Big Room, Bad Sound

This is my first post on this forum (so please go easy) and I would appreciate your thoughts on what's wrong with my currents system.

I recently moved into a new flat with a much larger lounge (15ft by 19ft) and ever since my hifi has sounded pretty average.

My original system was Myryad T20 CD Player, ATC CA2 pre amp, Michell Stereo Alecto MkII Power Amp, ProAc Reponse 1.5 floorstanders. All components were supported by Pulsar Points including speakers and the speakers also sit on Mana Soundbases. Cables is Blue Heaven throughout.

The first problem I had was a massive reduction in the base – in actual fact there just wasn't any. I experimented with moving them around the room but whatever I did they just lacked the image and depth I had previously been used to.

I have since borrowed a pair of ProAc Reponse 2.5's and spent a few days getting the placement right so the base and image appears to be the best I can get it. These now sound really good on certain well recorded CD's but still aren't as involving as in my previous place. More to the point, on the majority of CDs, not particularly well produced, everything sounds terrible, no image, very flat uninvolving wall of sound.

Now the big question is how do I solve this? Is the Alecto Stereo just too small for these speakers in such a large room – should I consider upgrading to a better amp? If so which one, I considered buying a pair of the Alecto Mono blocks and then having them upgrading to 250 watts but not sure whether this will improve the sound. Also considered upgrading to something like a Gamut D200 as this was always considered an excellent power amp. Any other amp suggestions?

Whilst the CD player isn't the most expensive it always sounded excellent in comparison to others I've tried but now I think it may be time to upgrade. I have always been weary of spending too much on a CD player as I have been of the opinion that upgrade wise, improving the speakers and amp seem to have a more beneficial effect. Considered maybe looking into something like the Classe (I think that's it).

Would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions. The new ProAc's are only on loan so if you think the smaller ones could sound better by upgrading the amp instead of both the amp and speakers I am open to suggestions.

 

hi,
welcome to the forum. what's probably happened is that you've been used to room reinforcement / modes at a certain frequency in your previous room. now that you've got a bigger place you aren;t getting those reinforcements and so it now sounds different and therefore wrong .
i suspect that the sound is actually faw more transparent than it was in your old room and closer to what was on the recording.
also if you've been listening in the near field and have switched to far / medium field then the image may have taken a beating.
how to fix is a massive question though. you could try a powered sub (velodyne's dd series are seriously tasty and i know one guy running some small proac 1sc with a velly who's over the moon with the sound he gets) the smaller speakers may improve imaging also.
you might want to see if you can borrow a few amps from your local dealer but i suspect the speakers are going to be the problem / salvation to your dillema.
you might want to try some of the other suspects, b&w, meadowlark (if you can find some), there's a pair of merlin vsm's in the for sale section which are seriously good speakers , or you could go the diy route - like i did, it's all part of this fun hobby.
btw. do you have a budget?
cheers


julian.

 

two suggestions.

use CARA the room acoustics calculator to establish the best positioning of your speakers in your new room. This will take quite a bit of playing with. You want to get a flat response.

http://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12376&highlight=cara

second suggestion/question - what are the room acoustics like? do you have curtains up, carpets and furniture all in ?

 

I would agree with Julian - both about now hearing something different but not necessarily 'wrong', and about adding a sub - which you could use to wean yourself off the heavy bass or just wallow in it.

and welcome!

 

I had exactly the same thing when I moved to a 5m squared room. I found adding bookshelves and soft furnishings made a huge difference.

 

How high is the ceiling?

 

It's the Mana. Get rid of it immediately. Mana bleaches out all the bass & tune, leaving only a scrap of very thin texture behind. But this is false texture.

Combine Mana with a big room, and it's nothing but trouble.

 

another year older but still with wicked sense of humour, I'm pleased to 'hear'.

 

Cheers guys, I'm impressed by all the responses. I have to say I was looking forward to moving into the new place because I was expecting a much better, open and transparent sound and all I seem to have got was reduced imagery and no bass. I know where you are coming from when you say that a lot of it may be due to the lack of bass reinforcement but it does still seem to be lacking something in the midrange. My initial thought was also to add a sub to the stereo hifi. I use an SVS PC Plus sub for home cinema and tried connecting it up via the high level speaker inputs and outputs. Whilst it solved the base problem to a degree it never did much to the rest of the sound and it remained flat and uninvolving.


I had a look at the room diagnostic tool for basic setup and it produced some strange result. Not sure if I used it to its full potential but it seemed to produce the same result for all the speakers I tried. The results it produced appeared to be just basic maths. i.e. speakers should be twice the distance from each other than they are from the side walls and exactly the same distance apart as they are from the listener. It was also interesting to see the distance from the rear wall. They suggest they should be over 1m from the rear wall (I recently did some research on speaker placement and Neats website recommend their speakers should only be 30cm from the rear wall). I guess at that distance there really is going to be no bass reinforcement at all? I'll give it and go and see what it does to the imagery.

Room wise, the ceiling is about 7 foot 10, the room is carpeted with wooden blinds covering three small windows (total 2.8 square metres). Furniture wise I only have 2 large leather recliners and a leather sofa, no pictures or bookshelves. Does it help to fill the room with bookshelves and pictures etc to help absorb the sound?

As for the Merlins, the reviews sound great and probably within my budget (second hand) although aesthetically I'm not sure they're to my liking. Never heard of these before – are they active speakers and if so are they likely to be an okay match to the atc pre? Next problem of course is getting an in house demo of these – are the ones for sale here fairly priced? Would prefer to retain my current speakers but somehow improve their sound.

Perhaps I'm just a base head with no appreciation for the intricacies of the rest of it

 

??? That's a hard one to answer, in my old small room it definately tightened up the base a lot (which was benficial in such a small room) but it did also appear to improve the rest of it. I'll experiment with and without them. I'm actually also using pulsar points on top of the Mana Sound bases instead of spikes. Should I also dispose of those and just spike through the carpet into the solid floor?

 

Mr Tonester, I should advise you that The Devil is in fact quite in favour of Mana, and has a ton of it stacked about his dwelling. I fear that his tongue was in his cheek.

I also advise taking offence, as this would do no one any good on what is generally a good humoured forum.

[Bub, I own up to 'texture' remark, but note that I do have my kit on a 4 tier Mana amp stand.]

 

please no fallout from the more vitriolic threads in this one please - let tonester discover the 'monster beneath' at his own pace :JOEL:

 

Tonester, that diagnostic tool is just a really basic version. The full software retails at about £50. It has a lot of extra features such as showing the effects of putting up book cases etc.

I still suspect its a room issue, possibly also a speaker placement issue.

Its this kind of thing which can easily lead to circular purchasing IME.

 

I would say its one of 2 things:
1] a reflection problem. A larger room stores more energy and takes longer to decay the reverb. Cancellations and confusing reflections muddy the sound and lose bass timing. When you go to a room 4 x the volume, did you buy 4 x the curtains + sofas + carpets etc?

2] A floor, ceiling or wall leaks bass:
perversely, I have found that 3 solid walls and one 'soft' one can have a worse effect than all soft. I think the solid brick bounces and focuses the energy in the direction of the soft wall/floor where it disappears

 

yes yes yes .....use bookcases and draps to breakup reflection. Don't totally rely on software , you possess two very good auditory instraments on your head.

Do you listen along the long axis or the short axis ?

Are the speakers along a wall or across a corner ?

 

You've got a double node between the vertical axis and the 15' wall length (one being double the length of the other)

The bass unit on the Proacs is possibly sitting in a deep null resultant of that. Try speakers with bass units lower to the ground or lifting the the Proacs up say one or two feet. Are you firing across the shorter wall?

 

Rather than raising the proac above its design height.....get the tweeters at ear level and think about the things you can do to the room.

 

How do you ameliorate the affects of a double mode and the resultant suck out with room treatments?

 

I think I misinterpreted the software a bit - I thought you just put in the room measurements and it told you the best postion. Am I right in thinking you put in the measurement and then move the speakers and listening position until you get the flatest line.

If so the attached is the best I can get. Does this look ok or am I way off?

The left (3 windows) and front walls (where the speakers are) are solid whilst the right side and back wall are plasterboard. Speaker are against the shorter wall so that would be listening along the long axis (i think).

Whats a double node (mode)?

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I had some help getting the most from Cara, by a kind chap on the forum

You can move the listening position, trying both firing across the room and down the room, all sorts until you get rid of the biggest nasty peaks. In that graph you seem to have an enormous trough at one point.

Try all sorts of variations over a period of time.

In a similar shaped room I get best results firing across the room (according to CARA and my ears), so definately try all sorts of listening positions.

Have fun
Cheers
Chris