Ron’s New System

[Amir]

I am working on nudging down the sonic center of gravity of my system. But fundamentally I am solving for a different sonic suspension of disbelief equation than you are.

both Jim Smith and Romy the Cat wrote about importance of melody range 200hz-400hz
they believe 200hz-400hz is very important to have musical sound and one of the important factors for richer sound (having both smoothness and high amplitude in melody range) is speaker placement and room acoustics.

some audio equipments like Audio Note Speakers have richer sound in 200hz-400hz. to my ears some cables like purist audio cables have richer sound in midbass.

 

[Amir]

Vox Olympian as well as the lower priced older living voice using the same driver for mids and backloaded horn, but they are 4-way not just 3-way. Olympian has TAD 2002 (1-inch driver) and TAD tweeter (ET 703), both drivers same as Tang's top two high frequency drivers, and the older living voice air scout has JBL 2405 tweeter and Vitavox super tweeter.

Living Voice Olympian

70hz - 450hz Vitavox AK151
450hz - 5khz Vitavox S2
5khz - 15khz TAD 2002
15khz - 45khz TAD ET703

 

[Argonaut]

With Dipoles, I would definitely AVOID absorption behind the speakers and OPT FOR diffusion.

Entirely concur … @Ron take a look at products that Diffuse / Disperse such as these :

ZR Acoustics® | Sample Rate Technology

The Ultimate Listening Experience powered by Quantum Acoustics® Beautiful | Quantum Acoustics® | Elegant | Impeccable Imaging | Phase Accurate The Future is Quantum. Pure clarity, spherical immersive sound, and wall-to-wall sweet spots are the new...

deltahdesign.com

Please steer clear of anything that looks like some loon has randomly nailed old driftwood to your wall !

 

[Hi-FiGuy]

With Dipoles, I would definitely AVOID absorption behind the speakers and OPT FOR diffusion.

100% agree

 

[Rexp]

To me the video sounds a bit digital-ish versus what I hear in the room.

Get a Shure MV88 mic for your iphone.

 

[sbnx]

Get a Shure MV88 mic for your iphone.

That mic does a good job and is easy to use.

 

[Argonaut]

That mic does a good job and is easy to use.

I agree , and not too expensive considering the fine quality of audio capture.

 

[morricab]

I agree , and not too expensive considering the fine quality of audio capture.

I just bought the zoom iq7…seemed like a good choice…

 

[Al M.]

Get a Shure MV88 mic for your iphone.

And you're still dealing with a one dollar ADC in your phone.

 

[Argonaut]

I just bought the zoom iq7…seemed like a good choice…

Seems good value Brad , the only minus I have ever read about this type of direct plug in mic being how secure and tight , or otherwise , is the FireWire connection , and that wasn’t your make or model so should be good to go .

 

[Walnut Horns]

Jason Hanan, President of Pro Audio LA, and his colleague, Richard, visited me today to give me a demo of PSI AVAA active bass frequency absorbers.

Coming as they do from the pro audio world, as opposed to the audiophile world, I expected the AVAAs to do something unambiguously. And they did!

I was expecting Jason to plop an AVAA in each front corner, and he did, indeed, start there. But he is a very experienced professional at walking slowly and carefully around the room with certain frequencies playing, and feeling the pressure nodes of the room at different frequencies.

Jason determined that the front right side of the room has a node at about 50 Hz, while the front left side of the room has a node at about 60 Hz. He thinks this is due to the asymmetric ceiling height caused by the 9' ceiling soffit on the left side of the room (versus the 14.5 foot ceiling height for the rest of the room).

Impressively, Jason experimented not only with different locations and different frequencies for the AVAAs, he integrated a lot of experimentation with my inventory of ASC TubeTraps as well. He likes having both of these acoustic tools at his disposal to identify and mitigate room nodes.

Jason spent a lot of time having his colleague, Richard, slowly rotate the TubeTraps' absorption side versus diffusion side orientation to maximize the mitigation of sound pressure areas.

Jason believes that my 60Hz (and 50Hz) problems are primarily a function of room dimensions, and not a function of woofer tower positioning.

BEFORE
View attachment 108223


AFTER
View attachment 108224

We listened to two songs and I could hear a significant improvement. On those two songs there was no longer any obvious room boom.

I haven't had a chance yet to listen more extensively (we spent most of the day with Lola at the emergency room as she fell ill on Wednesday night (kids!), but I hope to be able to do some listening this weekend.

One AVAA wound up in the front right corner, and the other AVAA wound up just behind the listening position. I may order a third AVAA for the front left corner.

I am going to have put tape around the TubeTrap positions, as well as preserve the absorption/diffusion directional orientations. I am afraid to move or tinker with anything, lest I lose the results we have achieved thus far. The TubeTraps look to be a little bit randomly scattered around the room now, but they are positioned carefully to absorb the pressure nodes.

Jason advised that one should not substitute objective measurements for subjective listening impressions. He said he has had experiences where an improved frequency response chart actually resulted in a less attractive subjective sonic result. I am not moving a thing now. I have to spend a lot of time listening to the new acoustic arrangement

i bought on the spot the two AVAAs Jason and Richard brought today. I especially appreciate the way Jason used the TubeTraps with the AVAAs to achieve a better result than either product could achieve alone.

I highly recommend AVAAs! They actually work! I especially recommend that you hire Jason personally to install them for you!

Thank you, Jason! Great job!

Jason Hanan
President
Pro Audio LA
323-319-5936
jason@proaudiola.com
https://www.proaudiola.com/

Ron, for those of us on the East Coast that can’t avail ourselves of Jason’s services, are the AVAA’s difficult to properly place in a listening room? Thanks. Evan

 

[Ron Resnick]

Entirely concur … @Ron take a look at products that Diffuse / Disperse such as these :

ZR Acoustics® | Sample Rate Technology

The Ultimate Listening Experience powered by Quantum Acoustics® Beautiful | Quantum Acoustics® | Elegant | Impeccable Imaging | Phase Accurate The Future is Quantum. Pure clarity, spherical immersive sound, and wall-to-wall sweet spots are the new...

deltahdesign.com

Please steer clear of anything that looks like some loon has randomly nailed old driftwood to your wall !

Thank you very much for the suggestion, but those round wood diffuser things give me a headache just from looking at them.

 

[Ron Resnick]

I had a very nice visit today from Russ (Russtafarian) and Steve Lefkowicz, a long-time Senior Contributing Reviewer for Positive Feedback.

Each of them played a bunch of their own records. Russ brought an Achromat record mat and replaced the stock Denon record mat.

I played Soular Energy on tape and Analogue Productions' Waltz for Debby on tape. Russ felt the tape of waltz for Debby sounded a little bit slow. Russ felt the vinyl had a little bit more upper midrange energy which gave the music a little bit more drive and a little bit more aliveness compared to the tape. He felt the tape sounded a bit too relaxed.

I like "Waltz for Debby" partly because it literally makes me relaxed. So I did not notice that the tape sounded a touch slow. I continue to find this The Tape Project tape magical, like I could walk up on stage and tap the musician on the shoulder.

I also played "Riders on the Storm" on tape and "Light My Fire" on a production master tape.

This particular The Doors The Doors tape, on the Studer, beat the DCC Compact Classics vinyl on the Denon. Previously the Analogue Productions 45rpm had beaten three other tapes of this title on a Telefunken M15.To the ears of all three of us thproduction master tape was clearer, and everything seemed more separated and just a bit more alive

Steve played an original pressing of Genesis' Selling England by the Pound.

Russ reported that he was hearing a little bit of a 2kHz emphasis on all records played. Generally he did not like it, but he thought it was beneficial for "Waltz for Debby."

I think I am hearing it as well, but I'm not sure. We are no longer seeing it on the frequency response chart.




As Russ mentioned, the human ear is so sensitive at that frequency that even a small emphasis might be subjectively noticeable, even if not objectively noticeable.

I could go back to playing with toe-in to see if that emphasis can be ameliorated with speaker adjustment, but it was very puzzling that all of the toe-in experiments I did with Don did not yield any apparent change in tonal balance. It is also interesting that Gary Koh, I believe, does not toe-in his Genesis Prime panels. I don't feel like playing with toe-in right now as the system is sounding very good to me. 96" x 30" x 1" absorption panels are on the way for me to play with on the front wall.

Thanks, Russ and Steve, for coming up and for a very fun listening session and dinner!

PS: I really should just lower the woofer level and re-screenshot the chart so the 20Hz to 150Hz region doesn't look so elevated.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, for those of us on the East Coast that can’t avail ourselves of Jason’s services, are the AVAA’s difficult to properly place in a listening room? Thanks. Evan

If they work in the obvious first locations – – the front left corner and the front right corner, they are easy to place. If they do not work in those corners, then you have to experiment with different locations as you watch frequency tones on a real time analyzer.

Even without the purely subjective capability of Jason to physically perceive pressure zones I think you should be able to get proper location on the target, if not in the 10 ring. I wouldn't be surprised if just putting them in the front corners gets you 60% to 80% of the way there.

 

[Alrainbow]

Ron does the self powered woofer towers get there feed from the preamp or high voltage output of the amps ?

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron does the self powered woofer towers get there feed from the preamp or high voltage output of the amps ?

Think of two separate systems that just happen to be standing next to each other. The woofer tower receives a full range signal from the line stage pre-amp. A crossover in the woofer tower electronics low-passes the signal.

The amplifier driving the panel receives a full range signal from the line stage pre-amp. The external crossover at the base of the panel high-passes the signal into the panel.

(Instead of using two pairs of interconnects, I could use a bypass built into the woofer tower electronics that would send a full range signal to the amplifier driving the panel. Flemming says this would have no effect on the sound. David did not like this in theory. As long as my preamp has two pairs of output and I am using very cheap interconnects for the long run I figured I would just do it the "right" way.)

 

[Ron Resnick]

Hopefully Gary Koh can weigh in on this.

1) Gary's Genesis Technologies biggest (1.2, Prime) loudspeakers use substantially the same ribbon driver as the Pendragons.

2) One of Gary's loudspeaker design philosophies is to achieve relatively broad off-axis response so more listeners than the center listener in the main listening chair can enjoy the music. I believe Gary has as an objective the ability for groups to be able to listen to his loudspeakers and enjoy the reproduced sound.

2.2) I am finding the Pendragons to have far wider off-axis response than the Magnepan MG-IIIA, or any of the five Martin-Logan speakers I have owned. I am so accustomed to the head-in-the-vise constraint of Martin-Logan that it is almost shocking to me how much I can enjoy the music sitting on one of the couches to either side of the center center in my current set-up

3) Virtually all, if not literally all, of the photos I see if Gary's big speakers appear to have zero toe-in.

3.2) I never toed-in in any of my Martin-Logans.

3.3) Don and I played with toe-in for a couple of hours, and other than changing the depth of the soundstage, he did not discern any change in tonal balance. (Don's ears are so much better than mine that I should not have to bother to mention that I did not hear any change in tonal balance, either.)

4) Flemming thinks toe-in on the ribbon panels is critical, and that they require more or less toe-in, and that they should not be pointed straight ahead (no toe-in).

4.2) Recall that Flemming loved the Infinity IRS V, and that the Pendragon is a reimagined and simplified IRS V-type design.

5) Pointed straight ahead (no toe-in) is how I have been enjoying the speakers for the last few weeks.

May be the broad off-axis response of the ribbon drivers makes toe-in non-critical? There must be some reason Gary seems never to toe-in his big speakers (unless I'm just wrong about this).

 

[Gregadd]

With the Maggie and ML I experimented with toe -in and toe -out. Moreover, I even put the tweeter on the outside. I always landed with the speaker pointed straight in..
I partially agree with Roger Sanders. Every speaker has a narrow spot where it sounds best. The issue is how rapidly it falls off as you move away.
I don't suppose you can sit in two sweet spots at once, Ey Ron?

 

[sbnx]

Hello Ron, are the speakers on spikes or some adjustable foot? If so have you leveled the speaker to a high degree of accuracy? (0.01 degrees) I find that small chamges in speaker azimuth make very audible changes in the 1-5 kHz range.

 

[morricab]

Hopefully Gary Koh can weigh in on this.

1) Gary's Genesis Technologies biggest (1.2, Prime) loudspeakers use substantially the same ribbon driver as the Pendragons.

2) One of Gary's loudspeaker design philosophies is to achieve relatively broad off-axis response so more listeners than the center listener in the main listening chair can enjoy the music. I believe Gary has as an objective the ability for groups to be able to listen to his loudspeakers and enjoy the reproduced sound.

2.2) I am finding the Pendragons to have far wider off-axis response than the Magnepan MG-IIIA, or any of the five Martin-Logan speakers I have owned. I am so accustomed to the head-in-the-vise constraint of Martin-Logan that it is almost shocking to me how much I can enjoy the music sitting on one of the couches to either side of the center center in my current set-up

3) Virtually all, if not literally all, of the photos I see if Gary's big speakers appear to have zero toe-in.

3.2) I never toed-in in any of my Martin-Logans.

3.3) Don and I played with toe-in for a couple of hours, and other than changing the depth of the soundstage, he did not discern any change in tonal balance. (Don's ears are so much better than mine that I should not have to bother to mention that I did not hear any change in tonal balance, either.)

4) Flemming thinks toe-in on the ribbon panels is critical, and that they require more or less toe-in, and that they should not be pointed straight ahead (no toe-in).

4.2) Recall that Flemming loved the Infinity IRS V, and that the Pendragon is a reimagined and simplified IRS V-type design.

5) Pointed straight ahead (no toe-in) is how I have been enjoying the speakers for the last few weeks.

May be the broad off-axis response of the ribbon drivers makes toe-in non-critical? There must be some reason Gary seems never to toe-in his big speakers (unless I'm just wrong about this).

I ran my BG drivers pointed straight ahead and my Apogees, Acoustats, Audiostatics and STAX all toed-in. I found the BGs a bit too hot toed-in.