Listening Room

@gents 

lol you are the comedian today, aren’t you? 

I am a cheap rat bastard: over 55 years, I have spent as little as possible to get as maximum as possible performance out of my gear. It’s come out to $850 per year on average over that time, mas o menos, less than some folks spend on cigarettes or booze. Yet I’m guessing that the sound I’m getting matches that of many, maybe most systems costing many - some, many many - times as much these days. 
 

The point of it all is to hear the music the way the artist intended. 
 

You like - or are at least ok with - music as wallpaper, and from your tone it seemed that you expect everyone to be similarly content with that approach. I’m simply saying that I am not only not content, but that these days - actually I’ve always been this way, it’s now more than ever - I block out and dedicate time to serious listening. It’s like zen, but it’s music. It’s out of respect for the artist. I’m an artist so of course I feel that way. As an artist, I have to be a cheap rat bastard about this, because I don’t have infinite amounts to spend as some here at audiogon do. 
 

As for head positioning, it’s an inside joke that you are not on the inside of. I have severe cervical stenosis that amazes most neurologists because it’s so bad that they think I should be dead, but I’m not and not only that, I’m asymptomatic except for one little thing so they won’t operate. But that little thing is not so little to me: it causes tinnitus. They didn’t believe me at first but the pitch and volume changes depending on which way I turn or tilt my head: if I took note of the notes I hear, why I could write a little symphony just from the sounds emanating from my neck. I finally was able to prove it a couple decades ago by taking an audiology test and holding my head in different positions and voila!: the hearing results were different depending on the tilt of my head. Now it is accepted science: a study was done in Germany on 97 patients with cervical stenosis with concomitant tinnitus and they found that by working around a particular nerve that they were able to relieve the tinnitus in 93 of them. 
 

But I digress.
 

When guests visit my audio room for the first time, the first thing that they notice is that the room is quiet, and things sound different. And that they sound different depending on where in the room you are. And that’s without any music playing. I live in that room, and so yes I can even hear the difference from just turning my head. 
 

and I got the room to sound that way for $0.00 spent for that purpose. What I did spend the money on was 6” in the walls and 14” in the ceiling full of rock wool for a thermal barrier. Since rock wool has excellent acoustic barrier properties, my architect - who had designed a few recording studios - said to cover the walls and ceilings with fire resistant burlap instead of drywall and I would have the equivalent of a $250,000 recording studio room. For nothing. He was right. 
 

In other words, I take listening seriously. As many here do. 
 

But I’m not anal. For example. I know people who log the hours played on their cartridges. That’s a bridge too far for me. I’m a bit more practical (or lazy): when I start to get listening fatigue, it’s time for refurbishing. 

What does "being an artist" have to do with your proclivity to spend money? I dont doubt you like your room, but I am very skeptical that you are getting the results you think from rock wool. A great deal of the improvement you hear is based on how the room was treated before. Also the dimensions of the room have a great deal to do with how simply your fixes actually need to be. So the improvements you attribute to rock wool may be the result of other factors, including how much experience you have spent in rooms which are exceptional. 

BTW, I dont think that using recordings studios as the benchmark for listening rooms is necessarily correct. 

I can see the virtue in both what @gents and ​​​​​@unreceivedogma are saying.

I am not nearly as critical or scientific as @unreceivedogma is, and my listening room, such as it is, is not nearly as scientific or critical as his is, but my listening was in the living room for many moons, then my system went into hibernation, and when it came out at the end of ’17, someone said or did something that irritated me, so I moved it into a small back bedroom because a) I thought I would be isolated while I was listening, and b) I thought it would be more intimate (meaning between me and the music) and I thought that might be a better sound. So I dropped some dedicated lines back there and over the last six years have tried to do little things here and there to improve the sonic effect. But no full blown room treatments. Like I said, I am not as scientific or critical as @unreceivedogma .

But when I am back there, there are no distractions and I am listening, not doing anything else. A room that small is an imperfect environment, and had I known the limitations, I might not have moved back there, no matter how pissed off I was at the time. I listen at very near field and it gets loud quick; I learned early on back there that in a room that small, earbleed levels get fatiguing fast. I have only played the Lou Reed Rock And Roll Animal one time back there, and that was when I first made the move.

But although it isn’t as scientific or critical as @unreceivedogma , I do think I understand what he is saying when he says he is up in his attic to listen. When I am in that bedroom I referenced, I am there only to listen and therefore I hear more.

But as to what @gents typed , when my system was in the living room and I was listening, frequently I would be barbecuing out on the backporch with an artist or band I really liked blasting away (but not distorting) and it was not just background or wallpaper. It was like having a musical group or an artist that I liked over to play for us in our living room and they would sound good. When I was outside undercooking red meat, of course I would not be analyzing the soundstage or the detail or the air, but the sound was full bodied and it would grab me by the ___ when a harmonica would blat out or a sax player would bite down and step out or a bluegrass band would start really getting down and having fun.  And after we had finished eating, then I could turn down the lights in the living room and sit down on the couch and turn the level down a tad and enjoy from a different perspective.

And as far as fun goes, I really did have more FUN when I was listening and not making listening work. Maybe I was not hearing as much in one sense of the term, but in another sense, maybe I was hearing more, and I was not nearly as uptight about it.

But I am not saying either is right or wrong. If it works for you it’s right, and by the same logic, it cannot be right if it doesn’t work for you.

As I type, my system is gradually being turned on, component by component, and after I hit ’post’ I am going to turn on the power caps for my amp, and then a bit later after I help the neighbors with their dog, I will turn power on to the amp’s tubes, and after I eat I’ll start listening back there in that little unfriendly bedroom to some music a(I just put some new speakers in their I am trying out) and I am sure that I will enjoy it.

immatthewj

1,365 posts

05-28-2024 at 06:43pm 

But when I am back there, there are no distractions and I am listening, not doing anything else. A room that small is an imperfect environment, and had I known the limitations, I might not have moved back there, no matter how pissed off I was at the time. I listen at very near field and it gets loud quick; I learned early on back there that in a room that small, earbleed levels get fatiguing fast. I have only played the Lou Reed Rock And Roll Animal one time back there, and that was when I first made the move

As I mentioned in one of those posts, I've always wanted to work out a really cool little system. A place for quiet listening. A five or 10 Watt tube rig, a couple of small spectacular monitors...otherwise, I love my big rig and my high wattage and a (very) occasional date with Black Sabbath or Little Richard.

A five or 10 Watt tube rig, a couple of small spectacular monitors

@gents  , if I could start over, especially given the room that my system now resides in (and perhaps if it was still in the living room) that is what I would want to try at this point in my life as well.  I'd like to hear one of Dennis Had's products with some very efficient speakers.  I was shopping for speakers a bit ago, and I finally decided against a pair of Klipsh and wient with a pair of Revels instead, so I am pretty uch still locked into an amp that puts out a bit of power.