Listening fatigue

Always tweak setup of what you have to optimize it fist before changing anything!

Try listening with less direct exposure to the tweeter output.

Try listening off axis from the tweeters and see if the fatigue is reduced or eliminated.

If it is, try setting up speakers so tweeters fire to either side of your listening position and not as directly at you, so you are listening at a similar off-axis angle.

Then play with the distance between speakers and distances to rear and side walls to avoid early reflections until you hear a nice balance of tonality without fatigue, soundstage and imaging, and bass levels.

Its also possible that if the gear is new it will settle into a smoother presentation over time as things break in. You might want to play things a bit louder than otherwise in the meantime to help that process along faster perhaps, if possible.

Defeating first reflections usually improves sound stage and imaging by reduce the amplitude of the reflected wave that arrives at your ear shortly after the primary wave

Fatigue is usually caused by long decay or extended RT60 times causing the note to linger in your listening room much longer than it should

When energy traveling up the walls meets the energy traveling along the ceiling and floor at the Wall/Ceiling/Floor interfaces ... it’s is combined and the high frequency ringing is extended causing the fatigue

To reduce or defeat the ringing you must trap it at the wall ceiling interface with acoustical treatments like a soffit trap (GIK) or Sound Flags (ASC) .. I use Sound Flags around the perimeter of my 16x27 room

If acoustical treatments are a no go in the bed room you can install 6 or 8 inch crown molding all around the room’s perimeter and she’ll never suspect anything

The crown molding breaks the hard 90 degree angle at the wall ceiling interface with it’s gentle curve and works more to diffuse and redirect the energy in a wider band as opposed to trying to absorb it like a fiberglass trap would .. either will work it a matter of what is acceptable in the bedroom

Here’s a simple test ... turn on the system and get it to the point were it is fatiguing you ... then quickly step into the next room or hall way and listen and see if it is still as irritating

When you move into the next room over you remove yourself from the room’s direct extended ringing field and the fatigue should be reduced

If when you step into the other room it is still as irritating as the bed room ... then it is something in your system causing a tilt or frequency imbalance

Easy enough to try .. if the fatigue disappears or is reduced when you go into the next room over ... it’s your bed room ... if nothing improves when listening from the next room ... it’s something in your equipment causing the tilt

If you determine it is your room visit the ASC (Acoustic Science Corp.) site and check out what it takesto perform a inexpensive (less than $100) M.A.T.T test ... this will tell you what frequencies are ringing and how long they are ringing for

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