Horning Eufrodites - help needed with boomy bass
Help!!!! There's nothing more annoying than boomy bass. I just can't enjoy music anymore. Audiophile Rule No.1: No panic Here is a pretty good solution for Room Tuning which doesn't cost a fortune and works very well :-) When you made some progress, you are ready for the next cost efficient step which will lift the performance of your System to another level.... Room Damping |
so here's my hell living room : https://www.dropbox.com/s/vri7hi5lylhwm70/20130610_105524.jpg and the fire spiting left corner: https://www.dropbox.com/s/feu9j157avvrtf4/left%20side%20wall.jpg now where do you suggest I put the toilet paper rack? having 3 little girls and 1 baby boy, surely the toilet paper will find its way shortly into the bass ports. two birds with one roll. regarding the room dampers, most my friends are quiet sporty, not sure they serve the purpose. |
While I realize that you've indicated the boominess is present even at low volume levels, have you considered the possibility that at least part of the problem might be microphonics involving your source component(s), or possibly even both of the two amplifiers you've used. I see in a post you made a couple of months ago that you are using, or at least were using at that time, an ARC CD7 as your source, which is replete with tubes. Is it by any chance placed between or close to the speakers? Just a thought. Regards, -- Al Edit: Just after submitting this post, I saw the photos of the room to which you just provided a link. I think I may have had a point. Re your earlier mention of the problem being most pronounced on the left side of the room, I note that the left channel amplifier appears to be significantly closer to the corresponding speaker than the right channel amplifier. |
The front left side is the culprit..I thought this was in the back of the room. The wall is deflecting and reinforcing the bass and the cabinet below and the space below that is acting as a storage drum. Wow your room looks great..but consider taking that nich/nook/ storage out and leave the radiator it won't interfere any way. Tom |
Tom is right, I have done much more extensive structural changes in my room in order to tame room bass modes. It is a difficult decision, but by looking at it, shouldn't be that difficult to implement technically- and, you will thank yourself later. Without some serious re-building you will be "doomed", as far, as the bass goes |
Sorry the boards-in-the-port didn't help. Equalization or a solid state amp are probably your least room-intrusive possibilities at this point. And nothing wrong with room treatment. Unfortunately I don't have any more inexpensive suggestions. It is possible that a couple of small, cheap subwoofers, placed one behind each of your speakers and operating out-of-phase, would introduce enough cancellation to smooth things out. Duke |
I used to run Zu Definitions 2 spkrs with xoverless full range drivers and 4 x 10" rear firing woofers per spkr, ie many similarities to your Hornings. Always found bass had a tendency to boom and overpower the room. My solution which was c80% effective? Installing a Spatial Computer Black hole anti-bass wave generator. This is in effect a one cubic foot subwoofer sited behind/alongside the listener next to a wall, with integral mic which samples the bass put out by the main spkrs; via dsp, it puts out a cancelling wave of bass, so dealing with standing waves and bass nodes. Bass hash/boom was much improved, with subsequent improvement in intelligibility, transparency and dynamics. At $1300 with a full money back guarantee if not happy, you can't go wrong. Clayton Shaw who runs the company is one of the good guys in audio. |
all, as you can see, my system is in the middle of our, a family of six, living room hence I'm trying to avoid adding all types of electronics all around to compensate for acoustic issues. it's also ideally all day long that music is playing in this room hence it has to sound at least decent, i.e. as in no boomy, all around as opposed to only sound good in the sweet spot. it's also important to note the fact that it's beyond my capacity to now go argue with a French real estate agency who runs the building we live in, about if I can or can not take down a piece of a wall that did survive two World Wars and other events since its construction in 1895. the good news are, that being definitely convinced, as some folks have suggested, that the problem comes from the structure of the left side of the room, I started by simply dropping a carpet over the white cupboard under the CDs rack and, without celebrating too much yet, I think it's making a not so marginal difference, to the positive side of things. so now deep breath, focus, no panic (as other folks have so truly suggested). I'm going to continue going down that route, treating the "boom boom corner" on the left. cross fingers, sit still and wait for breaking news. and if you have more suggestions, please. |
Amuseb The cabinet under your cd's has vents which from this side of the ocean makes me think the doors are metal and something mechanical is behind them. If you could open the doors or remove them that may help. If the cabinet needed to stay the way it is now and it could be emptied.. filling with stone or creek rock would help. You need to port the cabinet so air will pass thru like an intake and exhaust of a car. The stone will act as natural diffuser and not as a damper like foam or fiberglass. You should also put stone underneath the cabinet on the floor. You could cover these areas that contain the stone with grill cloth. The cd cabinet above... could have a full width door that fits flush against your music collection. From the front, the door would be hinged on the right side with the door handle on the left side. When you are playing music you could open the door so it's angle will steer the bass around and in front of the wall with the 90 degree angle. This will bring the bass pressure more to the center of the room and reduce standing wave resonance in the area around the niche. Tom |
I own the Eufrodites. They are in my living room (huge) powered by 10 watts of SET. With the preamp volume set to 11:00 the bass begins to overload the room. There are 8 sensitive bass drivers per side, which for the most part are rear-firing. They are very dynamic. They need a lot of room to breathe. Also, I suspect that there are room nodes to deal with- you need to treat your entire room, not just the glass wall. Absorption, diffusion, bass trapping, first reflection, etc. You can work on your other components and experiment with footers, but I suspect that none of that will have any effect on this particular problem. Any sort of manipulation of the ports will be a step in the wrong direction. The structure and function of the ports is intrinsic to the design and voicing of this finely tuned loudspeaker. Hope this helps! |
Amuseb, are you really sure you can't site a diminutive 12"x12"x12" sub behind you, with one power cable? You could even put a vase of flowers on top to obscure it (max WAF!). It REALLY solved my boomy bass issues, and maybe more than other contributors here, my prev spkrs are probably as close to yours, and hence experience similar, so I know where you're coming from more than most. Clayton offers full money back if it doesn't solve your needs. Worth a try, surely? |
Spiritofmusic, thanks for your advice. As you know, I live in Paris, France and therefore benefiting from the free trial offered by Spatial in the US isn't that musch of a given. As far as I can tell from their web site, they don't have a global distribution network, but I can ask them just to confirm. Psag, thanks for your comment. Can you tell me what, if any, are the room treatments you have used in your living room? |
While waiting to see what to do with the Eufrodites, I had to listen to music, which with the Eufros wasn't possible. Called up a local guy here who was selling some 70's stars, the Celestion Ditton 66, which I had already owned in the past. 550 euros, just as a place holder until matters are sorted out with the HH. They arrived 2 hours later, delivered by the seller, ugly as hell. Put them just there, where there was space, hooked them up, music on. Halleluiah. No boom. Fast bass. Speakers completely, but completely disappear in the room. Yes, the highs aren't as refined and maybe even it's time to replace the tweeter but this is 550 euros of pure musical pleasure. Now we can calmly solve the HH issues. |
Can I ask you what it was about the Eufrudites that attracted you in the first place? Often with single driver or horn speakers people are struck by the immediacy. Often that love affair goes away. The music is might be too intense or not natural sounding. I ask because I think you should be looking at other speakers. Too bad you couldn't make it to the Munich show...might have found something there you liked. |
The pair of Eufrodites that I heard sounded terrific--very dynamic and lively, with surprisingly little eviddence of midrange peakiness that I would have expected from the Lowther origins of the midrange driver. Doesn't great sound alone qualify something as audiophile friendly (the high price too adds to the audiophile bona fides)? I can see how its powerful bass response could be a problem in some rooms, but, that is certainly a speaker system that would be worth the effort to work into any system. To me, most modern speaker systems sound dynamically flat and lifeless and require high volume playback to sound lively. Systems like the Eufrodites are kind of rare (lively without being unnatural in tonal balance) so it would be a sad thing if you have to give it up. Amuseb, have you looked into room equalizers? If you are reluctant to go the common route of using digital equalization, perhaps you could use something like the Rives equalizer which is analogue and sounds quite nice. |
I'm indeed not looking to replace them by default. I will probably call for some expert opinion on the room acoustics in the coming days. Before I had the Alto Utopias here and as Larryi says, they needed high volume playback to really get you into the music while the Eufros play music at any level. What's even more "annoying" is that on the tracks that don't suffer from bass boominess you can hear how nicely these babies play and then another track comes on, the bass gets boomy and you tear your hair. Sounds_real_audio, I still owe you an answer. I chose these speakers following a recommendation from friend and as I had a really good deal on them. As I believe the only way to know how a component sounds in your room is to try it right there with the rest of your system (and the experience with the Eufros is the best example to that...), my pattern doesn't call for too many store/show listening rather then buying components, trying them here and deciding then. This is why it's important to buy at a good price so loses are controlled in case of a quick resell. Overall, I'm really not a picky listener and most of what I had here over the past 3 years, I liked one way or the other. But the boomy bass is a killer. Just can't listen to music with that sound hence must be resolved. Thanks for your participation. |
Amuseb, I've also spent time with Marten and TAD speakers, and I would regard those as audiophile speakers. The Hornings may not have quite the resolution, bandwidth, and flat frequency response of those others, but they are more than respectable in those areas. For me, the magic of the Hornings resides in the midrange. The fact that you can also have deep bass with just a few watts of tube amplification makes these so nice for flea/SET amp users. In my room, the bass is articulate and well-integrated with the rest of the speaker's output. |
"I will probably call for some expert opinion on the room acoustics in the coming days." May I recommend Jeff Hedback of Hedback Designed Acoustics. Jeff's day job mostly consists of designing recording studios, and his studios have been honored in the past three "Best of The Year" issues of Mix Magazine (2011, 2012, and 2013). But he has done work for a growing number of home audio and home studio rooms. He doesn't sell any products, just analysis and recommendations, which he still offers at a reasonable rate. Hedback Designed Acoustics Why not just get bass traps and put them on the corners? Because room acoustic treatment is a little bit like crossover design: Not that hard to do, but quite hard to do really well. One person may say, gee that crossover needs some more capacitance, but the real question is, how much, and where should it go in the circuit? Likewise with bass traps - what kind, how much, and where for most cost-effective and aesthetically acceptable results, are questions that are hard to answer really well. I have worked with Jeff on several projects, and am continually amazed at the innovative solutions he comes up with. Duke |
Hi all, So the first expert came along. He wasn't very impressed by my "complaints". He thought I was over reacting. But I think, expert of not, he just doesn't really hear what I hear... We tried some small absorbers made in Japan, triangular shaped that you nail to the corners between the walls and the ceiling. It did clean up the space slightly but the substantial boomy bass wasn't very much affected by it plus it was selling for 1000 euros a pair so forget about it. The guy also brought with him some plastic sheets, again made in Japan, that seat on the speakers and are supposed to absorb resonance etc. This time too they did clean up some noise but at the same time made the music opaque. Not my cup of tea. We also visited the back corners of the room where clearly there's a strong concentration of low waves. He suggested to place bass traps there. I might give it a shot at some point. What more is clear after some trial and error is that distance from the back wall is key in the battle against boomy bass. (Psag, how far are your Eufros from the back walls?). Nevertheless, if I was to follow the Cardas rules of speakers positioning, I would have to place mine 2.4 meters from the back walls... slightly problematic in a leaving room scenario. Other than that, in the meantime, I've done some slight tweaking i.e. hooked up my amp to my Shunyata filter (quiet a big difference it made compared with the straight from the wall Paris parasite feasted juice), put some crystal rocks in the bass ports (as suggested in http://audioexotics.hk/index.php?option=com_simplestforum&view=postlist&forumId=1&parentId=1631), positioned the speakers evenly from the side walls, etc. All the above have helped to improve the situation but not to fully solve it. Will keep updating, any further suggestion are welcome. Regards. |
Hi, I've seen in many pictures of the US distributors of Horning that in shows he usually locates plants behind the Eufrodites. Before I drag huge plants into my living room, any thoughts about how this treatment can help with the issues caused by lack of distance from the back wall? Duke, thanks for referencing Hedback Designes for me but as I live in Europe, it's awkward to adhere to such services located in the US. |
Amuseb, I think I understand your pain. I believe that everyone hears somewhat differently. I also have a set of the Eufrodites. And have tried to overcome this same feeling of unnatural bass. Sometimes production can overcome the situation (Porcupine Tree always sounded brilliant) but all else was ruined by what seemed ridiculous boom of bass. If you're still a Eufrodite owner try Stillpoints on the rest of your system. Focus on the source equipment first. As always everyone's experience is different but for me the fix was to replace my equipment stand. It was a still point and expensive but has worked. And yes stuffing pillows and boards up the behinds of Eufrodites offers some temporary relief but OPEN them up. Let those darlin's breathe! Good Luck |
Amuseb, My Hornings are less than one foot from the rear wall. Maybe the fact that the room is huge is counteracting that. It is a large room with a 16 foot ceiling, slate floors, untreated. Amesub, if you are using the stock plastic footers they may be contributing to the problem. The speakers benefit from greater clearance from the floor. I can suggest an alternative if you need one. |
