Joeb:
Thanks for the comments. The Alton Everest book is waiting for me at home. I'm curious, however, as to why you say this? Is it because it seems the room seems to be in multiples of 8? The figures were not exact for the room, just close to within 1' of exact (except for the ceiling height in the basement). As for the room length, I should have mentioned that there is a "constructed" divider (it was my mom's home) at around 15 feet,so the base wave travels less.
For all that, I found, using Buscis 2's suggestions, that using a blanket on the ceiling between the speaker and listening positions DID improve the imaging. Since all things are relevant, saying "significant" improvement might be an exaggeration; "noticeable" would be more precise. And it is quite 'noticeable.' I notice a lack of openess at the top, as in an-inivisible-force-field effect, which prevents the sound from floating freely upwards, but this is likely also an artifact of the Synergistic Reference Research .5 speaker cables (i've used the cables in other rooms, and I get the same "effect").
While Imaging is not optimal in multiples of one room dimension, my experience is that they are not absolutely impossible to attain. It's more the focus that suffers: the "outline" (as in orientation: is the image facing forward, or sidewards or even away from the microphone, as might happen in jazz during a spontaneous "jam" session). Or: the image itself is somewhat diffused and the "boundary" merges with the background, so that the image is not fully three-dimensional.
This was all an attempt to see how much could be done in a 'bad' environment. I use curiosity to see what can be attained: I KNOW what can be attained, as I've had the fortune to meet and mingle with TAS reviewers and hear 'super' systems in the manufacturers own laboratories. (Dave Wilson told me, when he let me listen to the "Puppy" woofers, that I was the first person to hear them outside of his production crew [in 1989]. I remember his room vividly and it was NOT acoustically damped in ANY way -- just very, very BIG. And the imaging was VERY, VERY good. So, apparently, room size does not preclude good imaging: wall materials, of course, DO. I've used Armstrong ceiling tiles along the side walls, as well as things like boxes of clothing (and the usual 'basement things' to interrupt the sidewall and backwall reflections). The Armstrong ceiling tiles (2' x 4'long. Cost: $2.50 per tile) made a difference, too. And, to help things along, I put two bags of sand on top of the First Presence preamp just to see what the effect was. That was an eye-opener: the volume increased by at LEAST 1 decibel, maybe more. And the sound was cleaner, which made sense. Common sense indicates that decreasing cabinet vibrations would make any component sound 'cleaner' and more focused. However, I was still surprised at how much the volume increased! For a second, I thought I'd turned up the volume pots, but since it's dual mono volume pots and I hadn't come near them, I realized that it was just the 'mass-loading' principle -- which improved the imaging. This might be why the Walker acoustic devices work: their sheer weight would decrease the cabinet resonances of whatever you place them on. Heck, I put a BOOK on top of my friend's NAD 320BEE and the volume -- and clarity -- increased. That was just something I did out of sheer instinct, I wasn't expecting anything dramatic. But dramatic it was -- or should I say 'significant'? So, I did the same thing with the preamp at home.
The bottom line is, sound can be improved in significant ways without spending $20,000 to 'fix' the room and most audiophiles, I think, do not have the luxury -- or option --
of installing wall panels, as Robert Harley did in TAS 140 (I mean, c'mon! $33,000 to improve the bloody room?!?!? What kind of realistic idea is that for someone who lives in an apartment. I even wrote Harley and got a response back from him [within a day, which seemed to conclude he was piqued by my suggestion that TAS do an article similar to ones done between issues 38-50 on room acoustics. I reminded him that nothing had been done since then]sort of snidely implying that I hadn't read his article He said (this is cut and pasted from his reply: "I agree that treating a room is of paramount importance. I stressed this in my review of the Acoustic Room Systems package a few issues back.
Thanks for reading."
He assumes I didn't read it: he's wrong. I did. But it's a review of a PRODUCT, not an ARTICLE on how the average person might improve their room significantly. This is why I was experimenting with the basement. I thought the least I could do was to install dedicated circuits, which I did. Everything else was 'homegrown' remedies. I wanted to see how cheap it COULD be to improve the sound and this is the purpose of my thread.
Buscis2: Thanks. That 'blanket' strategy helped,and, by the way, I used a THIN blanket. Next week, after I've listened a while, I'm going to put up a comforter instead and see how that helps. The most interesting thing I learned from all this is that the ceiling SIGNIFICANTLY affects the sound. Most of the articles on room improvement stress the walls and floors. Almost NOBODY ever STRONGLY RECOMMENDED ceiling treatments -- 'mildly suggested' would be more precise. Oh, Except for "Rives," above-- but that's his vocation, so he SHOULD know this. I'd tube-trapped my entire listening room in San Francisco, but NOT the ceiling. The ceiling treatments seem to improve soundstage height. Maybe Mr. Rives would like to comment on this.
It would be MOST helpful if others listed homemade improvements they've done - and the specific characteristics of sound improvement they noticed with these improvements. This can only help the whole audiophile community to take more of an interest in improving their rooms, which would in turn, benefit the companies that provide services. If you can 'fix' something with a homemade solution, and see the improvement, you're likely to have more incentive to want to hire someone to REALLY improve your sound, especially at a reasonable cost -- say, around $1,000 or so. I would. TAS used to do this in articles, and especially Enid Lumley (a la "Auntie Enid) who was the first person in TAS to seriously write about lifting speaker cables off the floor (talk about noticeable differences!! JEEZ!), power line conditioning and the like. We need more of that. For the majority of us, our components don't even sound as good as they DO 'sound' when plopped down in the average audiophile's listening room. And a new power cord isn't going to do diddly to change that. Anyone who thinks otherwise is taking the 'red' pill - or was that the 'blue' pill?!?!?! (reference to The Matrix).
