As Magnepans essentially don’t radiate to the sides, I’ve found them to be much more forgiving of rooms with glass on the sidewalls.
I can open my blinds all the way and the sound is still good, just a bit “lighter” in tonality.
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@8th-note I really like your approach! As noted by others, reflections come from the walls and also the ceiling and floor. If you want to minimise the accoustic mess created by different length reflection paths, use speakers with a minimal number of crossovers and separated drivers. Think point-source, or an approximation of it. That way the reflections are at least coherent, making it much easier for your ear/brain to hear through to the music. |
Having a picture of your space may help us determine solutions. The ceiling panel, also known as a cloud, is probably your best bet without covering your windows with absorption. Handling that ceiling bounce will at least mitigate that reflection angle and may make the space much better. I also agree with speaker placement and toe in are critical and by moving your speakers away from the windows, you can reduce the amount of acoustic energy hitting the walls. DSP and cables are the absolute last thing I would do. Building panels is not hard, or you can reach out to a company like gik acoustics and order paneling from them. |
Elimination of reflections of hard side windows has been discussed. Don't mess with the content or origin, simply eliminate the problem temporarily when listening, that's the flexibility of Acoustic Fabric Vertical Blinds. Keep all that daylight, a few live plants, a living space, not a dungeon. Toe-In combined with Tilt, directing the tweeter's output in and up to your seated ear height, will give preference to direct, essentially equal volume of primary drivers, minimizing reflections from floor, ceiling, and side walls. Ability to adjust frequency balance at listening position to your preference is important. CD with test tones to document pre and post adjustments, Amazing Bytes, CD with 29 1/3 octave test tracks and SPL mic on tripod SPL Meter, with bottom hole for tripod mount are needed, then use your ears, a helpful friend is always good. Open Space behind you increases the time delay of eventual reflections. Diverse mix of angles reduces similarity of reflections to initial direct sounds. Adjustable Toe-In for Imaging, for Single Centered or Two Off-Center Listeners Toe-In Alternates, Stereo and Video
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I feel your pain! My listening room has 2 4x10 floor to ceiling windows, hardwood floors, and a stone wall at one end. It was bright. 1st reflection is the stone wall on one side, then an open doorway on the other side. 1. rugs, blankets over furniture. 2. window treatments, fabric blinds works well, but you get no light (also affects plants) added blackout curtains (they are super heavy, made to absorb sound) also added shear coverings over the entire window. 3. Fabric wall hangings. Have a few canvas pictures up, packed the backs with rock wool. There are 2 just behind each speaker. Along the long walls to my listening position. 4. big plants. Have huge fern, a palm, other plants, they really do make a difference, and warm up the room. 5. Weirdly, my record collection along the wall, helped calm the room down. 6. Added L-Pads to my tweeters. Not sure this is really a thing, as they are replacement tweeters that are +6db louder, kind of needed to be done. I'm very interested in the ZW-damping disk. What are they made from? Are they just Sorbothane disk? Windows absorb resonate and reflect so much sound! |
@panzrwagn has it right.
The acoustics treatment route is the only way out. If it were my space, heavy theater curtain type drapes (so you can completely close all the glass off) would be step one. That will cost a more than the speakers probably. Then progressively more treatment on the floor (rugs) ceiling (cloud/panels), until the reflections are tamed down enough to get a decent balance. After all that, if it still isn't great then correction software like Trinnov (that works on good rooms and speakers to amp them better) would be worth trying out. "Room correction" is a complete misnomer as you cannot correct physical acoustical problems without changing the physical properties of the space. Electronics cannot fix room issues, it can make them less apparent in one or two locations but it will never "correct"/ "fix" them. We work with Trinnov on the pro side and there this type of software is called room optimization-which works on the way the speaker sound and the room sound combine with each other and create a third sound, the sound you hear. Brad |
I had a similar issue. My listening room is 16' wide by 33' long. It is an "A" frame with 12:12 pitch and no truss cross members. each end of the "A" frame is all glass. The floors are Oak Hardwood and the ceiling is Cedar planks. We have a large masonry fire place in the middle centered in the 16' width of the room about 2/3 back from the front wall where the speakers sit. Yes, a very reflective room, but a very good listening room. we treated the front windows with horizontal accordion blinds, the floor has a large wool rug and we have some large fabric paintings on walls. I also included a Schiit Loki Max, started with everything neutral and dialed down just a bit of the top end. Room sounds fantastic. I'm currently designing a kitchen addition and new listening room but it will be similar to the current one, simply adding the room to the end of the "A" frame but a bit wider with more non- glass corners for behind the speakers. Try the blinds, they fold away nicely so you can enjoy your views when you want to. |
Here is a small trick that can help you in this journey. Stand or sit in the listening position and clap your hands loudly once. Listen for the effect. If you get a jittery echo as the sound fades away that is a problem. It is called "slap echo." Now walk around your room and do the hand clap and listen. Get a sense for how the decay is different at different locations. Your master bath is a good place to hear the extreme situation of a very live space with poor acoustics. Now do that in several other rooms in your house. Listen for the quality of the decay. Does the decay happen quickly or do you hear a slap echo during a longer decay. Take some time and get a sense of the acoustics of your rooms and their properties. For your listening room the quality of the decay is the critical factor you will be managing. You want a clean decay without slap echo that is fairly short. Try hanging some double or triple folded blankets on your windows and the walls in various places. As you add material do the slap test to hear the effect on your room's acoustics. Now you are ready to listen to music. Find out what your system sounds like in a deader (is that a word?) space. I strongly urge you to work on room acoustics before you try EQ, cables, or room correction. You cannot cure poor room acoustics with any of these things. Once you get a good idea of how much sound absorption you need you can work with your significant other to figure out the decorating/absorption compromise. There are a bunch of companies that make this stuff including acoustic curtains and there are many solutions available that can look nice. If this is your main living area you will also gain the benefit from better acoustics in everyday activities such as watching TV and especially, converation with several people in the room. It is easier to understand what people are saying if the echo is controlled. Hope this helps. |
You should consider BACCH4MAC.... their room correction software (ORC) is amazing.... I have an office with windows along both sides and it fixed everything as well as made the speakers completely disappear... most incredible technology I have ever heard Theoretica Applied Physics BACCH4Mac Stereo Purifier Review - The Absolute Sound
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@OP - curtains on your windows and acoustic treatment correctly applied to the available surfaces. The point of first reflection is where the off axis sound from the loudspeaker meets the wall and reflects off it. That is where you apply treatment to the sidewalls. The aim of acoustic treatment is to stop reflected sound reaching the listener's ears out of phase and confusing imaging etc. It can make the sound appear bright due to the excess of reflected energy. |
"I keep hearing about this"first point of reflection." What exactly is that?" Did you do any online research at all? There is a ton of information on this subject at your fingertips, yet you seem completely ignorant of even the basics. I suggest that you Google "first reflection point" and get some basic information on room acoustics, so people can have a proper conversation with you about how to solve your problem. |
Digital Room Calibration Services, Convolver, Headphone Filtersets This is done remotely. Your system will sound much better afterwards. This does not require physical acoustic room treatment, though you could use them if it already exists. The guy who does this has a great rep.
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The issue is not the output of the speaker into your room, it is the output of the room into your ears. This is the fundamental misunderstanding about equalization and all the other proposed fixes that don't fundamentally change your room acoustics do not understand. Turning down the treble, via whatever means will only dull the direct sound making things worse. You still have a very relective room. As some have mentioned, heavy sound absorbing curtains or vertical blinds will help. Lightweight shades will not because they can't absorb acoustical energy. Acoustical diffusers will even out the room but do not absorb HF energy. Acoustical panels, 2X2 or 2X4 ft on the ceiling will also help, as can a heavy rug with pad. |
Check it out, https://www.gikacoustics.com/treating-first-reflections/ Reflection points represent the primary locations in a room where sound waves first reflect off surfaces before reaching the listener's ears. |
+1 for the room treatment(s) highlighted above …easy first intuitive option. Another possible wild card - a novel adjustment When I changed speakers AND changed my listening room to a new room with a very large prominent wall of huge windows, it created a hard new annoying brittleness, an irritating harsh edginess, and new adverse reflections warts introduction, The room treatments were a good first step but still incomplete in its desired effects. Add to it, that pesky WAF and the issue was still an annoying hurdle. The next step was considering new speaker cables for my brand new HARBETH speakers in this new listening arena. My prior all NORDOST FREY ( Ag over Cu) loom worked fine in my prior speakers and mancave, BUT were now an overly too bright , too edgy, too harsh … and anything but pleasing , I sold the NORDOST loom sequentially, and commenced with CARDAS CLEAR power cables and stablemate CARDAS CLEAR IC’s, A distinct uogrsde immediately but the NORDOST speaker cables in process to be sold off too , still were a brittle and edgy and excess brightness performer thst needed to be tamed . before I took the leap directly to matched CARDAs CLEAR model speaker cables, I had a cyberchat with guru (and hubby to Angela Cardas…) Josh Meredith at CARDAS CABLES , for his opinion on brightness taming options. His response surprised me ,,,, read on. Josh informed me that his family home similarly faced brightness excess challenges, from a large bank of large windows that now invoked that listening room excess brightness. Intuitively, he could have the very best CARDAS CLEAR or their too CARDAS CLEAR BEYOND speaker cables . He tried both first but with unresolved brightness concerns still remaining…..his glass windows brightness taming exerciseswas incomplete even with their top all-Cu models. Something with a bit more warmer tone was considered as a further tool/tweak , On the advice of his engineers, Josh inserted their CARDAS CLEAR RELECTION model speaker cables. These third option are one model down from the CARDAS CLEAR and two models down from the very top model CARDAS CLEAR BEYOND models ..,.and with a we’ll known “ warmer” tone in these REFLECTION models.
of course, Josh highlighted to me that if my room permits CLEAR or better CLEAR BEYOND added performance, then intuitively go for it. This glass wall hurdle required a bespoke adjustment experiment worth trying. MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES On Josh’s suggestion, I also followed suit with CARDAS CLEAR REFLECTION speaker cables for my similar glass windows “edge” taming dilemma… Problem solved for me too … Who knew? ( I guess that CARDAS CABLES engineers did .,.)
TAKEAWAY IMO (1) Room treatments first (2) Next .,,, consider an all-Cu high-end cables loom ( stay away from Ag or Ag over Cu materials) with a “warm” presentation to address that not insignificant final step to tame an irritating brightness / edge intrusion from reflection warts in prominent glass windows FWIW |
Another approach is to put something directly in front of the tweeter. I have experimented with different thicknesses of fabric to absorb some of the energy. Easier than treating the entire room. I should add that I was not thrilled with the result although I should have tried some thinner material. I found I lost some high-frequency detail, and it adversely affected the soundstage and seperation. |
Vertical Blinds, Thick Acoustic Fabric, angled one way facing the speakers both absorb sound and block sound reaching glass/hard/reflective surface behind, and still maintain some daylight and view from other vantage points. Heavy duty tracks, pro install for the weight, several separate sections to be individually angled/open Consider the whole wall, above and below the windows if not full height. What is opposite wall? Even though no windows, you could have similar to control side reflections, pull open to reveal artwork, storage, equipment on wall when not in use, |
If you can't do anything else there's a variety of window film and installers. Personally I dislike traditional blinds as I find they often don't cut enough light, or leave obnoxious holes of light through. If you need to cut solar heat transfer you'll want metalized films, but if all you want is darker you can definitely do that with a variety of film with different grades of darkness. Of course, there are more advanced slide up/slide down blinds as well. |
Try blinds from Hunter Douglas, totally worth it if you value an elegant and long term solution. My room has 3 windows (fortunately) and I went with Duette Cellular shades. https://www.hunterdouglas.com/window-treatments/sound-absorption |
You could do something as simple as hang some blankets in front of the windows when you listen — that’d probably help a lot and would be very cheap if not very elegant. Curtains would obviously be a better but much pricier solution. Another way to go would be to use some form of digital equalization/room correction that would likely very effectively address the issue. Best of luck. |
