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Have you ever changed speakers to expereince a different "soundscape" or presentation??

Has anyone ever upgraded or changed speakers to experience a different "soundscape" or sonic presentation??

Whether right or wrong, I have always thought that different speakers CAN offer a different perspective on the music.played

Without tying this question to just sound staging and imaging,..... or planar, 'stat versus box speakers, has anyone been surprised or even stunned by listening to a familiar CD or LP, and believe it sounds different and more revealing than you ever have heard before? 


   

sunnyjim
folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak
1,349 posts
 
Definitely yes. The more you fine tune the speaker/room interface the more you can approach the original sound.

For me the acid test that any adjustment is moving in the right direction is whether it increases the diversity of scale and tonality in the reproduction. As you get things more optimized there should be greater variation in instrumental scale (i.e small instruments sound small and localized in space, and large instruments or massed strings say take up the appropriate space). This is true in two (L-R, F-B) and even three dimensions. In addition it should be easier to differentiate the tone of instruments, try separating strings in a string section, or isolating back up singers for example.

Sometimes this can strike you as a negative as the sound of something leaping out at you, spotlighted in a way, can be appealing but it's not natural (I'm of course talking about acoustic recordings here, studio artifice can create lots of effects but the well setup speaker should excel at teasing them apart).

mindlessminion
99 posts
 
I too have multiple sets of speakers.  It might be part compulsion, but it is also the regret of letting a speaker go and losing that sound.  I like changing it up.  
audiokinesis
2,737 posts
 

@draaglah said, "I'm a sucker for soundstaging, so trying out different models to find better and bigger sound is often a pastime - though it seems to sometimes be at the cost of detail for some reason."

My experience has been that late-onset reflections are generally beneficial to both timbre and soundstage (assuming they have a similar spectral balance to the first-arrival sound).  Early reflection are likely to degrade clarity, and though they can still enhance timbre and soundstage.  So if you are getting loss of detail, it might be caused by unwanted early reflections. 

As an example of this phenomenon, consider the experience of Maggie owners:  They find a significant improvement in pretty much all areas when they are able to pull their speakers far enough out in front of the wall, preferably 5 feet or more, corresponding to a path-length-induced delay on the backwave reflection of at least 10 milliseconds.   This is enough of a delay that the spectrally-correct backwave energy does not degrade clarity, but it still enhances timbre, soundstage depth, and a sense of being enveloped in the acoustic space of the recording. 

Studies of what makes the difference between a good seat and a bad seat in a concert hall support this line of thinking.  In a good seat, there is a clear time-domain separation between the first-arrival sound and the onset of reflections.  In a poor seat, there is no significant demarcation between the first-arrival sound and the onset of reflections because the reflections start arriving too early.  This degrades clarity. 

It's not always possible to effectively minimize early reflections in a home audio setup, especially if the speakers have very wide radiation patterns. Wide radiation patterns are generally pleasing overall (they do wind up becoming beneficial late reflections after a couple of bounces), but they are to a certain extent a two-edged sword.  If minimizing early reflections happens to be feasible in your situation, might be worth a try.

Duke

dealer/manufacturer

limomangus's avatar
limomangus
1,426 posts
 
I do it all the time i have like 20 pairs of speakers i do it with.60s-70s-80s- 90s -2,000s . Lol ,I can't pair with them ...lol
lukaske
307 posts
 
Go for the best speakers: ilumnia (floorstander and monitor): ilumnia.be
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