Advice needed on improving life and energy

As usual, we are at war, instead of trying to understand other's ideas... :SLEEP:

I dont think Richard is saying that the environment doesnt matter, on the contrary, what he is suggesting, IMHO, is that you start with as simple a system as possible, to help pinpoint the problem... :newbie:

 

They are simple, reliable, fairly transparent, they add some punch to the bass line and some spark to the treble. I also find their midrane quite appealing.

 

Richard,

I haven't been around here much lately, what with the fine weather, etc.

I can see what you are getting at now. I think the point you are making is that the room "acoustic" is the last part of the signal chain so look at that last. Other's here are saying how can you realistically appraise system changes if there are "room issues" present. Each approach has it's merits (shame the room treatment one is so bloody invasive).

 

Yes but did it with a smilie.

 

Sorry I missed this post. You are right of course, but I think in general tight 'on/off' bass is the key to good timing and pace in a system. If you take Linn Kans or LS3/5A for an example, I believe both are thought to have very good 'PRaT'. IMO this is much down to the fact they don't have a lot of bass, so you don't have to worry about it not being tight. They still have just as much mid and high frequency reflection as any other speaker though.

If you can get both sorted then bloody great! But I would suggest starting with a few diffusors behind the speakers and some bass traps.

The difference between diffusion and absorption is that absorption just attenuates the the sound and the reflection remains but to a lesser degree. Diffusion scatters the sound over a 180degree pattern (some are called 3D diffusors and some 2D, but it doesn't matter for now) so that the sound is split in amplitude a number of times and then each of these sounds goes on a new path around the room, taking much longer to arrive with the listener. When they do arrive at the listener, they are not one strong reflection but a number of very 'fine' reflections. This changes how your mind perceives the reflections and it becomes a positive thing rather than a negative thing. I will PM you a link to some more detailed explanation.

 

In your case it's their ability to add some punch to the bass line, some spark to the treble and some emotion to the midrange.

 

If you have got bass bloom then give the flash banding in the player a go with some good quality isolation feet under it, these little tweeks did wonders for mine. Get the rest of your gear isolated from the floor too. Tenson that was my idea about the rugs. Jimbo.

 

The action of porous or fibrous material whether used for loudspeaker wadding or acoustic treatment is not analogous with a capacitor. Acoustic absorption concerns the conversion of particle velocities to heat by means of friction. The correct electrical analogy is with a resistor.

But of course this is a rather over-simplification.

If changing the equipment and/or the room is not practical or wanted as a first choice solution then perhaps you could experiment with software based equalisation to correct room loudspeaker anomalies Zodiac. I'd expect there's some Mac software to do this.

Try REG ON AUDIO for further reading.

 

It is a frequency dependent resistor i.e. - capacitor - I talk about function not nature! Once again I have to say that music is not DC. When looking very wideband all resistors are capacitors to some degree or another.

Richard

 

There are two concepts - preventative and curative. I am talking preventative.

Richard

 

I think Johnny and Richard should have a good chat…

 

I am getting heartily sick of the ad hominem displayed on this list. Why do you find it impossible to address the subject and not the individual?

On most lists and forums it is at least a cause for warning if not dismissal.

Richard

 

Nail on the head at last!

Richard

 

Yet again, many good points. Room treatments will tend to distrupt the phase integrity of the music. As Peter Lyngdorf said to me, while acoustic scatterering room treatments will reduce standing waves, it will also introduce significant variation in path distance. The higher the frequency the worse it gets.

Andrew

 

Because your points are not worth addressing. In this thread you have made only one good point, which was to get the positioning as good as possible. However you didn't even make that a point, it was more of a passing comment among a lot of other complete rubbish with a not particularly hidden personal agenda.

Andrew, scattering treatments are not the same as true diffusion. Even so, they will actually improve the phase response if one takes into account how the human mind hears audio. Once a reflection reaches us after a certain amount of time (about 15-20ms) our mind processes it as such and we 'focus' in on the original sound. TacT recognises this as they use this information in the way they measure the room effects before offering the user a compensation curve. Thus if we can increase the path length the sound has to take we can shift the majority of the reflections outside this window and what our mind hears will in fact be more of the original direct sound which, hopefully, will be produce by a speaker that has a reasonable phase response (most speakers fail pretty drastically in this department). Whether there are room treatments or not, the higher the frequency, the worse the phase shift will be because the wavelengths are smaller.

The advantage of true diffusion over a simple scattering or redirecting surface is that the sound is effectively split into many smaller more 'fine grain' reflections. Diffuse sound. This means you don't get one sudden reflection but a smooth gradual ambience which also goes towards our minds recognising it as such, and not mistaking it for another sound source or 'ghost image'.

If anyone wants to find out more about diffusion I would recommend the book ‘Acoustic Absorbers and Diffusers - Theory, Design and Application’ by Trevor Cox and Dr Peter D'Antonio. It s pretty expensive but I got it out from my local library with a bit of a wait. A life times worth of reading in that book!

 

Only bear in mind that most ( if not all) software based equalisations tend to (at least subjectively) suck the energy from the sound. Including, to my ear, Peter Lyngdorf's products. I have been using it for a while. So it might well be the move in the opposite direction imho.

if that's more "energy" and "life" you are after, as my experience shows - supports, placement, cables, room treatment and other passive changes will not give you any real satisfaction in this area. Funny enough bad speaker placement sometimes leads to a more "energetic" sound. Well placed speakers always sound "calmer". So imho you would need to change some of the active elements in your system to get a result. Preamp is the obvious first choice. Don't forget to clean all el. contacts though. It cost nothing. )

 

In my experience that is because it throws the balance of the decay rates out the window. If used in conjunction with room treatments that reduce the decay rate to a minimum then the way it 'suck the life out' is greatly reduced and it becomes a much more promising tool. All in my experience though, I use digital correction as icing on the cake.

By the way, I am not saying all this to defend my own products it is simply what I believe / know to be true. By all means check out RPG, Auralex and any other brands of room treatments! All I would say is buy wisely, there are a lot of misconceptions around this subject.

 

Acoustic Research were working with this in the 1970's when I worked for them. The vehicle was called the 10pi and was a very interesting way of approaching these problems through phase relationships in transformer windings. One of the only people to actually make some repeatable sense with it was Ray Allison, who just happened to have worked for Acoustic Research as well. He (Allison Loudspeakers) was one of the only people to acoustically design his speakers to take into account these variations, lessons also taken on board by Linn in a lesser way in their early designs (Isobaric - Kan and the other one I never remember the name of - had a pair as well!!).

It seems to be human nature to continually to go around in circles looking up your collective own rear ends. There is, even conceptually, very little point in trying to solve a problem after it has happened. "Find the source master Luke"

Richard

 

I used TMREQ and Krell Showcase EQ, both sounded "cleaner" in the beginning, but dull after a while, bypass them I did...

 

Interesting I have heard of this speaker but not much about it, do you have any links?

What 'problems' were they trying to deal with using transformer induced phase shift?