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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
audiotomb's avatar
audiotomb OP
1,112 posts
 
I brought a pair of JM Labs 926 home to audition this weekend. Like the Von Schweikerts they disappear and image well in the room.

These also sound congested at higher volumes. Quieter passages especially with acoustic guitars or piano sound tonally correct and more vibrant passages sound congested and are harder to listen to for long periods of time

Sounds like I may need to treat the room - slap echo effect?

I need to run the radio shack/stereophile frequency tests to see the spectrum end
audiotomb's avatar
audiotomb OP
1,112 posts
 
I did the spl tests with the stereophile cd and found distinct differences between the 3ft away source and the listening position. Will post later (at home). Not sure I believe all the distinct differences and want a second source test to verify

Rives I ordered your test cd and the Cara room software

Will investigate tube traps for the corners, absorbtion and removing all glass possible from the room.

Tom
rives
953 posts
 
The reason you are doing two measurements is to determine if the problem areas are solely at the listening position (sitting in a peak or a null), or if the problem is broader than that--a true frequency "suck out" or boost. Most cases are a combination of the two. The first thing you want to do is get to a position with the least problems. The CARA software will help you do this much faster. Once you are there you want to take another series of measurements and see how close or far off from a flat response you have.
audiotomb's avatar
audiotomb OP
1,112 posts
 
RIVEs

thanks for the input

Yes, I'm aware of the near field / far field differences, my results were a little confusing as the levels between the two were a bit variable. Hence looking into your Radio shack spl equilibrated test disc.

Yes it appears my seating area has more room effects associated with it. I ordered your disc and the Cara software to better help decipher these issues.

thanks

Tom
audiotomb's avatar
audiotomb OP
1,112 posts
 
It was hard to match levels with the levels going down all the way to the 55-60 spl end, so I had to increase volume for the test

here are my results nearfield and listening position

freq near listening
20hz 51 77
25 51 84
31.5 55 87
40 55 94
50 58 90
63 69 85
80 69 86
100 75 92
125 75 92
160 85 94
200 84 92.5
mid
250 84 93
315 88 91
400 89 89
500 92 92
630 92 94
800 93 88
1k 96 91
1.25 97 93
1.6 95.5 91
2 97 88
highs
2.5 97 89
3.15 98 91
4 99.5 93
5 101.5 95
6.3 99.5 91
8 100 89
10 97 88
12.5 94 85
16 91 79
20 86 76

speaker low freq rolloff is expected, looks like the room has overemphasis in the bass and lower midrange and some attenuation in the high end.

Now to go from measurements to treatments?
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