just to clarify, subs should be felt not heard. With your sub on, from your listening position you shouldn’t hear music coming from the sub but you clearly detect a shift in the ambiance/sound pressure of the room. Music should sound heavier, more dimensional. That’s the best I can describe it. Everyone’s set up and room is unique so I can’t say if it’s achievable with your room/gear. I don’t see why not, but It takes a TON of trial and error. There’s a bunch of videos on YT regarding speaker & sub placement, not to mention a wealth of information here on Agon regarding subs. I had spend countless hours on speaker placement only to make the biggest improvement using a $15 laser pointer. Good luck.
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!!
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@jl1ny Thanks again for your thoughts! I don’t have remotes for the subs, but I could rig an extension cord to turn them on and off to make a more precise assessment of how to set the volume level. I know it’s hard to describe in words what SQ should be like, but I think you’ve chosen words that help me “get it.” I did the sub crawl when I placed them. But having two of them made that a bit more difficult. |
I don’t want to sway out of my lane here as I’m no expert. I strongly suggest that you dig into some of the threads here on Agon about speaker placement and sub setups. There’s a vid on YT by “new record day” titled L.O.T.S. Which I found to be a superb tutorial for speaker placement. Another great resource is the Cardas speaker placement page. to answer your question, the laser measurement tool is fantastic for dialing in toe-in and achieving precision distances between your speakers and listening position…I’ve found that with nearfield, as little as a few inches fore or aft can make a significant difference. It’s a time consuming process, try to have fun with it.
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