It's a real mystery. You seem to have a great room and setup. Have you tried calling Rives or a group like that. It's hard to figure out what could be wrong with you room. |
Ditto Pubul57's suggestion on getting a consultation from Rives. |
Consult Rives or consider posting this along with a diagram of your room including all relevant objects to the room acoustics thread on AVS forum. The latter is free but you will have to decide for yourself among the many opinions you will get.
Kal |
Your room is nearly a multiple of 7 to 8 feet in all dimensions. Try a TACT or
Rives PARC. Try sitting at 38% or room length. Keep your speakers well out from
the rear wall (at 6 - 8 feet). Try placing the speakers closer together - away
from side walls ( 4+ feet ).
Also try Superchunks or GIK Tri-traps - this will be more effective than even the
big bad Auralex LENRD's. (I'd suggest 8 GIK Tri-traps at the minimum) |
Hello Spaz,
That's some lovely equipment you got there.
Eyeballing the pics on your System page, two things sort of jump out at me: Perfect symmetry, and lots of absorption panels. In my opinion, therein may lie at least some of the problem.
As you move between areas in the room with absorption panels exactly opposite your ears to areas with flat, reflective areas exactly opposite your ears, yes the tonal character is going to change. If you had diffusion panels spread about with some asymmetry, and relatively little absorption, then the soundfield throughout your room would be more uniform at midrange and treble frequencies.
In an effort to give you less variation in bass from one room location to another, let me suggest going with a semi-diagonal setup. For example, imagine looking down on the triangle formed by yourself and the speakers, and rotating that triangle about 30 degrees clockwise within the room. This will stagger the distances of your two bass sources to the room boundaries, which should result in a smoother bass summation pretty much throughout the room.
Finally, if you still aren't getting enough bass at the listening position, it's not cheating to add a sub. In fact, adding a third bass source (also positioned asymmetrically) should smooth the in-room bass even further. If you really want to go all-out with that third bass source, mount it closer to the ceiling than to the floor. This will significantly stagger your bass sources in all three dimensions.
Best of luck to you.
Duke
dealer/manufacturer |
Sounds like a standing wave problem - alas, no thickness or amount of Auralex foam "traps" are going to ameliorate the problem...I've tried their offerings, and they simply don't work all that well (though I heartily endorse their quadratic diffusors). It seems like tube/bass traps are the best solution - while the ASC offering is certainly effective, you can roll your own for a lot less. Yes, it's messy and time consuming, but they are very effective. Take a look at Jon Risch's threads over at the asylum for construction info.
Good luck,
-Richard |
1-what's up with the ceiling tiles? I'm assuming that they are acoustic tiles since you have done so much else. Have you tried opening up just a few (put grids in)? It will allow some sound to go up and never come back down.
2-If it were my room, I'd have the bulk of the acoustic treatments either behind the speakers or behind my chair. Some side reflections are necessary to fill in the room and most speakers are not designed with "infinite" space in mind.
3-Although you have a simply awesome system, it may not be right for you? Borrow some speakers from a friend or dealer and see if they make you happier? Something more open like Vandersteens or even Martin Logins may appeal to your taste? This is why many of us have multiple speakers and amps & are always changing. |
Funny you should ask!
I use Verity Parsifal Encores (among others) and the sound in my current room (similar to yours) is nowhere near what it was in my previous listening rooms. The P/Es employ monitors jumpered to woofer cabinets like your EOS.
I looked into TacT/Lyngdorg/DEQX but they're mostly direct sales so it's harder than usual to get a handle on this rather expensive fix.
Instead, I inserted a $600 Velodyne SMS-1 and and a second amp between the woofer modules and the monitor modules of the Verity P/Es - no more "jumper madness" - for equalized bi-amping. The SMS is a room analyzer (20 - 200hz), 6 band parametric e.q. (20hz-120hz) and active crossover (very flexible low pass, 80hz @6db/octave fixed high pass). Bottom line: problem solved.
Caveats:
The included high pass is kinda bare bones. Verity crosses the woofers and monitors symmetrically @ 150hz 12db/octave. I'm crossing an octave lower, asymmetrically. The sound in this room is vastly improved, but a bit different than I recall out of the P/Es in past rooms. Still, the sound is not only improved, but very satisfying period.
If I want to really do it right, I'll add an appropriate high pass (e.g. Marchand) and match the factory's passive x-over. This will add another $800ish to the price tag, bringing the total to $1400 plus additional bass amps (I had appropriate ampliication on hand already) - hardly cheap.
Finally, tweaking response via the PEQ is a time consuming trial and error process. You see a "bump" and position the band below it, reduce level, broaden and narrow the "Q" and nothing happens! So you start screwing around in nearby bands and, eventually, you get improvements. I managed to take a broad 12 db (relative to 80db) bump, and a couple of narrow 7 to 8 db swales and equalize to +/- 3.5 db from app 38hz to 200hz.
Not only is the bass response vastly better, but the mid-band sounds much better. The trade is the sharp roll off at app 38hz. I can get more extended response, but it will come at the cost of relocating one band of eq to the lowest bass and screwing up the nice, smooth performance I have now.
Generally, I don't like to modify the intended installation of a great product like the P/E, but - in this circumstance - this approach worked for me in a situation similar to yours and you may want to investigate further.
Good Luck
Marty |
It looks like a great setup but there are a few things you might consider before going to a subwoofer. It seems to me that both imaging setup and bass setup is critical:
1. Repositioning the speakers. They look too close to the side walls and aimed straight ahead. Consider moving them and toeing them in to cross in front of the listening position. This way you will be as much off-axis as now but soundstaging should be equally good but positioning less critical.
2. Consider other/different room treatments. The effects you are experiencing may be due to an excess of mid- to- high frequency absorption but little effect on the residual room modes. All that relatively thin foam, even the stuff in the corners, will have much, much less effect on the bass than high density fiberglass bass traps. You can do this best with decent bass traps (RealTraps, GIK, etc.) but another option is the Rives PARC which will do this electronically. |
My room sucks also, but it's sucking a lot less since I've been working on room treatments. I would also suggest the GIK corner traps and panels in place of your foam treatments. You need to be willing to experiment with placement of the different panels. Acoustical Solutions has some real nice looking diffusion panels that don't look like ugly like most diffusors. They look like a normal absorptive panel.
Do you have a radio shack meter and either a Rives test disc (best) or Stereophile test cd? If not, purchase them a make the measurements while seated in your chair. Post the frequency numbers where you have the greatest deviations from flat. This would help identify what areas need what.
From your photos, I would say none of the treatments address bass issues and it looks overdamped which would dry up the mids and highs. |
I think the foam is the main problem. It simply won't do anything to fix the lower frequencies and it will kill the upper frequencies. Look into some real bass traps and diffusion. Use a minimal amount of foam if you must. If you put enough bass traps in that room you'll be much happier. Good luck. |
Spaz: You have no right to complain with a killer room and rig like that! It looks amazing to me, there must be a solution. My guess is hire an acoustician or get many many audiophile friends to come and give their suggestions.
Seriously, a room like that is to die for. |
Spaz , I heard the Artemis EOS speakers at a dealer years back.He kept the speakers about 15 feet apart.I heard them again in a home and they were about 7 feet apart.IMO although good at 15 feet they were to die for at 7 feet.Have you tried them closer together?? Also disconnect them from the bass and listen.It may be that the best placement for the EOS' is not to the Bass modules liking.
Great system,I hope you figure it out soon |
I agree with much of what has been stated
foam sucks. get the speakers away from the walls more and toe them in
Take a look at Eighth Nerve products |
When I had the EOS Sigs in my apartment I had them about 7 feet apart, too, with a listening distance of about 11.5 feet. Absolutely wonderful with really good bass.
Kal |
Thanks for all the comments.hiring a acoustic consultant seems like a good idea.Has anyone done this?If so what do they charge..With my ceiling being 3 different hieght's it seems like the tonal differences change within each hieght.How can I change this without changing the ceiling.The first part of the ceiling under the speakers is homemade tiles.The frames are made of MDF and then covered with speaker cloth.From a distance it looks like a drop ceiling but it's not.I wanted to get the extra hieght in the ceiling.The theory was the sound can go through and hit the floor joist and insulation for diffusion. |
Rives has pricing on their website for different design packages. Since I'm a very stubborn person, I'm trying to learn as I go. At some point, I may purchase a design package from them and see how it differs from what I've done. |
I did not find any pricing on there web site.. |
Spaz, click on "services" at the bottom of the Rives page. Then on the left side of the page, it will list levels 1 through 4 with pricing and what that entails. |
Yes I found it..Thank you |
