@erik_squires That's interesting I didn't find that when I poked around Stereophile, but I may not have been searching right and gone back far enough to look into the prior model versions. This bass fall off has to be room size and placement-most everything else like you are seeing and noting falls fairly in line with the measurements (mine and older that you found). That graph from the previous version shows what I would have expected (and it's not that far off of what the baby Studio HDs do in my own tiny home).
I am completely in line with you, I'd ABSOLUTELY want to somehow reinforce some better low end presence, or just invest in two sub-woofers and very carefully integrate them to not lose the really great detail and sound stage. I am not certain he would go for it: I'd guess he's committed to the room formula, and doesn't feel like he's missing anything. However, I got him to agree to do the room treatment to absorb the ringing and reverb, and that will improve all the things he does like, which makes me happy. Like you already know, it will also bring out/unveil some of the mid upper bass and warm things a bit which I am sure he won't mind and maybe like?
I was going to look into directly connecting to my laptop and running some mild experimental parametric EQ just to hear how the speakers would react to some mild tweaking. I'm not a fan of it, but it's a cheap and easy and fast way to hear a span of possibilities. It's just so sad and disappointing when I -know- something has incredible drum punches or room resonating cello pulls that feel like the cellist is leaning against you.....and here I sit.....like....."bro...do you even woofer bro?!"
Thanks again Erik!!
~alan
Room Acoustics, minimal treatment and measurements
Afternoon all. Thought this might be helpful to some with wondering if room treatments can help with your 2-channel, and how to help visualize and measure what you may not fully grasp hearing wise. I am just using a Mac Laptop and cheapo microphone, and REW, and 6 insulation panels.
This is my Step Fathers system, and pretty much empty LARGE basement listening space. There is a LOT of echo-reverb-ringing that (to my ears) over excites mid to upper frequencies, like being in a busy store/restaurant. With music, this can in ways help make a recording sound like it's in a larger studio/hall/space, but it also mashes a lot together and can over-color the music. This results in lost focus and change in ACTUAL recorded acoustics: so an intimately microphoned musician will sound like an empty room, where an empty room sounds like an empty gymnasium. This, also over-washes a bit of the mid-range and higher bass-losing it's tone and timbre. Major thanks to @erik_squires who has been gracious to help with this process with dead-on advice.
FULL BASEMENT MEASUREMENTS:
34'long x 22'wide x 10'high
LISTENING AREA MEASUREMENTS:
15'long x 22'wide x10'high
Empty room, no treatments and RT60 plot. Listening seat is *in the middle of the whole basement space, under an 18" boxed beam.*
"Treated" room, with RT60 plot. Notice the overall mid-upper frequency taming from 700ms of "ring/decay", to 500ms. Even with this, if you snap your fingers, you still hear a flutter echo. This is from the whole other half of the basement room behind me, mostly.
Crude room response measurement:
Sketch and measurements of where things are in the listening room:
I hope this is helpful and gives you some things to try out that don't cause major disruptions to your system, until you really determine if and where your issues are and then you can buy and mount things. My next step is to see where ON the walls I can place absorbing panels, and how many might be needed for a nominal improvement. My thinking is the bigger issues are the ceiling, front wall, and then 'filling' the space behind the seat just to eat up ambient stray ringing.
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Normally, I say to leave a speaker be and not to try to hack it very much. Either love it as is or get something else. In this case though I feel you have a number of approaches which could be really worthwhile for you and your dad. Compared to a traditional multi-way speaker, the Legacy focus seems to be "missing" the crossover between the 7" and woofers. While we can argue about the end result, two things are happening: The lack of a crossover = 2 Ohm minimum load, and there's some interference between the woofer and mid-woofs(7"). Based on that, I think in the future there are a number of ways to deal with it which improve the bass performance significantly: I. Passive bi-amping. The reason this is an excellent idea here is that the lack of a crossover means you have a very low minimum impedance in the bass range. Less capable amps can handle just the bass or the mid-treble section but not both. Separate the two sections and each has ~ 4 Ohms minimum. II. Active bi-amping. Put a miniDSP in front of your two amplifiers. This will give you excellent EQ capabilities, and you’ll be able to add the "missing" filters. Again, you end up with 2 x 4 Ohm sections instead of one 2 Ohm section. III. Low impedance capable amp, like a stiff Krell or Sanders or Coda. Something that will handle the 2 Ohm or lower load in the bass section. |
Yea closer to wall or even corners will boost bass but could also negatively impact imaging. Try it and see. If not then this may be a job for a proper powered sub or two. Gotta get that bass for best results. Could be the speakers are just not fully up to the job for a room that size.
Are these older speakers that have been around prior to your involvement? Always possible woofers are damaged say detached from voice coil. Hopefully not. If you apply some pressure to woof near center while playing does it suddenly pop to life? That’s an indicator of a detached voice coil. |
@mapman I really think his system would benefit most from two subs like you noted. That way he could enhance low level listening, get proper music reproduction, and NOT introduce issue while maintaining all the better aspects. He's very old school that 'subs are of the devil' and totally useless, but there are so many aspects of the music he loves, that he has no idea he is missing out on. My understanding was that these speakers were made and shipped during the very early stages of Covid, so it took awhile to build. I did some basic phase testing and the woofers are working and moving in the right direction, they are just at a much lower level in comparison to the mids-highs. |
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