My minimonitor/subwoofer system

[lateboomer]

Hi Lateboomer,

my subwoofer crossover is set at 41 Hz. The main speakers are linear down to about 70 Hz,

Al

Hi Al,

Thank you very much, it is very informative and I get more than I bargain for. Much appreciated. I purposely forwarded my speakers and sub details and hoped that you could provide me good advice, and I got it.

I will take time to digest what you said and try it out.

If hypothetically you could put more sub to your good system now, would you do it? How many would you put them in?

 

[Al M.]

Hi Al,

Thank you very much, it is very informative and I get more than I bargain for. Much appreciated. I purposely forwarded my speakers and sub details and hoped that you could provide me good advice, and I got it.

I will take time to digest what you said and try it out.

If hypothetically you could put more sub to your good system now, would you do it? How many would you put them in?

Hi Lateboomer,

you're very welcome. I did have two subwoofers in my room, but eventually decided that I didn't need the second one, it didn't make a difference. However, this may depend on the situation. I have a wooden house, where bass seems to be able to escape somewhat (?), and now I also have a row of window plugs that actually absorb bass. If you have a room with concrete or stone walls then things may be different with bass waves bouncing around. Having two or more subwoofers may disperse the energy better in such a situation and lead to a 'faster' bass (as Madfloyd wrote on the first page of this thread, I do have fast bass, even though I have just one sub).

***

One more tip with setting the subwoofer correctly: listen to a jazz track where the bass accompaniment mainly consist of repeats of downward moving half-scales (found in a lot of music of the 50s and 60s, for example), and while the bass goes from higher to lower pitch listen to peaks and also dips. That's how Ian (Madfloyd), who plays bass himself, heard that the bass in my system was linear and that he couldn't hear the crossover point between main speakers and sub.

 

[andrew_stenhouse]

I just read about your system, and Peter's. Thank you (both) for sharing.

I suspect we value similar parameters and certainly share common goals. What a shame I am not closer to Mass.; and you both to Sydney. I should love to visit and share some music, and invite you over to my place.

Have you jumped into the DSD pond yet? I find it beguiling.

 

[Al M.]

I just read about your system, and Peter's. Thank you (both) for sharing.

I suspect we value similar parameters and certainly share common goals. What a shame I am not closer to Mass.; and you both to Sydney. I should love to visit and share some music, and invite you over to my place.

Have you jumped into the DSD pond yet? I find it beguiling.

Thank you for your kind words, Andrew. I looked at your system as well, very interesting speakers and other gear that you have! Yes, we do seem to value similar parameters when it comes to audio reproduction.

I listen to just Redbook PCM, because a majority of the music/performances I am interested in are available only in that format. Just this evening I spun again the avantgarde jazz of the "Invisible Resonances Trio" Garrison Fewell (guitar, percussion)/Roy Campbell (trumpet, flute, percussion)/Luther Gray (drums, percussion), recorded 2013. Also: John McLaughlin and 4th Dimension, 'To the One' (2010).

 

[andrew_stenhouse]

I listen to just Redbook PCM, because a majority of the music/performances I am interested in are available only in that format. Just this evening I spun again the avantgarde jazz of the "Invisible Resonances Trio" Garrison Fewell (guitar, percussion)/Roy Campbell (trumpet, flute, percussion)/Luther Gray (drums, percussion), recorded 2013. Also: John McLaughlin and 4th Dimension, 'To the One' (2010).

Yes, I agree - most of the (particularly classical) performances I like are on PCM; fortunately a trickle are coming out in Native DSD, but of course that is another thing, and requires substantial investment in terms of gear and time, when there is nothing at all wrong with redbook, done well. Not sure why I like to be at the bleeding edge, when it appears I am the one usually doing the bleeding

Thank you for the mention of the music you are listening to - new to me so I shall explore on Tidal. One of the great things about online forums, apart from meeting kindred spirits as yourself, is the exposure to new and interesting music.

ps I was introduced to the TD 712's by a good friend of mine that has a pair: had I not heard them I would have dismissed them as a very expensive lifestyle product. Hearing "Limit to your Love" by James Blake on vinyl was an eye opener. It showed me what innovative design properly driven can do. They are well suited to the AHB2, particularly in monoblock mode - my speakers being monstrously hard to drive (in room 81 db at 1m, the manufacturer claims 823 db at 1m), 6 Ohm with dips to 2 Ohms, and fabulously stiff in cone and suspension.

As you can see I elected to solve problems of phase and time alignment and crossovers by not having any. Also fixes room nodes not having any substantial bass ...they do fall off sharply at 12 Hz, but so does my hearing these days. I am toying with their matching 8 inch subwoofers, and how to broker that discussion with my wife.

 

[Al M.]

Yes, I agree - most of the (particularly classical) performances I like are on PCM; fortunately a trickle are coming out in Native DSD, but of course that is another thing, and requires substantial investment in terms of gear and time, when there is nothing at all wrong with redbook, done well. Not sure why I like to be at the bleeding edge, when it appears I am the one usually doing the bleeding

Hehe!

Thank you for the mention of the music you are listening to - new to me so I shall explore on Tidal. One of the great things about online forums, apart from meeting kindred spirits as yourself, is the exposure to new and interesting music.

Yes, I also had a great music session at a fellow member's house recently -- lots of exciting stuff that was new for me. You can read about it here (second post on page):

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?17764-Madfloyd-s-System/page16

As you can see I elected to solve problems of phase and time alignment and crossovers by not having any. Also fixes room nodes not having any substantial bass ...they do fall off sharply at 12 Hz, but so does my hearing these days. I am toying with their matching 8 inch subwoofers, and how to broker that discussion with my wife.

It was important to me that in my system configuration the main speakers did not have to crossover to subs. I abhorred the idea of an extra crossover because of the vividness of the midrange that might be lost -- Ensemble themselves once sold subwoofers that crossed over from their main speakers. My current REL sub simply runs in parallel, without crossover. Crossovers in large full-range speakers come with all kinds of problems, but some companies, like Magico with their M Project speakers, know how to solve them.

 

[andrew_stenhouse]

I wish there was a "like" button, as I would have pressed it for your post Al. I agree entirely, and thank you for linking your music discoveries - I shall read anon.

 

[Al M.]

April/May 2016

New acquisitions:
Reference 3A MM de Capo BE monitors, replacing Ensemble Reference mini-monitors

Review at:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?20786-Review-Reference-3A-MM-de-Capo-BE-monitors

New equipment rack, Solidsteel HW-2L:
http://www.solidsteel.it/scheda.php?lingua=eng&codserie=16&codpro=41




Speakers in my system



Equipment rack

 

[ack]

It looks like I am going to be the first one to offer thoughts on Al's updated system, which I had the pleasure of hearing about a month ago. Here are some notes I took:

- Remarkable what he's been able to achieve with a relatively small investment; overall clean sound (subject to the issues described below), can scale really well, even with large orchestral. My system never sounded like this when it was at that level of investment; it sounded quite closed in by comparison and really dark

- Great soundstaging, big sound, but at the same time I thought confined to within the general space of the speakers, a foot up and down, which is good, but not close to what a full-range speaker would render

- Very low noise, but there is room for improvement; no detectable tube hiss, which is great considering how efficient these speakers are; no strain with most music, but we need to play more complex symphonic pieces. Pieces like the Rite Of Spring were portrayed really well, with brio, power and presence. Impressive!

- Rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. The Alpha DAC does this well, as it does in my system. But I thought this system's rhythm was even better.

- Not the typical tube sound, in fact, more like modern great solid state. Timbre was very good but can improve; for one thing, the Alpha is a relatively dry-sounding DAC and not as articulate in the bass, and I think Al's system will greatly benefit from the Rossini player he's looking at

- Leading edge of notes a little foreshortened, giving a roundness to the sound; notes not lasting as long as I am used to, giving it a bit of dry sound to what I hear (it's not the DAC), but significantly better than typical "in vogue" solid state, like Hegel

- A lot of high frequency content, but a bit harsh at times. I was expecting the typical dark tube sound here, but far far from it... If recordings are thought to contain a lot of treble energy because the mics are over the orchestra, then this system is more towards transparency-to-sources in that respect than voiced to sound something only the owner likes

- Some very clear resonances that stand out, and need to be tamed: one in the bass with upright bass; one in the midrange with female choral; whistling with female sibilance; female voices consistently nasal. I hear non of that at my place

I had a great time and was really impressed by what little David can achieve vs the Goliaths. Of the issues I described, perhaps the treble is the one area I would focus first, and if further break-in does not improve things, I would modify the crossover (which I believe features a single capacitor in series with the tweeter). It would be interesting to see in-room measurements of this system. I would also advise experimenting with some of today's better speaker cables; I have never been a fan of Monster, to be honest.

Finally, I have to mention that I really connect with audiophiles who are not delusional about their system's performance shortcomings and limitations, and understand where things go wrong and what needs improvement. Al is definitely one of them!

Bravo Al, and thanks for a great time!

 

[DaveyF]

Looks great Al.
I am sure the new solid steel rack will work well under your gear. BTW, how about getting into vinyl? Lots of great vinyl gear out there.

 

[SCAudiophile]

Al...great system; all that gear and the speakers together make an awful lot of sense for classical, jazz or just about anything else you want to listen to. It must sound great; from what I can see, the house is very solid construction and I love how you've dealt with the windows with the removable treatments for even the most narrow and tricky of the windows to deal with. Whereabouts in Boston (lived in the area for 7.5 years then Hartford for 5....)? Happy Listening!

 

[Al M.]

Ack,

thank you for your extensive comments! I have learned from these and from what you told me when you were here. I am glad you liked the system as much as you did, and I had a great time as well.

I have no disagreements with your observations except on one point. I have never experienced female voices as sounding nasal on my system. The resonances in the upright bass that you point out appear every time someone plays those Chesky CDs, you or Peter. They do appear on other material too, but rarely. Perhaps the Chesky CDs are called "Test CDs" for a reason...In any case, usually the bass is clean, and as you also observed, the music has great rhythm. The system has a number of shortcomings, but rhythm is not one of them! The foundation of course is the source. I had four CD players/playback combos before, but the Berkeley DAC is the first DAC that I have had that gets rhythm & timing right on any kind of music, including rock. I do plan to address the residual bass resonances in the future with IsoThermal tube traps from ASC, positioned at the back wall, behind the listener. They are supposed to take care of the, as ASC calls it, "rear wall bounce" of low bass.

As for the sound not being like that of a typical tube amp, I have heard this comment numerous times since I bought these amps, 25 years ago. Yet now they are even more linear, with the new external BorderPatrol power supplies. I was actually surprised that you found the treble energy sufficient. I was a bit worried about that, since my room is rather dampening after all the treatment with the window plugs (I had removed quite a bit of furniture already to counteract this), and I have heard lots of high frequency energy in your system. I will talk in another post, probably tomorrow, about some improvements in the treble that I have achieved the last few days. I do have to say though that the Rite of Spring recording and the CD of the guitar trio, Di Meola/McLaughlin/De Lucia, indeed had lots of treble energy when you were here. As for better speaker cables, I have had Spectral/MIT cables in my system (when auditioning a Spectral amp combo) and they didn't make much difference, and overall tonal balance was the same. Yet this was before the system was as resolving as it is now, so perhaps with the current set-up I might hear more meaningful differences. Yet upgrading the source at some point has higher priority.

You mentioned that the system is quite transparent to the recording and not voiced towards a pleasant outcome. That is one of the things that I value with the Berkeley DAC and one of the criteria I chose it for, perhaps you as well. I also had the Hegel 25 DAC in my system for auditioning, and it made all brass almost sound the same, regardless of recording, whereas the Berkeley DAC showed large differences from recording to recording. The sound from the Hegel DAC always had body and warmth no matter what, whereas the Berkeley can show the same body and warmth but does so only when it is actually on the recording. The NAD M51 DAC that I also heard in my system was a bit more like the Hegel, seemingly voiced towards a certain sound, but not quite as much. The designers of Berkeley come from pro audio where more neutrality is desired, as do those of dCS. The dCS Rossini sounds overall fuller than the Berkeley DAC but also can sound thin when the thinness is on the recording, very much to its merit. I don't like 'voiced' DACs. I have also heard a more expensive DAC that was clearly voiced, in a pleasant way, but in the end such coloration is a detriment and shows up on critical material. In that case, orchestral violins just had no sheen, a big turn-off. Of course, you can also hear 'voicing' away from neutrality in amps and speakers, but as you observe, this is not of great concern in my system either.

With regard to the portrayal of height, I agree that monitors, even the best ones, lack in this area and only great floorstanders can fully express height, especially that of close-up instruments. I have not paid attention to this when listening to your system (I will next time) but I always admire how well Ian's (Madfloyd's) Magico M Project speakers can portray the height of close-up saxophone, at least when the recording allows for it, which is not always the case. Yet in a medium-sized room like mine I view this as the only inherent disadvantage of a monitor/sub combo compared to floorstanders, and there are a number of advantages that outweigh this issue for me. For large rooms the situation is different of course, there floorstanders are required for a room-filling sound.

 

[Al M.]

Looks great Al.
I am sure the new solid steel rack will work well under your gear. BTW, how about getting into vinyl? Lots of great vinyl gear out there.

Thanks, Davey. The rack seems to make the sound a bit cleaner, and bass is better defined. Vinyl is great, but my answer to that is: dCS Rossini. That DAC, next to the Vivaldi, is the first one that I have heard that has all, or almost all, of the tonality and resolution of great vinyl, on plain Redbook CD no less. If I'll make an ugrade to my digital, a Rossini Player will be it. My vinyl, so to speak .

 

[Al M.]

Al...great system; all that gear and the speakers together make an awful lot of sense for classical, jazz or just about anything else you want to listen to. It must sound great; from what I can see, the house is very solid construction and I love how you've dealt with the windows with the removable treatments for even the most narrow and tricky of the windows to deal with. Whereabouts in Boston (lived in the area for 7.5 years then Hartford for 5....)? Happy Listening!

Thanks, Zephyr!

 

[Al M.]

A somewhat muted high-frequency response of my system in my room has been criticized by two listeners lately, and I have concluded they were right. The problem first popped up after installation of the window plugs last year, which in fact were supposed to deaden the acoustic in the front part of the room, between speakers and front wall (the speakers are about 6 feet away from the front wall that the listener is looking at) and which they did successfully. Yet the overall acoustic had changed too. I already had removed a couch from the room, but it still seemed to be somewhat dark sounding. Additional removal of a sofa chair seemed to improve things, but not quite enough.

I decided that perhaps it was time to take another look at the front part of the room. I removed the carpet, laying bare the wood floor, and this indeed improved high-frequency prominence, and there was gain a sparkle in the upper treble that had been missing for a while. Yet at the same time images were once more too recessed; I had bought the window plugs mainly to combat that problem which had persisted without them also in the presence of a carpet, due to the reflective nature of the windows. Turning the tube trap columns to their absorptive side, instead of the reflective one, helped with the new set-up, and originally I thought imaging was fine again. Peter A. who heard that configuration 10 days or so ago liked it, saying that it added some life back to the sound that had been missing after acquisition of the new speakers. I personally am a bit confused about the role of the new speakers; also with the old ones the sound had been a bit dark with the window plugs inserted, but perhaps the new speakers indeed have a slightly different frequency response.

A bit more critical listening, however, revealed that imaging in a number of instances was still uncomfortably recessed. I decided to try another, less heavy carpet from synthetic material (the other carpet is wool) and see how this would work out with tube traps on their reflective side: would I get acceptable imaging while still retaining the sparkle in the upper treble? No, didn't work. Imaging was better as expected, but the sparkle in the highs was gone once again. And also here switching between absorptive and reflective sides on the tube traps made a marked difference with imaging, but with relatively little influence on highs, with the sparkle in the upper treble gone either way.

So I decided to put the old carpet back and this time also turn the tube traps to the absorptive side instead of the reflective one that I had exposed originally. The old, thick carpet with tube traps on their reflective side gave similar imaging as the other, lighter carpet with tube traps on their absorptive side, but now turning the absorptive side forward gave the best, least recessed imaging (while absolute depth of soundstage on recordings that used it to the fullest did not change). Also here there was little influence on the highs by turning the tube traps. I decided that I could tolerate somewhat recessed highs much more than recessed imaging, so I kept the configuration.

Switching between carpets and between carpet and bare wood floor was a lot of work since it required dismantling and rebuilding the entire system each time. I decided that I had had enough, and that a solution to the treble issue had to come from something else. I had noticed that sitting upright in my comfy chair gave me a slightly better sound, and I also had started to wonder about the chair anyway. I wanted to have a chair that forced me into a more upright position, which disallowed slouching that is bad for the back, and the upright position encourages alertness to the music. I got inspiration from Peter A.'s listening set-up who has a bench rather than a couch. So I was looking for an upright chair that was comfortable and also had less of an acoustic footprint than the large comfy chair that I had and which Peter also had admonished (for that chair, see post # 11 on thread page 2; the couch that you see in the back had already been removed). I went to a nice furniture store, tried out a few chairs and ended up with the one pictured below (I bought a second one for guests). It feels nice and has great support for the back throughout. It practically forces you to sit upright, you cannot slouch.

The problem was, however, that I was sitting above the tweeter, more than I had expected from measurements taken. So I decided to raise the speaker stands with now three concrete tiles underneath them, see image below. The set-up does not win a beauty contest, but it works and sounds great. The ear is now at tweeter level, and treble is more pronounced and articulate than with my previous set-up, which clearly adds to the liveliness of the music. Yet it never seems excessive, and there is no added aggression from the highs. It appears that raising the speakers has helped in my acoustic environment. I do still miss that last bit of sparkle in the upper treble that I had with bare wood floor behind the speakers up to the front wall, but this I can live with. I do have good, more forward imaging, and the highs overall are nicely lively and articulate. This new set-up is the best compromise for me (compromises always have to be made in audio, no way around this). Interestingly, raising the speakers from the floor also appears to have made the sound somewhat cleaner. Soundstage is mainly at ear level, with a little variance up and down.

 

[PeterA]

Al, I'm glad to read that all of your experimenting has paid off. As I did the last time I heard your system, I would suggest that you also play a bit with toe-in for tonal balance. Also, perhaps tilt of the speakers. You know my thoughts about listening seat distance to the speakers and moving the speakers closer toward each other. Have you tried the new speaker stands that came with your new speakers? That might be worth a try to see what that does to the sound, if anything.

These kinds of methodical listening experiments sure do familiarize one with how easily the sound can change with small adjustments. I look forward to coming back over.

I like the design/look of that new chair.

 

[Al M.]

Yes, I did play around with toe-in constantly throughout the process, and it is now close to where it was where we left it the last time. i still have to tackle assembly of the new speaker stands, my next project.

Thanks again, Peter, for all your acoustic advice and suggestions.

 

[Al M.]

There are some changes to my system. First, the issue of fighting with too little treble described above is resolved. The problem turned out only in part to have been due to acoustic changes.

A perhaps bigger part of the problem were tubes in my amps that were way past their prime. While 3 of the 8 power tubes measured a bit weaker (and were replaced too), it was especially the driver tubes. All eight of them, four per channel, had gone completely bad, as measured by their so-called transconductance which was far below the acceptable level. Steve Marsh, my tube amp specialist in Connecticut, measured them while the amps were on repair for two filament power supply rectifiers that were dying (the filaments were glowing less while amplification was still o.k.).

I had JJ E88CC driver tubes, and JJ tubes, while good sounding, are apparently known for a shorter life than others. I now have Sylvania JAN 6DJ8 military tubes that were produced up to at least the late 1970s (JAN = Joint Army Navy). They are NOS tubes (New Old Stock), just like the rectifier tubes in my external power supplies (I stocked up on those tubes quite a bit since they are not made anymore). Part of the reason the old tubes did not last that long was not just that they were JJ tubes, but also that the filament voltage of 7.4 V was too high, putting extra stress on the tubes. The 25-year old, yet heavily modified, amps were not designed for a voltage as high as 120 V, which is the norm these days. Steve Marsh who took care of the amps found an elegant solution: he mounted 0.2 Ohm power resistors that dropped the voltage to 6.6 V, much closer to the ideal level of 6.3 V.

The new tubes sound great, with convincing tonality and fantastic liveliness and dynamics. Bass is even tighter than before. As mentioned, I also have the high frequencies back.

Apart from having my amps revitalized, I also took care of a bass resonance ('hump') that I had not paid much attention to thus far, but which finally caught my ear (Ack mentioned it in his listening impressions on the previous thread page). The trick was to move the subwoofer 4 inches closer to the front wall, from 12 to just 8 inch distance. The bass is now significantly more even. Interestingly, moving the subwoofer away from the front wall did nothing to change the resonance.

Another change in my system is the tube trap configuration:
When experimenting with tube traps Madfloyd found that they can adversely affect midbass quantity, especially when stacked on top of one another, and I heard the same thing at his place. I was wondering if I could get more midbass if I reduced the surface of the corner traps in my room.

I decided to perform the following exchange (see below image, compare with earlier image in post #48 on the previous thread page):
1) replace the middle 13" wide traps with the top 16' traps from the two corner columns at the front wall
2) move the 13" traps on top of the bottom 16" corner traps
(all with their absorptive side into the room as usual lately)

The result seems to be that indeed I get more midbass, closer to what I hear in Madfloyd's system. In addition, the larger surface of the middle tube traps appears to somewhat move forward center images when they are recessed.

Interestingly, with this configuration images frequently become less pin-pointed, while still well localized. One might argue that this conforms better with the concert hall reality where you often do not get pin-point images, yet things are still localized in space as long as you sit close enough, and the hall acoustic is such, that the contribution of direct sound is greater than that of reflected sound (further back in the hall it inevitably becomes one big mono). On the other hand, on some recordings I still get pin-point imaging.

 

[MadFloyd]

It's never as bright as that photo in your room, Al.

Interesting about the tube traps. I haven't heard your system since you got your amps back. I'm due...

 

[Al M.]

It's never as bright as that photo in your room, Al.

Hehe. Anyway, it's now a bit brighter than before. I have exchanged the 60 W light bulb of the lamp in the back for a 100 W equivalent LED bulb, which is nicer.

Interesting about the tube traps. I haven't heard your system since you got your amps back. I'm due...

Ian, I have the feeling you may like the new sound.