Zero Distortion: Tango Time

Tango

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I can't but notice the floor pump. Are you a cyclist or is this related to an air bearing?
I guess nothing got un-noticed on this forum. I used to cycle 400 km a week but stopped since I had a boy. Used to run and swim a lot too. The pump is for Stacore platform.
 
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Tango

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Are you suggesting all reflections are bad? How much reflection do you expect when you have horns? And why do you think glass must be worse than something else? I'll remind you it's safety glass.
I have glass everywhere :eek:.

C20570F8-F368-4E4B-9480-74A6F51FC033.jpeg
39801484-7DB2-4DF0-B662-06588C71911B.jpeg 36608020-2697-49B4-8B2D-7D8BC2BCD219.jpeg
 

bonzo75

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Your pics are giving old audiophiles wood in the morning
 
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Folsom

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We've been talking about behind the speakers.

If every piece of glass was a huge problem would we not hear it in recordings? Having safety glass around is the equivalent of having wood walls. Not sure about your beauty mirror.
 

the sound of Tao

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Your pics are giving old audiophiles morning wood
I was more fascinated by the 1930’s laptop on the left on the desk. Am also assuming morning wood is some kind of walking stick for doing a few laps of the garden before breakfast.
 

bonzo75

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You can Google morning wood tang in case you haven't seen it before
 

Lagonda

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We've been talking about behind the speakers.

If every piece of glass was a huge problem would we not hear it in recordings? Having safety glass around is the equivalent of having wood walls. Not sure about your beauty mirror.
Safety glass
is not a problem in the bass frequencies, but I have always found
natural wood or mdf covered with
rough wallpaper or light fabric to be
an improvement in the treble and
midrange.
 
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Mike Lavigne

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We've been talking about behind the speakers.

If every piece of glass was a huge problem would we not hear it in recordings? Having safety glass around is the equivalent of having wood walls. Not sure about your beauty mirror.

not sure what you are referring to with 'hear it in recordings'?

the only way to objectively judge the glass effect is to hear it gone or completely neutralized. whether it's a problem or just a difference depends on the listener. and the particular resolution of the system.

not saying it's always a problem, but that you'd need to prove it wasn't before you would know that. and it safe to say that window or mirror glass never helps.
 
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Tango

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the only way to objectively judge the glass effect is to hear it gone or completely neutralized. whether it's a problem or just a difference depends on the listener. and the particular resolution of the system.

not saying it's always a problem, but that you'd need to prove it wasn't before you would know that. and it safe to say that window or mirror glass never helps.
Have you ever tried covering glass with organic wall covering something like a cotton wall paper?
 
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Mike Lavigne

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Have you ever tried covering glass with organic wall covering something like a cotton wall paper?

i have never covered glass with something attached to it. but i could see that cloth of some sort should dampen resonance from it and likely neutralize it. as glass allows hot and cold to penetrate you don't want anything that would trap moisture. the surface needs to breathe somewhat.

i have found that normal pleated window shades do a pretty good job of neutralizing window glass. and can be raised and lowered to adjust the effect.

my opinion is that a wool grass cloth or something similar would likely be effective. be aware that UV rays from the sun will really effect/deteriorate anything organic quite quickly. so paper or cotton would not hold up for long if the window gets direct sunlight. maybe a woven wood screen might be ideal as the weight of it would add mass to dampening. but i'm just guessing. my inserts really work to essentially make the window opening like the wall it's on. that's ideal.

it's hard to predict if any resonance is going on between your wood diffusers and those windows behind them. in my room i had resonance between my side wall and the side of my bass towers, which i needed to neutralize with the T-Fusor diffusers. i would never have predicted that would be audible, but it was very prominent. i never noticed it until i fixed lots of other resonance spots and then it stood out. good hunting!
 
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bonzo75

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No fighting. I am embracing. :D

Here are two different walls.



The difference is very clear but please play this particular piece for the audience with the Opus
 

Folsom

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not sure what you are referring to with 'hear it in recordings'?

the only way to objectively judge the glass effect is to hear it gone or completely neutralized. whether it's a problem or just a difference depends on the listener. and the particular resolution of the system.

not saying it's always a problem, but that you'd need to prove it wasn't before you would know that. and it safe to say that window or mirror glass never helps.

Tang himself said he can't detect a problem from the glass. And I'm referring to Tang's recordings but countless studios use very thick safety glass between the musicians and the producer/sound people.

I've been playing with different materials including thicker glass, safety glass, and regular double pane on top of wood. Double pane (what almost all glass everywhere is) sounds like crap. It gets excited in only the most annoying frequencies. Thick glass still is so-so. But safety glass works really well for being very even (like wood). The damping affects of the safety glass work well on the frequencies below the SRF, and above SRF it's reflective but it's lower energy frequencies.

Glass seems to have some sort of boogeyman affect on audiophiles. The reality is it's like every other material and has pretty normal predictable properties. People just see it and in their minds they think it's somehow a cousin of a mirror for light but with sound, and that isn't true. The thinner glass is the more it passes, the thicker the more it reflects - like all physical objects in our universe. But it doesn't have varying internal structures like say wood does, so for the same size it doesn't act the same. My guess is everyone's heard double pane glass and how awful it is with sound and their brains override all rational thinking in fear that they'll hear it again when they see anything glass like.

While reflections might muddy sound sometimes, if they're harsh in nature the music was probably a little harsh to start. People don't consider that, they just try to balance harshness to tolerable levels but everyone's tolerance is different (sometimes with age and hearing loss as the factor).
 
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Mike Lavigne

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thin residential dual pane glass is essentially a membrane. watch a reflection in your window glass and slam a door, see the reflection shimmer a little from the wall movement or the pressure change. that's noise added to what your system is doing. how can you eliminate that membrane influencing the sound? so it's not only the considerable surface reflection adding brightness, it's also the active membrane part. no different than having unused speaker drivers inside your room reacting to any sound. they add their own resonance too.

if you play music at moderate levels and never pressurize your room then don't worry about it. or your room is so big the window far away from the speakers are not involved. likely not that intrusive. but chasing ultimate room tuning and wanting the whole enchilada it's part of the big picture.
 

Tango

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i have never covered glass with something attached to it. but i could see that cloth of some sort should dampen resonance from it and likely neutralize it. as glass allows hot and cold to penetrate you don't want anything that would trap moisture. the surface needs to breathe somewhat.

i have found that normal pleated window shades do a pretty good job of neutralizing window glass. and can be raised and lowered to adjust the effect.

my opinion is that a wool grass cloth or something similar would likely be effective. be aware that UV rays from the sun will really effect/deteriorate anything organic quite quickly. so paper or cotton would not hold up for long if the window gets direct sunlight. maybe a woven wood screen might be ideal as the weight of it would add mass to dampening. but i'm just guessing. my inserts really work to essentially make the window opening like the wall it's on. that's ideal.

it's hard to predict if any resonance is going on between your wood diffusers and those windows behind them. in my room i had resonance between my side wall and the side of my bass towers, which i needed to neutralize with the T-Fusor diffusers. i would never have predicted that would be audible, but it was very prominent. i never noticed it until i fixed lots of other resonance spots and then it stood out. good hunting!
Thank you very much for sharing your experience Mike. I am thinking of making a trial with the 3 meter tall tinted mirror I have on the left wall. I changed my big table from glass to wood and found some welcoming effect. Not a big fish by any mean but all add up to the effortlessness of sound. I will also replace my big Artemide bell pendant hanging over my table when I find some interesting alternative. Picking up small pieces. :)
 
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Mike Lavigne

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Thank you very much for sharing your experience Mike. I am thinking of making a trial with the 3 meter tall tinted mirror I have on the left wall. I changed my big table from glass to wood and found some welcoming effect. Not a big fish by any mean but all add up to the effortlessness of sound. I will also replace my big Artemide bell pendant hanging over my table when I find some interesting alternative. Picking up small pieces. :)

i found that the meter bridges of my Studer A-820's, at sitting ear height 90 degrees to the side of my listening position, added a slight edgy anomaly. i covered them with towels and the anomaly went away. silly stuff. mental. but it's what we do. when you have done the heavy lifting these opportunities present themselves because they are now sticking out from the music.
 

Folsom

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thin residential dual pane glass is essentially a membrane. watch a reflection in your window glass and slam a door, see the reflection shimmer a little from the wall movement or the pressure change. that's noise added to what your system is doing. how can you eliminate that membrane influencing the sound? so it's not only the considerable surface reflection adding brightness, it's also the active membrane part. no different than having unused speaker drivers inside your room reacting to any sound. they add their own resonance too.

if you play music at moderate levels and never pressurize your room then don't worry about it. or your room is so big the window far away from the speakers are not involved. likely not that intrusive. but chasing ultimate room tuning and wanting the whole enchilada it's part of the big picture.

Mike are you reading what I'm typing? I've explicitly said double pane sound horrid. I'm not sure I could even express that anymore than I already have.

But that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that when a door slams the frequency is extremely low. That frequency that can affect the structure around it isn't exclusive to glass, it passes through almost anything - hence when a door slamming can be heard far away. It's a horrible example to use. The shimmer you might see is what happens when the low frequency moves higher as it travels through a solid structure -and double pane are much more excitable at this level. What's a mistake is to assume that because you can't see the light trick on other materials is that they aren't doing the same in response to physical stimulus. The reality is if you put your hand on anything around a slamming door besides maybe very thick concrete, is you can feel the "shimmer" respective to the properties of the material. What does that have to do with music? Not much. If SPL from a stereo could influence something like that in that way, all our doors would go flying shut whenever they were half open and we turned on a stereo.

I would agree that you can follow any diminishing return path you'd like, chasing the ultimate whatever you like. But some types of stereos display a lot more than others for certain functions. And for some certain things are so low on the totem pole I wouldn't even bother. Given that Tang's office doesn't have any residential double plane glass, I would spend 0 time on the subject except what he already did with the table. Why the table? Because solid glass does not have an even sound. Although I probably would have put in more of a desk because it sorta looks like he's got a bench for henchmen to line up and get schooled on.
 

Tango

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@spiritofmusic. A few days ago, you really were my sun shine with your Vivaldi's 5 Seasons epiphany. I am your fan really. You have such a charmingly unique character making this forum colorful polka dots. May I suggest you this audiophile directly cut to vinyl Vivaldi from Mike Valentine. The sound is excellent and the performance is very exciting. Should you play it with your system, you may find multiple orgasmic experience. You can skip the boring Spring and start at Rainy season like Micro commented.

E34BBF2D-90D7-40C9-844A-3BC487708CCC.jpeg
 
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spiritofmusic

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Tang, I'm your sunshine...and Ked's grey cloud cover Lol. Thanks for the lovely words. I actually love buying cheap and cheerful classical vinyl off Ebay, only a few awful pressings, most just fine for $10 or less. But I'll look out for that one. Hoping it's not at the usual The General price tag. Costco, he is not Lol.

Tang, I've heard Four Seasons live many times. But this was a little special. Such a vibrant performance from a young happy band. And in a very special venue. We're glad to have swapped the chaos of London for this.
 

bonzo75

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Tang, I'm your sunshine...and Ked's grey cloud cover Lo

I have been harassing Tang a lot over text yesterday and today, so he must have decided that my cloud is his sunshine
 

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