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Sound quality vs. volume

Looking for a bit of expertise here:

I recently made a few changes to my setup and while overall pleased with the results, I’m on the quest for better.  I’m hoping you all can help me diagnose an issue I’m hearing.

When listening to music at lower volume levels - say less than 1/2 total volume, the clarity, imaging and dynamics come across far more coherent and “in focus”.  To use an often over-coined phrase “It’s like I’m there in the room”.  As I start to push the volume up a bit, closer to live-performance levels, the sound becomes increasingly “mushy”.  I know, a highly technical term, but the best way to describe what I am hearing.  The bottom-end loosens up - getting a bit boomy, the crispness of the mid-range and highs fade and the imaging falls out of focus.  These are all incremental with volume until I get to the point where it’s just unbearable.   

I’m no expert by any means but feel it might be room acoustics.  I already know I have a less than ideal setup with a nearly square room (21x20ft) with 60% of the surface covered with clear birch wood paneling. Some things we can’t change (easily).  I do not have any acoustic treatment, just lots of soft furniture.  What I find interesting is that my old setup (Magnepan 1.6) didn’t suffer to such a degree.  Maybe with the new setup there is more to loose?  A mystery.  

For a bit more context:  
Speakers:  Dynaudio Contour 60
Streamer: SoTM sms-200 Ultra
Amplifier: Peachtree Nova500

Within the 20x21ft. room, my speakers are 4ft. from the wall, I am seated 13ft. from the front wall (a bit back from room center). Speakers are 9ft. apart.

Any thoughts?  


wanderingmoo

Showing 3 responses by gosta

gosta's avatar
gosta
839 posts
 
If you want to listen loud in a smaller room without specific treatments you need to control the bass. I'm quite certain your Dynaudios overload the room at higher levels. And makes a very boring listening. Change speakers or start using DSP like DSpeaker Anti-Mode 2.0 or similar. You will still have a lot of reflections. Also listen to good recordings. Most recordings can't be played really loud because of distortion, overemphasized mids, voices or anything. The latest Steve Miller remastered ultmate hits is a recommendation.

Got the same problem yesterday with a used pair Harbeth P3ESR SE I took delivery of. For desk top use. No loud levels here though. But still very muddy in the bass and no treble at all. After som DSP, Arc 2 in this case, taken down the bass and flatten the freq curve to 4000 Hz, they started to sing rather nice with fine dynamics (crossed att 100 Hz to a couple of JBL 310 subs). 
gosta's avatar
gosta
839 posts
 
+1 vinylfan
No, dsp does not make for a boring sound. Quite the opposite. It clears the low-mid and gives you back the imaging, the transients and the liveliness. Toghether with a deep and tighter bass. Maybe if you use dsp also for higher frequencies, up to 5 -10 khz, it may make a lot of speakers sound very close! Naturally there are better and worse dsp. Nothing is perfect. If you go for Lyngdorf they have very usable fixed eq curves from 200 Hz and down that I use depending on what the recording needs. No recording is perfect.
gosta's avatar
gosta
839 posts
 
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