Made Major Upgrade at $0 Cost in 1 Minute

I’m working my way up in digital audio. A few posts here have helped me along. I have a challenging listening room with much glass and a concrete floor. I’ve worked on adding area rugs, pillows, speaker placement, etc. - but am not willing to make major changes such as drapes or full carpeting. There’s no place for panels, as all of the wall space is glass.

My room is big - 20ft by 40 ft - so I’m listening in a near field setup. I tend to listen at lower volumes, partly to keep my wife happy. My favorite music is jazz vocals.

I haven’t visited any audio stores or shows - I live in a smaller city - so I really don’t know what high end audio sounds like. I’m missing my hearing in high frequencies - sometime I can hear the hammer “clunk” hit a high piano note without hearing the note. Oh well, maybe for me a brighter sound is better.

I bought some Moondrop Blessing 2 IEM’s and heard some wonderful audio quality on Tidal. On my main system, there were some occasional percussion sounds that sounded lifelike - as if they were made right next to me. But overall my sound tended to be a bit muddied, and especially vocals - my favorite music - did not stand out. This seemed odd to me because reviews of my B&O “pencil” speakers said that they excel in vocals.

I’ve also worked on upgrades like a new DAC, LPS for my Node, new router and a fiber optic link. I just bought a UMIK 1 and plan to experiment with REW this winter.

‘Reading led me to the idea that maybe I had too much sub bass. I have 2 sealed subs - 15in and 12in. The volume on both were set at the 12:00 position. Putting my ear next to them led me to believe that the volume matched the rest of my system. As an experiment, I turned the big sub down to about the 10:30 position. The result was a Major, Unquestionable improvement overall in my sound quality. Vocals came out front, even at lower volumes. Muddiness disappeared. There was much more nuance and detail in individual notes. The music was much more interesting, engaging, and less tiring to listen to. I could hear new instruments in the background that I never heard before. I want to listen more often and longer. The improvement was much greater than any of the individual changes I mention above. Funny…it cost $0 and took less than 1 minute.

Thanks to everyone on this forum who has given me comments and advice. I’m working my way along. I don’t know if this recent upgrade will in the long run become “normal” for me, and I will eventually become less than happy with my sound quality. But for now, IT’S GREAT!!