Tweaks to Add A Little Treble Emphasis...

07-12-10: Srosenberg
working on the forwardness of vocals, i just tweaked the equalizer in the playback software i'm using (i always leave this off, but for testing, i was curious) and found that by bumping the 110-220 hz zone just a touch, i was able to make the vocalists much more forward sounding.

Sounds to me like you have a response dip where the Stradas hand off to the subwoofer. This could either be a room suckout or a frequency response gap between the Stradas and the sub. *If that's the case*, then tweaking the EQ or attention to speaker placement would be the primary ways to fix it with your current speaker setup.

Another consideration: Gallo's cylindrical tweeter has a 330 degree dispersion--nearly omnidirectional. For room treatment and speaker placement You need to treat the Stradas like omni's. What I said about room treatment before goes double for omni's or ultra-wide dispersion speakers. I have Mirage omni's in my living room and I can control brightness and treble just by opening and closing curtains and blinds, as glass surfaces brighten the sound considerably and of course cloth curtains dampen it.

Also, Wilsons are known for fast, transparent midrange and an in-your-face presentation. They are designed to keep the room out of the listening equation as much as possible, while the Gallos are designed to bring the room *into* the soundstage formula. You have opposite philosophies and approaches to creating a soundstage and imaging from these two speaker companies.

I just looked at Gallo's specs for the Strada, and its frequency response relies heavily on room boundary reinforcement, specifically that the speakers should be within one foot of the wall behind them. This would reinforce both the bass and the treble (because of the wide dispersion of the cylindrical tweeter). The specs say the Strada is reasonably linear down to 45 Hz if placed within a foot of the wall. What we don't know is how sharp the bass rolloff is when the speaker is further out than that. If your speakers are out a couple feet or more from the wall, this could account for that 100-200Hz dip.

Thats not a tweak its a coloratin!!