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Swapped long wall to short wall and now I am having some big issues

I have a 14.5 x 27 ft x 8' room (it is narrower at 12 ft (the last 6 ft on the end where I have the speakers)


I had my system aligned on the long wall with the rack in between the speakers.

The speakers were 9' offset from listening position and the side wall were so far away (and had two record cabinets) that they were out of the equation.  I had real traps mondo bass traps in the corners and GIK art panels to handle slap echo.

The sound was excellent - great tonality, dynamics, imaging. The only issues I had were a limited listening area and not back enough for full speaker driver integration.


After listening to a friends system in a 12x23 room - old home with wood construction I was a gasp. His system was short wall and there was great integration with easily 2 rows of 3 people could sit and listen. It was a very relaxing and engaging experience.


Fast forward. I made the move. knocked out a closet in the corner. Removed one of 2 floor to ceiling record racks, a Wurlitzer jukebox, and Victrola.  I placed the equipment racks on the opposite side wall.  The speakers were set up 2 feet from the walls in front of the two corner bass traps. The sound was dreadful.  The once luscious mids were thin and highs (1.2-3khz) were bright and cymbals were brittle, hard strumming acoustic guitars and brass sounded terrible as well.  If the music got dynamic - it sounded terrible.


The vinyl was bad - cd atrocious.


I went ahead and took all the acoustic panels out except the GIK art panels.


I did some research and bought some GIK Impression 2' 2" panels for first reflection  and GIK Impression 1' 4" diffuser/bass panels for the front corners allowing absorption from the back.  This was much better but still way off.  I moved the speakers out from the wall and then the instrument subtle details snapped into place - at 6 ft this was most apparent however it developed a very bloated mid bass.


I am looking for ways to tame the high end and mid bass but bring out the mid range,  I do not want to over treat.

This in incredibly frustrating as I had my sound very refined and the short wall setup should theoretically produced better results.  I would be interested in your comments and suggestions.


Thank You

128x128audiotomb
almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
I could ask Richard on the switch box

Alternatively, if you have a multimeter, with the switchbox disconnected from the speakers and the amps you could measure the resistance between each + input terminal of the switchbox and the corresponding - input terminal, while the input being measured is deselected by the switch. If the measurements are infinite or very high, say several dozen ohms or higher, regardless of whether there is any relation to the sonic problems I would henceforth avoid having the deselected amps powered up while a signal is being applied to them.

Best regards,
-- Al

newbee
4,751 posts
 
Re room acoustic's - my room is 13.5x19.5x9. I have Silverline Boleros. I'm not familiar with your speakers but I've certainly encountered your issues in setting up my speakers.  I did something based on what many professionals do when setting up (smaller)demo room's. I set up my speakers 6ft out into the room, 2ft from side walls, and crossed the axis of the speakers well in front of my listening chair (I have and equilateral triangle set up). This minimized the effect of sidewall reflections (without panels) and changed the ceiling reflections. I lost a bit of room induced soundstage width, but on balance I got a far better (more integrated) sound. I adjusted my set up over a long period of time, mostly reducing toe in, but the end result is excellent. I did find taming the (upper) bass was mostly in finding the best distance from the side wall.  Try it. Only takes a few minutes and its free. 
audiotomb's avatar
audiotomb OP
1,112 posts
 

Al

answer

the switchbox has no resistors

those amps are not sensitive to no load condition


nearly all my room positioning listening was done with only one amp on.

I have also used less refined long speaker cable directly from the amps



almarg's avatar
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almarg
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the switchbox has no resistors

those amps are not sensitive to no load condition

Wow, that was quick!

Given that the amps have output transformers I’m not sure how or why they would not be sensitive to the no load condition (when processing a signal), but I’m sure Richard wouldn’t have said that without good reason.

In any event, since both amp/preamp combinations manifest essentially the same sonic issues in the new arrangement it appears that we can rule them out as suspects.

Best regards,
-- Al


acresverde
372 posts
 
@audiotomb     If you can pull off just moving the speakers only back to the long wall I think you'll find the story is told, one way or another, without having to resort to inserting other brands of speakers into the mix. I'm a little dubious as to how much stock you can put into whatever the results of those speaker substitutions might yield considering you don't really have a baseline for what they would sound like normally paired with your associated gear. And, at least with the Salks and their lowish sensitivity, I doubt they'll mate well with your Uesugi EL34 monos, which we did all of our listening through the other night. Just curious...would putting the Daedali back on the long wall entail any changes in cabling from source on through to the speaker cables?
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