What's your favorite tip to audiophiles? Here is mine:
If you are using a subwoofer with ported main speakers, consider plugging the ports and raising the sub crossover. Even if you don't have a subwoofer, sometimes plugging one or the other can really reduce bloat. It's worth listening to it since it's cheap and non destructive (assuming you don't lose your sock in the port).
Raising the cut-off frequency AND sealing the box greatly reduces woofer distortion by controlling excursion, another benefit. Of course, at the end of the day what matters is whether the listener likes it or not.
I don’t block the dual ports of my subs-augmented main speakers (haven’t tried either), but the dual 15" woofers are high-passed just below 85Hz, 36dB/octave L-R, and with 100dB sensitivity here I’ve never seen the cones visibly move, even at bonkers SPL’s, so in that regard blocking the ports should see no real advantage. Question is whether there’s unintentional port contribution seeping through from the upper range, but at least listening impressions don’t point to this. Interesting tip though..
My tip(s): be critical; challenge audiophile conventions; keep/have an open mind; read, listen and observe all you can; experiment; listen to live acoustic music; let sound be the determinant - not price (or looks, brand or other); go DIY and 2nd hand; include pro as well as hi-fi segment (whatever works, works); go active configuration; physics rule with speakers (i.e.: let form follow function, not the other way ’round); implementation is king; a lot matters, but not all equally; forest for the trees. And, at the end of the day: make up your own mind.
Find a true mentor-s, even if you are extremely experienced and knowledgeable. When you go deep, one discovers deeper levels bringing you closer to the real thing. Seeking out experienced, trusted advisors can save you in so many ways, especially around room tuning, suitable gear, and yes, modern DSP, including BACCH, if you are explorative. Any harm done is vastly outweighed. For the naysayers, yes, you can do damage. However, wizened, skillful Techs who understand sound, harmonics, layering...how tube distortions work vs the low noise of great solid state can take you to amazing levels of gratification.
The journey is often one of not knowing what was missing until attained. This from an ever impassioned, ever reaching, old fart.
More Peace, plus Joy Pin (bold pring for old eyes)
Attend AXPONA (Audio Expo North America), the largest annual gathering of audio enthusiasts, music lovers, audio dealers, manufacturers and distributors in North America.
If you have a room on floors the are not concrete base, address any vibration issues you undeniable have, especially with the turntable, then the speakers. Even with concrete floors, it can't hurt.
Don't sell short what you already have, thinking the audio grass is greener somewhere else. Chances are you'd be making a sideways move more often than not. Try some subtle tweaks, cheap room treatments and experiment with cables but until you're financially ready to go bigger (in price and level of performance), just be content: it's not the end of the world.
Yes, the crossover designer can raise or lower the Q of the speaker wether ported or sealed, but how would an end user go about raising/lowering Q of a sealed speaker?
I meant, a speaker maker can make a sealed or ported speaker optimally flat (rare) or bump the bass. This is mostly a function of the cabinet though, not the crossover.
Subwoofers... such a deep topic! 😆 And as many have stated in varying ways, the only real "right" answer is the answer that sounds good to you.
That’s news to me, I thought the THX standard was 24?
Yes, absolutely. But I am assuming there are a large number of listeners who are using non-THX certified subs and/or receivers. Subs for music seem to have some variance here, but I've seen reference to 18db/octave being most common for that application. Tests of REL subs have shown those to have a 12db/octave slope. Some (such as Perlisten) are variable.
However, I do think that many speakers, sealed or ported, have a bass hump. The ability to raise or lower the Q isn’t limited to ported speakers.
Yes, the crossover designer can raise or lower the Q of the speaker wether ported or sealed, but how would an end user go about raising/lowering Q of a sealed speaker?
The solution I implemented in my room... I built bookshelf speakers with passive radiators using Purifi drivers (ultra-low distortion). The passive radiator boxes give me more low end extension without added room boom. I supplement those with 4 sealed 10" subs crossed over very low and running just enough volume to add some "roundness" to the low end. Sounds good to my ears!
Re: preference for short posts. Small ideas will fit in them. Nuance, detail, complexity—not so much.
Re: to plug or not to plug (one's ports). Room acoustics are largely mysterious; even experts often get this very wrong. I've posted about that before (long posts...). So try it both ways, and let your ears be the judge.
Re: Sir Richard Burton. Also a fan. One of my treasures is a copy of his translation of the "Thousand Nights and a Night" in seventeen hardcover volumes issued in just 1,000 numbered sets to subscribers of the Burton Club in the 1880s (mine is set #239). An amazing character: adventurer, scholar, linguist, prolific writer. His mastery of languages (not quite 50, more like 27, but who's counting?) enabled a "translation" so full of multi-lingual neologisms that it is virtually in its own new language.
That’s news to me, I thought the THX standard was 24?
But generally, yes. Regardless of Q, having a main speaker that has a hump, and then having the sub take over below that hump can be challenging. It can also just be challenging for the room. So, this is, broadly speaking, a tone control.
However, I do think that many speakers, sealed or ported, have a bass hump. The ability to raise or lower the Q isn’t limited to ported speakers.
Raising the cut-off frequency AND sealing the box greatly reduces woofer distortion by controlling excursion, another benefit. Of course, at the end of the day what matters is whether the listener likes it or not.
Just wanted to chime in regarding the sock in the port trick... the reason this works and why it's worth trying is that a ported speaker is going to have a higher Q factor compared to a sealed speaker. Typically this translates to a low end bass bump followed by a steep roll-off of 24db/octave or more. Most subs have an 18db/octave low pass filter. Plugging the port in your speaker with a sock or foam plug or whatever will reduce the Q factor of the speaker... less bass bump and shallower bass roll-off. Generally speaking this makes it much easier to integrate a subwoofer with it.
If your posts typically run to more than 20 lines, experiment with brevity this year. I personally skip long-winded posts and try not to write them myself, though it is my natural tendency to be verbose.
Your readership will increase in inverse proportion to the length of your post.
I installed one of those devices that lift the tonearm just before the needle reaches the record label. Has saved me from leaping out of my chair for fear of stylus damage.
I, too, thought it an odd tweak to plug the ports on a speaker designed to be ported. But one evening I decided to give it a try so I jammed two crew socks into the port of my left speaker to do a scientific comparison analysis. As men my age have a tendency to do, I soon forgot all about it until few day later when tightening my speaker lugs I remembered the socks and reached in to remove them. But as socks always do, one of them went missing. Strange as that seemed, it became even more eerie when I tossed the used sock into the washer, there was its partner clinging to the inside wall. I don’t even want to imagine how it got there and have since given up on tweaks and have learned to just enjoy the music.
Some syntax awake the reader as your, some syntax with poor mastery put the reader to sleep as mine ...i only hope that my content can sometimnes awake some ...I am not sure ... But reading you put at least a smile on any face ...
Facts are facts ...😊
(On a personal note: Having GF @mahgisterinfer to another poster that @yoursunruly can create knots in ones’ brain with my ragged references, inferences, and general grammatic garble sets a high bar that may be too far...but, on the other plan...it allows to perhaps loosen the ones’ that I have in the process...
It is exactly what i had done with the rear porthole of my speakers knowing that each speakers is a potential and an actual Helmholtz resonators...
I redesigned the cross ratio ratio from now a bundle of various necks lenght and volume/ versus the interior bottle volume , the result was spectacular in bass recuperation but on all counts too ... I redesigned the wave guide of the tweeter in a specific geometry and dimensions to accomodate my listening position ...
Generally the designer had three choices : an internal costlier labyrinth or an external unesthetical one, or only a tube inside straight or bent ... They almost all exclude the internal labyrinth because of the cost to design it properly and built , and they exclude an external one for evident esthetical and practical reason and cost too... This is why our speakers are perfect rectangular boxes... Cost and esthetic and pragmatism not sound qualities ...
My 150 bucks active speakers are so good i bought a tube preamplifier and now imagine a top speakers sound , miniaturize it , and it is my balanced sound on all acoustic counts, instead of being jealous of top costlier speakers, i almost pity them , those boxes now answer to my needs but with no spectacular defects at all ... I dont even need a sub with a 4 inches woofer ...
Acoustic principles rules the gear first as just said erik_squires not the reverse ...
Merry christmas to him and his family ...🎄
@roxy54 Being a speaker builder, I can say that while no speaker is 100% ideal as both ported and sealed, it does let you tune the bass in very important ways, especially if you are using a sub.
You don’t have 100% the control that a speaker builder does, who would know that an optimally flat ported speaker has more volume than an optimally flat sealed speaker, but given room boundary reinforcements, the ultimate judge of which is best can be you.
My tip, don't spend the majority of your free time discussing audio. It will seriously take time away from the listening part of our hobby, which I believe is how all of us got started. Like not seeing the forest for the trees.
For parents - Gift wrap some empty boxes and place them under the tree. Every time one of the kids acts up, grab one of the wrapped boxes and toss it in the fireplace. 😉
Fav tips? *S*....
- Tri-tip beef....but good luck if I'm in the market prior to you....;)
- SOTA ought to be thought of 'Your Version of....' , keeping in mind, ears, and heart that 'This is what 'It Is at present.' There will always be a 'better' in the opinion of others; your call is just as significant, and there's no law, rule, or regulation otherwise.
- Cut some 'slack' early and often. A 'light touch' can achieve, whereas 'hammers' often typically are 'single-stroke', 'one & done (for)'....
- (On a personal note: Having GF @mahgisterinfer to another poster that @yoursunruly can create knots in ones' brain with my ragged references, inferences, and general grammatic garble sets a high bar that may be too far...but, on the other plan...it allows to perhaps loosen the ones' that I have in the process...
Hey....a challenge by any other name....and I'd rather be infamous than famous, anyway....*L* ;).... )
@roxy54 Being a speaker builder, I can say that while no speaker is 100% ideal as both ported and sealed, it does let you tune the bass in very important ways, especially if you are using a sub.
You don't have 100% the control that a speaker builder does, who would know that an optimally flat ported speaker has more volume than an optimally flat sealed speaker, but given room boundary reinforcements, the ultimate judge of which is best can be you.
I've always been very suspicious of the wisdom of placing foam bungs in the ports of ported speakers. If they were designed to be ported, am I supposed to believe that suddenly it's ok to turn them into a sealed box design? I don't buy it, and knowing the experienced DIY'er that you are, I'm surprised that you do.
For sure... But many people had a lovely voice too...😊
His performance were expressive mastery dancing around an emotion ... It is the same expressive force over technical formal perfection that dominate piano school for me the greatest ...
Or Dostoievsky works...
Even mathematical Russian style which is expressive and didactic never formal or just pragmatic ...
It is why also i love Portuguese fado saudade and music , a particular form of sadness , and Russian soul sadness another form... Two very expressive art ...
From Portugal ascension at the height of the world as a powerful navigating nation and heroic to a smaller country... It seems to me in the saudade there is sadness and irony about the greatness love and his lost... Richard Burton the incredible explorator and genius in linguitic and in antho-pology before anthropology even existed, admired so much Camoens the greatest portuguese poet he take years to translate his main work... if you want to read the life of a real superman read the life of Richard Burton ... Totally incredible... A genius in the body of superman ...And a love story ...He beat 7 times the best swordman of France and spoke 50 languages...He discovered the Nile source and went alone at the Mecca speaking so well arabic no one suspected him... At this era an englishman at the Mecca would have been killed on the spot ... Try to imagine the iron will , the total self control and the absolute mastery of a speech in the minute details with no accent...He did it another time in the forbbiden city of Timbuktu where nobody from europe never came back alive ...I read 3 biographies so much incredible was his life ...I did no no other man that was at the same time an intellectual genius and a pure warrior...He wrote the first modern treatise on the use of the bayonnet and write about escrime ...He was able to master a language in a record time ...he live without the prejudices of his time and his relation with his wife by itself is a love movie of the first order ...
I go into too much direction now.... From Vertinsky to Burton ...😁
I am greatly interested by music, poetry and singing...
I am also interested by mathematics...
the image represent alexander Vertinsky , a mythic figure of Russian popular scene as poet, singer and actor ...The "pierrot" figure acting and singing made him a myth , "the russian pierrot"...
I admired the Russian mathematical school and the Russian piano school... And the greatest novel written for me is "the dream of a ridiculous man " by Dostoievsky who explore reality in a more metaphysical way than in his others more existential works... Read it , it is short, and it is a changing life stunning book in the last life period of the writer...
The only writer able to teach Freud something he missed about man ...Jung guess it though and go on over Freud ...The soul....
Among Goethe achievements is the way he demonstrate how much blind we are eyes open...And he explained in his "plant metamorphosis" and "color treatise" how we could hear Nature truth through spoken forms and colors ...
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
