All change please :D

After hearing Tony's system again yesterday, I decided to have a fiddle with mine to see if I could improve things. My biggest problem is room boom. I have a lounge/diner which makes it harder to arrange for good sound. I have to avoid sitting near the boundaries or anywhere near the half way line. This is easiest to do when firing the speakers across the width of the room and having the sofa well out from the back wall with bookcases behind. This however means that I am sitting closer to the speakers than is ideal. The Castles don't integrate well at such a short distance and need a bit more distance. 10 - 11 feet is fine. 8 feet doesn't quite cut it. With the Dynaudios, the sound is well integrated but the stage is a little smaller than I would like. Plus in the present arrangement they are too close to the wall which means they produce far too much bass. It's good bass, just too much. I don't have any stands for them at the moment.

I know that firing either speaker down the room is a disaster. The only satisfactory listening position is in the middle of the dining table

However, yesterday evening I had a flash of lateral inspiration and decided to try it. Why not put the sofa where the speakers would be and put the speakers close to the walls either side of the dining table. This should put the sofa in a non-boom zone. So after much sweating, grunting and a few choice epithets, I moved it all around.

Well, there is no more room boom :MILD:

The Castles sound great. Really very little to criticise. A touch of resonance at one point in the lower midrange that I shall look into. Might need a little damping somewhere. Probably the cabinets. Otherwise very good. Punchy. Tight. Deep. Powerful. Transparent. Treble is not quite as tinkly as the Dynaudios which have a better tweeter, but it's not that far behind.

The Dynaudios sound drier and a little clearer, I suspect due to an almost total lack of cabinet resonances. Bass definition is very good and truly astonishing for such a small speaker, but without a wall behind them (at least not for some 7 feet) they are not weighty enough in the bass for rock or metal.

So I did some AB comparisons of things I know sound really good on the Dynaudios to see how much of that magic is retained by the Castles and the answer is, a surprising amount. Enough that if I didn't have the Dynaudios to compare to, I wouldn't be disatisfied with the Castles.

And that brings me to the difficult bit

Having heard Tony's system yesterday, I realise that while my system produces enjoyable music, it is miles off of the kind of realism that is possible. The Dynaudios take me closer but only a bit. I don't think I can afford the money or the time to get to that higher level.

I'm thinking I should keep this new room arrangement, keep the Castles because they work well in it, and sell the Dynaudios happy in the knowledge that good as they are, they are still well short of what is possible. I should settle for what I have and be thankful.

I took a couple of piccies so you can see what I'm on about...

Where'd the hifi go...



Ah! There it is

 

Domestically its not acceptable, but as long as you are happy.

 

I'd tend to look for some quality sealed boxes that could go near the wall either side of the fireplace.

Having said that, it's only because I have just done that, another forum member is about to , and both of us would feel IOHO's, that the results are more beleiveable than the ones you refer to.

I too suffered from room boom brother! I'm cured, hallelulah!

 

So what did you end up with? Linn Ninka's perhaps?

Obviously the picture doesn't show the final solution. I will put the narrow cabinet down the far end instead of the wide one so that the speakers can go a little further back. The CD towers which you can see to the left of the left speaker will move to the corner behind the listening position. Not sure what to do about the speaker cable. It will either have to run around the back wall or up and across the ceiling. Not sure how I would make that look good. Might be able to combine it with the light fitting.

Gary, it's not as tight as it looks. This picture shows it better. There's enough room...

 

well done. its not just kit and interconnects.

clearly a bit of aesthetic tweaking still to do - look forward to the photo of the 'final' set-up.

 

Just my two penny worth.....

You have a similar proportioned room to myself......so I fire across the room but have done down the room. Down the length was ok but my problem was a door [ineffect to he right of the window] you don't have this exit!

so if you put the speakers down the end where the window is or he far end [french windows?] have your seating position in the centre and the table behind you.

your going to say thats where it all came from .......

you will need to move the source and amps but there is no reason why you can't get a good sound.

poang's rule !

 

Zanash, I would have to move the gas fire too

Anyway, the wait is over, here it is...







Now I need some lunch

 

Hi,

Actually, I think your problems are the speakers. As long as you insist using speakers designed in ways that reliably cause problems in acoustically small rooms you will keep those problems to varying degrees.

Even WASP can only help to limit the damage.

Ciao T

 

Are you married? If yes treat her nicely,forever

 

:lol:

Fortunately the good Lord saw fit to make me gay :techno:

A wise choice I feel

Thorsten, I'm all ears. What sort of speaker should I listen to in order to solve this problem. Horns perhaps? With high efficiency single drivers? And perhaps a sub horn tucked away in a corner somewhere? And not a crossover in sight? Let alone a reflex port?
Or do I simply need some closed boxes? I tried the SCM12's and didn't like them. And they still excited the room boom.

I'm open to ideas. Please tell me more

 

chris, how does this sound actually work out? Being a naim fan boy I have SBLs and really any serious hifi I have owned has been fronted by wall speakers. I just can't get my head round how the sound will be, how can it be tight and integrated with all the space behind them, surely there are secondary refraction's which will eventually lead to problems.

What I am getting at is does it really sound better, or just different? My preference would be to get rid of the hideous fireplace get the dining room down that end, then have the speakers either side of the hifi you have there now. You obviously are limited up this end due to the door being there.

It might just be me, but I think the speakers look to big for the room, a pair that work on walls would be the best foot forward in my opinion.

 

a huge improvement in layout appearance.

I agree about the speaker/room size ratio being on the high side but if the sound works then play that music.

I'd re-route that cable though

 

Apologies for my assumptions Chris.Be nice to your partner either way

 

btw, given that there may also be female ZG'ers, do we drop WAF in favour of PAF? Perhaps SOAP, significant other approval permission, would cover all house partners, including parents, pets and even pchildren!

 

Quite! I need to buy more cable

As for the sound, it is quite lively. Some of this liveliness comes from the speakers themselves. Things are a little quieter the Dynaudios. Some tracks still overpower the room because, of course, the standing waves are still there. I'm just sitting where they have the least effect. Any track which has sustained notes at 50 Hz (e.g. most of Come Find Yourself by the Fun Loving Criminals) is a bit bass heavy.

I think the dining furniture helps to break up the sound at the back of the room so reflections from the rear are not as bad as they might be. Things also calm down a bit in the midrange with both sets of curtains closed. Side output from the right speaker hits the strategically positioned chair. That on the left diffracts round the corner and is scattered by the bookcases.

I think the sound could be improved by some additional absorption though. I shall have to experiment with duvets and the like to see what might work.

If you think the room/speaker ratio is wrong, you should pay Tony a visit :lol:

I like to rock and they rock in some style :slayer:

 

Hi,

You need speakers that are directional at LF. Horns fall under this genre, but they must be HUGE before they get any LF directivity. Once whio directional without being excessively large are dipoles and "delay-line" type speakers, that is ones where the dipole is modified by delaying the rear radiation - example would be MEG.

IF you where to take my advise and given that your tastes in speakers seem more mainstream than mine your best choise might be a Linkwitz Orion, with a nice quality 6-Channel Amp and a Behringer DCX2496 Digital crossover. The Orion is easy to DIY, the rest easy to put together and the Designer has a long experience doing this sort of stuff and excellent reputation, unlike leftfielders like myself.

Ciao T

 

Eeek! As an engineer, the Linkwitz Orion looks on paper to be the complete opposite of what is required for coherent and accurate music reproduction. A crossover at 1440 Hz!!! Are they crazy? Must be a pretty special crossover network and pretty special drivers.

Of all the research I've done lately into the subject of coherent speakers, the ones featuring Lowther or AER drivers seem to ellicit the most praise from their owners. I know you owned a pair of Beauhorns yourself. Like you, I would also use a subwoofer with these as I have got used to having a full low bass response and am sure I would miss it. I'm not sure I would miss the last few kHz at the top end of the spectrum but that's easily corrected.

I like the idea of speakers that can turn my living room into a concert hall on 1 Watt of power. I wonder what tricks I can employ to get a similarly efficient sub without it being as big as the room. Can a closed box sub be efficient? Decware seem to have some interesting offerings (http://www.decware.com/WO32/wo32.htm). Don't know if it works. Seems counter to known horn theory.

The Behringer is a toy I have considered before but I wasn't convinced of it's worthiness for audiophile applications. I guess it couldn't be any worse than a passive crossover. I think use of acoustic crossovers might be a better idea. I need to read up on bandpass enclosures. I note that Bandor and Decware have both employed this technique.

 

Do electrostatics not meet this criteria?

I noticed that the speakers are near sidewalls, yet have plenty of space behind. Isnt this ideal for electrostatics, which I understand are very directional and dont mind being near sidewalls?

 

Electrostatics are expensive. So are horns of course but here one has the option to DIY the cabinets. Sadly I am not made of money :cry:

It occurs to me that although DIY horns might still be pretty expensive as the drivers are pretty special and quite costly, they might work well with Sonic-Link T-Amps which are ridiculously cheap. The total system cost could then be on a par with what I have now.

 

Hi,

Up to a point. They do have other problems.

Ciao T