Are There Improvements that Can Be Easily and Quickly Made Without Buying More Stuff?
I appreciate that there are many people on this forum who have put a great deal of thought and effort into how to improve their audio systems. Most of the discussion relates to upgrading equipment. This is natural as most people here want to improve their music experience, and better equipment is a way to do that. I’ve taken advantage of this and made 5 or 6 upgrades over the last year! The result has been great! But are there some simple steps that can be taken that can be overlooked by someone who is newer to audio?
As examples I’ve read that facing a sub towards something like the back of a couch will improve its sound. And for rooms with bad effects that can’t be fixed, move the listening position closer to the speakers.
‘What is your best tip for improving sound quality without buying anything?
As others have stated, it appears you have a very live and reflective room that needs taming. All of those reflections are smearing the sound from your speakers and creating a mess. I would look at adding a large rug as well as some decorative, acoustic panels to the ceiling, first. Like you, I would try to avoid blocking my view of the sea with window coverings. On the other walls, I’d try adding more decorative panels in different sizes, wherever they could fit. That could be a good start. |
Yeah clean ears to start with for sure. Understand what you are hearing and why. Then tweak tweak tweak the setup within the room accordingly. Set up the speakers just right for your listening position. Maybe add absorption at primary reflection points on side walls. Keep physical space between components and between components and any nearby sources of noise like power transformers, digital devices etc. That helps keep noise levels minimal. |
@woofman74 @ghdprentice @jerryg123 Yes, ear cleaning is a regular maintenance item for me. @chowkwan Grills are off to see the impact. I read quite an in depth article about this on audioholics which claims that the frame is the biggest factor on sound quality. My speakers have a grill which connects to the sides of the speakers, so the effect from the frame is minor. @waytoomuchstuff Since the grills were off, I found that the 10 screws on each speaker that were holding the drivers did accept a bit of tightening. Good idea! I already fixed a previous issue with a loose RCA connector. @paradisecom I don’t actually notice that my room is live - is there an easy way to test it without using a microphone? I have quite a few bookshelves along the walls, and other similar things around the room, so there are a lot of small surfaces. I’ll add a rug soon. @mapman Based on the comments made I now see that my audio is set up for near field listening. I’ll try to find tweaks that apply to that situation. I’m comfortable taking the time and having the patience to move speakers a bit at a time to try to find the sweet spot.
|
@chayro How true. I have a list of favorites on Radio Paradise MQA…and they’re my favorites because I think they sound good. Listening to them, my system sounds great! |
Room and speaker placement are, of course, everything!!! Once you get that right, then you can start thinking about tweaks, if you are so inclined. I use tweaks on all my components, but one of my greatest tweaks, for me, which made the greatest improvement on the sound quality of my system were my Bybee Tech Plug-in Speaker Bullets. One of my local audio dealers brought the speaker bullets to my attention about 15 years ago, and I’ve been using them every since. All I can tell you is that the speaker bullets are extremely effective, but expensive. I did try a couple much less expensive (really cheap) speaker tweak alternatives, but none could match the build quality, the science, or the sound quality improvements that the Bybee Bullets made on my system, so I went on ahead and bit the "Bullet" and purchased the Bybee Bullets with no regrets. . |