My living room has cathedral ceilings and I like to listen to my system while I'm up on the balcony.....its like a concert hall.....really great....
Is it Possible??
Is it possible for speakers to sound better when you hear them while sitting in a different room that the speakers are in or when you stand behind them? If so why does this occur and what can I do to improve my listening experience while sitting in the same room as the audio gear.
33 responses Add your response
...oh, OPs' speakers....detail devils..... *....channeling Emily Littella....* "Nevermind...." Best of That error, I mean, Era... https://www.openculture.com/2020/08/gilda-radner-does-a-comic-impersonation-of-patti-smith-watch-the... |
*s* ...not a clue as to.... Gave up reading minds long ago....usually the same themes...*shrug* Money....food....sleep....sex....random aversions to work... ...harder to do @ a distance, but after awhile.... I'd just rather listen. Owls tonight in the trees behind....hoohooing each other on a chilly night...clear sky... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkLOg252KRE ...forgoing it all to stare into infinity behind the lids....;) Good morning towards a good day, 'tomic |
@jili12....Back to the original query.... Well, yes....but isn't the point to be in the same space for the same reason? ;) I've had situations that 'roughly' exhibited the same response...not that I tried to capitalize on it, but it generally drew me back to the Origin vs. echo... ...kinda blase' 'bout it, living with omnis' 'n dipoles like I do....*L* |
Hello, First: You do not need new speakers. This can be corrected with a few things. I would get some room treatments at your first reflection points. On the floor, side walls, and maybe the ceiling. Also, you might be getting some slap back from the back wall. The great thing is you are talking about fixing higher frequencies. You only need an inch or two of material to do this. You can try using household goods like blankets and pillows to see if it will make a difference, which it will. Second: a heavier gauge power cord on at least the Hegel. You can demo some of this pretty easy. If you use solid core vs stranded it will knock it down even more but you might not have to. Plus, You will love the headroom you get from this. This could be done with $100-300 dollars on the used market like Puritan which will only set you back about $200. Third: I love Murrow Audio but unless you go to their top products they can knock down the bass a little. I don’t mind this because they have great smooth detail and I can pick up the bass with subwoofers. You can swap out your speaker cables with some thicker copper cables and /or add a subwoofer or better yet two. When you add the bass it can blend with your speakers and knock them down a peg. Before you drop thousands on a new set of speakers I would try to fix these other issues first. Some times I tell people start from the beginning which is the power from the wall. By getting a Puritan PSM156 power conditioner and the new GroundMaster City you can be correcting all of your system at once. You would be amazed at the extra things you cannot usually hear in the music because it is masked by crap from the electricity in your wall or all the pollution in the air like WIFI, Bluetooth, and cell signals. A friend plugged in his noise tester in his kitchen and was getting ESPN 1000 radio station clear as a bell. He installed the Puritan products and noise tested from the Puritan PSM156 power conditioner and had no noise what’s so ever. With the addition of a Puritan Ground Master his system has the quietest noise floor you can imagine. If you are in the Chicagoland area this store lets you demo gear before you buy to help audiophiles like us fix issues we had no control over like outlets in our houses that can get radio stations. https://holmaudio.com/ It doesn’t matter how awesome your gear is if the power from the wall is crap. |
OP- it's impossible even if every component is a known quantity to others (and how many have that exact combination of components) to assess what you are hearing without being in your room. That's the point about set up. It costs almost nothing but is critical to extracting the most from whatever system you've put together. That's why I mentioned Jim Smith (please refrain from shill assertions); he does have a book about set up but that's the key. The high end folks often do this as part of a service when you spend the moola- whether they are any good is a question but you take my point, not to be contentious? It's gotta be evaluated in the room. What does it sound like? Are you in a town, vill, city with a fair amount of audio commerce? There will usually be some knowledgeable people, although I tend to avoid gurus. :) |
Thank you all for your comments and observations. As they say you have provided me with food for thought. For those of you interested in the gear I am using it is as follows; Amp. - Hegel H-160 TT - Rega RP8 Preamp. - Icon Audio PS1 Cart. - Hana ML Dac - Merason Frerot with a Merason Pow1 Server - Innous Zenith MKII CD - Primare CD-32 Cables - mostly Wywires and Morrow Audio Speaker cables - MIT Matrix 28 and Speakers are Fritz's Carbon 7's I have toed the speakers out a little and have noticed some improvement. |
When you say the speakers "sound better from a different room", what exactly do you mean by better? More musical? Better bass or treble? More transparent? When you listen from an entirely different room, the room your speakers are in become the speakers or at least a part of them. You are listening to the room (as a speaker); no stereo image. |
I've had the experience, particularly at my previous house where there was a foyer to the listening room divided by French doors, where you'd be in that outside the room space, and it sounded like real instruments there in an uncanny way. Go into the room, and it is more immediate, louder and you are hearing the system set up (for better or worse) front and center. I'm not sure I'd use an "out of room" experience as a test of anything, but what you hear when you get into the room and the "sweet spot" (or whatever) is what that system sounds like up close and immediate. You'll hear more, for better and worse, there. My current set up doesn't allow for quite the same thing; different house, different room. I do know when it is "on song" and when it is not. The audiophile question is always how much better could it be if..... And I ask that question less these days than ever. Sure, it can be improved on a couple fronts I'm interested in exploring, but I'm familiar enough with the core components, having owned most of them a long time, to know that I'm getting quite a bit out of them. The Jim Smith set up (or something comparable) would be where I'd place first money, over buying more gear. |
what Millercarbon said. Most of the nastiness in everything from flawed digital to poor recordings occurs in the high frequencies. Rolling it off often makes the majority of multi-track, compressed, shrill rock recordings sound better -- at least to many people. It ought not be true on really good recordings. It may point to harshness or brightness somewhere (or everywhere) in your system. |
I think so. There was one UK reviewer, Jimmy Hughes, who used to prefer his speakers facing the front wall, ie away from him. I’ve certainly heard speakers that sounded better the further I was from them than usual. It’s as if their harsh distortions became more tolerable as you moved out of their line of fire. As said above, you might need better speakers or just stick with your Carbon 7s. |
Interesting, I know little about Frequency response so your insight is helpful. Would another solution be to look for speakers that have a lower frequency response? What would be the optimal frequency response I should be looking for in a speaker in order to achieve the type of rolled off I am looking for? Thanks for your insight. |
To complete what millercarbon just said about too much higher frequencies coming from speaker... I will say that no speaker sound the same in different room and they all sound different if we change the acoustic treatment and active acoustic controls in a room... Read about acoustic treatment and control... If your speaker sound better from another room or behind them you have a room problem or a gear problem or the two... The good news is you could suppress the problem completely if it is the room or help it greatly with acoustic treatment if some piece of gear is not so bad or not well match... |
The higher you go in frequency the more it radiates out towards the front in the direction the speakers are pointed. Standing behind the speakers you are getting almost none of the highest frequency treble. Higher frequencies are also very easily absorbed but all kinds of things like carpet, furniture, people, etc. The lower you go in frequency the less of an effect these things have. So what we have here is a situation where standing behind the speakers the top end is rolled way off, and outside the room the top end is rolled way off. You like this better. Therefore you like rolled off. There are all kinds of things you can do, starting with the obvious, point the speakers away. Turn the tweeters down if they have trim pots for this. Add a resistor if they don't. You can also try going to warmer components but if you really do like it better from behind than in front (and we are still talking speakers mind you) that is pretty drastic and unlikely to be fixed with components. Not saying I would do any of these but it is your system not mine. If this is what you like this is how to get it: drape a blanket over em. |