Why don't you care about getting good room acoustics?!

As I mentioned on another forum recently, please do not save us. We do not need to be saved nor want to be saved. We will let the offending trade member know if they cross the line and we'll whine to an admin if the vendor doesn't take notice.

 

They used to be on his website and he used to produce them and could produce them again, it is vested interest. I do not even have a tag line or a promotional picture. If someone didn't know my name and no one had mentioned nva, 'cos I didn't, nobody would know anything. I have not mentioned nva apart from in retaliation to others bringing it up, and yet I get accused of viral marketing, so someones opinion even though it is a pack lies and trouble making is allowed, yet when I complain about a vested interest being exploited my post is removed. This is biased moderation. If I said a pack of lies about you would you allow it?

 

Back on topic, I use passive room treatments though quite sparingly.
However they are no substitute for care and attention over both room and system set-up and should be seen as complimentary IMO - but you don't always need them.
Also, care needs to taken not to overdo things and kill the room altogether.

There is much that can be done with carpets, soft furnishings and general room layout to get the best from a system.

At home my speaker of choice for daily use is the Quad ESL.
Nice speaker but really needs a room larger than my 11x14ft listening room.
The small room is a mixed blessing with the ESL. They don't have the SPL capability to fill a large room so using them near-field in small room solves this issue, and the wide baffle and tight directivity in the mids and high end eliminate many room issues - but not all.
The ESL is naturally a little fruity in the lower range and the room gain from a small room exacerbates this. So I use 3db of shelf cut below 120hz on my Quad pre amp.
Purists will argue that it is the musical enjoyment that matters and all of this attention paid to frequency response is misplaced.
However that correction directly affects the musical performance of the speaker.
Flattening the bass subjectively improves bass speed, articulation and timing. It also makes especially deep male voices sound far more natural, and if that voice happens to be singing, well it just sounds more real and enjoyable.

There is an argument that the circuitry required to perform these changes will itself degrade the signal. Well lets be clear - yes of course it will - it has to as it must add additional distortion to some degree. The burning question must as always be is this distortion audible, if so is it objectionable, and if audible does it outweigh the benefits that good in-room balance can bring.
It is for the listener to decide.

 

He could also start selling Pie & Mash in the Walthamstow market but he doesn't.

Regardless, he was moderated and the reference to the product removed.
In fact we (someone, not me) pulled the thread completely - this is a new one.

People will bring up your products, Simon's products, Keith's products, Guy's products etc etc. The bottom line is that you all need to exercise common sense and a degree of commercial restraint when replying. The alternative is that you cannot talk about amplifiers, cables or speakers, Simon cannot talk about Speakers or EQ, Keith cannot talk about just about anything (!) and Guy is only allowed to make the tea.
Might as well all pack up and go home if that is followed to the logical conclusion.

End of story and subject closed.

 

I thought viral marketing is when it is underhand. People don't necessarily know Richard makes hi-fi so when he talks about a subject such as amps it can be seen as having a hidden agenda. That's why I clearly stated the reason this topic came to mind in my original post. To be honest I think it's more underhand now there is no mention about it. Richard, you'd be in a better position if you made your trade status clear in your signature.

Anyway, big speakers can work in a small room. The size of driver really has nothing to do with how it upsets room modes. Methods of porting and roll-off slope in the bass can, and big speakers tend to roll off slower, but it's not always the case. Small speakers also tend to boom from porting at a higher frequency.

You could certainly get your speakers closer to room corners and walls if you used bass traps in the corners and absorbers on the first reflection points. That way you can recover more floor space for other things.

 

FWIW I've always found big and genuinely full-range speakers far easier to place in a small room than small speakers. I guess because they don't need to play any tricks in the low end; it's all there, clean, even and without effort. One of my friends has a pair of Tannoy GRF Memories in a room not hugely bigger than a pair of Tannoy GRF Memories and they are clean and entirely boom-free despite the room being close to square (never a good thing IMO) and the speakers being in the corners.

Tony.

 

I agree, there is a temptation with small speakers to tune them for stunt bass.
They might not go particularly low so in order to create the impression of 'big bass' they resort to highly tuned and underdamped porting.
Can be a real struggle to integrate into a room.

 

theres a nice pair of corner grf's on ebay right now....mmmmmm corner grf's mmmmmmm

 

Rather an odd pair it has to be said, assuming we are looking at the same ones; nice looking DIY cabs, mid-80s 'tulip' drivers and old Monitor Gold crossovers. I'd like the cabs!

Tony.

 

i must say that my room is ofan avarage size 14 feet wide 17 feet deep , i do have one single armchair at the back io have a bookshel and on the corner i have records up to the celing, but simon on the cornes were my spkrs are the panels are behind and above, they seam to work, when you are in the area please call,
regards ,
nando.

 

I sit there and have 2 6 foot by 4 foot mirrors side by side behind my head

 

Would there be a general rule of thumn as to acoustic treatment where people like me who are under knowledged should somewhat abide by when considering certain circumstances due to problems with particular ranges/frequencies of sound?

Sort of a what to listen out for and how to treat it mini guide

 

Dan - try sticking some large pillows or cushions behind and to either side of your head and hear what sort of difference it makes. This is more or less what I used to do when I had the couch abainst the rear wall. I've re-arranged things now such that I've got about a metre of sapce behind the couch to window/glass door and curtains.

Stuart.

 

If you can find a way, temporarily hang a duvet there. A nice large area like that will show you a big difference.

I wrote a little guide here. See the two 'Room Acoustics' threads - http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=21

 

Put in very simple (and mostly wrong) terms, signals below 250Hz behave like roudy school-children. They tend to lurk in the corners of rooms, and then get disruptive when the music starts. Trap them with stuff not that far removed from loft insulation in the places where they congregate.

Above 250Hz, your room becomes a big pool table of sound. Sounds reflect off the walls like a pool ball bounces off the cushions of a pool table, By putting absorption and diffusion products in places where the sound is likely to bounce back and hit you, you get to hear more of the loudspeaker and less of the room joining in. The obvious places are behind each speaker and behind your head.

Sound also reflects off the side walls, floor and ceiling. I'm a dissenter about the importance of treating these (first) reflections, as I think this is what separates exciting and overdamped sound, and too much first reflection kills stage width. But, if you want to try, sit in your seat with the speakers installed and have a friend move a mirror flat along the side wall. The point where you can see the tweeters reflected in the mirror from your seat is the first reflection point and this can benefit from absorption (something like the loft insulation again) or diffusion (something random like a bookshelf or a dedicated diffusor).

Finally, between the point where you treat the bass and front/rear reflections, and the first reflection, experiment with positioning your listening chair. The 38% rule applies here, but I'd be more experimental. Sit the chair roughly 4/10ths the way along the centreline of the room (either close to the speakers or at the other end of the room) and listen, reposition slightly, listen again. Keep going until happy. If you are using electrostatics, try again, this time with the speakers one-third of the way along the length of the room, the chair one third of the length of the room from the speakers.

Ultimately, a better result can be had by measuring the room and treating its specific problems. There is a problem with this; in the process of getting your room ruler flat, you dial out any form of good sound in the process. Measurement good, measurement and pragmatism better.

 

Sorry Stuart I should have said, I do have cushions all along the wall behind my head when I have listen as there are so many on the sofa I cant sit down unless I put them up behind!

I have also found that if I rest my head back I get a duller flater sound than if I sit up straight with my head a little off the sofa

 

That helps alot F! Ta

 

I have to say, having gone the route of ...


''lugging duvets and mattresses around the living room'' - this is not an effective solution.

questions you need to ask -

1) what is the frequency I'm trying to treat ?
2) at what reflection point is it causing issue?
3) would diffraction or absorbancy be better at this point?
4) what material would treat THIS SPECIFIC FREQUENCY.

It would be deluded in the extreme to think that a duvet can treat anything other than high frequencies.
Good sites such as 'custom audio design' will show you what product can handle what db of absorbancy/diffraction at a given frequency.