I took delivery of new speakers yesterday, and this thread popped right into my mind as one of the primary changes I noticed. Interesting so far!
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@erik_squires Out of those, I haven't done ceiling but I did treat the others mentioned. Thankfully I have vaulted ceilings which helps but my WAF of existing treatment is definitely near or at the limits! | |
@christianb5s4 Unfortunately TV's are a difficult item to overcome. If you can put it behind a movable curtain, that is ideal, otherwise compensate by making sure the rest of your room is treated well. Treat the ceiling, diffuse behind the listener and to the sides of the speakers. | |
This discussion has been very interesting in terms of provoking thought around what I feel, acoustic treatment wise, is the remaining weak link of my room.
My listening room is my living room, so it has double duty of TV and music. I would love to add diffusion between the speakers, but it would have to be removable which eliminates a solid number of wood options given the weight. Would anyone have recommendations of what could be used? | |
i agree. to attain that ’proper balance’ is of course, the trick. and it requires that you start out with more energy than you end up needing, so as you do the fine tuning for balance you can reach that perfect balance. in 2015, after i’d been in my dedicated room for 11 years, i took 6 months of messing around to find that perfect balance, and have not touched it since. you can reach that right place and stop. of course, since then i have improved my sources, but my system bones and room has not changed at all since then. here are some notes i wrote at that time describing my fine tuning process. i’ve posted these before but i think it’s very relevant to this subject. i get deep into the weeds for those interested. and note that all this system tuning had almost a zero cost, just huge amounts of sweat equity and time. https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/almost-free-and-4-inches-the-final-1.17389/
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/almost-free-and-4-inches-the-final-1.17389/page-3#post-314941
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/suck-out-fixed-i-think.18116/
https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/suck-out-fixed-i-think.18116/page-2#post-329496 | |
The acoustic of very small room cannot be set as very big room... And great hall acoustic is very different... I dont have money , then i decided to embark in a homemade set of experiments 7 days on 7 for more than a year because i am retired... A dedicated acoustic room make it possible such set of experiments,,, i learned to experiment with passive material treatment but also with what i called active mechanical controls with a grid of distributed Helmhotz resonators tuned by ears all along the room near the speakers and near to my listening position... The end results was not perfect but so hugely different from average speakers in a living room , there is not even comparison...my 2 way box system gave me what a multichannels gave in some way...
It was not perfect because my speakers so good they were , were not top nor my other gear pieces... But my experience was so stunning that it resemble being in the sweet spot on a great musical hall and hearing music around me ... Because my gear was average it can be improved on many acoustic aspects, but learning how to control a room taught me how general acoustic recipe given as solutions can be useful but scratch only the surface of the acoustic puzzles and the acoustic power of transformation in a room... Those who did not experiment it cannot have an idea... If someone want to reach the top, he must create an acoustic room for his speakers , buy the best gear, and buy the BACCH filters....No need to multichannel... Acoustic consist in helping the ears to create, not tricking the ears to go where human brain do not naturally go...The difference between these two roads is very, very small... Milliseconds... It is only my limited experience teachings... There is three main focus in my tuning experience of very small room ( 131/2 feet by 15 feet by 8 feet 1/2) : the main aspect is timbre experience, because you can have localization of sound in space with a not optimal timbre experience or a distorted one....Then in second localization of sound sources all around you....But the third last aspect ask for more work and it is immersiveness, the way the listener is included in the recording acoustic translation experience in his acoustic room reproducing the recording but including him with his listener position in the soundfield... This is possible to some level with purely mechanical means... It is not perfect as i said but going back to normal room listening or even to a room only passively treated with usual acoustic recipe is impossible...But to reach perfection is impossible with homemade mechanical controls made by tuning ears ... If someone read about the BACCH filters i think the next acoustic tool to buy it is this one... I learned a lot doing it... I learn at least that it is less the gear but acoustic that is the basis of audio... We are all different with budget differences and different spaces... Then no one can impose his road to others for sure... I only advise people to read basic acoustic more than gear review...😊
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and proper toe in is relative to listening position. if you sit at the top of the equilateral triangle then image height based on toe in is one reality, but move your listening position slightly far field, or slightly near field, the image height will likely vary. and ideal toe in might change. many listeners are not comfortable listening near field or even considering it, mostly due to too much direct sound in less than mature room acoustics, where there is just too much direct sound and reflective energy. but the near field is where the holographic fireworks live. in my large room, i sit in the near field with twin 7 foot tall, huge towers in my lap visually, yet the acoustics allow for a comfortable natural tonality and cohesive experience. you have to work at near field acoustical comfort before you dismiss it, and be open to playing with toe in for ideal staging and height. | |
watched the video. not sure his up-mixing comments are relevant to my situation. he starts talking about using a multi-channel receiver or processor as a preamp. and his comments seem to assume everything is already digitized. not a right or wrong kinda thing, just a different universe of system culture. and his absolute focus is on sound staging, not musical refinement and tonal density or texture/timbral realism. it never comes up because it’s not his focus. OTOH my opinion is that sound staging is secondary to those aspects of musical touch. he does not really "get" where i’m at, he needs to experience some different type systems that don’t start from his place to know how this can go. he is talking to a different crowd and set of priorities. the listener needs to look at the media type they listen to, the quality of the sources, and the potential purity of their signal path before you can judge what to do with the level of purity they have. garbage in<->garbage out. what is at risk of losing with the approaches you are contemplating? i have much to lose. but that varies. | |
My experience, BTW, is that not all speakers like to be toed in at all, but compromises for the side walls is often needed. Also, the ideal height for some speakers is below the tweeter axis. B&W often does this, some do this by accident. Ear at tweeter axis / height is a starting point, the sweet spot is often below the tweeter. | |
IMAGING: width/height/depth (my experiences) 1. setup must be correct (tweeter to seated ear height) & (toe-in for equal tweeter volume dispersion relative to the mids) & toe-in to protect the primary sounds from the reflections of floor/ceiling/side walls: result is primarily horizontal imaging. phantom off center locations created by the speaker’s L/R relative volumes. 2. Then my mind creates a ’natural/normal sense of height, imagined height of players relative to speaker created horizontal phantom location. seated ear height as the vertical center, everybody on the same floor height: i.e. Drummer imagined lower than bass player, piano height centered, bass player tallest. Horns higher than the Piano ….. OR, often, imagining relative to a typical stage height from decent orchestra seats: height of piano centered ’above’, all else relative to that ’starting/imagined’ height 3. Depth is created by a combination of mind and open space behind the speakers: enhanced/limited by the actual amount of space behind the speaker to the rear reflected surface. The depth you perceive is based on your actual live listening experiences, i.e. you ‘know’ the depth of a small stage for a Jazz Trio; you ‘know’ the depth of stage for an orchestra (combined with standard placement of violins left; bass right; horns centered/behind; big drums and big horns rear row. | |
To me the accurately forward sound images are the most important. Listen to the original music. Almost recording engineers intend the vocal and mid-range on the center front with almost recordings. All audio systems in the world can’t do that like the original music. Their vocal/mid-range are all far back (and vague) behind speakers. It is not deeper sounds. They are just far back and unclear. Those problems comes in a set always. I know it because I found the solution for those problems. Only my Wavetouch audio accurately reproduces the vocal/mid-range in front as the recording engineer intended. When the audio vocal/mid-r sounds forward like the original music, the sound-stage becomes 3D. Then sounds automatically become wider, higher, and deeper. And always musical. No more the sound or music argument. Alex/Wavetouch | |
@mikelavigne , check out this video on upmixing from audioholics
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i generally prefer the original digital master to the Lp made from it, but we don't always get the chance to own that low gen digital master, so the result is variable. so generalizing is hard. but unless you sample the choices and compare, you really don't know. in any case i'm always wanting the native file or native analog recording. the less mucked up the better. which is why dsp is a non starter for me. | |
For most any newer artist, the official studio master is a pristine sounding hires digital album. An orthodox medium loyalist/vinyl guy would botch/butcher that pristine sounding master and press it on vinyl so he can taste the analog. If, he's stuck in a vintage artist time warp with a strange belief that all newer artists suck (except for the vintage artists spinning on the vinyl that he grew up with), a turntable makes sense. | |
there is more to music than soundstaging and spatial clues. there is not only timbre, but tonal density, flow, scale, weight, authority, bloom, bass articulation and tone leading edge cohesiveness, and decay. there is cohesion at high SPL’s. and all together the realism, suspension of disbelief, emotive content and human touch. as far as what digitizing and application of dsp does to an analog signal, the only way to know is to compare it directly to the pure analog signal. and highest level vinyl, tape or even digital contains musicality that gets lost at each adc/dac stage. Bernie Grundman said it best, every time a signal is processed digitally something is lost, and there is no recovery. you might add something, or change something, but you also lost something. nothing is free. no doubt there are great things with dsp and perfect situations for dsp. when i see very high level analog sources in systems with these ultra dsp processes i pay close attention. but when i don’t, then the result is not that relevant to me. the proper reference is missing. i have top level analog, and also the highest level digital too. and let’s face it, whether BACCH dsp digital, or all analog, these are all very high level music making processes. this is not good and bad, this is all degrees of good. but splitting hairs is what we do in this hobby. what we are passionate about. | |
@mikelavigne , My post was not aimed at dissing anyone’s gear. As you may have noted, i am dissing all my higher end stereo gear as well because i experience all the limitations of stereo gear in execution. When you deploy the BACCH, it is no longer considered purist stereo. imo. But, I haven’t seen anyone going BACCH-less after they have experienced it. On the same note, who gets to draw the line on what is purist stereo or otherwise? Even any stereo DAC (high end or not), and especially if FPGA based makes the rig ’impurist stereo’ at that point. Hence, I’ll go as impure as it needs to be in pursuit of audio nirvana. There are many brilliant guys who got together at Dolby, DTS, Auro and more recently Sony ( w/ 360 reality audio), Yamaha, etc to deliver immersive/3d object based audio. Their efforts were not in vain, they are not all a bunch of dummies and the 90 year old stereo is still not the looming overlord for high fidelity. The issue is that the same ethos that a hifi enthusiast applies to a hifi stereo rig never gets applied to a multichannel rig (for music listening) and then it gets dismissed as some lame technology for movies. It sure isn’t. Even with a larger room like mine, I can only optimally place the bare minimum for 3D object based audio, i.e., 5 bed layer and 4 heights. I even drop that to 2 heights many times. Sure, I could stuff 6 crappy in-ceiling speakers for heights and keep adding bedlayer speakers if i wanted to (would be good enough for movies!). But, the sound degrades in a hifi multichannel application when optimal placement is compromised (no matter what compensation is done with dsp) and the sweet count for #of bed layer speakers, etc is exceeded. Further, there is such a thing as specific directivity requirements for height channels in 3D object based sound, not to mention that they need to be very closely matched in frequency, powerhandling, etc with the bed layer. When one applies the same ethos for physical room treatments in a multichannel application (as they would for analog stereo), the heavy handedness of these processors (RSC filters, etc can be nullified). Further, one shouldn’t be accepting results of any auto-cal as is, at all (no matter how great the processor, it is still dumb). The latter is for movie usage by the entry level user. I live about 30 minutes from one of the best acoustic halls in the US Midwest where I experience many an orchestra, wind ensemble, string quartet etc on a fairly regular basis (no lousy PA involved). When I am seated at the nirvana spot (booked well in advance), it sounds nothing like stereo, I repeat, ’nothing like stereo’ and sounds a whole lot like 3d object based audio w.r.t how the soundfield is produced (very much akin to sound objects materializing inside a 3d dome). In fact, at the last wind ensemble i experienced, I was constantly looking behind me for the first 10 minutes to see if there were surrounds and back heights somewhere. This is all a bit hard to articulate, unnecessarily wordy on a thread like this and must be experienced instead.
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thank you for updating your system info. certainly some big steps up from what i had been able to find looking back at your posting. congrats on your well thought out systems. i might recommend doing an Audiogon system page so other readers of your strongly made posts can see where you are coming from. which does not change my basic points, which is that ultimate 2 channel surpasses multi-channel music. and i feel that dsp, however neatly applied, does not compete at the highest levels to a pure analog signal path fully executed room and system for music only. but at less than an all out effort, dsp does enter into high level performance for music. ultimately dsp is a band aid for problems. which are not always existing. just my 2 cents, YMMV. lots of blood has been spilled discussing that question. like religion, no one ever changes their mind. if you are ever in the Seattle area, you are welcome to visit and listen for your self. i hope it happens. Trinnov verses BACCH? i’d need to do more research about it. Trinnov is targeted at Movie Soundtracks with object based Atmos mixes primarily. it’s not ideal for tricking up conventional 2 channel music content. hard to say how that might go. i don’t ask my Trinnov to do that. but BACCH verses my conventional (analog and digital) 2 channel sources and signal path.....it’s not at that level. and i own 12,000 records, 300 reel to reel master dubs, do lots of streaming high rez and own 20tb of 2 channel files. there is so little interesting multi-channel music content it’s hard to base my system building efforts on it. | |
Slightly above ear level seems ideal to me, and usually happens without me trying much. I can’t think of a time where the sound seemed to be coming from lower than my ears, even when the speakers were. I have some binaural recordings which are meant for headphones, but the height effects work incredibly well on regular speakers. Recordings of airplanes flying over seem to be way up above me. Birds up in the trees too. For regular music I’ve got little use for that effect, but it proves to me that height channels are not necessarily required for vertical special effects. | |
@mikelavigne , While I appreciate the research you did on some streamer/dac i had 3 years ago, my digital end has gotten upgraded just a bit since then. I still don't believe in spending an arm and a leg on a streamer/dac, but, whatever, we'll save that for a different discussion. I also don't believe in sitting around with 1 pair of stereo speakers thinking i've got it made either. Hence, i own more than one. Here's my current list of gear and i could put it up against whatever you've got. My multichannel gear runs circles around (in execution) over all my 2 channel gear, which costs way more. I have a pretty good feeling that it will run circles around whatever 2 channel gear you've got as well. It is just a limitation of your 90 year old fossilized stereo/channel based audio, which you may understand after you figure out how to execute multichannel/3D object based audio better. 2 channel, Room 1 Speaker#1: TAD-E1TX Multichannel Atmos, Room 2 Multichannel 5.4.4: If you want a more objective discussion, start here with this discussion from audioholics...It may give you a better idea. | |
when someone calls me out for being on the wrong track, i take them seriously. part of which includes trying to understand where they are coming from and see what i can learn. so i looked at your previous posting history and found this description of some of your systems. you seem to have very strongly expressed viewpoints. yet looking at this, i think that our viewpoints for what is high level performance are not aligned, our expectations for quality performance are not at the same level. yet if you are happy and enjoying your path then more power to you. i wish you the best. i was a fan of SACD multi-channel myself back 20 years ago. i built a dedicated room for 5.1 SACD listening at the highest levels. https://www.audiogon.com/systems/615 what i discovered was that my 2 channel smoked it. the media for 2 channel was so much better that the technical advantages of 5.1 could not surpass it. my 2 channel out ’multi-channeled’ the multi-channel. i still own 1000 SACD multi-channel discs. part of it was vinyl verses digital. the vinyl was much better, even though i had state of the art digital. so i removed the rear channels and surround gear from my 2 channel room and re-tasked those funds to reel to reel tape decks. that was in 2008. i always had a separate home theater room in my home with multi-channel surround supporting movies. over the years it was improved as technology advanced. now it’s fairly high level with the Trinnov, 9.3.6 Revel surround speakers and 3 Funk Audio subwoofers. i only do movies there. certainly music videos which take full advantage of Dolby Atmos can be entertaining, but my 2 channel is far superior for music only. maybe also explain your logic of how the Trinnov is not a high level processor. that does not sound right to me. | |
Iam too dumb, so I got my speakers built by a gentleman who was well regarded for his speaker builds. It was clearly conveyed that my room was small at 11 x 16.5 feet. And that it will be a near field setup with an equilateral triangle of 8.5 ft with the tweeters and ears. And i like the vocals to be at a realistic human height. So from what i understand, the crossover was built to give a coherent balance at the seated ear position. So even though the speakers are big 3 ways, I find them a joy to listen to, with very life like height and massive width. Whereas my other speakers, PMC twenty 26, sound disjointed like 3 different drivers doing their own thing at my same listening position. | |
With my setup the acoustic center at the LP sits just above ear level (~3 1/2 ft.), but the total radiation area reaches somewhat higher (6' 2" - from ground level). To my ears the overall presentation feels more real when being immersed in a large "radiation sphere" that extends well beyond ear level with controlled (relatively narrow) dispersion, while acoustically being treated with sonic "images" right in front of you. | |
I am sorry but i owned a two way speaker box ( 7 inches driver for bass) in his dedicated room and i never had an only between the speakers soundfield...it is recording dependant but with half top recordings album on 100, 50 will fill the room outside of the speakers plane, with front sound sources and back one simultaneously or around the room sound sources ... It is completely recording deopendant with all levels variations possible...no recording engineer use the same acoustic materials nor the same locations nor the same trade-off choices.. Why is it recording dependant ? Because when room acoustic is lacking the soundfields stay between the speakers nevermind the recordings...Especially with relatively low cost speakers even with good one as mine... For example i listened a brass ensemble playing Gabrieli music the soundfield is completely divided in two groups of players answering one another , as the music was written by Gabrieli and as it was recorded with two groups facing one another... The soundfield of each playing groups half the album extending completely out of the speakers by the side coming from each opposite walls... Half of the albums is recorded with the players in depth back of the plane of the speakers coming from the wall facing the listener and in front of the speakers in the room in front of me ... Then with my "traditional speakers" the image was never coming from the tweeters... All that resulted from my heavily designed acoustic room... It is why as Mike lavigne said , i agree completely with him, that the soundfield variation and dimension and orientation come from the recording acoustic choices ... Anything else indicate design/acoustic related problem... My system dont compare one second to the resolution clarity of Mike lavigne, but my speakers/acoustic is so good i hear also results coming ALWAYS from the recording... but not with the clear crystal definition as Mike Lavigne system, i dont need to verify this it is evident so satisfying my low cost system is for my needs ... my system value is very low... nevermind the price tag, room acoustic is the main factor in audio not the gear price tag if the basic components are relatively good or passed a minimum quality treshold... But i will repeat even in soundfield location precision and for timbre experience my system cannot even compared with Lavigne, but the soundfield impressions are for me too ONLY recording dependant...
My experience with planars though is the same as you...
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I like an image height that seems to reflect what I would expect the performance height to be. For a couple examples: On the title track of King Crimson's "Islands", there is a cornet that begins a couple of minutes into the track, that on my system, certainly sounds like it is at around 5' above ground. When I am sitting in my chair, the horn is definitely coming from above my ears. Or, on Ralph Towner's great live album, "Solo Concert", his acoustic guitar seems to be right around the height of a person sitting on a stool. The guitar is coming from directly in front of me. | |
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Also agree with Mike Lavigne on height being system dependent. Especially with tracks / albums with a deeper soundstage alike Muddy Waters Folk Singer, I appreciate that the stage is not tall because it accurately portrays a stage that is deep beyond the speakers. That said I do resonate when a performance is close with the vocalists at standing height. | |
It is also worth mentioning here the depth of the image on the stage, depending on the space behind the speakers and the size of the room. In any case, you can resort to the installation of diffusion plates, either on the front or rear wall, it all depends if you want advanced or delayed, if it is a 2-channel or a multi-channel. | |
...if friend @dekay ,its' "Up.Up.and Ahhhhhhhhhhhhway!" *L* "Old odd freaks just vague away....." Gotta love the symptoms.... ;) 🤪 Yours Unruly 'normally' (..it does occur...) prefers 'life sized', but the mix can vary that... "Minions and giants need not apply...." Unless it's 'Awesome Hour'.... Dial it up, and break the knob off. @ 11...all together now...
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How do you measure "image" height? Your imagination calculator? Height for performing musicians is relative to your distance from the performers, and the height of their sound...well...are musical notes height quantifiable? My system images well enough that I rarely think about it. An aside...One of my criticisms of studio mixers is the mixing of drums. Too often they pan a cymbal (or any drum really) so it seems to be played by somebody thirty feet away or the mix showcases a twenty foot wide drum kit...lame. | |
@mikelavigne , When you said 9.3.6, i already know you fooked up with cramming too many quantity over quality speakers in a li’l room ( i have a 30 by 35 room and i refuse to go any higher than 5.2.4 for atmos music listening that will startle all 6.023*10^23 molecules that make up your soul, lol)....When you said Trinnov, i already have a feeling that you heavy handed everything with the room correction algorithms and all kinds of crap that made it sound clinical and digital ( you are indeed paying for that lifetime customer support from a dimdim who knows diddly about what’s going on inside that processor, however).... | |
@deep_333 i have a separate 9.3.6 Trinnov/Dolby Atmos home theater system in a room inside my house. my 2 channel room in my barn ’out multi-channels’ my home theater system with better media. it’s more real at energizing ever molecule in my room at it’s best. | |
I dismiss all stereo speakers that don't sound like I have front heights, surrounds and back heights active. Many of you stereo purists crumble to dust and get washed down the gutter when the bar is set high (in spite of what you spent). 😉 (Yeah...yeah...your let down sht sounds brilliant!! Don't i know all about it....) | |
I am not sure what to answer to that because as mikelavigne said it is completely recording dependant... My soundfield vary completely from one album to an another NOT ONE SOUND THE SAME... ... A jazz trio does not occupy the room as a recorded organ in a church do and even each recorded organ are completely different nor a Chorus with an orchestra well recorded as The Christus of Liszt by Antal Dorati...here all the soundfield is distributed filling the room all around me...Same with Kurt Weill opera with lotte Lenya... The recording is STUNNING...
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