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Speaker Distortion or Room Interaction ?

my floor-standing speakers are quite powerful already, and sound very clean up to a certain (fairly loud but not party-loud) volume. BUT past
that, the sound starts becoming increasingly smeared and eventually becomes harsh and unlistenable, probably due to room reflections, but i have no way of measuring speaker-distortion levels like they do in stereophile. my room does
have some reverberation issues, which i've treated with echo-busters to good effect (although the room is still far from "dead"). but this is my living room also, so i really don't want to add any more room treatments. at the same time i've been seriously looking at even bigger speakers for a few years to get more resolution, sonority, and headroom in the low bass dept. in other words, i dream of listening to large-scale works of music at more realistic volume levels with a minimum of distortion. SO, the question is, if i go ahead with an upgrade, am i going to run into the same problem, or possibly even encounter worse room interactions?
or would a larger speaker sound so much better at a more controlled/lower volume level that it would be worth it for that alone? i know what some of you are thinking- build a dedicated listening room, otherwise the dream of recreating beethoven #5 will forever elude me.
french_fries
sbank's avatar
sbank
3,391 posts
 
French Fries,
Your ears are much more complex instruments than Stereophile's test equipment. Take their measurements w/grain of salt. Just because an amp measures well doesn't mean that it is free of the distortions that we can hear.

As to your comment about relationship between volume and reflections, that doesn't jive w/all I've read about acoustics. Reflections in a given room will affect the sound the same way at 80db or 90.

I agree the amps are probably malfunctioning or not a good match with the Andras. A friend uses one of the large Classe amps w/his Andras, and doesn't have the problem you describe. Cheers,
Spencer
shadorne's avatar
shadorne
7,491 posts
 
What are your speakers and amplifier? From your description, this might be one of two common problems;

a speaker thermal compression issue (as coils heat up your speaker response characteristics change and may sound dull and compressed)

or a an overdriven amplifier (sounds absolutely awful).

I doubt this is a room problem.
horseface's avatar
horseface
222 posts
 
It would stand to reason that you have very high standards given your equipment list and the complexity of the aforementioned music ... I appreciate that. Would it be possible to build yourself a custom designed listening room? I get the feeling your standards may require the freedom to eliminate unwanted resonance at the expense of esthetics. This usually results in an angry woman. $40K-$60K on your own little oasis might be a bargain in the long run. You can do it a lot cheaper if you get involved yourself or maybe just renovate a large bedroom?

It might be a pain but find a room to play with and move your gear in for a weekend to see if the problem is improved upon. I did it with a bedroom once ... I was surprised how much different my measly system sounded. Enough so I am considering a listening room instead of a garage. I live for the day I have my own soundproof space. A windowless cave for the sake of music ...

Ahhhhh.
gregm
3,415 posts
 
for the $$$ involved with an upgrade, i'd like to get alot closer to that ideal. or do you reach the point i have where you have speakers with 20-20 freq. response and incredible musicality, and just call it a day, forgoing the ability to re-create mahler #8 or handel's messiah
Ahhhh, Mahler 8 (Horenstein perhaps?). Forget it. UNLESS, maybe: a) you dish out giga$ for exquisitely designed and probably large, sensitive (~95db spl 1W/1m) commercial spkrs OR b)you fabricate your own (preferably fm a kit).

Otherwise, you'll not have the sense of scale, you'll hear 2-3 cellos at best, ~10 people in the chorus, about 6 violins, the right side of the orch may be off phase with the left side (i.e. the "upper bass" will lag vs the mids), add lib...

Nothing wrong with all the above; it's just difficult to reproduce a large orchestra -- let alone a huge choir added into the equation. Too much energy, too many instruments, too much dynamic content...
Just think about it: you're asking 4 medium-sized units + a tweet/side to reproduce 100-+500 musicians (Mahler 8).

Re yr original question: it reads (sounds) like you're overdriving yr spkrs. I.e. the spkrs are distorting. Just turn down the volume.
sogood51
2,157 posts
 
The levinson amps are very good...they are not powerhouse amps though...300 watts@4ohms. Classical music with a lot of dynamic mood swings and deep bass could cause them to clip long before the Eggleston speakers go into distortation.

You could add a sub or subs. This will make life much more easy for the Levinsons...an increase in midrange quality will also be in the results.

The Egglestons should mate very well with subs...20hz will not be a problem for the sub.

Dave
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