[Review] Getting animated

I did read it all, but I know the shareware version and the site, and the "famous" CARA method of the thirds, nice, but not pratical for me, and most...

Actually in my current setup, as I was living alone when I did it, I do have the speakers on the thirds width wise, and my seat on a third length wise, but it was not pratical to do it for the speakers distance to the front wall...

riga.jpg
 
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"I'd rather not go through all the things that I have found to be of benefit over the years, as this would turn into many pages of typing."

perhpts a couple of examples?




:)
 
bottleneck said:
sure, happy to.

CARA is a stereophile product of the year, amongst other things.

Essentially, in it you model your listening room - including furniture, rugs, carpets etc.

You then provide areas in which you would be prepared to sit, and allow your speakers to be sited.

It will then advise what would be the most ideal setup for your hifi within those paramaters, and where you should sit to get the most even response.

It will also help you to 'model' changes you may make to the room - for example if you wanted to hang a tapestry on a wall in order to calm certain reflections - you can model it in CARA, and then get it to measure the response - before you go to the cost/effort of buying it.
.
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Yes , I know from personal experience the importance of this. Pete has talked me through a lot (sorry pete i know i have hi jacked your thread here).

eg reflection off the walls are sonic nightmare

+ getting a prpoer trianlgle with the listener/ speakers makes an enormous diff.


i perhpts ought to look harder at this

never new it existed!!
 
Well some sane discussions while I've been out .....
unless I've missed the fun ?

Ok ...the idea with the smoke of course is to get the average height before the flow changes from laminar to turbulent ....not till it dissipates. That achieved you will then need to change the air ie humidity and see if that has any quantifiable effects ....

Isn't it strange ...none of the naysayers have asked me to bring the unit over to them .....I find that speaks greater volumes that all the hyperbola....

As to the 1/3's..... dave thats about how I set your distances interesting as we did it by ear and rod !...my room is also set on those ratios...
 
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ShinOBIWAN said:
Very interesting, I've used the shareware release and found it limited but it sounds like the real thing is much more powerful if its capable of what your saying. Does it allow for you to import measured data and calculate based upon that?
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yes, I've found it most useful.

You can 'create' fictional loudspeakers by entering their parameters, crossover types etc and then calculate room effects based on the speaker.

There is a library of existing speakers to pick from, but greater creativity is there if you need it.

Melorib - it's definately a lot more advanced than the shareware version, which is a very limited bit of software.

Anyway, it's one 'tweak' (if you like) that I find universally educational and informative. Love it.

There is an assumption (well I assumed at least) that having messed about with many listening positions in a living room I've had for years, I'd achieved a relative optimal by trial and error.

I was clearly very wrong, having tried computer calculated results, a much cleaner less 'lumpy' response could be seen.



David - gosh, I've tried so much stuff, really..
One of my favourites is a change of the 'free' volume knob on a pre-amp.

Replacing with a high quality attenuator (tastes are personal things), gave a clear and very immediately obvious improvement. Clearly a lot greater than the other bits/bobs I've mentioned.

Another, changing the caps in loudspeakers gave a great result, more-so than changing them elsewhere in amplifiers/cd players etc.

My valve Dac was relatively inexpensive, and holds its own against CD players costing a few thousand. In fact I prefer it to most. Just a taste preference this one, as I find CD often sounds edgy to me, especially when I've been listening to LP's through my EAR 834p.


..having 'no hifi / amp / speakers ' right now, I'm making myself very sad :(
 
yes pete took the vol knob off my valve amp....uses his attenuator now.....made a major diff

a valve dac huh??.............:cool:

...speaker caps sound good......:)



:D



tvm





D.
 
bottleneck said:
There is an assumption (well I assumed at least) that having messed about with many listening positions in a living room I've had for years, I'd achieved a relative optimal by trial and error.

I was clearly very wrong, having tried computer calculated results, a much cleaner less 'lumpy' response could be seen.
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I cannot argue with that, but:

1 - I am going to live in that room, so, using what I know from experience and reading, (I agree that theoretically the thirds theory is ideal, but fifths is not a bad alternative), plus the uses I have for the room, I choose the location of speakers, seat, furniture, and tweaks, meaning curtains, rugs, screens, whatever, then I fine tune by ear...

2 - About computer calculated results, unfortunatelly they dont work every time, for everybody, I used TMREQ room equalization to obtain flat response in my room, but no one liked the sound, me, the wife or my friends, so I went back to good old "lumpy"...
 
I heards the blue thingy and had two immediate responses....

1) My capped tooth at the front felt like it had had silver foil pressed up against it, giving a metallic taste in my mouth...This was weird as I noticed it the second I entered the room....

2) I thought that the vocals of artists was sweeter and more life like....I wouldnt say it was the biggest change iVe ever heard, but, there was some improvement and (for me) it was centred on vocals..
 
don't forget that chemical smell that as liberated from the new carpet [at a guess] .......

Thanks for endorsing what we plainly heard !......[agreed it was not the largest change ...but change there was !]
 
To follow up davidf comment on the valve vol pot ...he picked up a dynavox vr70e ....identical to the pair I sold magpie tim.....anyway as the valve amp was acting as power only the vol pot [which was dire anyway] was removed. I'd like to think that dave liked the transformation as much as I did !
 
I did mine over two years ago !


Not wanting to court abuse ......

but discounting any posts I've made on the blue light .....I don't see any critical or enquiring comments about the other zerogain members experiences with the unit in there own systems, who have then then posted there observations ..

These of course, not only colaberate with each other but add credance and weight to mine own .....it just seems strange that I'm the one jumped on by the naysayers ? [this is at least the third time I've asked this] and they still remain silent on this issue. I'd have thought there'd be some serious procedural question, what type of gear what type of software was used .....

Strikes me that there actually less interested in how why or even if the unit functions ...than setting one group of forum members against another .....of course this is only my opinion.
 
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zanash said:
Strikes me that there actually less interested in how why or even if the unit functions
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Not at all. We've established that the smoke test is not a test of how the unit works in the audio domain, that nobody who has heard the device has any remotely plausible explanation as to what it does, and therefore, in the absence of such an explanation, that it all comes down to faith, as is usual with these tweaks. We've also established that there is a difference between disagreement and trolling, and that Sceptics (or The Sensible as I prefer to call them) do not believe that True Believers are liars, but do think they're probably mistaken.

All in all, a useful thread :-)

-- Ian
 

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