening seat. The absorbers have changed position since this one was taken but it's a reasonably good representation. I also forgot to mention Quad ESLs, they don't get played much.
There we are. All thoughts gratefully received. I'll be back to discuss preamps later!
Generally speaking its a terrible idea to have a set of speakers sitting around in the same room that you are planning to use for a stereo!
The diaphrams of the unused speakers have a way of absorbing energy from the active speakers. So the first thing I would do is move the Quads to a different room for storage.
The diaphrams of the unused speakers have a way of absorbing energy from the active speakers. So the first thing I would do is move the Quads to a different room for storage.
I appreciate that this is the usual advice, but they've made virtually no difference here. If anything, I thought the sound improved a little when I put them there.
Diapason,
have you tried moving the speakers away from the rear wall? That, together with the fact that they would not stand next to the equipment rack anymore, might remove a lot of unwanted reflections. Given that your room is 21 feet deep, you should have space to experiment. Another possibility: turning your system 90 degrees, with some absorbers behind your head to alleviate back-wall reflections at the listening seat. That would remove the wall reflections next to your speakers, and you could put the speakers further apart, reducing reflections on the equipment rack as well. All this wouldn't cost you anything to try.
have you tried moving the speakers away from the rear wall? That, together with the fact that they would not stand next to the equipment rack anymore, might remove a lot of unwanted reflections. Given that your room is 21 feet deep, you should have space to experiment. Another possibility: turning your system 90 degrees, with some absorbers behind your head to alleviate back-wall reflections at the listening seat. That would remove the wall reflections next to your speakers, and you could put the speakers further apart, reducing reflections on the equipment rack as well. All this wouldn't cost you anything to try.
That is not a good thing IMO- it suggests that something is really wrong somewhere. I know this is pretty basic- did you check to see if your speakers are in phase?
Good Lord, Atma, give me some credit! Speakers are definitely in phase. The Quads aren't at reflection points and are in front of absorbers anyway. They really don't have much of an effect in this case, trust me on that. However, in the interest of experimentation I'll try removing them again to see if I can hear a difference.
Al, speakers have been as far as 8' from the wall, indeed they started life much further out. That improved some areas but increased standing wave problems, ultimately leading to lumpy and uneven bass response. They've been progressively moved back, but it would be easy to try alternatives again. I do that from time to time, but need a more serious approach. The 90 degree experiment is on the cards, even though that's a little less easy. It might work, although the widespread speakers and close listening seat arrangement is not one I've ever enjoyed elsewhere. Still, costs nothing to try!
Speakers are definitely in phase. The Quads aren't at reflection points and are in front of absorbers anyway. They really don't have much of an effect in this case, trust me on that. However, in the interest of experimentation I'll try removing them again to see if I can hear a difference. Al, speakers have been as far as 8' from the wall, indeed they started life much further out. That improved some areas but increased standing wave problems, ultimately leading to lumpy and uneven bass response. They've been progressively moved back, but it would be easy to try alternatives again. I do that from time to time, but need a more serious approach. The 90 degree experiment is on the cards, even though that's a little less easy. It might work, although the widespread speakers and close listening seat arrangement is not one I've ever enjoyed elsewhere. Still, costs nothing to try!
^^ No worries- had to ask! It occurred to me that the problems you described might be caused by something other than equipment working correctly.
Well, all joking aside, it's very often the simple stuff. I remember an evening at a friend's house when a group of audiophiles, myself included, sat around congratulating him on his new subwoofer, how well it integrated the much improved bass with the main speakers. He sent me an email the next day to say that after we'd left he realised it wasn't plugged in...
I don't see a turntable, so if your system is digital only, why not take measurements and then adjust with a DSP program to flatten out the frequency response? I have a friend who recently did just that and he reports a big increase in listening satisfaction.
I would start with measurements and then locate the listening seat where you get the smoothest bass response. Then locate the speakers and keep measuring until you can get it as flat as possible and sounding decent. Add absorption at first reflection points. Then, add digital correction to satisfy your needs.
You might also want to try contacting Jim Smith. Do a google search. He wrote the book "Get Better Sound". You could start by reading the book. It is inexpensive and very helpful. You could then email Jim and ask his advice.
I would start with measurements and then locate the listening seat where you get the smoothest bass response. Then locate the speakers and keep measuring until you can get it as flat as possible and sounding decent. Add absorption at first reflection points. Then, add digital correction to satisfy your needs.
You might also want to try contacting Jim Smith. Do a google search. He wrote the book "Get Better Sound". You could start by reading the book. It is inexpensive and very helpful. You could then email Jim and ask his advice.
Really, if you think of the area of the drivers compared to the entire room, just how much energy to you think they will absorb--certainly much less than a cushioned chair or the body of a second person in the room. It also goes without saying that the larger the room or the more open it is to the rest of the house, the less difference it will make. Even with a dedicated HVAC system, the flexibility in the air ducts will nullify anything unused speakers in the room could affect. You CANNOT "pressurize" a room (well, maybe a bathroom with a subwoofer and a gasket around the door), but not a room you would actually want to listen to music in. You either produce enough bass or you don't.
Was wondering if you are having issues with bass nodes forcing you to have to go close to the wall with your Kharmas and are seeking midrange bloom/presence plus a sense of big scale presentation then maybe separating with high quality music based subs might be worth considering. That way they can be optimally placed to work with your room nodes and also freeing up to better position your primary speakers as well to give you optimum performance with your mids and above plus having much more control over the quality and also levels of bass.
I'm not a big fan of DSP but it might also be part of that strategy, others here with more experience of this approach could probably give you more in that.
If getting the subs works better for bass control in your room then you can also later see if the Kharmas are also still what you really want or maybe reconsider going with a different approach there as well, some horns or widebanders maybe instead which might be a different presentation worth exploring if you havn't already done so. Certainly would potentially be a lovely fit with the Graffs.
There are few things more disheartening than having a system that you don't connect with, maybe getting a new approach with the speakers that works better with the room would be a change for the better and perhaps a new lease on life in your enjoyment of it. Best of luck with it all.
Graham
I'm not a big fan of DSP but it might also be part of that strategy, others here with more experience of this approach could probably give you more in that.
If getting the subs works better for bass control in your room then you can also later see if the Kharmas are also still what you really want or maybe reconsider going with a different approach there as well, some horns or widebanders maybe instead which might be a different presentation worth exploring if you havn't already done so. Certainly would potentially be a lovely fit with the Graffs.
There are few things more disheartening than having a system that you don't connect with, maybe getting a new approach with the speakers that works better with the room would be a change for the better and perhaps a new lease on life in your enjoyment of it. Best of luck with it all.
Graham
Hey mate, just came across your post. Sad to hear that you're not enjoying your music nor the system. ..
In all my experience the best I can advise is to call up your dealer/the place where you purchased most of the system and tell them directly the issues you are having. Seems like this was not an issue during the demo or in their showroom?
Tell them how you feel and to actually pop over to your place for one of them to personally experience it!
I am sure after this visit they would know what to do, or at realize that what they sold was not that great a match afterall and some area requires reviewing. It may be a whole bunch of aspects but I am sure one of them will be able to help.
Afterall all with karma speakers the dealers who support karma ref must be very knowledgeable and must advise customers carefully on best system matching. I would certainly think so...
good luck mate, RJ
In all my experience the best I can advise is to call up your dealer/the place where you purchased most of the system and tell them directly the issues you are having. Seems like this was not an issue during the demo or in their showroom?
Tell them how you feel and to actually pop over to your place for one of them to personally experience it!
I am sure after this visit they would know what to do, or at realize that what they sold was not that great a match afterall and some area requires reviewing. It may be a whole bunch of aspects but I am sure one of them will be able to help.
Afterall all with karma speakers the dealers who support karma ref must be very knowledgeable and must advise customers carefully on best system matching. I would certainly think so...
good luck mate, RJ
I've done a lot of shows where unused speakers were in the room. Try it sometime- you will find the cones vibrating. I put a quarter across the speaker terminals which shorts out the drivers and they shut up to a large degree. You can certainly hear it- I've thought about using the principle to build a bass trap as its pretty effective in that regard.
+1.
Years back, Linn founder Ivor Tiefenbrun demonstrated that having more than one speaker in a room was detrimental. For the very reasons that Ralph expounded on above.
At the time, he was requiring his dealers to ONLY demo his speakers and gear in a single speaker dem room. ( I'm not sure IF that is still the case today).
Even though the Quad ESL's in the OP's system do not use cones, the probability that they are chiming in with the room and the main speakers is very high.. IT even demonstrated that as
simple a device as a phone in the room could be detrimental.
Nonetheless, a poor sounding room is always a challenge...IME, the best thing to try and do is to sit in the near field, therefore removing the sound of the room as much as possible.
( However, one still needs to address the room acoustics if possible first).
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