Move the couch forward. Move the speakers out from the the front wall. Get the floor-standing monitor speakers up from the floor. Decouple them from the floor with transport dollies or the feet delivered with the speakers. Use damping mats under speakers so you can to reduce bass and vibration. Use absorbers and diffusers behind speakers. Use diffuses behind you on the wall. Good thick carpets on the floor. Heavy curtains that you can slide away to the corners of the room when you are not listening to music. They are great for covering large TV -sets and windows. More?. Keep your doors to the listening-room open to let out the excess bass pressure-waves from your speakers. Do not place subs in the corners. Keep the mid-tone drivers at he same height as your ears. Listen then if there is some "splash" from the ceiling and treat it with diffusers and/or absorbers. Decouple amp, cd-player and record player from the table-top/floor with absorbing mats feet. Then start with the fun part with power-cables, speaker and IC... It's like gardening. You are not supposed to get a perfect finished garden. You are always on the move and improving or just changing...
Alot of good tips here. Some of them I have had a little plan of doing myself. But remember to not overdampen as that also will ruin the sound and make it less lifelike. Damping under the speakers wont help if you live in a basement or ground level. But in hanging floors (room underneeth) it might in some cases. Decoupling speakers and equipment only helps in some cases when you have loads of vibration. Mostly it's estetics akd placebo. But cables.. That helps on sound. Uhm.. Opening my door gives me even more bass dude...😅 So that is not always the case. In all small rooms I have had it sounds best when the door is closed. And use absorbers and diffusers only where needed. And that could be anywhere and not neccecarely the places you mentioned.
Acoustic room treatment is arguably one of if not the most crucial part of the listening experience(especially in smaller rooms) next to speakers and is unbelievably overlooked. I cant believe how many blow thousands upon thousands on gear and dont even consider treating the room. Youre just hitting the point of diminishing returns going that path when you can spend a fraction or less with the DIY route on proper treatment, and achieve an infinitely better listening experience even with mid-low end gear.
Totally agreed. the one thing I can say Is the most difficult thing to do is to find someone that will actually help you in figuring out what treatment you need, and the other side is to get the room to sound it's best, you either have to start from scratch or spend at least $15K to $20K on room treatment. It's always dealing with the weakest link syndrome. When you get involved with room treatment, whatever treatment you use, you'll either begin to hear the deficiencies in your room that's generated from the untreated areas or whether you choose the right product/materials to treat the room.. As long as you know that going in, you'll learn to have fun with it, and to at least understand where to spend the money.
@@oldestpunkinargentina7766 $200 is only going to buy you some building insulation to use as side wall reflections. Yeah, it makes a difference if you have enough wall coverage, but it's still far from fixing the problems in the room. And you have to be careful using building insulation as treatment in room acoustics. it wasn't designed for that application and their absorption coefficient curves isn't optimized for music and speech. It's more for thermal insulation from hot and cold in a living environment.
I went nearfield a few years back and solved a host of issues that are mentioned here. An added benefit less amplifier power is needed,not to mention I was now able to afford better quality speakers, albeit smaller. Yet I still use all my original upstream equipment from my former whole-room system. Its not for everyone, but if one tends to listen alone, and rarely if ever uses the system for social events, etc,I recommend giving nearfield a try.
I have horn speakers. They are more directional than most other designs and because of this I find they project more sound directly to you than the reflections.
I have horn speakers as well with hardwood floors. A nice large rug with carpet pad really helps with the low end. One needn't get too crazy with room treatments as Steve says. And don't forget to play around a bit with speaker position as well.
@@Drackleyrva Horn speakers are more directional in the midrange and higher frequencies. This means that the reflections you might have will be comparatively lower intensity than the direct sound. This is not necessarily an advantage, call it a “feature” of the horn design. It has the drawback that toe-in can greatly alter the character of the sound, so you need to figure out toe-in more precisely than with a speaker with wider, more even dispersion. I do want to point out that while mid and high frequencies are more easily treatable with absorbers or diffusers, the bass is not easy at all because it is about the room modes rather than the speakers themselves, and changing the fundamental modes (those where the sound wavelength is twice the distance between walls) is almost impossible to do with traps of any sort (you’d have to build a pretty deep soft surface on one of the walls). This is ameliorated when rooms don’t have parallel walls: the modes in this case get washed out. Room correction (ie digital room correction) can be very effective in reducing bass peaks (ie room modes) whereas it is ineffective at increasing bass in bass lows - because the latter are cancellation modes and if you put more energy in, you just cancel more of it. So digital room correction is not necessarily the key to solving these problems.
For near field, you need to have about a 3 ft triangle between speakers and you. Also, the speakers need to have at least 4ft distance from any wall. So, you realistically need at least a 12 or even 13 ft width in your room, otherwise you'll still get reflections from side walls. Also, if you use a sub, place it next to you, the listener, and put on a platform to raise it higher, at least 6 to 12 inches higher.
I have bought GIK panels and I have found that they have made a tremendous difference in my room. I would recommend that if your are skeptical, to just dip your toe in and buy 2-4 large panels and you will hear a clear improvement. That way, you will feel more comfortable with spending the necessary amount to treat your room (whatever that may be). Room treatment are NOT snake oil. I think dollar for dollar they are the most cost effective way to improve sound that you already are getting. But don’t think you need to spend 1000’s to see a big improvement either. Happy Hi-Fi!
Agreed! I bought two large GIK Alpha Pro Diffusor/Absorbers panels for the wall behind my speakers and they made a big difference. After adding a shag carpet and heavy curtains I'm finished with my room now. I'm actually afraid I would over-dampen my room if I added anything else.
Superb results and quite easy to DIY; As much bass trapping as one can aesthetically pull off in the entire room... ie, entire corners, entire wall surfaces. Face the trapping with 6mil plastic (Visqueen) ... this prevents excessive damping via reflecting 600hz and up. Anywhere appropriate, place diffusion/scattering in front of those Visqueen faced traps. This is all about LF decay times ... which is likely the biggest problem, easiest low hanging fruit issue to address. Fast, high resolution bass clarity will result. That's part A, to issue #1, in essentially every room, ie., poorly resolved bass due to uneven decay times. ----------------- Part B, to issue #1 is bass/modal resonances. Placement experimentation, and EQ, in that order. • A room's resonances are fixed and solely determined by the room's dimensions. • Loudspeaker placement determines which modes are excited. • Listener location determines which modes are heard. Those three elements are crucial, yet oftentimes misunderstood. Then on to EQ, (be it dsp based automated Dirac or equivalent, or simply parametric EQ with measurements). If problematic frequency peaks remain in the response below ~250hz, EQ is a must. I say approx 250hz because it should only be applied below the transition frequency. Attempting to EQ above the minimum phase region corrects in one physical place ... thus creating FR issues elsewhere. This 250hz approximation is the transition region... whereby the sound propagation changes from "waves" to "rays" EQ is a valid tool within the pressure wave region below, not in the ray acoustics region above. An EQ change in the wave acoustics frequencies, results in a change evenly everywhere in the room. However, an EQ change in the ray acoustics region above, results in unpredictable changes throughout the space due to superposition peaks/dips. That's issue #1, ... bass clarity.
Building a purpose built 'studio' type listening room, it occurred to me not to finish the ceiling. Since the supporting joists were running parallel to the speakers I decided to modify them into one giant diffuser/absorber. The very top of the ceiling (bottom of the main floor) was lined with absorbtive insulation and a series of diffusers both internally within the joists and interspaced where the ceiling would normally be resulted in an infinite ceiling with a touch of controlled bounce back. Black cloth covers the rest of the 'false' ceiling. Result: A full 9' basement ceiling, savings in money and a great improvement in sound.
I helped a friend set up his new speakers after moving into a new apartment. Luckily it was a fairly large space with an open concept living room and dining room so he was able to pull his speakers into the room and wall reflections were not an issue. The nearest side boundary was his floor to ceiling windows that had drapes to minimize reflections. As with many people he had his TV between the speakers so I brought over some large thick beach towels and threw them over the TV and it made a noticeable improvement to the stereo imaging and clarity much to the surprise of my friend who was very sceptical and reticent to covering up his TV because he thought it looked silly.
After decades I found out about room treatments last year. I had no knowledge of how important my room was. I have my own shop and made everything. Incredible.
No listening fatigue on this channel for sure! You continue to do what you do best Steve... give us your honest opinion on all things Audio..... The Audiophiliac Show: (like Clapton once sang ) Let it Grow!! 👏👏👏 Damn those shirts Steve! 🍻👍
I'm living in 11X11X8 foot cube-room hell. I've solved as well as I can with open-baffle speakers that minimize first-reflection point issues, sitting relatively close, light absorption on the back wall and placing my subwoofer very close to my listening position while taking extra care to properly time-align it to the mains. It's hard to get a wide, deep soundstage in a room this small but imaging, tonality and microdynamics sound very good as long as I don't push things much past 85 db. Even bass tonality and impact is good as long as I don't push things really loud. To achieve large scale sound with good macrodynamics in a room this small requires significantly more treatment than I'm willing to buy or build.
If you don't mind my asking, what open baffle speakers do you have, and how far are they from your front wall? I've been looking at purchasing the Spatial Audio M5 Sapphires for my 11'X15' listening room.
@@Diatonic5th emerald physics 3.4, now out of production. I have them pulled 5 ft from the front left and right corners on a diagonal, with the direct sound crossing 3 ft in front of my head when in listening position. If you draw a straight line from the back of each speaker you will be in the corner. This was the easiest way to create most space between the back of speaker and front wall, which I've been led to believe is best for these kinds of speakers. Would love me some Sapphires, good luck!
@Roland de Rooy not all the frequencies below 55 hz are offensive at 85 db or less but there are definitely some nulls that are unfortunate and can't be managed without treatment.
@Roland de Rooy Yes, it's picking poison. I do enjoy headphones now and then but ultimately prefer speakers. I could chop all the low to get a more linear response but I find I ultimately prefer to have an acceptably good experience of most of the low by carful placement of mains and sub, time-aligning subs and mains, listening at relatively low db (70-80), managing peaks with DSP and living with the nulls. I look forward to one day having a better room which wouldn't require that I cover 30% of the surface area (minimum) with bass traps like this one!
I feel ya @Caleb Keen. Mine is 12x12x8, with a window on one side and bathroom opposite. At least it’s carpeted. Thinking of trying some bass traps to start but not optimistic. Any suggestions from anyone appreciated! 😊
Several years ago I converted an expandable attic to my audio visual room. I maintained the basic shape of the space making the cross section trapezoidal for many of the reasons you discussed. Carpeting, books on shelves, and a couch are my treatments. No slap echo or standing waves..I'm going to miss it when I have to downsize.
Doing a near field deal with Klipsch 51PM and an additional 8” Sub ..its entertaining ....and I’m going to go with cans for serious music listening . Great video as per usual Steve ☕️ thanks.
While mentioning the Ohm Walsh 2000's you did not mention that rear and early side reflections do not need correcting as they help widen the sound stage even more while giving phenomenal imaging and a sit anywhere sweet spot.
I liked this show the best so FAR! You literally read my mind as I was giving this room/ ear field DEBATE credence earlier today. It's cool how you dedicated a whole show to something otherthan; equipment, BUT- of equal importance IMHO. GREAT SHOW!
I had been playing with this for a while and finally found out that near-field listening was actually ideal for me. It so turned out, ironically, that position the speakers there also reduced most of the reverbs that would otherwise affect listening experience (luckily), and getting closer to the sub helps with avoiding the annoying standing waves. My room is 12x25 ft with 10 ft ceiling. The speakers are facing the 12ft direction.
I would strongly recommend reading what Audioholics put together as far as room acoustics. They're usually on the money. I would STRONGLY recommend you have a calibrated mic so you have measurements- frequency response and time-domain so you're not guessing as to what your problem is an can actually measure the effectiveness of your before/after. Also, if your issue is low frequency resonance/ boominess, standard bass traps will do very little. Below 100Hz, you need very thick traps (usually a few feet thick) to do much. The more effective approach is to actually use multiple subwoofers. It actually helps to smooth out the decay at several listening spots such that the frequency response and time domain are cleaned up quite a bit. I know it seems counterintuitive but it works. There are a few articles written on this.
I strongly suspect that Steve knows how to properly test, measure and calibrate a system. He’s one of the top audio reviewers in the world. I trust his opinions and thoughts. He’s been espousing the things you mentioned for years. I love Gene & Audioholics and trust them too. It’s just funny to me that you’re giving advice to Steve like he’s a novice. Thanks for stating the obvious. 😎
Who said I was talking to Steve? And just because someone has been doing this for a long time doesn't mean they're right or adopt/ espouse all data driven recommendations. But you're free to assume that's the case.
Great ideas. With a little DIY the panels don't have to cost much either, I built mine for the cost of the insulation I used. Lots of info can be found easily. I made a rectangle stuffed in my insulation a little extra to get it off the walls as far as possible added my own fabrics. Can even look any way you like this way. Did wonders for my sound stage😁👍
Placing the sub next to or near the listening chair worked well for my set up. I can easily reach over to the volume control and adjust the bass. UB5s with RSL 10 speedwoofer. 11x14x8 room carpeted.
I installed the free REW software on a laptop and purchased a calibrated microphone to take actual measurements of the room response. It's a real eye opener. With experimentation I was able to cure some bass nulls, higher frequency response was highly variable depending on seating position. Just a few inches make a difference. Getting flat response across the audio spectrum would be very difficult.
My music room is the dreaded "almost cube!" I gravitated toward the near-field listening arrangement. Not ideal, but it works. The wall behind the speakers is a 1/4" fake brick panel, it's really heavy and it makes a difference.
I used a cheap rug on the floor and it worked well but then I read about audiophile grade rugs with oxygen free fibres so I'm now saving for one of those.
Wth is an oxygen free fibers? When it got exposed to actual air, with oxygen, then it won't be oxygen free fiber, no? Not trying to be judgemental or anything, won't a thick rug works the same though?
I'm pretty lucky having a great space for listening....12' x 25' with slanted roof, great rug, sound absorbers at first reflection points. I can pull the speakers off the wall and place my chair in the ideal sweet spot. Until I got this space set up, I didn't really understand the importance of the space. I'm my younger, more naive days I just thought a great pair of speakers was all that mattered.
I listen to 6 different CZcams Audiophiles who have given at least a glimpse of their rooms, all different (and I think only 1 is purpose built). You guys should put together a zoom style presentation where you each talk about what makes your room work for you..
In my studio, I've got large absorption panels behind and to the sides of the speakers. They really help! Then I hung TWO 3'x8' panels on the ceiling, and that was a step too far! They sucked all the life and energy out of the room, and it felt unnatural. I tried for a week to get used to it, and once I took the 3x8 panels back down, the life came back. I now have 2 small 2x3 panels at the critical reflection points, and it's just about right. I plan to make diffusor panels for overhead to disperse the reflections without sucking out too much energy from the room.
I have big ass plants on both sides of my speakers (tekton enzo xl) and the corners and hanging above my windows. Hell I have plants all over the damn place and that works great. Also my big ass rug and thick ass velvet curtains really helped a but ton.
I've also got thick velvet curtains, also blinds on the windows. The thing to look out for when buying curtains is the spec of weight of the material per foot. The higher the better. The sound performance compared to when I had thin curtains and no blinds is night and day. Most rooms have curtains so why use thin curtains that the sound will pour through to the reflective glass windows.
I have some vintage speakers in my finished basement room 20 x 10. Any attempt to put speakers on the long wall (20') results in lackluster sound. The SAME speakers on the short wall with the 20' as the space they play into sounds totallly different. They come into their own. Sound like DIFFERENT speakers. Speakers have a 37hz-20Khz +/- 3 db range. My conclusions, the bass is too smeared does not have the space to propagate when it's less the 10' but can breathe when it's closer to 20'. This was a real eye-opener when it came to understanding room effects/problems. The room has the usual acoustic tile drop ceiling, cement floor which is carpeted, a foundation wall that is paneled with wood, and three other paneled walls. Surprisingly, almost ANY speaker, and I mean ANY sounds best against the SHORT WALL!
It cant be underestimated.... the room is the single most important thing to consider when trying to get good sound. I have the unfortunate predicament of using an attic room as my man cave / hifi room. Floor size is 4 x 5m so pretty fair size but the upper is concave and narrows to the roof. These uppers are hollow when knuckle rapping and the whole thing is acoistically alive. The floor is wood suspended with thick carpet and again not inert. All this means no matter what equipment i use i am hearing the room and it ruins everything. Net result is im selling off all my 000's of pounds of hifi as i simply dont enjoy sitting and listening to my room.... and the noisier mains i also suffer up top!!! The reality for me is my £300 grado headphones plugged into the Marantz sacd player sound far better in many ways than £32k worth of all valve pre/power amps with Tannoy Kensington GR on the end and its made my hobby a box swapping nightmare in a room that just wont let my kit sing.
I always wondered why some younger audiophiles were so intent on headphones. One can AB test with a set of headphones. ( against treated room, to get target sound ) I haven't tried it yet. Just a theory.
Hi Steve, my name is Steven and I stay in Malaysia. Love your review and it give me ton of knowledge thanks to you. I wish if you can talk about connections on sub woofer onto amplifier either a active or passive and that would be great. The reason why is because I always had this kind of problems every time.
My family/home theater room has no two identical walls; one opens to my entry hallway, one is a 3 bay window set , my back wall is really just 1/4 of a wall then open to my kitchen, and my ceiling is vaulted one direction up to the second floor. Might as well aim a speaker into a 3-D kaleidoscope ... I’m considering a pair of Bluetooth earbuds 😄
@@stephenbrockway5899 I have not. Always assumed that such technology was beyond my budget. I’ll check into them. How do open baffles improve my situation? Thanks for the advice 👍🏼
I liked your previous advice of setting up on the long wall rather than the short wall, just to experiment. So in a 17 by 12 room with an 8 ft ceiling I have Canton Vento Reference 7 speakers 3 ft from the back wall and 4.5 ft from the side walls in a 1951 room with 3 doors, one leading outside which makes it sound better but with the sounds of nature. The back wall is a little more than half brick from a fireplace and the rest is dual layered old maple wood paneling with one side wall all windows with shutters. No room treatments just a lot of furniture. My short backed listening chair is in a 7 ft equal lateral triangle. Easy to adjust bass balance by moving chair a little forward or back. All music I listen to sounds really good even at the lowest volumes. I can lay on the couch 3ft adjacent from one speaker and it still sounds good like I’m doing now listening to the Sundays Blind over and over.
I bought them because they were 65lbs not 105lbs, have rounded fiber board cabinets with the tweeter below the mid driver which I like. They’re made in Germany and they’re a 10 yr old design being closed out new for $3,000 which is what I think they cost in Germany. Easy to live with, to me they sound like a full range driver even when I walk up to them to change music.
@@damianzaninovich4900 I've had them for 10 years. I always appreciated the rigidity of them. My cousin knocked one of the speakers over a month ago. After I buried his body, I checked it and noticed the mid-range had been compromised around the outer surface in the cone, thought no cracks. LUCKILY, I haven't noticed any damage to the sound quality after many hours of use. So if you were ever thinking of knocking one over for whatever reason, it should still work fine.
The room itself isn't the only part of the equation. You also have to fill it with things that don't mess up the sound. Furniture, objects (books, records, etc), and people will affect the volume of sound, reflections, distortion, absorption, etc.
@Lloyd Stout And there are different types and configurations of that, too. Different thickness, different processes (laminated, tempering, insulating, etc) that change features of the glass, different shapes and fixtures (flat vs small pane, vs some ornate stained configuration). Window coverings are also an issue. I use canvas roman blinds with insulating baffles, for example, which seem to be good at diffusing the sound instead of just reflecting it. I also have different walls than a lot of people. I have stone block construction in the outer walls, then insulation, and then lath and plaster on the inside. It seems to absorb a lot of the energy. Outside, with my system up relatively loud, it's almost inaudible with the windows closed. (I love my music, but I try to be a good neighbor.)
A big problem is that many homes and apartments have an open floor plan where the kitchen and livingroom are part of the same space. This is bad acoustically for many reasons, and worst of all you can hear the refrigerator 24-7. Refrigerators are the enemy of good sound.
I have an open plan house. The acoustics are actually quite good as I have a vaulted ceiling which, I feel, helps. The biggest acoustic problem in my open plan house is other people talking!
I have an open floor plan as you describe, tile floors, cathedral ceilings and all. Outside of potential appliance noise (not much of an issue for me), my A/V calibrator did his tests on the room and advised where to put some sound panels. On his next visit with sound panels in place (already had a thick rug in the listening area and heavy curtains on a sliding glass door), he remeasure the rooms acoustics and listens to several test disks and said that it’s now a really good listening room that measures and sounds excellent. Now, I just have to keep wifey from clucking and I’ll be golden.😁
I live right next to a busy road, which is next to a train track, in a neighborhood popular with Harley Davidson enthusiasts, and both my neighbours have loud barking/howling dogs. When I can hear my refrigerator I feel lucky haha
It is the main issue to reproduce great sound.i've been dealing with this for many years.for smaller rooms,I recommend small stand mounted monitors.most great British speakers are of that type.most listening rooms are in older dwellings that tend to have smaller rooms.Was an audio consultant for some years and I can't tell you how many of the Ultra High End systems I've heard that sounded horrific!.room treatments are very helpful,but careful system matching is very critical! In my opinion, the 180°dome tweeter set high end audio back 30years.the main culprit for most undesirable reflection.i found that speakers with ribbon or horn tweeters have better directivity and do not see the baffle like domes.
I have been lucky, I had a great sounding room once I moved the speakers to the long wall using bookcases to defuse sound and listening nearfield. But it was time to tear that room out for a new master suite. So up to the attic I went. Rectangular room with a knee wall behind the speakers. Building a shed dormer, I gently sloped the ceiling down to minimize reflections with the help of an acoustician and a fine carpenter.speakers three feet out into the room, minimal side and rear reflections and I am a happy camper. Vandersteen 3A Signatures, nearfield listening, 2x10 floor joists and no bass boom at all. Ray Brown, Christian McBride and John Clayton sounds superb in my room.
Hey Steve, I have a 11 ish ft SQUARE stereo listening bedroom. More precisely W3,42 x L3,47 x H2,77 meters. What you said is what I'm experiencing. I have to make do with near-field or face the room boom. I have a pair of Neat Motive 2 (12cm woofer and 76cm tall) loudspeakers driven by a Naim NAP250DR and one SVS SB12-NSD subwoofer. As you can imagine, the sub almost have to go in the middle to avoid the boundaries. My amp is too much for my speakers, at some point the speakers will produce that prrrr sound reaching the excursion limits with the kick drum. At this point, I wish I had a tad stronger speaker. At the same time I know this speaker cannot have rear firing port and probably should not be a multi driver loudspeaker. I'm thinking about another pair of down ported 2 way tower but with 17cm woofer to resist more. A little taller would also help with the near-field listening because I have a computer desk with a 27 inch LCD blocking the speakers a little. I have a large carpet covering all listening area, curtains behind my listening position covering a large sliding window and a wardrobe on one of the walls on the side more distant of the speakers. What would be your first room treatment experimentation? Absorbers on the side walls at first reflexion points? One wall has the wardrobe covering the probable location of the absorver. Osvaldo
Hi Steve, If you do a chapter 2 on room impacting sound, maybe holding up a drawing of your unusual room shape, with Xs where you typically place speakers would help? Thanks
Steve forgot to mention planar speakers, like Magnepan, Soundlabs, etc, they do not send sound to the floor and ceiling and not much to the right and left, the sound coming off the back is the issue... speakers have to be far away from the back wall, or diffused/absorbed...
Hi Steve, I am lucky enough to have a dedicated designed room that pretty much matches one used by reviewers for a movie magazine in the USA. The half wave is 19Hz long, a bit over 10 Metres with width at 7.2 Metres, ceiling max is 3.3 Metres down to 2.7 at the rear. Rear wall is offset by about a foot side to side. Anthem dsp does room eq in the bass but nowhere else. Wall and ceiling are resilient mounting (double layer plasterboard) except for front wall that is solid mounted. Wish you could hear just how calm the sound is. Even moderate speakers are ok in here.
I'm Building a new home that will have a dedicated room that is the same size as yours. 20 ft wide, 30 ft long, 10 ft ceiling in the front, 9 ft ceiling in the rear. What do you mean about the rear wall being off set? I don't follow. Thanks
@@scotthintz8875 Hi Scott, the rear wall is not parallel with the front, with the right rear being 300mm closer to the front than the left rear. Trust me here, it's a critical thing to do as it kills bass resonance almost completely. By doing this I can run with little eq at all, and only subs are running it. The tier raised floors are made slightly flexible by not hard joined to the walls, and rock with heavy bass, adding to the feeling of explosion and drama.
Hey Steve I would love to see a video on VMPS audio. I have a set of SuperTowers and a 10” subwoofer. I love the company but know little about them as a whole. Very rare findings with the brand!
I have used GIK, which are reasonably priced. I would start with room treatments before most audiophile tweaky stuff. I just installed 2 GIK 244 bass traps and the improvement has been great. Want cymbals to sound better, get your bass under control. Even the vocals are better. This was only a $270 tweak. Right now orders from GIK are taking about two months.
Hi Steve, very good tips. I have an unusual tip on speaker placement. I suspended my floor standing speakers halfway between floor and ceiling. In front is a rug on the floor. The horizontal towing is past my listening position. Vertically the speakers are leaning downwards a bit with the front, also directed behind listening position. The sound stage is a bit higher than usual, but it is huge this way and reflections are minimal. Behind the speakers I tune the level of absorption by curtains. I am lucky that the space is deep (12 m), but otherwise I would have absorption on the rear wall.
There's some sense to raising floor standers. On mine which have the woofer above and tweeter below the tweeter ends up lower than my ears when seated. Lifting the speakers about 8-9 inches would solve this but I just never get around to it.
@@RasheedKhan-he6xx That is very strange, because the tweeters indeed should be at or above ear level. You could raise or flip them upside down in order to improve the high spectrum.
@@janwillemkuilenburg7561 Its not strange at all. Its quite a common design. Another common design is a D'Appolito array, where the tweeter has one midwoofer above and another below. All of these have to do with phase shift and time alignment of the sound from the two drivers. That is also why some companies still make full-range single drivers or concentric tweeters and woofers, like Kef.
Lucky in that I have a pass through into the kitchen that the wife hates. So there have been drapes over it for years, also drapes over the two windows on the other side. Coat rack behind the left speaker and an open hall behind the right. Big stuffed sofa at the back of the room. Not ideal but it works.
I am pulling my floor standers to the middle of the room, on a carpet, and putting my soft arm chair right in front of them. Than smoke some green and I am flying xd xd
yes absorption material to the speakers as first reflection, but leave a gap where the tweeter is 6" between the panels in most cases if the very bright sounding don't need to? and the best absorption material is natural wool fleece it goes lower than any other material below 20hz you can buy quarter half 1/2 inch fleece and double it up and hang it away from the wall, never have panels touching the wall the second reflection point should be in your sitting position about 2 feet in front and about 1 feet behind the gap between the panels in line with a treat needs to be about 12 inches here if you're sitting more than 7 feet away from you speakers. If you have a narrow longitudinal room you need to really have the speakers the other way you don't want your speakers against the side wall. And don't need to be that far apart in the middle 4,1/2 ft no more than six feet apart. Bass traps are very important you didn't mention on or corners ideally but at least behind the speakers minimum 2 feet across I would say 3-ft ideally you can use fleece for this is best just hang up some wooden dowel across the corners hang the fleece over leaving a gap at the bottom of about a foot if you have cats make it higher You can easily make diffusers the top professionally tune to your room any bits of material wood you just Google quadratic diffuser calculator putting your dimensions material it will give you the specifications blueprint to make it. Softwood like pine is ideal cover the back with natural wool fleece not hardboard. If you wanted to look a bit more attractive you can hang rugs or bamboo rugs on the wall in front of the fleece the same on the floor put the fleece and bamboo rugs across the speakers ideally 3-ft in front and some behind
Hi Steve, Love your shows! Would you stage a floor standing speaker along the long instead meaning along the 16foot wal in a 15 x 14 room with 8 ft ceilings in an attic. There is more symmetry due to the window dormers on the read long side. Thanks so much in advance to your feedback.
Hey Steve. Thanks for the video! I've been insulating the celling and air ducts in my listening room (the ceiling is unfinished). My room is also not square or rectangle. The thin carpet hides the cement underneath so I added a large rug. Windows are covered with thick curtains. I'm always looking to make my room better.
I love near-field. I have set my speakers 4 ft apart and my seat 4 ft. I have Rogue Sphynx V3 with Focal Chorus 706 speakers. Three digital sources running through a Cambridge DAC Magic100, and a Rega P3 turntable. My room is all paneled 18 x 12 with pretty good acoustics and I added a few acoustic absorption pieces. I actually just switched the power supply on my DAC and it's improved
good video the house i grew up in had a den room it was 35ft by 22 if i remember. the walls were wood the floor had broadlem the front of the room had built in book shelves. i had a entry level prologic system at the time and running movies or music the floor would shake under my feet.we had a crawl space under the floor would that make that happen? in a apartment the floor is solid .But that floor i remember would shake like a subwoofer . the walls to would resinate . we had alot of books to. that room was quite dead sounding no echo at all.
Does anyone have thoughts about or experience with using an armchair with large 'ears', or 'eggchair'? Well placed, I guess this way you could receive more of the direct sound from your speakers and less indirect/reflected sound...without having to do a massive room haul over. Right?
my listening room is in a bedroom because it keeps it away from the neighbour's it has a king size bed in it with the speaker three foot away from the bed definitely not ideal but the Atcs cope pretty well being a sealed design
Curious to know what electronics gave you the most success with the Snell Type A's. I could not get the same base response in a similar leaky room. Additionally, I found attenuation at some medium to high frequencies. Also what was your break-in period?
Ive tried 3 sets of speakers in my room (about 10' by 10') one side 50% open to livingroom below. All speakers perform with lackluster bass. Maybe its too small, too square and Im too close to hear those "long" waves of bass.
How do you know where your first reflections are happening? I always see people with diffusers behind the speakers, on the back wall and on the sidewall almost straight across from the speaker. I read on some scientific website that said back wall needs 4" thick some substance I forgot.
Great advice as always. Love the suggestion to try a towel in front of speakers. I threw a bunch of towels in the open fireplace behind the speakers and was amazed at the improvement. I have a carpet over concrete floor, but it may not be enough in front of the speakers. If the towel improves then I can throw an area rug over the carpet.
Same, carpet on marble. I dropped a couple of large floor cushions in strategic locations. Made an actual difference. Another thing is, get a low back chair. Some people do know not to sit right back against the wall but then get a leather high backed club chair. You will get reflections happening right behind your head. Try bringing a pillow from your bed one day and put it behind your head you'll see.. er.. you'll hear what I mean.
I have a pair of Canton xi 270’s. Had them since the early eighties. Had them reconed once. I’ve listened to them in so many rooms big and small over the years but they always sound good to me. I wonder, and this may be an interesting thing to explore in a video is... can one become emotionally attached as opposed to sonically attached to a set of speakers? Having said that i would like to get new speakers. Recommendations?
I'm emotionally attached to my 20+ year old Mission speakers. So much so I'm careful not to upgrade electronics too much because it might 'force' me to also upgrade my speakers. 🔊😁
I can't believe that some people in the worst sounding rooms (acoustically), still refuse to get an EQ of some sort, they rather have all the peaks and dips in the frequencies, then an EQ in their system.
Absolutely! After all my hard work and money to achieve clean sound, it would be the very height of stupidity to introduce more dirt and grunge back into it. Not to mention a waste of money. Edit: Speaking hypothetically, of course. Not meaning to call anyone stupid. Just sayin'.
EQ is an absolute must for taming modal resonances. However it should only be applied in the minimum phase region below the transition frequency. Attempting to EQ above the minimum phase region simply corrects in one physical place ... thus creating FR issues elsewhere. Essentially, you EQ within the pressure wave region, not in the ray acoustics region. Of course before EQ, experimentation via placement of both speakers and listening position, as well as LF trapping to address decay times. Then; enter EQ (be it dsp based Dirac, or simply parametric EQ with measurements)
Move the couch forward. Move the speakers out from the the front wall. Get the floor-standing monitor speakers up from the floor. Decouple them from the floor with transport dollies or the feet delivered with the speakers. Use damping mats under speakers so you can to reduce bass and vibration. Use absorbers and diffusers behind speakers. Use diffuses behind you on the wall. Good thick carpets on the floor. Heavy curtains that you can slide away to the corners of the room when you are not listening to music. They are great for covering large TV -sets and windows. More?. Keep your doors to the listening-room open to let out the excess bass pressure-waves from your speakers. Do not place subs in the corners. Keep the mid-tone drivers at he same height as your ears. Listen then if there is some "splash" from the ceiling and treat it with diffusers and/or absorbers.
Decouple amp, cd-player and record player from the table-top/floor with absorbing mats feet. Then start with the fun part with power-cables, speaker and IC... It's like gardening. You are not supposed to get a perfect finished garden. You are always on the move and improving or just changing...
thaks for your amount of tip you gave here
Alot of good tips here. Some of them I have had a little plan of doing myself. But remember to not overdampen as that also will ruin the sound and make it less lifelike.
Damping under the speakers wont help if you live in a basement or ground level. But in hanging floors (room underneeth) it might in some cases. Decoupling speakers and equipment only helps in some cases when you have loads of vibration. Mostly it's estetics akd placebo. But cables.. That helps on sound.
Uhm.. Opening my door gives me even more bass dude...😅 So that is not always the case. In all small rooms I have had it sounds best when the door is closed.
And use absorbers and diffusers only where needed. And that could be anywhere and not neccecarely the places you mentioned.
Acoustic room treatment is arguably one of if not the most crucial part of the listening experience(especially in smaller rooms) next to speakers and is unbelievably overlooked. I cant believe how many blow thousands upon thousands on gear and dont even consider treating the room. Youre just hitting the point of diminishing returns going that path when you can spend a fraction or less with the DIY route on proper treatment, and achieve an infinitely better listening experience even with mid-low end gear.
200 bucks on DIY room treatment went a longer way than 5K on equipment for me.
Or you could do both
Totally agreed. the one thing I can say Is the most difficult thing to do is to find someone that will actually help you in figuring out what treatment you need, and the other side is to get the room to sound it's best, you either have to start from scratch or spend at least $15K to $20K on room treatment.
It's always dealing with the weakest link syndrome. When you get involved with room treatment, whatever treatment you use, you'll either begin to hear the deficiencies in your room that's generated from the untreated areas or whether you choose the right product/materials to treat the room..
As long as you know that going in, you'll learn to have fun with it, and to at least understand where to spend the money.
@@oldestpunkinargentina7766 $200 is only going to buy you some building insulation to use as side wall reflections. Yeah, it makes a difference if you have enough wall coverage, but it's still far from fixing the problems in the room. And you have to be careful using building insulation as treatment in room acoustics. it wasn't designed for that application and their absorption coefficient curves isn't optimized for music and speech. It's more for thermal insulation from hot and cold in a living environment.
It's not overlooked, it's just that most people don't want a living room full of bass traps and carpeted walls
I went nearfield a few years back and solved a host of issues that are mentioned here. An added benefit less amplifier power is needed,not to mention I was now able to afford better quality speakers, albeit smaller. Yet I still use all my original upstream equipment from my former whole-room system.
Its not for everyone, but if one tends to listen alone, and rarely if ever uses the system for social events, etc,I recommend giving nearfield a try.
I have horn speakers. They are more directional than most other designs and because of this I find they project more sound directly to you than the reflections.
That was my question----are horn speakers better suited for certain rooms vs standard speakers?
I have horn speakers as well with hardwood floors. A nice large rug with carpet pad really helps with the low end. One needn't get too crazy with room treatments as Steve says. And don't forget to play around a bit with speaker position as well.
@@Drackleyrva Horn speakers are more directional in the midrange and higher frequencies. This means that the reflections you might have will be comparatively lower intensity than the direct sound. This is not necessarily an advantage, call it a “feature” of the horn design. It has the drawback that toe-in can greatly alter the character of the sound, so you need to figure out toe-in more precisely than with a speaker with wider, more even dispersion.
I do want to point out that while mid and high frequencies are more easily treatable with absorbers or diffusers, the bass is not easy at all because it is about the room modes rather than the speakers themselves, and changing the fundamental modes (those where the sound wavelength is twice the distance between walls) is almost impossible to do with traps of any sort (you’d have to build a pretty deep soft surface on one of the walls). This is ameliorated when rooms don’t have parallel walls: the modes in this case get washed out.
Room correction (ie digital room correction) can be very effective in reducing bass peaks (ie room modes) whereas it is ineffective at increasing bass in bass lows - because the latter are cancellation modes and if you put more energy in, you just cancel more of it. So digital room correction is not necessarily the key to solving these problems.
@@miguelbarrio Thanks guys!!
I went to nearfield listening in my room, and it did help with removing a lot of room problems.
For near field, you need to have about a 3 ft triangle between speakers and you. Also, the speakers need to have at least 4ft distance from any wall. So, you realistically need at least a 12 or even 13 ft width in your room, otherwise you'll still get reflections from side walls.
Also, if you use a sub, place it next to you, the listener, and put on a platform to raise it higher, at least 6 to 12 inches higher.
I have bought GIK panels and I have found that they have made a tremendous difference in my room. I would recommend that if your are skeptical, to just dip your toe in and buy 2-4 large panels and you will hear a clear improvement. That way, you will feel more comfortable with spending the necessary amount to treat your room (whatever that may be). Room treatment are NOT snake oil. I think dollar for dollar they are the most cost effective way to improve sound that you already are getting. But don’t think you need to spend 1000’s to see a big improvement either. Happy Hi-Fi!
Agreed! I bought two large GIK Alpha Pro Diffusor/Absorbers panels for the wall behind my speakers and they made a big difference. After adding a shag carpet and heavy curtains I'm finished with my room now. I'm actually afraid I would over-dampen my room if I added anything else.
Superb results and quite easy to DIY;
As much bass trapping as one can aesthetically pull off in the entire room... ie, entire corners, entire wall surfaces.
Face the trapping with 6mil plastic (Visqueen) ... this prevents excessive damping via reflecting 600hz and up.
Anywhere appropriate, place diffusion/scattering in front of those Visqueen faced traps.
This is all about LF decay times ... which is likely the biggest problem, easiest low hanging fruit issue to address.
Fast, high resolution bass clarity will result.
That's part A, to issue #1, in essentially every room, ie., poorly resolved bass due to uneven decay times.
-----------------
Part B, to issue #1 is bass/modal resonances.
Placement experimentation, and EQ, in that order.
• A room's resonances are fixed and solely determined by the room's dimensions.
• Loudspeaker placement determines which modes are excited.
• Listener location determines which modes are heard.
Those three elements are crucial, yet oftentimes misunderstood.
Then on to EQ, (be it dsp based automated Dirac or equivalent, or simply parametric EQ with measurements).
If problematic frequency peaks remain in the response below ~250hz, EQ is a must.
I say approx 250hz because it should only be applied below the transition frequency. Attempting to EQ above the minimum phase region corrects in one physical place ... thus creating FR issues elsewhere.
This 250hz approximation is the transition region... whereby the sound propagation changes from "waves" to "rays"
EQ is a valid tool within the pressure wave region below, not in the ray acoustics region above.
An EQ change in the wave acoustics frequencies, results in a change evenly everywhere in the room.
However, an EQ change in the ray acoustics region above, results in unpredictable changes throughout the space due to superposition peaks/dips.
That's issue #1, ... bass clarity.
Nice addition to this thread.
Building a purpose built 'studio' type listening room, it occurred to me not to finish the ceiling. Since the supporting joists were running parallel to the speakers I decided to modify them into one giant diffuser/absorber. The very top of the ceiling (bottom of the main floor) was lined with absorbtive insulation and a series of diffusers both internally within the joists and interspaced where the ceiling would normally be resulted in an infinite ceiling with a touch of controlled bounce back. Black cloth covers the rest of the 'false' ceiling.
Result: A full 9' basement ceiling, savings in money and a great improvement in sound.
I helped a friend set up his new speakers after moving into a new apartment. Luckily it was a fairly large space with an open concept living room and dining room so he was able to pull his speakers into the room and wall reflections were not an issue. The nearest side boundary was his floor to ceiling windows that had drapes to minimize reflections. As with many people he had his TV between the speakers so I brought over some large thick beach towels and threw them over the TV and it made a noticeable improvement to the stereo imaging and clarity much to the surprise of my friend who was very sceptical and reticent to covering up his TV because he thought it looked silly.
Enjoyed this. Remember an oft quoted comment in music that "The most important instrument in an orchestra is the [room]."
AWESOME!! TOTALLY AGREE.
After decades I found out about room treatments last year. I had no knowledge of how important my room was. I have my own shop and made everything. Incredible.
No listening fatigue on this channel for sure! You continue to do what you do best Steve... give us your honest opinion on all things Audio..... The Audiophiliac Show: (like Clapton once sang ) Let it Grow!! 👏👏👏
Damn those shirts Steve! 🍻👍
Chandeliers - diffusion that looks good.
I'm living in 11X11X8 foot cube-room hell. I've solved as well as I can with open-baffle speakers that minimize first-reflection point issues, sitting relatively close, light absorption on the back wall and placing my subwoofer very close to my listening position while taking extra care to properly time-align it to the mains. It's hard to get a wide, deep soundstage in a room this small but imaging, tonality and microdynamics sound very good as long as I don't push things much past 85 db. Even bass tonality and impact is good as long as I don't push things really loud. To achieve large scale sound with good macrodynamics in a room this small requires significantly more treatment than I'm willing to buy or build.
If you don't mind my asking, what open baffle speakers do you have, and how far are they from your front wall? I've been looking at purchasing the Spatial Audio M5 Sapphires for my 11'X15' listening room.
@@Diatonic5th emerald physics 3.4, now out of production. I have them pulled 5 ft from the front left and right corners on a diagonal, with the direct sound crossing 3 ft in front of my head when in listening position. If you draw a straight line from the back of each speaker you will be in the corner. This was the easiest way to create most space between the back of speaker and front wall, which I've been led to believe is best for these kinds of speakers. Would love me some Sapphires, good luck!
@Roland de Rooy not all the frequencies below 55 hz are offensive at 85 db or less but there are definitely some nulls that are unfortunate and can't be managed without treatment.
@Roland de Rooy Yes, it's picking poison. I do enjoy headphones now and then but ultimately prefer speakers. I could chop all the low to get a more linear response but I find I ultimately prefer to have an acceptably good experience of most of the low by carful placement of mains and sub, time-aligning subs and mains, listening at relatively low db (70-80), managing peaks with DSP and living with the nulls. I look forward to one day having a better room which wouldn't require that I cover 30% of the surface area (minimum) with bass traps like this one!
I feel ya @Caleb Keen. Mine is 12x12x8, with a window on one side and bathroom opposite. At least it’s carpeted. Thinking of trying some bass traps to start but not optimistic. Any suggestions from anyone appreciated! 😊
Several years ago I converted an expandable attic to my audio visual room. I maintained the basic shape of the space making the cross section trapezoidal for many of the reasons you discussed. Carpeting, books on shelves, and a couch are my treatments. No slap echo or standing waves..I'm going to miss it when I have to downsize.
My room isn't as loud as Steve's shirt.
Doing a near field deal with Klipsch 51PM and an additional 8” Sub ..its entertaining ....and I’m going to go with cans for serious music listening .
Great video as per usual Steve ☕️ thanks.
While mentioning the Ohm Walsh 2000's you did not mention that rear and early side reflections do not need correcting as they help widen the sound stage even more while giving phenomenal imaging and a sit anywhere sweet spot.
I was hoping to see a detailed look of your room Steve.
I liked this show the best so FAR! You literally read my mind as I was giving this room/ ear field DEBATE credence earlier today. It's cool how you dedicated a whole show to something otherthan; equipment, BUT- of equal importance IMHO. GREAT SHOW!
Room treatment made as much, if not more of a difference as any piece of gear and or speaker in my room. Atc makes really nice absorbers.
ATS maybe?
@@featherboards1565 sorry. Ats is correct.
I had been playing with this for a while and finally found out that near-field listening was actually ideal for me. It so turned out, ironically, that position the speakers there also reduced most of the reverbs that would otherwise affect listening experience (luckily), and getting closer to the sub helps with avoiding the annoying standing waves. My room is 12x25 ft with 10 ft ceiling. The speakers are facing the 12ft direction.
I would strongly recommend reading what Audioholics put together as far as room acoustics. They're usually on the money. I would STRONGLY recommend you have a calibrated mic so you have measurements- frequency response and time-domain so you're not guessing as to what your problem is an can actually measure the effectiveness of your before/after.
Also, if your issue is low frequency resonance/ boominess, standard bass traps will do very little. Below 100Hz, you need very thick traps (usually a few feet thick) to do much. The more effective approach is to actually use multiple subwoofers. It actually helps to smooth out the decay at several listening spots such that the frequency response and time domain are cleaned up quite a bit. I know it seems counterintuitive but it works. There are a few articles written on this.
I strongly suspect that Steve knows how to properly test, measure and calibrate a system. He’s one of the top audio reviewers in the world. I trust his opinions and thoughts. He’s been espousing the things you mentioned for years. I love Gene & Audioholics and trust them too. It’s just funny to me that you’re giving advice to Steve like he’s a novice. Thanks for stating the obvious. 😎
Who said I was talking to Steve? And just because someone has been doing this for a long time doesn't mean they're right or adopt/ espouse all data driven recommendations.
But you're free to assume that's the case.
The room is by far the biggest component of the sound and is by far the most effect for money spent
Great ideas. With a little DIY the panels don't have to cost much either, I built mine for the cost of the insulation I used. Lots of info can be found easily. I made a rectangle stuffed in my insulation a little extra to get it off the walls as far as possible added my own fabrics. Can even look any way you like this way. Did wonders for my sound stage😁👍
Placing the sub next to or near the listening chair worked well for my set up. I can easily reach over to the volume control and adjust the bass. UB5s with RSL 10 speedwoofer. 11x14x8 room carpeted.
I installed the free REW software on a laptop and purchased a calibrated microphone to take actual measurements of the room response. It's a real eye opener. With experimentation I was able to cure some bass nulls, higher frequency response was highly variable depending on seating position. Just a few inches make a difference. Getting flat response across the audio spectrum would be very difficult.
Which microphone did you get?
My music room is the dreaded "almost cube!" I gravitated toward the near-field listening arrangement. Not ideal, but it works. The wall behind the speakers is a 1/4" fake brick panel, it's really heavy and it makes a difference.
It's worth remembering that a room like an anechoic chamber won't sound good. Recordings are made to allow for some room reverb.
Nearfield listening is great. A 3-foot equilateral triangle ( two speakers and one listener) at the center of the room is T-H-E ideal starting point.
I used a cheap rug on the floor and it worked well but then I read about audiophile grade rugs with oxygen free fibres so I'm now saving for one of those.
Wth is an oxygen free fibers? When it got exposed to actual air, with oxygen, then it won't be oxygen free fiber, no? Not trying to be judgemental or anything, won't a thick rug works the same though?
This was great Steve!! Thanks, very helpful info regarding acoustic room treatments.
Crank the volume up and sit in the beer room , heavenly lol
I'm pretty lucky having a great space for listening....12' x 25' with slanted roof, great rug, sound absorbers at first reflection points. I can pull the speakers off the wall and place my chair in the ideal sweet spot. Until I got this space set up, I didn't really understand the importance of the space. I'm my younger, more naive days I just thought a great pair of speakers was all that mattered.
Great suggestions! “Just try stuff” may be the best approach.
@Lloyd Stout
"Shotgunning"?
Is that like 'spray and pray'? XD
I listen to 6 different CZcams Audiophiles who have given at least a glimpse of their rooms, all different (and I think only 1 is purpose built). You guys should put together a zoom style presentation where you each talk about what makes your room work for you..
I'd totally watch that!
In my studio, I've got large absorption panels behind and to the sides of the speakers. They really help! Then I hung TWO 3'x8' panels on the ceiling, and that was a step too far! They sucked all the life and energy out of the room, and it felt unnatural. I tried for a week to get used to it, and once I took the 3x8 panels back down, the life came back. I now have 2 small 2x3 panels at the critical reflection points, and it's just about right. I plan to make diffusor panels for overhead to disperse the reflections without sucking out too much energy from the room.
I have big ass plants on both sides of my speakers (tekton enzo xl) and the corners and hanging above my windows. Hell I have plants all over the damn place and that works great. Also my big ass rug and thick ass velvet curtains really helped a but ton.
Moral: Lots of ass makes better audio.
* poot *
I've also got thick velvet curtains, also blinds on the windows. The thing to look out for when buying curtains is the spec of weight of the material per foot. The higher the better.
The sound performance compared to when I had thin curtains and no blinds is night and day. Most rooms have curtains so why use thin curtains that the sound will pour through to the reflective glass windows.
I have some vintage speakers in my finished basement room 20 x 10. Any attempt to put speakers on the long wall (20') results in lackluster sound. The SAME speakers on the short wall with the 20' as the space they play into sounds totallly different. They come into their own. Sound like DIFFERENT speakers. Speakers have a 37hz-20Khz +/- 3 db range. My conclusions, the bass is too smeared does not have the space to propagate when it's less the 10' but can breathe when it's closer to 20'. This was a real eye-opener when it came to understanding room effects/problems.
The room has the usual acoustic tile drop ceiling, cement floor which is carpeted, a foundation wall that is paneled with wood, and three other paneled walls. Surprisingly, almost ANY speaker, and I mean ANY sounds best against the SHORT WALL!
It cant be underestimated.... the room is the single most important thing to consider when trying to get good sound. I have the unfortunate predicament of using an attic room as my man cave / hifi room. Floor size is 4 x 5m so pretty fair size but the upper is concave and narrows to the roof. These uppers are hollow when knuckle rapping and the whole thing is acoistically alive. The floor is wood suspended with thick carpet and again not inert. All this means no matter what equipment i use i am hearing the room and it ruins everything. Net result is im selling off all my 000's of pounds of hifi as i simply dont enjoy sitting and listening to my room.... and the noisier mains i also suffer up top!!!
The reality for me is my £300 grado headphones plugged into the Marantz sacd player sound far better in many ways than £32k worth of all valve pre/power amps with Tannoy Kensington GR on the end and its made my hobby a box swapping nightmare in a room that just wont let my kit sing.
Rooms are vital and so often overlooked , but they do need to be tailored to suit I think its really where serious audiophiliac behaviour begins.
It can get pretty neurotic. Especially to an outsider
I always wondered why some younger audiophiles were so intent on headphones. One can AB test with a set of headphones. ( against treated room, to get target sound ) I haven't tried it yet. Just a theory.
GIK is what I have and like.
Thanks for the advise Steve, will put it to good use XD
Hi Steve, my name is Steven and I stay in Malaysia. Love your review and it give me ton of knowledge thanks to you. I wish if you can talk about connections on sub woofer onto amplifier either a active or passive and that would be great. The reason why is because I always had this kind of problems every time.
My family/home theater room has no two identical walls; one opens to my entry hallway, one is a 3 bay window set , my back wall is really just 1/4 of a wall then open to my kitchen, and my ceiling is vaulted one direction up to the second floor. Might as well aim a speaker into a 3-D kaleidoscope ... I’m considering a pair of Bluetooth earbuds 😄
Have you tried open baffles? Pure Audio Project, Magnapan or Caintuck Audio might be worth looking into. You can demo the Magnapan LRS speakers.
@@stephenbrockway5899 I have not. Always assumed that such technology was beyond my budget. I’ll check into them. How do open baffles improve my situation? Thanks for the advice 👍🏼
I think some foam would help on my ceiling and one wall. Good info Stevo
I gave in to Dirac. I’m happy that I did - the war with my room is over.
I had this "Get headphones" line ready but Steve had it covered :)
I liked your previous advice of setting up on the long wall rather than the short wall, just to experiment. So in a 17 by 12 room with an 8 ft ceiling I have Canton Vento Reference 7 speakers 3 ft from the back wall and 4.5 ft from the side walls in a 1951 room with 3 doors, one leading outside which makes it sound better but with the sounds of nature. The back wall is a little more than half brick from a fireplace and the rest is dual layered old maple wood paneling with one side wall all windows with shutters. No room treatments just a lot of furniture. My short backed listening chair is in a 7 ft equal lateral triangle. Easy to adjust bass balance by moving chair a little forward or back. All music I listen to sounds really good even at the lowest volumes. I can lay on the couch 3ft adjacent from one speaker and it still sounds good like I’m doing now listening to the Sundays Blind over and over.
I have the same speakers. Nice to see here in the US.
I bought them because they were 65lbs not 105lbs, have rounded fiber board cabinets with the tweeter below the mid driver which I like. They’re made in Germany and they’re a 10 yr old design being closed out new for $3,000 which is what I think they cost in Germany. Easy to live with, to me they sound like a full range driver even when I walk up to them to change music.
@@damianzaninovich4900 I've had them for 10 years. I always appreciated the rigidity of them. My cousin knocked one of the speakers over a month ago. After I buried his body, I checked it and noticed the mid-range had been compromised around the outer surface in the cone, thought no cracks. LUCKILY, I haven't noticed any damage to the sound quality after many hours of use. So if you were ever thinking of knocking one over for whatever reason, it should still work fine.
Give us a tour of your New York Apartment! I’m from the south and live in the country so I would love to see how New York City dwellers live.
The room itself isn't the only part of the equation. You also have to fill it with things that don't mess up the sound. Furniture, objects (books, records, etc), and people will affect the volume of sound, reflections, distortion, absorption, etc.
@Lloyd Stout And there are different types and configurations of that, too. Different thickness, different processes (laminated, tempering, insulating, etc) that change features of the glass, different shapes and fixtures (flat vs small pane, vs some ornate stained configuration). Window coverings are also an issue. I use canvas roman blinds with insulating baffles, for example, which seem to be good at diffusing the sound instead of just reflecting it.
I also have different walls than a lot of people. I have stone block construction in the outer walls, then insulation, and then lath and plaster on the inside. It seems to absorb a lot of the energy. Outside, with my system up relatively loud, it's almost inaudible with the windows closed. (I love my music, but I try to be a good neighbor.)
Could you do another video on how to get room improvements past the missus?
A big problem is that many homes and apartments have an open floor plan where the kitchen and livingroom are part of the same space. This is bad acoustically for many reasons, and worst of all you can hear the refrigerator 24-7. Refrigerators are the enemy of good sound.
I have an open plan house. The acoustics are actually quite good as I have a vaulted ceiling which, I feel, helps. The biggest acoustic problem in my open plan house is other people talking!
I have an open floor plan as you describe, tile floors, cathedral ceilings and all. Outside of potential appliance noise (not much of an issue for me), my A/V calibrator did his tests on the room and advised where to put some sound panels. On his next visit with sound panels in place (already had a thick rug in the listening area and heavy curtains on a sliding glass door), he remeasure the rooms acoustics and listens to several test disks and said that it’s now a really good listening room that measures and sounds excellent. Now, I just have to keep wifey from clucking and I’ll be golden.😁
The fridge doesnt run 24-7, if yours does you need a new one.
I live right next to a busy road, which is next to a train track, in a neighborhood popular with Harley Davidson enthusiasts, and both my neighbours have loud barking/howling dogs. When I can hear my refrigerator I feel lucky haha
Just move the fridge outside :)
It is the main issue to reproduce great sound.i've been dealing with this for many years.for smaller rooms,I recommend small stand mounted monitors.most great British speakers are of that type.most listening rooms are in older dwellings that tend to have smaller rooms.Was an audio consultant for some years and I can't tell you how many of the Ultra High End systems I've heard that sounded horrific!.room treatments are very helpful,but careful system matching is very critical! In my opinion, the 180°dome tweeter set high end audio back 30years.the main culprit for most undesirable reflection.i found that speakers with ribbon or horn tweeters have better directivity and do not see the baffle like domes.
I hope one day I'll have the money to build my own home and hire the best acoustic engineers to build the physically best listening room from scratch
I have been lucky, I had a great sounding room once I moved the speakers to the long wall using bookcases to defuse sound and listening nearfield. But it was time to tear that room out for a new master suite. So up to the attic I went. Rectangular room with a knee wall behind the speakers. Building a shed dormer, I gently sloped the ceiling down to minimize reflections with the help of an acoustician and a fine carpenter.speakers three feet out into the room, minimal side and rear reflections and I am a happy camper. Vandersteen 3A Signatures, nearfield listening, 2x10 floor joists and no bass boom at all. Ray Brown, Christian McBride and John Clayton sounds superb in my room.
Bookcases absorb too much of the higher frequencies. So much untrue myth that bookcases make good DIY diffusers 🤦🏾♂️ When in fact they don't 👍🏾
@@C--A they work in my room. Not missing anything. Even measures very well.
Hey Steve,
I have a 11 ish ft SQUARE stereo listening bedroom. More precisely W3,42 x L3,47 x H2,77 meters.
What you said is what I'm experiencing. I have to make do with near-field or face the room boom.
I have a pair of Neat Motive 2 (12cm woofer and 76cm tall) loudspeakers driven by a Naim NAP250DR and one SVS SB12-NSD subwoofer. As you can imagine, the sub almost have to go in the middle to avoid the boundaries.
My amp is too much for my speakers, at some point the speakers will produce that prrrr sound reaching the excursion limits with the kick drum. At this point, I wish I had a tad stronger speaker. At the same time I know this speaker cannot have rear firing port and probably should not be a multi driver loudspeaker. I'm thinking about another pair of down ported 2 way tower but with 17cm woofer to resist more. A little taller would also help with the near-field listening because I have a computer desk with a 27 inch LCD blocking the speakers a little.
I have a large carpet covering all listening area, curtains behind my listening position covering a large sliding window and a wardrobe on one of the walls on the side more distant of the speakers.
What would be your first room treatment experimentation? Absorbers on the side walls at first reflexion points? One wall has the wardrobe covering the probable location of the absorver.
Osvaldo
Why yes, yes it does
Hi Steve,
If you do a chapter 2 on room impacting sound, maybe holding up a drawing of your unusual room shape, with Xs where you typically place speakers would help? Thanks
Steve forgot to mention planar speakers, like Magnepan, Soundlabs, etc, they do not send sound to the floor and ceiling and not much to the right and left, the sound coming off the back is the issue... speakers have to be far away from the back wall, or diffused/absorbed...
I LISTENED TO MISHIMO AND I LIKED IT.
That's a nice block print shirt.
I have the cube 11x10x10 only place I’ve got....room treatments are needed so bad 😂😂🙏🏼
Hi Steve, I am lucky enough to have a dedicated designed room that pretty much matches one used by reviewers for a movie magazine in the USA. The half wave is 19Hz long, a bit over 10 Metres with width at 7.2 Metres, ceiling max is 3.3 Metres down to 2.7 at the rear. Rear wall is offset by about a foot side to side. Anthem dsp does room eq in the bass but nowhere else. Wall and ceiling are resilient mounting (double layer plasterboard) except for front wall that is solid mounted. Wish you could hear just how calm the sound is. Even moderate speakers are ok in here.
I'm Building a new home that will have a dedicated room that is the same size as yours. 20 ft wide, 30 ft long, 10 ft ceiling in the front, 9 ft ceiling in the rear. What do you mean about the rear wall being off set? I don't follow. Thanks
@@scotthintz8875 Hi Scott, the rear wall is not parallel with the front, with the right rear being 300mm closer to the front than the left rear. Trust me here, it's a critical thing to do as it kills bass resonance almost completely. By doing this I can run with little eq at all, and only subs are running it. The tier raised floors are made slightly flexible by not hard joined to the walls, and rock with heavy bass, adding to the feeling of explosion and drama.
Another thing not mentioned was moving speakers around. Making sure speakers are not equidistant from the back wall and side wall.
Hey Steve I would love to see a video on VMPS audio. I have a set of SuperTowers and a 10” subwoofer. I love the company but know little about them as a whole. Very rare findings with the brand!
just hit the subscribe button.... also a request.. More McIntosh reviews... the C53 and MC462 to start with.
Just subbed, I watch all of your vids.
I have used GIK, which are reasonably priced. I would start with room treatments before most audiophile tweaky stuff. I just installed 2 GIK 244 bass traps and the improvement has been great. Want cymbals to sound better, get your bass under control. Even the vocals are better. This was only a $270 tweak. Right now orders from GIK are taking about two months.
Speaker bungs and nearfield in a rectangular bedroom and it's alright. Can't complain too much.
Hi Steve, very good tips. I have an unusual tip on speaker placement.
I suspended my floor standing speakers halfway between floor and ceiling. In front is a rug on the floor. The horizontal towing is past my listening position. Vertically the speakers are leaning downwards a bit with the front, also directed behind listening position. The sound stage is a bit higher than usual, but it is huge this way and reflections are minimal. Behind the speakers I tune the level of absorption by curtains. I am lucky that the space is deep (12 m), but otherwise I would have absorption on the rear wall.
There's some sense to raising floor standers. On mine which have the woofer above and tweeter below the tweeter ends up lower than my ears when seated. Lifting the speakers about 8-9 inches would solve this but I just never get around to it.
@@RasheedKhan-he6xx That is very strange, because the tweeters indeed should be at or above ear level. You could raise or flip them upside down in order to improve the high spectrum.
@@janwillemkuilenburg7561 Its not strange at all. Its quite a common design. Another common design is a D'Appolito array, where the tweeter has one midwoofer above and another below. All of these have to do with phase shift and time alignment of the sound from the two drivers. That is also why some companies still make full-range single drivers or concentric tweeters and woofers, like Kef.
Lucky in that I have a pass through into the kitchen that the wife hates. So there have been drapes over it for years, also drapes over the two windows on the other side. Coat rack behind the left speaker and an open hall behind the right. Big stuffed sofa at the back of the room. Not ideal but it works.
I am pulling my floor standers to the middle of the room, on a carpet, and putting my soft arm chair right in front of them. Than smoke some green and I am flying xd xd
yes absorption material to the speakers as first reflection, but leave a gap where the tweeter is 6" between the panels in most cases if the very bright sounding don't need to? and the best absorption material is natural wool fleece it goes lower than any other material below 20hz you can buy quarter half 1/2 inch fleece and double it up and hang it away from the wall, never have panels touching the wall the second reflection point should be in your sitting position about 2 feet in front and about 1 feet behind the gap between the panels in line with a treat needs to be about 12 inches here if you're sitting more than 7 feet away from you speakers. If you have a narrow longitudinal room you need to really have the speakers the other way you don't want your speakers against the side wall. And don't need to be that far apart in the middle 4,1/2 ft no more than six feet apart. Bass traps are very important you didn't mention on or corners ideally but at least behind the speakers minimum 2 feet across I would say 3-ft ideally you can use fleece for this is best just hang up some wooden dowel across the corners hang the fleece over leaving a gap at the bottom of about a foot if you have cats make it higher
You can easily make diffusers the top professionally tune to your room any bits of material wood you just Google quadratic diffuser calculator putting your dimensions material it will give you the specifications blueprint to make it. Softwood like pine is ideal cover the back with natural wool fleece not hardboard.
If you wanted to look a bit more attractive you can hang rugs or bamboo rugs on the wall in front of the fleece the same on the floor put the fleece and bamboo rugs across the speakers ideally 3-ft in front and some behind
Hi Steve, Love your shows! Would you stage a floor standing speaker along the long instead meaning along the 16foot wal in a 15 x 14 room with 8 ft ceilings in an attic. There is more symmetry due to the window dormers on the read long side. Thanks so much in advance to your feedback.
Steve, you forgot room correction software e.g. Dirac Live, well worth trying as part of the tool kit.
Dirac live hasn't been updated in over a year at least in Android and doesn't work very well imo
Hey Steve. Thanks for the video! I've been insulating the celling and air ducts in my listening room (the ceiling is unfinished). My room is also not square or rectangle. The thin carpet hides the cement underneath so I added a large rug. Windows are covered with thick curtains. I'm always looking to make my room better.
Very strange as most people put a underlay on the floor before the carpet gets layed. Then the carpet goes over the top of the underlay.
How can one talk on improving room acoustics & not show their listening room? Is it sufficient to be reviewing speakers for the audiophile public?
Great review, Steve. Is that a Totem Beak on top of the speaker behind you?
Does GIK have local reps that will come to my home? That's the only way I would give them any business.
I love near-field. I have set my speakers 4 ft apart and my seat 4 ft. I have Rogue Sphynx V3 with Focal Chorus 706 speakers. Three digital sources running through a Cambridge DAC Magic100, and a Rega P3 turntable. My room is all paneled 18 x 12 with pretty good acoustics and I added a few acoustic absorption pieces. I actually just switched the power supply on my DAC and it's improved
Most people doesn't realise how important the room is
good video the house i grew up in had a den room it was 35ft by 22 if i remember. the walls were wood the floor had broadlem the front of the room had built in book shelves. i had a entry level prologic system at the time and running movies or music the floor would shake under my feet.we had a crawl space under the floor would that make that happen? in a apartment the floor is solid .But that floor i remember would shake like a subwoofer . the walls to would resinate . we had alot of books to. that room was quite dead sounding no echo at all.
My room sounds pretty decent, but it smells a bit 😅
Add to that something like Dirac Live and avoid reflecting speakers.
Does anyone have thoughts about or experience with using an armchair with large 'ears', or 'eggchair'? Well placed, I guess this way you could receive more of the direct sound from your speakers and less indirect/reflected sound...without having to do a massive room haul over.
Right?
my listening room is in a bedroom because it keeps it away from the neighbour's it has a king size bed in it with the speaker three foot away from the bed definitely not ideal but the Atcs cope pretty well being a sealed design
Curious to know what electronics gave you the most success with the Snell Type A's. I could not get the same base response in a similar leaky room. Additionally, I found attenuation at some medium to high frequencies. Also what was your break-in period?
More parameters to think about when speaker shopping.
Ive tried 3 sets of speakers in my room (about 10' by 10') one side 50% open to livingroom below. All speakers perform with lackluster bass. Maybe its too small, too square and Im too close to hear those "long" waves of bass.
If you have a medium sized room, all made of reinforced concrete, does near field listening help as well?
Steve are you wearing my Aunt's Housecoat?
Hey Steve guttenberg have u ever tried a car system in home
How do you know where your first reflections are happening? I always see people with diffusers behind the speakers, on the back wall and on the sidewall almost straight across from the speaker. I read on some scientific website that said back wall needs 4" thick some substance I forgot.
Great advice as always. Love the suggestion to try a towel in front of speakers. I threw a bunch of towels in the open fireplace behind the speakers and was amazed at the improvement. I have a carpet over concrete floor, but it may not be enough in front of the speakers. If the towel improves then I can throw an area rug over the carpet.
Same, carpet on marble. I dropped a couple of large floor cushions in strategic locations. Made an actual difference. Another thing is, get a low back chair. Some people do know not to sit right back against the wall but then get a leather high backed club chair. You will get reflections happening right behind your head. Try bringing a pillow from your bed one day and put it behind your head you'll see.. er.. you'll hear what I mean.
@@RasheedKhan-he6xx Great point. I have a big leather Barcalounger. Definitely causes some problems.
I have a pair of Canton xi 270’s. Had them since the early eighties. Had them reconed once. I’ve listened to them in so many rooms big and small over the years but they always sound good to me. I wonder, and this may be an interesting thing to explore in a video is... can one become emotionally attached as opposed to sonically attached to a set of speakers? Having said that i would like to get new speakers. Recommendations?
I'm emotionally attached to my 20+ year old Mission speakers. So much so I'm careful not to upgrade electronics too much because it might 'force' me to also upgrade my speakers. 🔊😁
I can't believe that some people in the worst sounding rooms (acoustically), still refuse to get an EQ of some sort, they rather have all the peaks and dips in the frequencies, then an EQ in their system.
Absolutely!
After all my hard work and money to achieve clean sound, it would be the very height of stupidity to introduce more dirt and grunge back into it. Not to mention a waste of money.
Edit: Speaking hypothetically, of course.
Not meaning to call anyone stupid. Just sayin'.
In a decent analogue system the deleterious effects of things like direc most often palliate or even overwhelm the benefit.
EQ is an absolute must for taming modal resonances.
However it should only be applied in the minimum phase region below the transition frequency. Attempting to EQ above the minimum phase region simply corrects in one physical place ... thus creating FR issues elsewhere.
Essentially, you EQ within the pressure wave region, not in the ray acoustics region.
Of course before EQ, experimentation via placement of both speakers and listening position, as well as LF trapping to address decay times.
Then; enter EQ (be it dsp based Dirac, or simply parametric EQ with measurements)
I have given up on making this room sound good. It's 18x24, 10 foot ceilings of differing height and one wall is glass with the rest being concrete.
Condolences. 🙁
Hmmm they should make something that will equalize the room response.