Almarge, by your description it seems that the speakers are already "bright' in the near field. As you move away from the speaker this disparity is like likely to increase. primary reflections close to the speaker will make this worse. You can absolutely correct the frequency response with room control in the vicinity of the listening position and you can be clever with position and acoustic treatments. This is a problem with all dynamic point source speakers in one way or another depending on the speaker's design and the room they are placed in. With basic acoustic treatments an room control (speaker control) you can fix almost anything.
Swapped long wall to short wall and now I am having some big issues
I have a 14.5 x 27 ft x 8' room (it is narrower at 12 ft (the last 6 ft on the end where I have the speakers)
I had my system aligned on the long wall with the rack in between the speakers.
The speakers were 9' offset from listening position and the side wall were so far away (and had two record cabinets) that they were out of the equation. I had real traps mondo bass traps in the corners and GIK art panels to handle slap echo.
The sound was excellent - great tonality, dynamics, imaging. The only issues I had were a limited listening area and not back enough for full speaker driver integration.
After listening to a friends system in a 12x23 room - old home with wood construction I was a gasp. His system was short wall and there was great integration with easily 2 rows of 3 people could sit and listen. It was a very relaxing and engaging experience.
Fast forward. I made the move. knocked out a closet in the corner. Removed one of 2 floor to ceiling record racks, a Wurlitzer jukebox, and Victrola. I placed the equipment racks on the opposite side wall. The speakers were set up 2 feet from the walls in front of the two corner bass traps. The sound was dreadful. The once luscious mids were thin and highs (1.2-3khz) were bright and cymbals were brittle, hard strumming acoustic guitars and brass sounded terrible as well. If the music got dynamic - it sounded terrible.
The vinyl was bad - cd atrocious.
I went ahead and took all the acoustic panels out except the GIK art panels.
I did some research and bought some GIK Impression 2' 2" panels for first reflection and GIK Impression 1' 4" diffuser/bass panels for the front corners allowing absorption from the back. This was much better but still way off. I moved the speakers out from the wall and then the instrument subtle details snapped into place - at 6 ft this was most apparent however it developed a very bloated mid bass.
I am looking for ways to tame the high end and mid bass but bring out the mid range, I do not want to over treat.
This in incredibly frustrating as I had my sound very refined and the short wall setup should theoretically produced better results. I would be interested in your comments and suggestions.
Thank You
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... by your description it seems that the speakers are already "bright’ in the near field.
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Tom, So sorry to have confused you in my description. Best way to describe is to label on paper each corner of the room moving clock wise as A and B for the first corner. Moving clockwise again label the next corner of room as C and D and so on clockwise with each corner as E/F and G/H. Let's say right speaker is placed at position E. In that configuration the left speaker would be placed at position B. These assume normal poisoning of the speaker in each case. Once you mark those 2 locations on paper the gist of what I am suggesting should be clearer. Thanks for your patience. I will pm you as well |
almarge, The peak at 18K is what I am talking about. This is the problem when you use two tweeters like this. The domes look like they are about 6 inches apart which corresponds to a wavelength in the 2000 Hz region or so. Below 2000 Hz the tweeters will act as one above that they will act as two separate drivers with the corresponding phase interactions. A loudspeaker should speak with one voice. Above approximately 2000 Hz this one speaks with two voices. You can put midrange drivers and woofers farther apart because they operate at lower frequencies/longer wave lengths. |
be forewarned Well - I switched the speakers back to the long wall - but on the same wall as the equipment racks - so opposite what I had before. not an ideal area adjacent to and behind the speakers with the racks and room cutout on the left. ceiling panels in the opposite orientation. The speakers were set up in the triangular method 9ft offset. I was 1.5 ft off the wall. The bass immediately returned to an articulate well balanced sound with distinct notes, the midrange was warm and present and the highs not strident. Back to a pleasing sound - not as resolving as before when optimized with the system on the opposite wall. One album Alan and I listened to was The Who's Quadrophenia side 4. (Dr JImmy/The Rock/Love Reign O'er Me). This is a first pressing UK Track record which is absolutely vibrant and engaging. On the short wall the highs were incredibly shrill and strident with the explosive cymbals overriding everything, tonally etched and completely dominating. The midrange was gone. The bass overpowering. Going back to the long wall with no tweaking and the large record cabinet offset on the left side removed (I did put some of the room absorption panels I am using there) - things were close to what I had before. Very encouraging. Cds were better but not as well resolved as the vinyl. thanks skywachr I understand your comments on arrangement of the speakers but do you put the chair in parallel to the diagonal - then determine the best seating by sliding along that diagonal access? Then drop the other speaker in at that similar distance on the front wall? Mijostyn - the tweeter drivers are 4" apart - center to center of each tweeter. They also project very slightly towards each other to a central point creating a single wide dispersion high frequency. The response on my long wall setup was pinpoint details, tonality and presence and very distinct separation of instruments. How many speakers has one seen with an array of tweeters separated by significant distances. Those tall tower things with 10+ drivers come to mind. Texton arrays with 12 hydra tweeter heads. the Ulysses are a very natural sounding speaker, They are not bright in the high frequencies. Mijostyn you mentioned "You can absolutely correct the frequency response with room control in the vicinity of the listening position and you can be clever with position and acoustic treatments. This is a problem with all dynamic point source speakers in one way or another depending on the speaker's design and the room they are placed in. With basic acoustic treatments an room control (speaker control) you can fix almost anything." Anything in particularly you suggest? In response I do not want to touch any DSP compensation, I've looked into a lot of sound treatments. 1st reflection, ceiling, corner dispersion/absorption. Still proceeding. My long wall setup room treatments do not work in this setup. I have went from Real Traps to GIK which has more frequency and absorption/dispersion related specific products. I haven't found a speaker position since removing my record cabinet that has had tamed bass. It's in progress. Tape measures, lasers and ears oh my. Jim Smith's Get Better Sound has been helpful for grid speaker placement arrays. I am considering GIK soffit bass traps (floor to ceiling in the front corners) with range limiters which work predominantly in the 50-250 hz range. Most companies want to treat your room to the point of taking out the ambience. I have a friend who was ready to throw his hands up and take down his whole system and worked in minutia for months to finally get it right. He has a short wall setup like what I am trying to accomplish. He will be working with me on the next steps. I took a number of things out of the room so my guess is that may be a big factor with the atrocious short wall sound. I encourage your insight. Thank you Tom |
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