MG
post here when you have updated the Music section in your forums.
Happy Listening!
The Method of Tuning
System Playback has been evolving ever since the first stereos came out. Folks who have success can’t imagine listening to a system that has not been tuned, folks who haven’t been as successful in their listening tend to go off on their "snake oil" rants. People who buy from the "Recommended Component" list have their Plug & Play approach. The guys using measuring have their camp certainly, and there’s several other audio types out there that have their beliefs to add to the mix. Who’s correct? Well if we can remove our personal egos from this question, they (we) all are correct. The approach that you take as a listener is as legitimate as the next guys, to you. We try pushing our particular belief system on others because we are passionate about it. We have our likes and dislikes and we also have our own reasons why something does work or our blames why it doesn’t. The audiophile world has as many chapters as religious believers has denominations. It’s just the way our minds are built, you grew up on skippy, you peter pan, and you jiff. The audiophile world forgets sometimes just how many opinions and beliefs there really are, until they meet up on places like these audio forums and begin to mix this big bowl of ingredients together.
I’ve started this thread so I can share what I have learned through watching all these mixers turned on and being stuck in the bowl with each other and also from the point of view of someone who has "Tuned" many thousands of you, and have picked up on your own personal developments as masters of your own systems. So before we get going let me tell you something important. No one on the planet of listening "does" audio the way you do. You are unique, and you are a specialist when it comes to your audio adventure. You are all a salesman, because you want others to have that same level of success you enjoy. Audio reviewers, recording producers, component designers and end users are all in the same boat. You might have one or the other on a higher level than the rest, but that really has little relevance when your sitting there with your system and it’s just you and it.
What I would like to do with this thread is level the playing field and talk to you about the oldest technology in all of music (both playing & replaying). Tuning is the most basic and the most advanced technology in making fundamentals and harmonics work in support of each other and every single one of you (us) Tune. We may want to call it something else that sounds more HEA (high end audio) ish, but no matter what we choose to call it, it’s all about taking the audio variables and making them work together. This is what I have been doing all of my personal and professional life. This is also what you have been doing ever since you started to play or playback music.
Just some ground rules for this thread.
First have fun. No one gets anywhere in music if their not enjoying it. If your a sour puss, don’t be surprised if we call you out as one. Personally I don’t mind or care if your a sour puss or not, but speaking for myself, I only have so much time in the day, and if this thread gets too sidetracky & tacky I’ll have better things to do, like making music money, which is a ton of fun.
Second I’m a designer/manufacturer. I am Michael Green of RoomTune and Michael Green Audio. I would imagine over the years 10,000-15,000 Agoners have used my products, maybe more maybe less, maybe only 2 people here have bought some of my stuff. The point is we sell audio products and if someone happens to buy them from this thread don’t get all bent out of shape, sales happen. Also if other designers come up and share their ideas, again try not to get all bent out of shape. Every single one of you are going to have and or get ideas from this thread or about this thread, or about the length of my hair (lol). As far as I am concerned everyone who has a stereo system has a product they want to sell, either physical or intellectually. So? It’s all part of the same soup as far as I am concerned.
Third I and others who come to this thread are free to post long posts. Some topics are not one sentence topics, and this will probably be the case here simply because we will be talking all things audio. And I should throw this in, let me the OP decide if something is off topic.
And last, if I disappear don’t take it like I don’t care. I’m a busy son of a gun and sometimes need a week or 2 to get caught up. Lately I’ve been posting and boring you a lot up here, but when the bell rings for me I’ve got to answer. I work on the US during the day and overseas during the night so that only leaves room for cat naps at best. Everyone here is important and I respect that, and I apologize in advance for my tardiness at times.
I’m ready for some fun are you?
Michael Green
www.michaelgreenaudio.net
63 responses Add your response
Michael, Let me me first thank you for starting such an interesting and insightful thread. I've enjoyed reading every bit of it and have also explored your website and other links posted along the way. However I have never even able to visit your Tuneland Forum site -- for days now I only get "server can not be found". I've tried not only the link provided here but also directly from your website. Although i I did read something here about work on the site, the reference seemed a bit vague. No worries, could you just confirm it's down and let us know when it's back up and running? |
Same here. I have spent many hours trying to sort out why I cannot open up Tuneland as well as other links on his site. I have given up at this point. None of my Apple devices can, nor my wife’s Apple devices. However, my son’s Apple devices can? He lives in his own home. I receive the same error message you mentioned over and over. Too bad. I find this fascinating and desire to have a tuneable system. I just don’t know what that means in terms of specific details and steps for me and my system. |
Michael: Mark said a lot in his presentation and I’m in agreement with him re: Redbook CD’s being better quality than analog, up sampling adding nothing, and MQA being a transfer protocol - not a “sound better format”. My point in referencing his talk was his focus on the source being the final constraint in achieving good playback - that some recordings sound better than others by how they were miked, the amount of data collected (bit depth), and mastering. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that tuning a system allows you to achieve equivalent playback independent of the source quality. I struggle with that notion. |
Hi Mike Mark's presentation was fine. There are two parts to the process, the recording side / and the playback side. Mark was talking about the recording side mainly giving the explanation as to why your not going to make the recording better than it is. That "recorded code" (I use the word code a lot to describe the actual uniqueness of the audio as it goes through different stages) is as good as it is going to get. However on the playback side we may be playing only 10% to 20% of that recording, because our playback system is only able to reproduce that percentage of the 100%. So what Mark is saying is "here's the 100%, it's not going to get any better than that" and what I'm saying is we are playing back a percentage of that hundred percent with our systems. Our systems don't automatically playback all the recorded code, that's why they sound different from each other and that's why some sound better than another one would. Each time you put on a recording, your system plays part of it. The whole recording is there but not all of it is making it's way to your ears. In tuning we call that "blockage". The more you free your setup and room from signal blockage, the more of that recorded code you are going to experience. Michael Green www.michaelgreenaudio.net |
Hi Race and Granny I believe I may have found it. Hello everyone, See if this works for you, and let me know, thanks Michael Green www.michaelgreenaudio.net |
@michaelgreenaudio Hi Michael, I am still here and scrubbing the web for anything on audio tuning, and particularly from yourself. Although I do not have any acoustic aids in the sense of panels etc, I have played with the positioning and angle of my speakers, from 30 degrees toe in, (where the speakers and listener are crossed, the cross point is about 1m from a 2 seat listening position) to the same degree toe out and the wall is the reflective speaker and more defined notes come directly from the speaker. The effect on the music is remarkable, or should I term that the sound stage created. I have always stood at the listener distance and angled the speakers at that middle point. My music has not always been clear or focussed but typically I used volume to cover the missing or out of focus sound. Using the same volume (low) I angled the speakers (the stereo pair of a MK950 7.1 set). I committed to a full 7.2.4 HT system before I came across a pair of speakers that will be my primary (only) The MK300s (atmos) and new music system will be inaugurated in my new house where I have started designing the music room from fresh. Soundproofed walls and ceiling behind gyprock plaster, concrete slab with direct laid wooden flooring and a large picture window (double glazed) behind the listener's heads. There will be a floor rug and wall procures, but beyond that I'll need to work on the acoustics once all is set up. Adrian |
Hi Adrian Let me know if I can be of help. I’ve got a few rooms on the drawing board for this summer, but there’s always room for more. One thing to keep in mind while looking at "The MGA Way" is that I don’t dampen the sound but restore it. When I sound proof it is done with a separate layer that isn’t a part of the inner core of the room. Folks need to be careful when soundproofing because it’s easy to screw up the pitch of the room. I replace many room mess ups that could have been avoided if the listeners’ plan before doing. I do make and sell lots of products after people make their rooms but I always preach to make that room in pitch or tunable right from the start. Obviously I have my plans for sale, or someone can get on retainer with me or have us build the rooms here and ship them, but there are some basic guidelines to good room designing. One of them is, don’t follow any designing that is based on killing the sound. I can not tell you how many folks get ahold of me heart broken that they spent their money on an audiophile room plan and after a year they are just sick that it sounds so bad. I have 20 or 30 of those guys on call constantly almost desperately afraid that they have ruined their hobby. You usually don’t hear about the bad room designs cause those guys are so tortured that they sunk their money into a bad plan, that they don’t want anything to do with HEA anymore. Without giving away my recipe, let me share with you a major point when designing your room. Your best results are when you are of the frame of mind that your speakers are suppose to couple with the room. The speakers are the room and the room is the speakers. If you build your room to be In-tune with the speakers then the room has the ability to be a natural amplifier of the speakers. Done correctly it puts less stress on the speaker and amplifier combo. And that means the whole system is less stressed which give you a DB up instead of a DB down situation. Another thing that is horribly wrong that many do is staggering studs and double drywall and or quiet rock. If someone is soundproofing always design a double wall setup. Meaning the outer "soundproof" wall is separate and not touching the inner wall. I build my inner rooms to sit inside of the outer room (room inside of a room) design. The inner room is for tuning and the outer room is for keeping the sound from the rest of the house. I’ll give you an example: we designed two rooms in Nashville for testing and showing the local studios how to make better sounding rooms. One was a typical audiophile room and the other the tunable room. After done playing in the audiophile room you had to spend time trying to find the speaker placement that dialed in a recordings soundstage. The tunable room you didn’t have to toe in the speakers at all to give the stage. The speakers and the room where working together. When giving a demo in these rooms with my speakers I can point the speakers 360 degrees and in the listening chair you can still hear a full soundstage. The whole concept behind tuning is working with the sound and not against it. Always keep in mind that there are two main physical functions of sound, one is conduit travel and the other is sound pressure. Your room is going to have sound that is traveling and the room is also going to produce Pressure Zones. These pressure zones work their best when In-tune with each other. Michael Green |
I was interested in Michael’s products a few years ago and got a quote on a few of them (from Harold I believe). But objective reviews were hard to come buy, and even a MG dealer gently steered me in different direction. I did checkout Tuneland and its members, but had some doubt about their objectivity. However, I have an open mind and if Michael can point to any info in these regards I’d appreciate. Just that I like to see a bit of that unbiased objectivity before I plunk down my CC for a purchase. |
Hi jaybe The RoomTune TunePak, that’s a great way to go! That’s what I use (CTs, ETs, XLTs). If your not sure you should start a thread on TuneLand and have Michael take a look at your system and room. The TuneLand members will help you out too. Harold is a great guy I’ve talked with him a couple of times. Harold handles the RoomTune dealers and distributors now. Michael works with the TuneLand members. |
