2. home-theater
  3. 1021706421

Help, moved and very unhappy the sound of the syst

In the new room the hole excitment level of the system dissappered. My heart rate no longer races, and I truly miss this. Any ideas would be very helpful.

What I have done,

Current room, 26x14. 9ft ceiling at listing position(back wall) 12 foot ceilings at front. The front of the system is in the middle of the long wall. Glass patio door prevents using the length of the room, due to sunlight on tv.

System-
Myryad MPD 500 pre
Bryston 9b amp
Phase Tech PC 9.1 as mains
Phase Tech PC 3.1 as center/rears
HSU VTF-2 sub

It was suggeste that I try a new sub, so I got a Revel b15. Basically no improvement, just no life to the system. Improvement was less than 5%

So I started plotting everything. Found that I had large dip 12db around 63hz. I am a little confused on how to fix this, with sub or front mains so I started with the front mains. Pulled them out from the wall until I got a good plot from them. About 5 feet from the wall, this room is 14 wide, looks funny. But I live alone so who cares. Got the plots to improve to atleast a +-6db range. The system sounds better, but no where close to before. The previous room was an apartment, much smaller. 16x8x9 or so. I had a large glass fish tank in that room, front of tank was 6x2.

I really just do not know what to do next. The system has no heart racing ability. A larger amp will not do much unless I really go big, Brystons 7bs. Talked to stores, Bryston and Phase Tech. Phase Tech basically said "huh thanks for telling me"

With the speakers way out from the wall the 2ch preformance better. Getting weird reflections I think though.

I ended up using the pre amp crossofer at 80hz having the revel low level crossover set at 40hz, letting the revel take all the real low stuff, using its high pass to send the rest to the Hsu(40-80hz). The system is still missing 75% of the heart jump starting ability.

Thanks for the help.

Marty
marty9876
sean
6,231 posts
 
Some simple observations based on the info you provided.

1) you were used to a large percentage of highly concentrated reflected sound in your previous installation. The new installation is PROBABLY more correct in the fact that the reflections are more "diffuse" and delayed. You're just not used to it.

2) loss of reflections will initially appear as a loss of life or "openness" along with less energy or "congestion" in the "warmth" or lower mid / upper bass region. This is because high frequencies tend to "bounce" more than low frequencies and that has drastically been reduced ( less side-wall bounce and that HUGE "glass signal bouncer" of a fishtank is no longer involved. As such, the bass "hole" is probably not the source of your tonal imbalance ( although it will obviously affect the overall sound )

3) smaller rooms are easier to pressurize. As such, you will need to increase the amount of gain to achieve similar listening levels and the equivalent amount of mid-bass that you used to have.

4) you have the speakers on what most would consider the wrong side of the room. Optimally, the sound should be able to spread out into the room, not necking down.

5) you make no mention of how far apart you have your speakers

6) you make no mention of whether you have changed the type of support that the equipment is supported by

7) you make no mention of whether or not you are on a suspended floor i.e. on the second floor or above a basement

8) you make no mention of where you are seated at in terms of the rear wall and distance from speakers

9) We need more info : ) Sean
>
marty9876 OP
120 posts
 
Thaks for all the help. I switched the placement of the whole system be 90 degrees, to run the length of the room.

Some improvement, but little. The speakers are 5 ft apart, 5ft from side walls and 4ft from back wall. 9ft to listening position. I am starting hear and will see where I get.

The floors are the same, concrete with carpeting. The old place was a brand new apartment unit, 9ft ceilings with flat painted sheetrock. The new room is an older house with painted sheetrock, with some "texture" to it. The room is sunken about 1ft with carpeting around the whole perminter up 1 ft, weird 70's thing?

No change in support of equiment. New seating location is 11 ft from back wall.

The house has a 200 amp service panel, old push-matic circuit breakers. I re-installed a trip-lite rf filter used only on the pre ampo and dvd player.

I am thinking I might have a real dead room, just feels that way. Not sure if this can be overcome...

Thank you all for your help

Marty
sdcampbell
2,136 posts
 
Marty:

As the others have already noted, your problem is almost certainly due to room/acoustic problems. Your room is fairly large, asymmetric, and plagued with a wall of glass, so there are a number of factors which may be contributing to your dissatisfaction.

You could spend weeks trying various solutions, but this is one time I'd really suggest spending some money and hire the services of a good home theater guru. Do a little research and find out which store / HT consulting service has a good reputation in your area, and engage their services. My bet is that you won't regret getting some expert help. If the advice you get is too expensive to do everything at once, then tackle the problem incrementally, starting with the changes that will make the most impact.
sean
6,231 posts
 
Marty, your speakers are WAY too close together. You also have them the same distance from two boundaries ( 5 ft to rear wall, 5 ft to side walls ) and that is a no-no. Each distance from the speaker to a wall creates a specific resonance or node. Having the same distance between multiple points of reflection will tend to reinforce those nodes and resonances, making them WAY out of control. At the same time, you're also increasing the amount of cancellation in other frequency ranges.

Take a look at the thread below and see if it helps. If you try all of that and you're still not happy, you might want to contact a professinal acoustician to see what they have to say. I would be VERY leary of most "audio guru's" that work in stereo shops that do HT installations. Many of those that i've seen are acoustic DISASTERS that people paid BIG cash to have installed. Sean
>

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1021745115&2&3&4&
marty9876 OP
120 posts
 
Thanks all for the help, so far the front mains are 7ft apart and I am moving the speakers forward to work out the bass.

If I end up with something that NO women would ever life with than am I on the right track?(audio side of life only....)

Marty
More to discover