I never use show demos to judge unless explicitly commenting on show
Ron's Favorite Private Rooms + Systems of All Time
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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I never use show demos to judge unless explicitly commenting on show
Thank you for sharing your experience, Romy the Cat in 2007 said :
“Yes, a cheep but good consumer amplifier with a inexpensive old JBL monitor, properly Macro-Positioned, will literally destroy a performance of $250.000.00 high-end installation of the installation is … against the interests of the room. Do I have to pump you up more?”
Perfect speaker position is not about 20% better sound, Perfect speaker position is not about 50% better sound, Perfect speaker position is not about 100% better sound, Perfect speaker position is about 1000% different experience, it is not just about sound , it is about your emotion, your reaction to music. It is like voice of god in your room.
I have worked for a long time to set up my new speakers optimally. Yes, I got good sound relatively quickly, but there were still gains to be had (and I'm not certain that it's completely done yet either).
There is no way some expert can come in and set up things perfectly in two days, especially in a room that is as difficult as mine (even an industry designer who visited found my room surprisingly difficult, especially in the bass). Yes, they can be faster than me, but to get to the level of fine-tuning where I am at now is impossible in a few days. You have to actually live with the system, get to know the sound in the tiniest detail based on a good number of recordings of very different music, which takes time, know exactly what *you* want per your own personal taste, and in the process tweak here and there accordingly.
Also, I needed to acquire extra acoustic treatments just for the new speakers, change the amp stand etc., which are all tools and procedures that would not be available to an external set-up guy during a short visit.
I tend to agree with this, but I would not over prioritize the importance of set up relative to the quality of the room and chosen components. You need all three optimized to get the best possible experience, IMO. It might vary from listener to listener, but I think we would find some consensus building and general agreement when all three are optimized.
The setup question.
I really don't know where to jump in on this. For me set up is foundational. I mean I wasn't even into the high end and set up was already considered a must. I started roadie stuff at 14. At maybe 16 or 17 I would be setting up our poor boy pro rig in anything from a private home to gyms and ballrooms. Placement and orientation determine the mix of direct sound AND reflections.
The one thing I have noticed when it comes to set up and acoustics topics, most are so focused on early reflections or sucking up excess bass energy. What is hardly ever talked about is actually using the space and the boundary reinforcement it can provide. People usually try to get the image centered, play with the image depth, shuffle the speakers around a bit to get that kick drum nice and tight, fiddle again to get that top end just to that point where you get detail but not so much that you are afraid that those lousily recorded songs we love can still get played. That is all direct sound based. Just to avoid any confusion, this is based on people with conventional speakers simply because there are many more of them than CD, horn or planar people.
That leaves so much more on the table for, again for the sake of THIS discussion, we cone and dome heads. It's not that it does not apply to the flatties and hornies. Lets just say set up for them are a just a bit different once we consider that they radiate sound the way their forms dictate. People often forget, never learned or maybe never even thought that all of the above MUST be done with the reflected energy as part of the listening tuning and set up process. I kind of think of it as adding another axis to use for placement and orientation.
I described this to a friend recently this way. Imagine that your left speaker is inside a corner horn that is actually made up of the walls, floor and ceiling behind your speaker plane. So where would you put your now coaxial unit so that you now effectively have a floor to ceiling behemoth? Man, in my experience conehead speakers tend to end up in the same general placements in a given the room once this mindset is applied. Instead I typically find speakers placed in wild places for reasons such as supposedly if you bring the speakers out into the room it adds depth or whatever. It's true but the execution is often so exaggerated because it is human nature to think more means more, therefore...
Sadly these cliches have their limits and a lot of people go way past that. It is what it is. They end up in the general places because of the timing of the reflections from the midbass on down. You could very well move way forward and find another good spot. I've done this myself after seeing some really good guys demonstrate it. Again if you bring out the tape measure you will see that the ratios of wavelengths and actual distance could even predict a good to great outcome. The choice between the first and the second usually has the first winning even if the second might ultimately be better. That's dictated more by livability or visual aesthetics than anything else.
So yeah, setup is important and we shouldn't even have to talk about it. If an owner has no interest in learning how to set his own speakers up, by all means hire someone. If one isn't inclined to pay for the service, I humbly suggest that they at least leave the spikes and footers off, get some sliders and make a game out of it. I'm not saying go get a sample of a long tom hit, loop it and position till it just sounds right (guilty as charged). Heck, mark down where your expert put 'em and do it anyway, you can always put them back, yeah that last millimeter is a b**ch but you'll get it. There's nothing to lose.
I really don't know where to jump in on this. For me set up is foundational. I mean I wasn't even into the high end and set up was already considered a must. I started roadie stuff at 14. At maybe 16 or 17 I would be setting up our poor boy pro rig in anything from a private home to gyms and ballrooms. Placement and orientation determine the mix of direct sound AND reflections.
The one thing I have noticed when it comes to set up and acoustics topics, most are so focused on early reflections or sucking up excess bass energy. What is hardly ever talked about is actually using the space and the boundary reinforcement it can provide. People usually try to get the image centered, play with the image depth, shuffle the speakers around a bit to get that kick drum nice and tight, fiddle again to get that top end just to that point where you get detail but not so much that you are afraid that those lousily recorded songs we love can still get played. That is all direct sound based. Just to avoid any confusion, this is based on people with conventional speakers simply because there are many more of them than CD, horn or planar people.
That leaves so much more on the table for, again for the sake of THIS discussion, we cone and dome heads. It's not that it does not apply to the flatties and hornies. Lets just say set up for them are a just a bit different once we consider that they radiate sound the way their forms dictate. People often forget, never learned or maybe never even thought that all of the above MUST be done with the reflected energy as part of the listening tuning and set up process. I kind of think of it as adding another axis to use for placement and orientation.
I described this to a friend recently this way. Imagine that your left speaker is inside a corner horn that is actually made up of the walls, floor and ceiling behind your speaker plane. So where would you put your now coaxial unit so that you now effectively have a floor to ceiling behemoth? Man, in my experience conehead speakers tend to end up in the same general placements in a given the room once this mindset is applied. Instead I typically find speakers placed in wild places for reasons such as supposedly if you bring the speakers out into the room it adds depth or whatever. It's true but the execution is often so exaggerated because it is human nature to think more means more, therefore...
Sadly these cliches have their limits and a lot of people go way past that. It is what it is. They end up in the general places because of the timing of the reflections from the midbass on down. You could very well move way forward and find another good spot. I've done this myself after seeing some really good guys demonstrate it. Again if you bring out the tape measure you will see that the ratios of wavelengths and actual distance could even predict a good to great outcome. The choice between the first and the second usually has the first winning even if the second might ultimately be better. That's dictated more by livability or visual aesthetics than anything else.
So yeah, setup is important and we shouldn't even have to talk about it. If an owner has no interest in learning how to set his own speakers up, by all means hire someone. If one isn't inclined to pay for the service, I humbly suggest that they at least leave the spikes and footers off, get some sliders and make a game out of it. I'm not saying go get a sample of a long tom hit, loop it and position till it just sounds right (guilty as charged). Heck, mark down where your expert put 'em and do it anyway, you can always put them back, yeah that last millimeter is a b**ch but you'll get it. There's nothing to lose.
I started my speaker placement and I promised myself to put 400 hours for that. It is very boring and hard but I will try to find it.
I think experts like Styrling can help.
There is no need to use room treatment panels before speaker placement
Dear Peter, I agree you audio equipments are important and also room acoustics (I mean dimenstions not room rt) and AC power quality . All should be ok.
As for moving speakers, I have an arrangement that makes it very easy to accomplish within 1 or 2 minutes even with the speakers on spikes, as I have outlined here.
Yet assessing exactly what a move does on a multitude of recordings (you can't get around that) takes a long time for each and every move. You do get smarter at it as you progress, but a substantial minimum amount of listening is unavoidable each time. What may improve the sound of one recording may be a step back for another, and you need to find what is the perfect middle ground for you.
I still find it fun and not boring.
It’s very difficult for me to believe these guys can set up based on the music they choose. Sure it works sometimes, but that way if you listen to some systems set up by home theatre guys purely on measurements to watch movies, they work well on digital music too and often much better than “set up” foo fi audio systems.
A room not set up music genre and scale agnostic misses the mark and the piper will be paid with every track listened to.
That said there are matters of personal preference and room potential that are legit so not every room with a balanced set up will sound the same.
If music choices really determine speaker position then best to have Speakers on wheels , back and forth , in and out and around we go ..!
It is more than that. Music genre determines speaker type for some listeners as it seems to for Ron.
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Ron, you just added two room + systems of all time to your list of top five. You now have seven listed. If you had to drop two down to the next tier to keep it at a top five list of all time, what two of these room + systems would you drop down to the second tier and why?
And two related questions: Given your pop music girl with guitar genre preference, which two of these seven room + systems created for you the greatest emotional connection and "suspension of disbelief" and how do they compare to your room + system which is in your second tier list?
No, the trick is to find a speaker position that works well for all music. It will be a compromise, but everything in audio is a compromise.
Of course, you need to have a speaker that is able to play all music well in the first place.
In my experience, the room determines speaker type. I can’t imagine purchasing speakers that are genre-limiting given my wide taste in music.
I can see that. I chose my corner horns in part because of the type of room I have. Music genre had nothing to do with my choice. I listen to classical, jazz, choral, blues, classic rock, girl with strings, some pop.
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