So you want to upgrade? You want to know what the next big thing is you can do for a better sounding experience?
Try this. Pull up a chair 2' in front of your speakers. If you can't move the speakers, put it up to just 1, and listen for yourself.
The difference between what you hear sitting in front of the speaker like this, and what you hear at your normal location is all in the speaker dispersion and room acoustics. If you feel mesmerized, entranced, and wowed by your speaker at 2' but not 8' you really should consider improving the room, and if you can't, consider getting speakers with alternative room coupling, like ESL's, line arrays, bi-polars, etc.
In my experience and experiments, active acoustical controls are very impactful....Most people think about passive materials, absorbing or reflecting sound waves....
But active way are very powerful for modifying the acoustic dimension: Helmholtz bottles, Schumann generators, resonators of different size and materials from bucket to tiny resonators.... I use them and vouch for that....
This method does not demonstrate a need for you to improve the room. You pass.
FWIW, I've used the Classic Audio T-3s in a variety of rooms and I can safely say that in all of them- and without treatment of any kind- the speaker has *always* sounded better at the listening chair than from 2 feet or the like.
The YT link I posted hints at a possible reason why- the speaker's total room energy is such that it will do well regardless of the room. I'm just pointing out that this aspect really needs attention- if as Dr. Toole is saying is true, then a lot of speakers need work in this area, as in many systems I've heard the speaker does sound better close up than further away where the total room energy is more of an influence. Dr. Toole points out that the on axis response might be great, but the room energy being off will cause the system to be less than it could (IOW, cause it to suck).
Here’s an interesting perspective from acoustician Matt Poes, who does room design and installs acoustic treatments for home audio and professional studios and venues:
"A speaker that has controlled dispersion does basically the same thing you’d expect an acoustic panel to do, but it does a better job.”
Interesting coming from an expert in the field whose commercial interest is in acoustic panel sales, but not in speaker sales. [Disclaimer: I have a commercial interest in speaker sales.]
The fact that you can diminish the influence of the room by close listening does not mean your room is bad. It means your room is influencing your sound. And the further away you sit the more the room comes into play. And as you can't have a room without acoustics (an echoic chambers don't count) it is worth paying attention to the acoustics of the room. Creativity and DIY can be your wallets friend here by the way.
@handymann ....+1, but here a Behringer 8024....since the late '90s'. *G* Steep learning curve, but the $ then (and certainly now) made the improbable possible. *S*
Always helped make 'miserable' into tolerable...;)
"Bad Room! BAD room! Go to your.....corners...😒....oh, forget it..."
Gang, of course my post was a thought experiment. It was meant to invoke some cheap (as in free) experimentation we could all try, and some of us could learn from.
Of course there's no one answer. EQ, room tuning and speaker dispersion all matter and affect what we hear. :)
Hope those of you who have tried this found out something new.
I have umteen acoustical panels and bass traps, but until I bought a DBX Rackdrive 360, I could never get the bass balanced the way it should be. Sounds great now. BTW I have two JL Fathom 113’s Having said that, I have said many times-you need to think of your room as a separate component.
Listening to music in an anechoic chamber, it is completely dead and lifeless and sounds nothing like what you hear in a music hall, theater, lounge or chapel.
@erik_squires Roy Allison and others would have argued: What is it with these lame ass speaker designers who don't design their speakers to be up against a wall where they belong??
WOW! I hope my wife doesn't read that. It took almost two years for her to except that 4' out is where they belong....Jim :-(
@three_easy_payments While I'm a huge proponent of applying smart room treatments I don't believe the room should fail to influence the sound at all. That's what's implied by suggesting the best sound you can get from your room is benchmarked at extreme nearfield listening. Yes, get bass adsorption, yes get good diffusion, and eliminate wretched slap echo --- but it's OK to hear some influence by the room! We don't want to be listening in an anechoic chamber. It's pleasing for a little liveliness to enter the sonic picture...and yes, you can certainly overtreat a room.
Thanks, I couldn't have said it any better myself, so I just copied and pasted.
I went through it my self. I treated my room, went too far and had to back off a bit, until things finally sounded right, at least something close to a live performance - minus the ear shattering volume. Now, to me, it sounds good, whether, standing, setting or on or off axis. A little closer to or a little further back - still sounds very good.
Listening to music in an anechoic chamber, it is completely dead and lifeless and sounds nothing like what you hear in a music hall, theater, lounge or chapel.
I understand where Erik is coming from - at least it's a place to start. Each room and system is different and sometimes takes a bit of work to get things right.
@kingsleuy Hell will be paid if I move the speakers out into the room.
What is there about women and speakers being too far out into the room? I think there must be universal something in their heads that just snaps and makes them a little crazy, at even the thought...LOL...Jim
@wsrrsw , perhaps Acoustic Art Panels may be spouse acceptable. Just make sure it's art that you can live with - mother-in-law pics may drive you out of the room.
In my world my girlfriend is the ultimate Essential Gear.
Yes the room is horrible. Absolutely, system can be improved. But I and girlfriend enjoy it still. As liberal as she is there are many things stereo wise I will not get away with. Moving furniture around is one of them. Hell will be paid if I move the speakers out into the room. Temporarily, okay. Been there. Done and tried that. Permanent? Even with admitted "sounds better", NO.
Room treatment... oh what a can of worms this forum has opened upon me. I spend hours researching this topic now, so many varied opinions.
I’ve spent hours already at a friends cabinet making factory, cutting up logs of cherry wood and gluing them together and planing them down to 5 foot long sheets of 1/2" x 8 sides, 4 tops and 4 bottoms, and 60 x 1/4" sheets.. and another 60 x 1/2" to cap the wells. All of which I haven’t even assembled yet. To make just 4 of these QRD17 diffusers, and I’ve never in my life even heard what a QRD diffuser does!
This is a crazy experiment...
Has anyone here used Stillpoints - Aperture II Acoustic Panel ?? Before I go experimenting some more... aaagh
And by the way, this has been a fun and witty thread, without getting aggressive.
I think my room above the garage sounds pretty good, but I'm not thrilled that my listening couch is up against the knee wall with a sloped ceiling above my head. But I can set up my Maggies 4 feet from the wall, 8 feet apart and 11 feet from my listeni couch. All things considered it still sound pretty good
" This method does not demonstrate a need for you to improve the room. "
Looking at Ralph’s observation that his speakers sound better at the listening chair through an alternative lens:
Ralph’s Classic Audio T-3 horn loudspeakers generate a spectrally correct reverberant field, which makes a beneficial contribution at the listening chair.
I’m not saying this is the ONLY beneficial thing going on at a normal listening distance in this case, but imo it is one of them.
I don't. My speakers sound a lot better at the listening chair.
Which is in agreement with:
The difference between what you hear sitting in front of the speaker
like this, and what you hear at your normal location is all in the
speaker dispersion and room acoustics.
And based on the conditional recommendation:
If you feel mesmerized, entranced, and wowed by your speaker at 2' but not 8' you really should consider improving the room
This method does not demonstrate a need for you to improve the room. You pass.
Up close, do you hear a better speaker (to you) than you do sitting down.
I don't. My speakers sound a lot better at the listening chair. This is on account of the fact that they are rather large, and the midrange is a horn. You need to be a bit back for everything to blend.
I’m not sure your point, Doug. My post inherently allows for personal preference. Up close, do you hear a better speaker (to you) than you do sitting down.
As I think you are getting to, ESL’s are going to pass more easily here. :)
The advice of the OP is good, as long as you don't take into consideration the preferences of other audiophiles. :(
mijostyn, you are incorrect in your statement that Sound Lab is the only line source dipole. I reviewed for Dagogo.com two models of the Kingsound King line (the original and King III). Both are what I termed, LSESL, or "Line Source ESL," with an array of ESL panels. Quad also uses a concentric series of ESL drivers, I believe.
Technically, the Sound Lab is not an array, per se, but Roger at Sound Lab took pains to explain that the driver is a single sheet with a dampening system. When I reviewed the Sound Lab Ultimate 545 (at the time called the U4iA) for Dagogo.com, this was reinforced by Sound Lab several times such that I would get it correct for the article.
Has the technology of Sound Lab changed since then? Are some other models different? I do not know. I am not interested in arguing the point, however.
The use of an array for ESL does seem to be rare, but, imo is tremendously satisfying form of panel sound. :)
humans are designed, from the ground up, to have the space intrude on and integrate with the sound source.
It’s the native environment of the human hearing system, in situ.
The question... is...: to what level, should that environment intrude and integrate. To what level is the intrusion found or felt to be best - for an audio set up, for the individual/group involved?
I rekindled my hobby. I first of all got it all hooked up. A buzz in the preamp. Got rid of it. Bought a new amp. Plugged my new streamer right into it. Walla! It worked. Then bought new speakers. Oh what a chore to set up. Large Crites speakers like Cornwalls. I have always had subs. Run in stereo from an amp. New wires and cords. I was lucky every step made an improvement in sound. My room is about a foot from being the Golden Rule room. Then I ordered 6 first reflection panels , two bass traps and 3 diffusion panels. And this was one of my biggest improvements. I am in a good place now!
My original point was to help audiophiles figure out if the direct
speaker signal was making it well enough to their seat, without tools.
Your question is, literally and figuratively, orthogonal to my own. ;-)
Actually its spot on. Speakers radiate in three ways- on axis, off axis (whose response should be smooth) and total room energy. The latter is probably the least understood, and is where many speakers fall flat on their front baffles.
For more on this, here is Dr. Floyd Toole, using Science to show how this works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrpUDuUtxPM The relevant information relating to this topic starts at 23 minutes. Pay attention to the comments about Sound Power. If in a hurry, skip to 31 minutes and you can see that the total energy in the room is the dominant factor but is actually to a large degree a function of the speaker rather than the room!
They are not better alone, nor are they as good as room treatment. They are very complementary. For instance, it's much easier to treat room modes and nulls with than without room treatment. Given no alternatives, you should use EQ. Given the choice of 1, room treatment. Given the ability to do both, do it!
Erik is right. You can dramatically reduce room effects by getting a line source bipolar ESL. Then you only need some acoustic tile behind the speaker nothing else. What you will notice is that the speaker sounds exactly the same at 12 feet as it does at 6 inches. Very spooky. The only manufacturer of this type of speaker now is Sound Labs.
Mine sound just fine from where I sit....zero room treatment, just your average furnished room with both soft and reflective surfaces...I like my room and will not add UFO's to it....😁
I agree that we are listening to our speakers and the response of the room in a locked relationship of excitation/response. In an attempt to help a null around 85 Hz I got a bunch of GIK 244 series bass traps. Qty 4 24" x 24" squares (2 of those with flexrange), Qty 4 12x48, and Qty 2 freestanding panels. They work. Too much will suck the life out of the sound, and a little goes a long way. They are very effective. I'm still experimenting with the GIK and Vicoustic placement (done by ear mostly as the attempts to carefully quantify with REW /capable mic only took me so far); It's definitely worth the time and energy and is a learning experience I highly recommend if you are looking to squeeze as much performance from your gear as possible. I am amazed by how much potential exists in our gear that just needs to be unlocked! Acoustic treatments and power (cords and conditioners) are two huge pillars i've learned a lot about the past many months. Room tuning is both fun and exhausting, but very much worth the effort.
So can unplugged subwoofers screw up the sound. Thanks to a fellow-phile on AA, who responded to my thread there where I stated that I was no longer using my 2 SVS subs (the tall ones), which are in the system picture that I provided.
He said unpowered subs, being used or not, will negatively affect the SQ. Late yesterday I removed them and was shocked. Where the SQ was on the thick side, post subs it dances like a butterfly
There are other alternatives to treating your room with panels traps and wotnots.
Lyngdorf room perfect DSP is very good at dealing with the room acoustics allowing much more practical and WAF speaker placement in you don’t have the luxury of a dedicated listening room like me.
" Lets say there is a speaker with good forward and poor off-axis response. How do you suggest an audiophile discover this with no tools but their ears?"
Excellent question!
First, make your best estimate of what frequency region has a problem.
Second, look at the drivers and crossover points to see if there seems to be a correspondence with the problematic frequency region(s). Typically a direct-radiating speaker has extra-wide response at the bottom end of a driver’s frequency range (like at the bottom end of the tweeter’s range), and relatively narrow response at the top end of a driver’s range (like at the top end of the midwoofer’s range, and again at the top end of a dome tweeter’s range). Given that frequency response peaks are more likely to be audible (and objectionable) than frequency response dips, audible off-axis anomalies are most likely to be associated with the bottom end of a driver’s range.
Third, do YOUR suggested test to see if the "predicted" off-axis anomaly disappears in the nearfield.
This isn’t ironclad proof of course, but imo it can add up to an "educated guess".
Finally, here is a way to test the room independent of the speakers: With no music playing, walk from room to room in your house, speaking out loud and listening to the timbre of your voice. It is best to do this when nobody else is around; people tend to get the wrong idea. The other rooms are to give you some baselines; pay particular attention to the timbral quality of your voice in your listening room. IF you hear a timbral skewing which corresponds to the anomaly you hear when your speakers are playing, then the room is at least PART of the problem and may well be the ENTIRE problem. But if your voice sounds good and natural in your listening room, that points to the speakers (or sometimes something else in the signal chain) as the primary culprit.
I'm going to throw this discussion back at you, @audiokinesis ...
My original point was to help audiophiles figure out if the direct speaker signal was making it well enough to their seat, without tools. Your question is, literally and figuratively, orthogonal to my own. ;-)
Lets say there is a speaker with good forward and poor off-axis response. How do you suggest an audiophile discover this with no tools but their ears?
I love my GIK panels! Bass absorption behind each speaker, diffusion at first reflection and three 2’ square diffusion panels on the back wall behind the listening position. All are 4” thick.
My room is above a three car garage with knee walls and sloped ceilings. It basically sucks, but its all i have. Life is full of priorities and compromises
@erik_squires : "Oh, no, not me. :) That’s why I stated in the OP that the difference is in fact the combination of the room and speaker dispersion."
Thanks for replying; we’re on the same page there.
What I’m getting at is, in my opinion, sometimes the speakers’ off-axis response is either the main culprit or a significant contributor.
As a thought experiment, would an unamplified instrument such as piano or acoustic guitar suck in the same room? Would they significantly benefit from nearfield listening? If not, then perhaps the room is not the primary culprit; perhaps the speakers and/or setup are more at fault.
I'm not AGAINST improving the room's acoustics!! But I think the room gets blamed for problems which originate in the speaker's off-axis response, and which are therefore difficult to correct via acoustic treatment alone.
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