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Gear / Technical Help => Playback Forum => Topic started by: MattD on December 08, 2003, 08:58:04 PM
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It seems my current listening setup is a little bass-shy. It's definitely the speaker placement, because the bass sounds fine from areas that are not the listening position.
Here's the room:
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| L rack R |
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| table |
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| chair chair ****couch***** |
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Left wall is mostly a sliding glass door with blinds.
Room is 19' wide back wall and about 12' wide front wall. Also about 13' from behind the couch to behind the rack.
The speakers are toed in about 20 degrees and are about 1' from the wall. System is Metric Halo ULN-2 DAC > PS Audio HCA-2 > Von Schweikert VR-1.
I can test with sine waves to determine the frequency range that is lacking, if that would help.
Any suggestions? I'll take this over to the audio asylum if I can't solve it here.
-Matt
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Matt,
Surround your ASCII art with <tt> and </tt> tags, using [ and ] instead of < and >.
Armen
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Using the tags didn't help much, Armen! hope it looks better now.
Moke, they're on 24" stands, which are spiked, in carpet. The spikes don't seem to sit flush against the floor under the carpet, probably because this is a shitty apartment. It's not an issue of tight bass or not ... it's just not really present.
With some listening while I move around the room, I find that the bass is best almost against the back wall (if I sit back in one of those chairs) or if I move out to the wall opposite the sliding glass door. I should get an SPL meter, generate some sine waves and noise and play around.
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Sorry man! If you draw in Notepad, then copy and paste, it works as it should... Get rid of 'em now. :)
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Matt,
Surround your ASCII art with <tt> and </tt> tags, using [ and ] instead of < and >.
Armen
FWIW, the ASCII art looks pretty good, now. I've found the tags are sometimes screwy on one line - occasionally you can't align one line with the ones above and below it. No idea why. I've found the tags always work correctly.
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>>The speakers are toed in about 20 degrees and are about 1' from the wall.
matt, i would bring out the speakers a bit more to about 3' or so from the rear wall (if possible).
also what's the distant between your spearkers? and how far is your couch from your speakers?
marc
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Speakers are now 20" from the wall, still toed in, but less of an angle. Listening position is 6' from front of speakers and speakers are just under 5' apart.
One thing I'm thinking of doing is rotating the room 90* so I face the sliding glass door. I'm not sure if that'd solve the problems by giving me a symmetrical side wall situation or cause more by losing the rear wall. In addition, it'd look uglier that way.
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Doing a frequency sweep from 20 Hz - 280 Hz (one of the Sound Forge presets) revealed some serious 'holes' in the low end. It sounded as if I were turning the volume up and down in some places. I wouldn't be surprised if I have a low frequency node somewhere right around the listening position.
Keep the suggestions coming ... I'll try anything reasonable that might work :)
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Definitely rotate 90*. If you are sitting in front of the speakers in the "short" direction of the room, it might be that the low end waves never have enough room. I can't remember the wavelengths for low frequencies, but you need to give them room to develop. I think this is why you hear more/lower bass in the open end of the room.
You also may have a standing wave problem that 90* may help with. Try wiring one of your speakers out of phase and see if the LF output increases.
Or you could just get the VS sub and stick it in that corner to the right left of your current setup, that should fatten up the bottom!
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I think you found the reason, Craig. Out of curiousity, I did the math. My speakers have a -2 dB point of 40 Hz. One wavelength of a 40 Hz sound wave is over 8.6 meters! I guess most of our listening rooms deal with reflected bass frequencies, or some of us have nice big listening rooms :)
I tried the 90* thing last night and it didn't seem practical in that room. I guess I'll have something to keep in mind when I go apartment hunting (again) next summer.
The sub isn't the answer right now ... I'm saving up for a potential switch to the SD 722 when it comes out. The neighbors wouldn't like it much either.
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I would stick with the speakers on the long wall & increase the spread between them to start. If you sit 6' from the speakers than that is a good distance to start with. What does your speaker manufact. say about placement? I would also not rule out the fact that your speakers may not be cabable of much more bass, the VR1's are the monitors if I remember correctly & they will certainly have their limits as far as bass is concerned, the upside is that they should image like a mofo.
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Now split to 7' ... definite improvement. I may still move them out into the room a little more, but I think this is as good as it gets with the apt.
Image like a mofo doesn't even say it all. The soundstage is just THERE in front of me - what a great thing to finally experience.
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For me, imaging is what it's all about. I struggle constantly with my odd room to get a better soundstage.