Your expensive room treatments might probably making your system sound worse (and why you need to read the attached article)

[unboxed]

Not surprised at all. In fact, I frequently find rooms at shows where the left and right channels are reveresed. Most notably, at AXPONA a couple years ago the orignial Wilson Wamm was set up. The channels were reversed.

I am curious. How do you find rooms with the channels reversed but the exhibitors don't know it?

I am still amazed. I am very careful when I make changes but a lot of my gear is hard to access so the first thing I do after making a major change (like seasonal amp swaps) is run a channel test track followed by a phase test track. It is so elementary I can't imagine people in the industry who have spent thousands setting up for a show not running two quick tests. Are the rooms vinyl only? Are there vinyl test discs?

 

[exupgh12]

In your reply to my post you somehow ignored my point 8., which clearly states that I selected my PranaFidelity Dhyana speakers being keenly aware of the problem of speakers often being too big for a given room. No one looking at the modest speaker dimensions I cited would reasonably suggest that they are too large for my room (24 ft x 12 ft x 8.5 ft).

I had first heard them at a show in a hotel room considerably smaller than my room, with no bass traps whatsoever and both bass reflex ports of the speakers open (maximum bass output). Never was there too much bass; in fact, on some music I would have preferred adding a subwoofer.

So the bass problem in my room is really specific to the room, not the speaker *). I was able to plug one of the two bass reflex ports without affecting driver excursion, which helped considerably in my room (I love that flexibility of the speakers), but a basic problem of the 70-Hz hump, typical of many rooms, still remained. My room unfortunately also has a bad ratio, a straight 1:2 ratio width to length (12 ft:24 ft). This is just what it is, I can't change that and have to work with what I have.

A 60-80 Hz hump is very common for rooms; there are even programs online where you can plug in room dimensions and what often comes out is a hump somewhere in the bass region. You cannot wish that away, and to suggest that in every room you can fix all problems with just speaker positioning while completely foregoing bass traps in all cases, or to suggest that bass traps are the "enemy", or to suggest that "non-audiophile" room furnishings are the solution to everything, is just nothing but inexperience and/or strong bias and goes against hard physics.

Yet even the article does not say that. It states (emphasis added):

Begin by removing all artificial treatments from the room, such as panels, corner traps, and diffusers, especially if they have been arbitrarily put up and not based on measured room acoustics. If the room sounds muffled or has a “recording studio” quality when you speak, it indicates that the room’s tonality is off. These treatments may not address the root cause of the issue, so it’s best to remove them and then slowly add them back, only when deemed appropriate. Many treatments primarily absorb high frequencies, offering little to no help with bass, which is often the main problem.

The paragraph implies that sometimes you may indeed need treatments. Yet contra his last sentence in the paragraph, ASC TubeTraps are extraordinarily effective in fighting bass problems, with a comparably moderate effect on damping of high frequencies.

Also the big room at Goodwin's High End has severe bass issues, with a pronounced hump at 70 Hz. They usually take care of that very efficiently with ASC TubeTraps. Yet once I auditioned Rockport Lyra speakers in the room, and the Rockport people had chosen to remove the ASC Tubetraps in favor of more liveliness of the room. Annoyingly, I had to sit through that 70-Hz hump on much material, which very much dimmed my enjoyment of the session. Here the "remedy" of removing the TubeTraps was clearly worse than the "illness" that the Rockport people wanted to cure. If you ask me, it was a silly mistake by them. The TubeTraps should have remained in the room.

***

Yes, I had to fight bass issues with my floor standers because of my specific room, but I would not go back to monitors, as I used to have, just because of that problem. For my personal preferences, I made the right choice buying those speakers.

_______________________________________

*) It's not my tube amp with its damping factor either. I have tested two SS amps with my speakers in my room, and the difference in bass amount and bass control to my tube amp was minimal.

Since I'm not familiar with your specific speaker or room setup, I'll reply in a general manner.

Regarding show demonstrations - while they can be informative, I understand that hearing conditions at shows aren't ideal. Even though presenters might optimize their playlists, I would still suggest any customer try to hear speakers in their own environment, or in a setting as similar as possible to their intended listening space. This isn't always feasible, but it's a valuable rule of thumb.

Bass problems are indeed always room-related - as you correctly point out, a speaker in an open field wouldn't have standing waves or bass issues. You raise a good point about ASC TubeTraps - they can be quite effective at controlling bass issues while having minimal impact on higher frequencies. In some cases, they might be exactly what's needed after optimal speaker placement has been achieved.

No one claims you can solve all bass issues and problems with speaker position alone. However, you can significantly minimize room issues by placing the speakers optimally for the specific space. For remaining issues, you might need (or might not need) passive or active treatment - it really depends on the specific room characteristics and listening goals.

Your point about starting with an empty room is logical - I know several speaker designers who follow this exact approach. They start with an empty room to check speaker interactions, and only after optimal placement do they begin returning room objects and adding treatments as needed.

Have you considered using monitors with a subwoofer? This setup could potentially give you more flexibility in dealing with your room's specific bass challenges. With a sub, you could have more control over placement and level, potentially helping to address that 70Hz room mode while maintaining the overall quality you're looking for.

 

[exupgh12]

I’m all for different approaches, this one just appears to be more complex than necessary.

Lee,

Each should use the approach he feel better\easier for him.

 

[exupgh12]

I read the article and agree. It took me over a year, maybe two years to get my room and setup good and I listen 4-5 times a week. It is hard. I thought maybe I just wasn't as smart as I thought I was. I think I could do it next time a little faster now that I have learned so much.

The comment about box speakers being problematic vs. panels or dipoles. I don't agree. I have had both. It always goes back to the room and setup. The only box speakers that I feel approach the speed of panels are Wilson and Thiel and now the Acora speakers I heard in 2022 at Axpona. Love the Quad ESLs but I want some bass. I will certainly qualify this with the fact that the number of different speakers/systems I have heard this past decade is limited.

The soundstage in my room is part of the thrill. Many, but not all recordings will have the singer about 5-6 feet above the floor. The cool part is their guitar image is 3-4 feet above the floor. I don't know how my speakers do that. On one Blues Company song the electric guitar speaker sounds like it is sitting on the floor to my right in the back. Pretty cool. The Roger Waters album, Amused to Death has some great spatial cues. The first song starts out with dogs barking to my extreme right. Later a voice is at my extreme left over by the window. That puts his voice 12 feet in front of the speakers and to the left about 10 feet away. Not heard anything else like that except at the end of Dark Side of the Moon, the laughter sounds like it is inside my head. That's playing the record. It is pretty wild. My soundstage is much bigger than my room. I have to close my eyes or listen in the dark at night. If I have my eyes closed for a while and get used to the large soundstage then I can open my eyes and the walls cut right through the soundstage. It used to be fun at first doing that but I'm over it now.

Some key things I learned- I have always liked wood floors. I think it helps the bass because the wood stiffens the floor. Then I can dial back floor reflections with wool rugs. If you have poured concrete floors, then stiffness is a given. I made my own bass traps in the early 90s. Went away from them for a while but now I use them again. They work for me. Diffusers are a great tool for sharpening images. They do not over dampen the room like absorbers. I spent weeks experimenting with diffusers to optimize my sound. I never thought much about the first reflection points until I tried some absorbers on the walls there. Made me a believer.

The soundstage is one reward for my effort and the other is the clean, detailed bass. I can hear the strings on the bass guitar like I hear on a standard acoustic guitar. The skin on bass drums, not just snare drums is so clear now. I have a buddy who installs high end car stereos for a living. He is impressed with my system but says his preference would be more bass. I have all the bass I want and would not care to sit in a car with those hammering woofers. The bass on my system goes through the floor and it can hit me in the chest when I crank it. And maybe once is a while I like it- like when playing Tusk.

One last point- the sound, the bass, all of it is consistent all around my Den/listening room. I can sit at my desk and enjoy the sound as much as in my listening spot. Imaging is not "perfect" like in the listening spot but still really good in all other parts of the room. I don't know if that is all setup or a property of the speakers.

Thank you for sharing your experience, Tony! I love how you describe your journey to achieving exceptional sound and your examples of soundstaging. You’ve made excellent points about floor materials, bass traps, and diffusers.

 

[Al M.]

Regarding show demonstrations - while they can be informative, I understand that hearing conditions at shows aren't ideal. Even though presenters might optimize their playlists, I would still suggest any customer try to hear speakers in their own environment, or in a setting as similar as possible to their intended listening space. This isn't always feasible, but it's a valuable rule of thumb.

In this case, sound was excellent (a friend called it Best in Show), and over several hours time I could play all my own test tracks that I wanted. So I got a very good idea of what the speakers could do, confirmed by later setting them up at home -- only that I got them to sound even better then.

I could not foresee the bass problems that my room would generate. Given the moderate dimensions of the speakers and the flexibility of adjusting the bass reflex ports as I mentioned, I would expect that any other floor stander with similar extension would give me the same problems or worse in my room.

No one claims you can solve all bass issues and problems with speaker position alone.

Well, the article almost suggested such and certainly did not make much of a deliberate effort to soften its rather dogmatically formulated positions. I had to pull out the "fine print" as it were (the paragraph that I quoted) to be sure it didn't really go that far.

However, you can significantly minimize room issues by placing the speakers optimally for the specific space. For remaining issues, you might need (or might not need) passive or active treatment - it really depends on the specific room characteristics and listening goals.

Indeed.

Have you considered using monitors with a subwoofer? This setup could potentially give you more flexibility in dealing with your room's specific bass challenges. With a sub, you could have more control over placement and level, potentially helping to address that 70Hz room mode while maintaining the overall quality you're looking for.

As I mentioned above, I did have monitors with subwoofers before, and indeed, the bass was comparatively not a problem.

Yet I would not want to go back and, for less bass problems with my room, give up the extra authority and weight in mid-bass, upper bass and low midrange that the floor standers provide.

I consider my bass now to be very good; any future acoustic upgrades (see above) will be just icing on the cake.

 

[tony22]

Am I the only person shocked (and somewhat skeptical) of this finding?

"40% of the rooms he visited (including "professionally designed" ones) had their L/R channels reversed"

Every test CD I have has a channel (and frequently phase) test track. The Aurender APP, Conductor, has a channel test track. I would also think that if someone was familiar with a song and then reversed channels when installing a new component or interconnect they would notice the mistake. "Hey, didn't the guitar used to be over there?"

I'm with the guys who said "nope, not at all". Out of phase is also run into occasionally.

 

[Robh3606]

Am I the only person shocked (and somewhat skeptical) of this finding?

"40% of the rooms he visited (including "professionally designed" ones) had their L/R channels reversed"

Yeah me too. My Shure cartridge demo disk from the early 70's had L/R, Phase and many other ones as well. I have test CD's I use to verify and troubleshoot basic set-ups. So yeah I was kind of shocked by that.

It's so damn easy to check I can't believe a dealer wouldn't use a test CD after each install. It's common sense after any set-up to make sure basic wiring is correct.

Rob

 

[Salectric]

I'm with the guys who said "nope, not at all". Out of phase is also run into occasionally.

At the Capital Audio Fest several years ago, I went in a room with some expensive, big name brand gear (no need to mention the brands) and something was clearly out of phase. Having set up speakers in stereo for over 55 years, I certainly know when they are out of phase. I discreetly looked behind the speakers and the cables were consistent for each channel. That left just one possibility—the phono cartridge was wired out of phase. I suggested to the room rep—again discreetly—that the cartridge might be connected with one channel’s leads reversed. He got a little huffy and said it was all wired correctly; that’s just how the cartridge sounds while it’s breaking in(!).

Later in the day I stopped by the room again and it was obvious as soon as I walked in the channels were now in phase. Maybe the cartridge just needed a couple hours to finish breaking in. Right!

 

[unboxed]

Yeah me too. My Shure cartridge demo disk from the early 70's had L/R, Phase and many other ones as well. I have test CD's I use to verify and troubleshoot basic set-ups. So yeah I was kind of shocked by that.

It's so damn easy to check I can't believe a dealer wouldn't use one after each install. It's common sense after any set-up to make sure basic wiring is correct.

Rob

My next show demo CD will have the first track a channel test. Imagine the exhibitor's surprise when instead of Pink Floyd or Patricia Barber the get "THIS IS THE LEFT CHANNEL, THIS IS THE LEFT CHANNEL, THIS IS THE LEFT CHANNEL".

 

[Robh3606]

My next show demo CD will have the first track a channel test. Imagine the exhibitor's surprise when instead of Pink Floyd or Patricia Barber the get "THIS IS THE LEFT CHANNEL, THIS IS THE LEFT CHANNEL, THIS IS THE LEFT CHANNEL".

But it's in the RIGHT!!!! LOL use the Stereophile and it's a young girl at least on one of them. I have basic audio tests ripped to my I-Pod so when I set-up my work office system I got L/R Phase Imaging and sub integration right. Can't imagine "Pro"s getting the basics wrong by being lazy.

Rob

 

[Lee]

Not surprised at all. In fact, I frequently find rooms at shows where the left and right channels are reveresed. Most notably, at AXPONA a couple years ago the orignial Wilson Wamm was set up. The channels were reversed.

I was there. The dealer fixed it. And the speakers sounded excellent.

 

[Robh3606]

I was there. The dealer fixed it. And the speakers sounded excellent.

Good and I hope they learned a lesson, spent $15 on a CD or use an older Shure set-up vinyl disk and now take 1 minute to check.

Rob

 

[Salectric]

Seriously, does anybody need a test CD to make sure channels are correct? Don’t people pay attention to which cable goes into which channel’s input jacks and output jacks? Here’s a little tip—Red stands for Right channel. Follow that throughout the hookup and Bingo—-Bob’s your uncle.

 

[TonyW]

I find mixing the left and right channels quite easy to do. Seems like whenever I do mix them up it is at the back of the preamp. For some reason I'll put the right channel on the bottom connector of my ARC preamp unless I am consciously thinking about where the right channel should go. Of course I know right away when I sit down to listen. Big red bands on the right channel cables help but no guarantee I won't mix them. My problem is I'm thinking three steps ahead instead of being mindful of the moment. Like Yoda said, "Always looking to the horizon, never his mind on where he was or what he was doing." (I was not trained by a Jedi Master.)

Or maybe it is because I am left handed.

 

[Robh3606]

Seriously, does anybody need a test CD to make sure channels are correct? Don’t people pay attention to which cable goes into which channel’s input jacks and output jacks? Here’s a little tip—Red stands for Right channel. Follow that throughout the hookup and Bingo—-Bob’s your uncle.

It's an easy mistake to make. Same as speaker phase even more so. It's belts and suspender's for us at home. When you are showing a system at an audio show it's more about professionalism. There is a lot more than L/R Phase available on these disks than can actually help you quite a bit.

You are also assuming that the installer is making a mistake like red to black. Well just had a friend who is a professional installer pulling his hair out with a phase issue only to find a brand new cable was mis-wired from the the factory. Changed the cable all was fixed.

That's why it doesn't hurt to know for sure.


Rob

 

[unboxed]

Seriously, does anybody need a test CD to make sure channels are correct? Don’t people pay attention to which cable goes into which channel’s input jacks and output jacks? Here’s a little tip—Red stands for Right channel. Follow that throughout the hookup and Bingo—-Bob’s your uncle.

I agree. But I can't access the rear of some of my equipment very well and all of my equipment is black making some things hard to see. One manufacturer I use has the right and left inputs and outputs opposite of the conventional positions. I also have to be careful with the special mono hookup requirements for stereo/mono amps. I am careful and have never connected backwards. I still use L/R and phase test tracks. It only takes a minute and then I can exhale.

Imagine a complicated show setup with many chefs suffering from travel lag connecting unfamiliar equipment. I cut exhibitors some slack for making a mistake. Show conditions are the perfect environment for making a mistake. No slack for not testing.

 

[sbnx]

Seriously, does anybody need a test CD to make sure channels are correct? Don’t people pay attention to which cable goes into which channel’s input jacks and output jacks? Here’s a little tip—Red stands for Right channel. Follow that throughout the hookup and Bingo—-Bob’s your uncle.

It is easy to mix up the cables when wiring a system. But is should be very easy to find that there is a probem once the system starts playing. As soemone earlier pointed out, play just about any orchestral piece and if the violins are not on the left then it is highly, highly likely there is an issue. But almost any track you are familiar with will work. In a jazz piece for example, is the trumpet on the left or rigt. Etc.

I know the left/right thing was part of the article but I think his point really is that there are a very high percentage of systems where the owner is not paying nearly enough attention to the details. If they have left and right mixed up then what are the odds they have spent very much time trying to optimize speaker position or anything else in the system?

 

[Walnut Horns]

How does one go about finding the best seating position in a room before finding the approximate best position for the speakers? Seems like a chicken and egg conundrum to me. Thanks.

 

[Al M.]

How does one go about finding the best seating position in a room before finding the approximate best position for the speakers? Seems like a chicken and egg conundrum to me. Thanks.

Good question. My optimal seating position changed by a few inches as I got closer to an optimal speaker position. I guess it's a fluid situation, as it were.

 

[Lee]

How does one go about finding the best seating position in a room before finding the approximate best position for the speakers? Seems like a chicken and egg conundrum to me. Thanks.

Jim Smith locates the chair by running pink noise through the system and then looking at the Studio Six RTA. You move the chair back and forth on the center line until the RTA is smoothest in the bass and lower midrange region.