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room treatments? is it the room that's bright?

Hi

Tom from New Orleans, here goes with my novel,
please excuse the length

I've been refining my system with ic and speaker cable upgrades - Cardas,Harm Tech, Acoustic Zen, preamp upgrades - Arc LS 5, tube upgrades - pricey nos Telefunken and Siemans,Dac and transport upgrades - EVS MIllenium II and TEAC VRDS 10 transport and power upgrades - equitech balanced power on my front end.

All have made nice improvements. I've been moving steadily toward good imaging, resolution and natural tonal balance.
I've always tried to move towards more musicality - tonal balance, naturalness, air and warmth.

Unfortunately it may be my room that's my guilty culprit for a slightly bright mid and high end, and I don't have a lot of experience in taming that.

I have a 27 by almost 15 by 8 room, hallways on both ends and my speakers are along the long wall, leather couch opposing in a couple foot notched out area (small closets from other rooms notched in on the ends of the hallways).

The speakers are almost 2 feet away from the walls, set in 9' equilateral triangle with the listening area - imaging is very nice (even with a Proton tv on my cwd lowboy equipment cabinet, back a little from the front of the speakers). Floor is carpet (older), walls drywall with drymount music posters on them, ceiling spackled - no special room treatments

The speakers are Von Schweikert Vortex screens - basically a VR4. they are large floor standing. Their tonal balance is good, acoustic instruments sound nice - I play acoustic guitar. I thought maybe the titanium teeters may be the culprits and I've been considering upgrading to VR4se at $6000 or another neutral speaker, but I'm now think my room may be the biggest culprit and would like to take care of that first. At lower volumes things sound nice tonally, but get a little shrill at higher 'more resolving' volumes. I also have a pair of B&W Matrix 2's to compare, which are nice, but they have more cabinet resonance and don't disappear or image as well in the room.

Imaging is great in the room, I went to great detail in the setup, the speakers disappear nicely (a trait I like) and the image is well beyond and behind the speakers (these speakers are designed for true phase coherence.
But things appear to be a little brighter at mid and high freqencies at mid to higher volumes than I'd like. If I am listening in the room behind this room the tonal balance sounds absolutely wonderful even on sax, horns etc(of course imaging suffers).

Is it the room? Is it too reflective that is causing the slight brightness in the mids and highs?

I did an extensive search here on room treatments and I'd like to hear a few more suggestions. I'm single so I don't have the WAF factor, but I don't want anything too hideous looking in the room.

I'm probably less inclined to do a diy project like at David Risch's site, but would be interested in finding some asthetically pleasing but not too expensive room treatments to tame the high and mid freq. Perhaps absorbtion panels on ceiling first arrivals and back wall arrivals, maybe diffusion behind. The low frequencies seem rather nice, so maybe I don't need to go the corner trap route first, plus I have an old wood victrola in corner. I'd prefer something that would be removeable later for resale purposes.

Any suggestions on manufacturers, particularly those not too pricey, who make high quality products that can slightly tone things down? Anybody work with your dimensions or recommend full room treatments based on them? Any elegent or easy DIY projects?

It's distrubing to think that I've ignored my room all this time, when it's more than likely the biggest factor. Doh!

thanks a lot

Tom

thanks

Tom

Can anyone suggest
128x128audiotomb
gregm
3,405 posts
 
A difficult one for laymen as myself (maybe Rives could help here). My spontaneous reaction would be to tame 1st reflections on the side walls, and check for hard reflecting surfaces elsewhere. OTOH, as your imaging is good, I wonder if that's the culprit.
You may want to check out nodes with a simple standing waves calculator at marktaw.com: you just enter your room dimensions for a simulation of standing waves in your listening area. Rives' site also has some info/guidelines.
But you've probably done that already... Good luck
gs5556
1,234 posts
 
Tom, I would suggest that you obtain a Radio Shack SPL meter and a Stereophile (or similar test CD) and make readings over the entire audio frequency at both the listening position and from 1-foot from each speaker. This will tell you if the problem lies with the room or equipment - if it's the room, the speaker readings will be relatively flat while the listening position readings vary. If the speaker readings are not flat, and the listening position reflects the same pattern, it's most likely the equipment.

You might find that it's not a bright room - doesn't sound like one, but I'm not the expert (ask Rives). But you might find that the low frequency standing waves are not uniform around the listening position. Just a start, not a solution.
jdombrow
371 posts
 
I suggest you experiment with treating the "notched out" area behind the sofa. If this helps, you can explore some permanent treatments.

JD
newbee
4,767 posts
 
Tom, You have nice stuff and a nice set up. The one thing you don't mention is the toe in of your speakers. Many speakers are hot if you listen to them on axis. A lot of manufacturers recommend that they be pointed straight ahead for proper imaging etc for just that reason. If you have a wall just 2 feet away you could easily get excessive reflections. I have speakers that should be, optimally pointed straight ahead. I had an idea one day, tried it and it worked just great in a room of similar size and speaker placement as yours. I measured the angle from the line perpendicular to the speaker when it was pointed straight ahead to the head at the listening chair (it was about 20 degrees) and then to duplicate the exact same sound waves from the speaker and eliminate the reflections I toed the speakers in 20 degrees past the listening position. It looks unusual but it really worked! By the way it also helped with ceiling reflections (I have 9'ers). And as side benefit - If you sit to either side of the listening position in a chair in front of the speaker you get a pretty good center image, due mainly to the distance that the signal has to travel is off set by the roll off of the signal as it goes further off axis in the speaker directly ahead. This does not occur with other set ups where the center image wants to remain right in front of you. Sort of neat in a way. Anyway, its fun to play with. Good luck.
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