Good Analog EQ

Hello,

I have the Aerial model 6 and I hear what your saying about the bass end of the Aerial model 9. The model 6 is a fraction of your Aerial 9's and the bass is just incredible for the size of bass driver. I have had to do some repositioning in a 12 X 15 room just to get them tuned to my liking. The mid/high frequency reproduction on the Aerials is very sweet to my ears but the bass tends to stand out a bit. I did go with the optional stands and it seemed to improve the imaging a bit. Speaker position with the model 6 is tricky and it took time to find the sweet spot.

I put traps in the corners and some acoustic foam but it didn't tame it much. I originally bought a Velodyne DD-10 to go with them and I have never even turned it on. I was looking to upgrade to the 9's but I saw all those woofers and wondered how I would ever get the sound to balance. I am running a single Mac 275 in the winter, a Levinson 23.5 in the summer and I wasn't sure the 9's would be happy with 75 WPC from 6550's.

I wonder if it would help to talk to the guys at Aerial? I hear they are very helpful and ultimately the most knowlegable about the Aerial 9. I'm running purely 2 channel and cant stand the thought of messing with the signal. The fewer things in line from the cartridge to the speaker the better.

I have to tell you that I sat in on a demo of the Model 9 in a room approximately the same size as yours and they were fantastic. It was a completely different set of gear and it took a bit to get them setup. They had the optional stands and the sound was fantastic. I know they model 9's have incredible potential but ultimately wont work in my room. It sounds to me like you have ample space; I believe speaker positioning and the Aerial stands will really help.

Good Luck,

IMHO, the Aeria; 9s were designed for powerful bass, not "thick" bass. As speakers go, they are very flat. Any speaker, especially ones that go as low as the 9s, need to be positioned carefully to avoid the issue your describing.

It is never advisable to position speakers the same distance from both walls as it creates strong standing waves. Moving them out from the back wall and/or closer to the side walls, even a few inches, will help. Moving them out from the back wall will increase your soundstage depth dramatically. The more you do it the better it gets; and it WILL help your bass problem not matter what your Ariels were designed for. One ideal would be 8'4" from the back wall and 2'4" from the side walls. This puts the speakers 1/3 of the way from the back wall and 1/6 of the way from the side walls. This will be a good start at minimizing standing waves. All dimensions calculated from the center of the port, or alternatively, from the voice coil of the woofers, depending on which frequencies are the most problematic.

Your listening position is a few inches from the center of the room, also not good. Again, 8'4" from the rear wall would be one ideal if you followed the above suggestions. If not, you might try moving forward even a few inches. Moving back a few inches will put you right in a hot spot.

If you implemented the above ideals, this would also put you closer to your speakers which would give you a higher ratio of direct to reflected sound, affording you the same volume at the listening position with a lower volume setting on your preamp, which would also help. Towing the speakers in will help with perceived detail.

You could also try plugging the ports with open cell foam, or for more damping, closed cell, but those drivers are not designed for sealed boxes. Mounting the speaker on good brass or steel cones will help as well, and not only the bass. The optional feet you mentioned, of course, would be one option.

These suggestions will be more effective and do less harm, IMHO. If this is not sufficient, Rives specializes in calculating specific recommendations based on your dimensions, etc. Good luck!

FWIW, I just inserted a Velodyne SMS-1 ($600 at Audio Advisor.com) into my system. (As a separate matter, I also added a pair of Velodyne SPLR-8 subs). The SMS is a room analyzer/active crossover/parametric eq that analyzes up to 200hz and provides 6 band of PEQ bewteen 20 and 120 cycles.

In my current room, I had bass issues that severely compromised the sound of my Verity Parsifal Encores. (Like you, I almost preferred the system without the Encore woofers on line.) I have had the P/E in 3 other rooms, all of which sounded much better. To start my project, I used the SMS with the Velodyne subs and Parsifal monitors. Bottom line: bass issues are gone. A 12hz bump at 80 hz is gone and several nulls are basically gone, too. I now have +/- 3db response (relative to 80 db) over the 25-200hz range. The mid range magic is back!

I'm still tweaking, but this combo sounds very good so far. It lacks some of the warmth of the straight P/E combo which crosses over symmetrically at 150hz. The SMS features a very flexible low pass, but the high pass is preset at 80hz/6 db per octave, which limits flexibility. If I decide to invest more, I may eventually look to an external high pass (Marchand) to allow me to bi-amp the P/Es at the same frequency & slope that Verity employs for these speakers.

If you can access the woofer in your speaker separately, or are willing to consider subs, the SMS-1 may be a good cost-effective option.

Good Luck,

Marty

Thanks again for the responses.

I do have the optional stands and I used to use them, but find they're more boomy with them than without (I attribute that to the bass port being more open).

I have spoken with Michael Kelly and I have auditioned other speakers. The others didn't overload the room the way the Aerials did, but the midrange sounded thin. I guess my room must be causing a null in the midrange as well. Both the Aerial 9's and LR5s seem do have a significant dip between 400 and 1000hz. I have a 15 db difference between these frequencies and 95hz where I have a huge bump (at least according to the graphs that Audyssey room correction shows me).

I have tried stuffing the ports of the 9's with dacron (from my pair of Von Schweikert VR4.5's, which never sounded boomy) but I think that just affects frequencies below where I have the bump and, as Michael Kelly predicted, makes the bass sound more congested at loud volumes.

I will try bringing my speakers further into the room to the positioning you mention, but since I cannot move my listening position, I wonder if I'd be too close - almost near-field monitor range of 4ft or so.

Marty, it sounds like that unit is digital? How do you have it connected?