I think it's funny you keep stalking me.
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What I have in mind for my next CES is making an unexpected entrance just as a demo of my new fabulous and preposterous device is about to begin. I am wearing a suit of multicolored strobe LED light bulbs. At that moment I give the direction to douse the lights and I turn on the multicolored strobes, set to pulse at the Schumann frequency in a sequence of azure, cyan and violet. As the room erupts in color the sudden and instantaneous improvement to the sound produces gasps and general uproar and even shock in the audience. The incredible lift in sound quality is instantly verified by the many nodding heads and smiles of inward satisfaction and, frankly, bliss.
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Having built more Helmholtz resonators than the average bear 🐻 I think I can say they can be made to be relatively broadband. Otherwise they wouldn’t do much, no? But the very low frequencies are a tough nut to crack 🐿. No doubt about it. If your system goes down to 20 Hz that would be one helluva system. Sounds like you’re a good candidate for the DIY Room Lenses. They are broadband resonators. I’m a fan of Tube Traps too. Various resonators are in my product line up, too. They are also broadband. That’s what they skeptics used to say about the tiny little bowl resonators -"They’re TOO SMALL to have any effect on bass frequencies!" 😄 Even crystals can affect low frequencies; it’s all energy and they’re not biased. Just to add: you really should map out your room in all three dimensions using a test tone or two and a SPL meter to get an idea of the acoustic anomalies you're actually facing.
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What I’m talking about is not a particle. It’s a field. I like to call it Lucifer’s field. Unlike magnetic or electric fields it does not (rpt not) attenuate over distance. Mess you up.
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I once built a fifteen foot long Helmholtz resonator to take care of an obnoxious 70 Hz standing wave located along the rear wall. The Helmholtz resonator was a folded S shaped 8" white PVC pipe with elbows and straight sections and end caps and put together with PVC cement and the purple stuff. A brass nozzle of the appropriate dimensions was screwed into one of the end caps.
Interesting factoid: At the big shows there are often a lot of empty bottles, coke bottles, whatever, lying around. These innocuous looking bottle are powerful little Helmholtz resonators. Unfortunately for the sound, they’re the wrong size and in the wrong locations to do any good. They actually hurt the sound quite a bit. That's a shame!
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What I have in mind is a team of trained professionals hired out to act as bass traps by standing in corners during demonstrations at the big shows or even for individuals, on a case by case basis. Special dress requirements for the human Helmholtz resonators will be considered. 👙
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Addendum,
Ooops I almost forgot. The tree in big pot may have helped the bass but it hurt the sound in other ways. Ways you did not detect because you weren't expecting it. Is that the opposite of expectation bias? You decide.
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+1 toddverrone. At least we know it's not the tree or the plant or the flower. 😄 That gives me an idea for a new tweak. 😬
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twoleftears wrote,
"I don’t remember the name of the guy (German? Austrian?), but he has videos on youtube.
Basically, his method is this: hook up just one speaker, and position it exactly where you will be *sitting*, right in front of your chair or move the chair and position it exactly where your ears will be. Play some music with some good bass. Get down on your hands and knees, and crawl around the approximate area where you’re planning to situate one of the speakers. Perhaps do a grid search. Find the exact position where you can hear most bass. Mark. Repeat, crawling around the other speaker position. Set everything up and enjoy.
On the face of it, this sounds intuitively right. What do people think?
(And you get a little exercise!)"
>>>The XLO speaker placement track will give the best results. Better than that method. Better than any trial and error approach. Optimizing one parameter (bass) ignores the other parameters such as frequency response (smoothness), coherence, soundstage depth and dynamics. Thus, you wind up with good bass at the expense of everything else, no? The XLO Track insures ALL audio parameters are optimized simultaneously. AND it does so regardless of room dimensions, room acoustic devices or lack thereof, etc. That’s why I frequently say that trying to find the ideal - the very best - locations by ear is a fool’s errand 😜 as one can never be sure he's found the very best locations. Plus once you change something in the room the locations you found are no longer valid anyway. Trial and error methods are like trying to solve X simultaneous equations in X + n unknowns. 😝
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Most likely expectation bias. 😀 Besides, everybody knows plants don’t affect low frequencies. Can you think of a single scientific theory why they would? Maybe there were other people in the room when you were measuring, or something else affected the measurements. Temperature, pressure, the weather. Who knows? Human beings, you know, being mostly water DO affect lower frequencies. They are terrific Helmholtz resonators. So color me unconvinced. 🙄
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toddverrone, that’s nice but how does it sound? you might be the exception that proves the rule. :-) or you could be a plant. :-) |
wgutz
I want the empirical study, the double blind statistical results and logarithmic adjusted scope printouts before I will ever believe live plants deteriorate the sound. Especially those live and floating roses.
>>>>I suspect the whole idea of putting plants in the listening room - and to a certain extent flowers - stems no pun intended 😀 from the use of plants and flowers in some high end systems at CES and other big shows and also arose 😀 from photos showing them in audiophile home systems. Presumably the plants (and flowers) act as diffusers or some such thing and or provide a more natural, attractive, soothing, atmosphere or whatever. Subliminal message: Relax, listen to how good the sound is. You are getting sleepy...
Ironically, as I said, plants and flowers actually hurt the sound. It’s not as if they don’t do anything. Bad rose, bad! 🌷 It’s an obvious case of expectation bias. So, if you have plants or flowers in the room take them outside ASAP. Let your sound bloom. Leave plants and flowers in your room at your own peril. 😄Check it out! Audiophiles need to root out the problems in the room that are not on the standard radar. The usual suspects have been discussed to death - the tube traps, the panels, the tiny bowl resonators, Helmholtz resonators.
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tomic601
"which does bring up a good point....ever notice all those live plants in the Vandy booths at shows all over the world ?"
Very ironic and probably one of those old wives tales audiophiles sometimes tell since any live plant or flower in the room actually hurts the sound.
Cheers
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Anyone who has ever played around with room treatments, you know, like Tube Trap, Echo Tunes, Skyline diffusers, Helmholtz resonators, tiny little bowl resonators, Mpingo discs, crystals, things of that nature knows that it takes a while to locate the ideal locations for any of those things. Compound that with the speaker location issue and you have an almost never ending search for the absolute best location for everything. As new acoustic thingies are added the while cycle of experimentation begins anew. That’s why, if you’re really serious about this, you should be using the XLO Test CD speaker placement track every time you change something in the room. You want the guy’s voice on the Test CD to "sound like it’s coming at you from all around the room." That’s when the system will be most diffuse, since the track is an out of phase track. Then, when the system is IN PHASE the stereo image and sound will be optimum. Make sense?
Of course, everything is relative. Initially you might not hear much with the out of phase track but as you get better at it and the system gets more accurate, the impression that the sound is completely non-directional, coming at you from no particular direction, will become more and more obvious. So, not only must speakers be set up to within a inch of the exact location where the sound is the best but all the various room acoustics devices must be precisely placed too. 😳
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costco_emoji,
You wouldn’t kid me would you? Do you think I fell off the turnip truck yesterday? I didn’t say 4 feet anyway. Try to pay attention. I said *start* with 4 feet. That way you won’t overlook the real absolute distance, which is often a lot less than folks out there think. I won't mention any names.
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Locating perfect speaker locations by ear is a fool’s errand since you can never know when you have actually found the perfect locations. You keep looking and looking and finally give up. First of all almost all speakers are too far apart. Not to mention why it takes two years to find the "perfect locations." 😛 And audiophiles wonder why they have a big old hole in the middle of their soundstage. Why do audiophiles think speakers have to be 9 feet apart and toed in to get a good soundstage?
Start with speakers fairly close together, let’s say 4 feet, and work out from there. Avoid toe in except as last resort. Oh, and instead of trial & error use the speaker placement track on the XLO Test CD. Trial and error is like trying to solve X simultaneous equations in X+n unknowns - you can only find local maximums. And the XLO track is much easier. That particular track is also invaluable for placing room acoustics thingamabobs. You should find that Tube Traps, for example, should sometimes be placed away from the room corner, sometimes maybe a foot or two away, it all depends. But it’s a game of inches. The standing wave isn’t always where you think it is.
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