Is the "improvement" real or imnagined?
This thread may be of interest to no one, but I was inspired by @inna post to start a thread. I had a recent experience that may touch on broader unresolved (unresolvable?) questions. I'm mostly happy with my system and my room has been professionally treated. I don't have an ideal listening chair-the back comes up to ear level, maybe a little above. Concessions have to be made to old and crumbling neck vertebra that need support.
I know that high back seating can in theory affect the sound through reflections. So, I got the bright idea to try to mitigate that-I'm sure its not original.
I bought a weighted blanket-quite thick and covered the chair. I put an Afghan blanket over that, the last one my mom crocheted, so its magical already. I perceive improved detail and better imaging -certainly not huge, but a subtle improvement that I hear, or at least think I hear.
So, maybe there is some science behind this, makes sense the blanket would reduce reflections. On the other hand, maybe its simply expectation bias, placebo effect, whatever, at work because there is science behind that as well, and its hard to imagine this is a big thing.
So, how do I know if its real or imagined? Its not a big deal, no real investment and only a very subtle perceived change, but it does relate to other issues that are often debated, sometimes heatedly, on this forum. How do you account for, or eliminate expectation bias, other than a proper double blind test which I'm guessing most of us are not going to do when auditioning equipment?
I found this interesting, maybe no one else does. Thoughts?
Wow! Something else to play around with, thanks for that, @ghdprentice . But in this case, it sounds as if a high backed chair with absorptive properties added to the back could actually be an improvement? So with a chair with a SOFT high back to it, wouldn't that actually act, at least to some extent, as an absorption panel?
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I have read posts from members who have stated that they had a large TV between their speakers (I assume this would be a HT combined with a music system) and that by covering the large TV with a heavy blanket (obviously while listening to music as this would kill the HT experience) they were able to improve sound stage and imaging and what not. Given that, I can easily believe that a blanket covering the high back of a chair would make a sonic difference. |
As big a deal as room treatments are on this site (and I am not implying that I don't think they make a difference) I don't know why anyone would not think that the reflections or lack of reflections from a high back chair would make.
Personally, while sitting in my high back listening hair, I do notice a change when I either push my head forward (as opposed to it laying against the back) or sit straight up. But doing either of those is uncomfortable, so I basically always recline in my high back chair when listening. The tubes are warming up as I type and I am heading back there in about 15 minutes and I am going to swap out my high back chair with a low back steel folding chair that I keep in the garage. This will not be a comfortable three or four hours, but if I feel it is a sonic improvement, I will look into a more comfortable low backed chair. I did see that IKEA sells something called a Poanga chair and the have a low back model for $99. |
@hilde45 , i have noticed that also, and after reading this thread I thought maybe it was because of the increased distance between ears and the high back of the chair? |
. . . A/Bing chairs is easier than other A/Bs I have attempted to do. Anyway, I didn’t use my steel folding chair from the garage because it sits to high. I have another folding chair (plastic back and bottom) that I cut the legs shorter to get my ears at tweeter level. It was quite uncomfortable. I’ve always admitted to not having great hearing, probably due to 28 years of my adult life working on airplanes with less than adequate hearing protection in my second to last career, and I have often thought that maybe I have been wasting my money and time pursuing something that I may never be able to hear anyway. But there is a difference in my small flawed listening room between the sonic presentation in a small folding chair which is totally obscured by my body and a soft upholstered high backed chair that my body does not obscure when I am seated in it. I don’t have a great vocabulary for describing what I hear or don’t hear, but the best way I can describe it for now is that in the small low backed folding chair there seems to be more air, or if not that, maybe the air sounds cleaner. If that makes sense. However (and this part I am not sure about yet, so I guess I will have to go back to the soft upholstered chair for further listening) on some CDs vocals may sound a bit unfavorably brighter in the small chair. I have no doubt that my room needs more absorption, and I am kind of wondering if the soft upholstered high backed chair was providing a bit of that. I listened to a variety of music this afternoon, and the MFSL Supertramp/Crime Of The Century (that I started with to warm things up with) sounded almost palatable for a few songs, but I was fatigued by it before it was through. Richard And Linda Thomson/Shoot Out The Lights leaped out with vibrancy plus texture. But I’d need to go back and listen to the entire CD while seated in the high backed upholstered chair, because as I remember, I was quite impressed and surprised by the SQ of that old CD the last time I heard it in my regular chair. I just bought another CD on ebay: Happy Coat by Shota Osabe Piano Trio, and I liked it the first time I heard it yesterday, and this afternoon I think maybe I liked it more . . . but I am not sure. I followed that with Emmylou Harris/Live At The Ryman, which I usually really like, but today, after Happy Coat, Emmylou’s voice sounded a tad bright. It had not struck me that way before. One thing I am sure about is that sitting in that folding chair for hours at a time is, at best, an uncomfortable experience. For $99 I think I am going to buy the low backed Poanga Chair from IKEA to continue this experiment with. Worst case scenario is that I will have another chair to put somewhere in the house.
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Agreed, @kerrybh . But playing with chairs is relatively affordable and easy to do. Unlike other things audio that I can think of . . . not easy to make a definitive A/B decision and not relatively affordable. What I will say right now for sure is it did make a difference. What I am unsure about right now is whether the difference is altogether good with all source material. I've been doing some googles this evening, and as @ghdprentice stated, it seems to be a well known fact (that I did not know) that a chair with a back above shoulder height does not yield favorable effects. The soft upholstered chair I was using was comfortable, and I think that in my untreated room (except for the rugs that I have put down) and with a couple of my components (specifically my speakers and my preamp) some of my digital source material may benefit from interacting with that upholstery which I am assuming is acting to absorb as opposed to reflecting. But this is something I can play around with and not break the bank. It is also making me think that I need to quit putting off doing some treating of the front wall. |
