Taming room acoustics

I prescribe, a day of fettling, whilst paying for the good lady to go clothes shopping, gets her out the way (she may even come back with some thing rather nice to wear as well ) plus you get to have a fart and fiddle about.
Try putting better spikes on the speakers this firms up the bass and image, the sofa against the wall is good, if too much then a try a towel dircetly behind your head. try also, moving one speaker a bit nearer you than the other
When merlin brought the tact round a few months abck we discovered that the left speaker was 4m/s quicker than the right, so a couple of inches back and wow, these things are free to try. and worth the effort. WM

 

Be very careful trying to deaden the room with soft furnishings. I tried this myself when I turned my room around. I just ended up with a very lifeless if balanced sound.

My solution: Pictures on the wall

Seemed to break up the ringing harshness of the bare walls while keeping the excitement in the music. Worth a try.

Cheers

Jason

 

'Pictures on wall', my arse. It was pictures on sticks!

 

Thanks for all your ideas guys.

I spent virtually all of my evening playing with the setup of my system.
In short, I did the following:

- Checked for the room nodes by walking around. I found that the wall perpendicular to where my system presently sits had a better node.
- Moved the speakers to the wall with the improved node. They'd previously been sited either side of the TV. This meant that they would be a similar distance apart, but with nothing in between them. In addition, the speakers would be firing down the length of the room. As my room is only vaguely rectangular, hopefully the curvature on one of the walls would help defuse normal sound defractions. In addition, the new siting for the speakers would be well away from side walls.
- Seperated out my stereo components from the AV gear. The stereo gear was then setup in a different location and using a different wall socket.
- Tidied up all the cabling (well it might make a difference)
- "Tuned" the shelves on my mana amp stand (supporting my stereo gear)
- Tested the speakers sat both on and off the concrete slabs that they'd previously been sat on

And the results:

Well overall a massive improvement. The treble is now back to a normal level, and the bass has been given a little boost, resulting in a much better rounded sound.
The concrete slabs were an interesting area. With them the sound is brighter, but also better controlled, and appears to have a better sound stage. Without them things sound more natural and the treble doesn't try to rip you're head off.
Not having a huge 32" TV sat between the speakers made a massive difference to the sound image between the speakers, far better placed and more natural now.

So I'm knackered, but feeling much happier. Along the way I've ended up screwing up the sound of my AV system (my rears have now moved to the fronts and I have no rears), but frankly I don't care as the benefits to the stereo system were worth it.

Thanks for all of your ideas along with others that I've read over the last year that I've been frequenting the forums. Thanks also to WM, who for me has set a sound benchmark of just how good CD can really sound. Without that benchmark, I'd have been struggling to get a sense of perspective about what route I want to take with the sound in my system, and also to be able to spot easier where the weaknesses are.

Thanks also to Zanash, who I now chat with very regularly and is sending me an updated interconnect to route between my CDP and amp. In addition, I'll be popping over to see him shortly as he's going to fit the new "low jitter" clock that I bought last month.

 

Mike, glad, the pool of idea's has helped you, it's amazing what you can achieve by careful placement of items and persiverence, and all for the cost of a few drops of sweat .
When you are ready, you need to return, for things have moved on, and we have quite happily surpassed the level that you heard Mike, and by a fair old margin too, mainly by more power mods, but also damping (yes on top of the sinks, some trick internal vibrations killers) and believe it or not a change of speaker spikes to solid brass, oh and those Cables, that turned up on the Monday after your visit . Shame I have a big TV in the way though Tone

 

Removing the TV from between my speakers really does appear to have given big improvements. If you have the opportunity sometime, and someone to give you a hand, try temporarily removing your TV to see the result.
It's the first real reason I can think of for justifying a plasma.

 

Just to put my two penny worth in. ..............

Oh................ yes well I suppose I've got to give some sage and useful tips [unlike some!].

So Do you use that scandanavian store that sounds like "sick" without the s. On my last vist they were selling bolster cushions, these were cylindrical about 1m long and 30cm dia. looking every bit like a "tube trap" I was tempted to get four of these and stack two in each of the corners of my lounge as an experiment. My wife had the casting veto. I don't have a bass problem! so I can't say if they would work but you sometimes get a gut feeling for these things, [dowsings did suggest a positive application]

Have you seen the felf disc tweak, It's supposed to work miracles, theses are stuck at intervals, node points? around the corners of the room. IF you do a web search you'll find more about them.

 

Mr Sukebe

I know of a place in London that directly imports rugs from India, China and Afghanistan.

You can get beautiful hand made rugs for a quarter of the price they go for on the high street... for example a 3ft x 6ft hand made/hand dyed rug that would be about £800 in house of fraser would be about £250 from this place.

The would look magnificent hanging on the wall, or on the floor.

If you want to go this route to changing your room acoustics PM me and I'll give you the details.

Ive been telling myself I'll have one for about 2 years, but theres always been other financial priorities.

Cheers
Chris

 

Removing the TV from between the speakers is a silly solution, pardon my English...

Now you have ruined the sound from the TV, DVD, etc... wich you probably use more time than critical stereo listening...

Maybe it is not perfect to have a TV there, but it can be more than good enough, and will give you more pleasure, just my two cents... :JPS:

 

Low,

I understand what you're trying to say, however:
- it really did make a substantial improvement to how the system sounds in stereo
- From experience with my AV system, I'm more willing to accept sonic compromises on that than I am on my stereo system. I guess it's because of the importance we place on the visual side of things
- Moving things around hasn't changed the use of my centre speaker or sub, only the surround effects speakers. From chatting with people I'm actually considering the idea of trying bi-poles for the rears, which whilst not in the same league as what used to be my rears for directly radiated sound, might created a more "all round immersive feel".
For example, I have a colleague with an nearly all Naim system, who recently swapped out a pair of IBLs for a pair of much cheaper mission bi-poles. Clearly the missions are no match for the IBLs in musical terms, but he thinks that it's been beneficial. Certainly made me think twice.

 

Have you tried the TV between the stereo speakers in the new setup...

 

No I haven't, but frankly I think that it's not an unreasonable assumption to believe that the improvement in stereo image was not the result of just moving the speakers from one wall to another (similar distance apart, similar placement against a wall, similar toe in angle). It would have been easier to prove the point with the kit in the old position, by removing my TV, unfortunately I had a plethora of wires behind it due to links between the AV system components.

I'm dead serious about the improvement though, it really is pretty pronounced. If you get the opportunity, try moving your TV out of the way completely.

 

Mr Sukebe, I'm glad things have improved.

Did you try the temperature thing I suggested?

Marco.

P.S It is a known and accepted fact amongst most knowledgeable enthusiasts that TVs between speakers is a definite no no (if you can avoid it).

 

Another reason for Antonio to realise that AV just ain't as good as a dedicated two channel setup Although WM's aint at all bad, but I still have reservations about it's image stability, and wouldn't be surprised if the big lump in the middle was screwing the image up ( I mean the TV by the way Tone )

 

Marco>

I live in a newish second floor flat in Central(ish) london. I don't think I've ever been in my flat when it hasn't been warm. I've typically end up changing into shorts over the last couple of months due to the weather, so I don't think that it's a temperature issue. Nice idea though.

 

Phooey! - The best stereo I've ever heard has a TV between the speakers.

 

Isnt whining about having a TV between the speakers just a wee bit anal?

 

I think so too, vide WM's setup, and mine, I am sure its limitations have nothing to do with the TV... :MILD:

Also, Merlin, surround more than makes up for it...

 

Call THAT a TV :ffrc: :ffrc:

 

Hi Merlin, I didn't mean mine. The legendary JW system has a TV in t' middle too.

Yes my TV does look a bit silly dwarfed as it is by the speakers. But it's a proper old stylee 26" Sony.

I've been humming and ha'ing about replacing it with something more large, but I don't watch it enough to justify it to myself.

OTOH if I got a big posh one maybe I would watch it more.

I am a bit worried about magnetic effects on the screen, tho'. The Sony is bijou enough to have got away with it so far.