but, others might reasonably disagree and think that minor details, such as the price, matter and that certain price levels cannot be justified no matter the sonic result.
+1
Showing 15 responses by kota1
To each his own we all have different paths to get where we sonically wanna be. I have seen some interesting paths here from members, headphone paths, budget paths, luxurious paths, pro paths, and sadly a few people that don’t seem to have found any path except the one that turns their money into a failed experiment in gear hopping. Since we are on the topic of paths I ended up with the "enjoyment" we are fond of in a path that was simple, but not easy, the acoustic path. You are correct, you can get their by ear alone, but the money and aggravation you waste is not enjoyable for me at least. Once I got my acoustics right for my room BAM, path confirmed. BTW, the room is 50% of the sound, even if you actually heard the gear you are posting about it doesn't always translate the same in a different room with different components. |
Touché, this is the point that enrages the people that already blew their discretionary income and engages those who have cash reserves. Did you ever wonder why you almost NEVER see reviews of room treatments and the only way "audiophiles" ever measure their acoustics is with an obscure app called REW that must be studied like learning calculus? The fact is that room treatments are boring, you don’t plug them in, they can look disgusting on your walls if you don’t cover them with acoustically transparent fabric. You get the room right and a $500 receiver can sound like a $$$$ amp in the average listening room that has sound waves bouncing off windows, ceilings, dry wall, etc. like its the Titanic. This is fact, I didn’t invent acoustics. Sadly this is why many people are on an endless journey of upgrades, because it never gets quite right acoustically and no speaker, no DAC, no cable can fix a FR that looks like one of those old TV test patterns. Here is a video on the topic: The math on getting decay time right starts at the :40 min mark, the "recipe" of what to do follows right after the math: https://www.youtube.com/live/G0ekssXX7rE?feature=shared
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+1, indeed your room looks good, I tip my hat to your designer. There’s a reason why the worlds most renown equipment designers create their own products and charge more for it. This is a VERY interesting point, I also tip my hat to designers of gear that can create something MORE important than the room, the music, or the gear itself, they can create...customers. If they got 10,000% markups what do I care if the customer feels they got value, I got no beef with a good business model. If someone can do it cheaper, that's ok too. What we can debate are WHO are these designers? I have some hero’s right here that are DIY guys that don’t even own a company, but they got skills. But I gotta disagree on one point, you can’t get blood from a turnip. If the room sucks ain’t know gear that will make it unsuck.
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@calvinj systems, blows your stuff away for sure. Great, I’m happy if he’s happy, more power to him. He’s got a great story, being in the right place at the right time and then migrating into the business. He built what he wanted, I built what I wanted, they are different for sure. But I gots to tell you, my room does audio, channel and object based, throws up a 100 inch 4K image that pops, I got 4 sweet spots not one because of acoustic astuteness and a NAS drive full of movies, concerts and music. My two channel flows through a separate dac/pre/headphone amp that took five years for the top engineers at Sony to design with an unlimited budget straight into a pair of Paradigm legendary reference active 40 speakers. My object based preamp controls 9.3.6 channels of pinpoint soundstage with the latest object based music being dropped nightly into my system from Amazon and Tidal. Movies? Fuhgeddaboudit!! I can and do get a LOT of enjoyment. 😎
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The issue is you can NOT turn an Emotiva amp into an Esoteric amplifier even with proper room acoustics I think you missed the main point, take an Esoteric amplifier and stick it in a bad room and you should have just bought the Emotiva instead, you can't fix acoustics with an amp, sorry. I will take a great room with a pair of XPA HC-1 Emotiva monoblocks ($1800 for a pair) over a bad room with a $$$$ amp any day, all day, with pleasure. Now if I can have a good room AND a $$$$ amp that is totally different 🤩 |
I do have an amp that will perform better in a bad room than 99% of the amps out there, its a Martin Logan amp (a speaker company I know) and its called the Forte. Martin Logans parent company is Anthem. It is selling for 60% off right now at $249. It includes ARC room correction and has a built in streamer AND a sub out. If you position the sub and the speakers well and then run ARC it is probably going to sound better than a $$$$ amp in the same room and I guarantee it will measure better. BTW OP, I actually own this amp and have listened to it since that is the topic of this thread: https://www.martinlogan.com/en/product/forte Don’t take my word for its chops, here is a review. I use this amp to power my passive rear surround speakers and from the first time I turned it on I was amazed that an amp this inexpensive and small made these speakers sound that good. It also has an RCA in so you can hook up a CDP or a TT: Review: "a small affordable unit that is almost too good to be true." https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/amplifier/power-amplifier/martinlogan-forte-amp-review/
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Adding even a few well placed and sized panels increased my enjoyment of my current setup for far less than any $5000 power cable, $3000 usb cable, $10000 set of speaker wires or $500 fuse ever could. That is the most well kept secret in audio. I don't know who is at fault though. Dealers that profit from the upgrade cycle caused by bad acoustics or simply "audiophiles" that enjoy pulling the trigger on stuff you plug in but don't know what panels to buy or where to hang them. |
If you place high end well built and designed gear in a really great room and acoustic environment it sounds like heaven. +1 However all of us don’t have the perfect listening environments but a lot of us can still get great sound. If you want easy peasy a room kit from Sonitus is the way to go. high end gear in a really great environment if you have matched it properly and it is designed well you truly can hit it out the park. I chose to go mostly with active speakers where the designer matches each driver with a monoblok amp and an active crossover. Yes, there are many paths but that is a quick one. It also saved me budget from buying external amps and speaker cables on a LOT of speakers. Now I will say a better matched mid fi system can beat a hi end system if it’s matched properly and placed in the right environment. This is the nice thing about this hobby, as the OP said earlier, there are a lot of paths to get good results. |
So I have been posting about the new atmos music format and of course members who have never heard the format in their own room are quick to comment. Do you think they love it if they never heard it? LOL. Their seems to be an endless resource of both new and old recordings being dropped in Atmos on my various streaming services every week such as Pet Sounds. If anyone comments on this atmos mix without having listened to it I will be infiguoritaed!: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/beach-boys-pet-sounds-dolby-atmos/
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Re: your vaulted ceilings, you might find an "acoustic cloud" solution. You can get one from Auralex that is an absorber (best used in front of the MLP: and the pic you see in my virtual system is a cloud made from Acoustic Lens diffusors (best hung behind the MLP), I took 4 of them, connected them together in a row, then hung them from the ceiling with a kit:
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I hung the cloud below my PJ, this is a shot looking up through them from below, you can see my VOG speakers on the ceiling, the Auralex Geofusors above the MLP (backfilled with polyfill so the double as bass traps) and then some absorptive panels in front of them: Windows are a chronic problem in rooms, I didn’t want absorptive blackout curtains so I took the acoustic lens, hooked two together, and hung it like a picture. Works great but not very pretty. The sacrifices we make for SQ: |
