I've been reading some of your posts and am kind of familiar with your situation. What you're asking here may be too subjective of a question to get a good answer. Is it possible for you to audition some equipment first hand in order to gain some type of reference? Just something like Product A was a step in the right direction, but Product B was not. I fear without some type of confirmation as to what it will take to be successful, you'll be doing little more than guessing. Also keep in mind that low level resolution is something that all components contribute to, and not just the speakers. |
"The possibility of increased distortion at volume levels below a certain point would never have crossed my mind."
A very easy mistake for any of us. We tend to think of distortion as something unpleasant happening, usually at higher volumes. Distortion is anything that makes the signal stray in a direction further from what's on the recording. So, if your system has less resolution at lower volumes than normal, that's a distortion. |
"However since you have Martin Logans, in order to get a tube amp to play them right, a set of ZEROs (www.zeroimpedance) is advised. This will allow a tube amp to deal with the near-short impedance that occurs at high frequencies in the Martin Logans.
Atmasphere (Threads | Answers | This Thread)"
Don't the output transformers that most tube amps have, do that already? |
"04-02-15: Mapman
Not be heretic about it but our ears do not have flat frequency response to start with, hear differently at different volumes, and become less sensitive over time as noted. So digital signal processing or equalization may be all the doctor ordered to provide any needed corrections."
It may be a reasonable fix in some systems, but not all. Not taking account that its another component in the chain, an EQ alters phase on whatever frequencies you are adjusting. In my main system, for example, I was careful to select components that keep the signal unaltered, with regards to phase, from my source to my speakers. Using an EQ would undo all that. |
"04-03-15: Broadstone
Thanks, Zd. I'm not advocating use of an EQ as a solution for all problems and I do understand, or at least am aware of, phase issues associated with additional artifacts being introduced into the sound stream. However, if I had the know how and did what you described in the first place, I would still be faced with the issues of my hearing loss, the extent of which is not bilaterally equal. To further complicate the scenario, my listening room, unfortunately, is my living room and using the auto room equalization capability of the 2496 has resulted in a noticeable improvement that I've been unable to acheive by other means."
Sorry if there was any confusion. My response was to Mapman's comment. I know your situation is unique and you have reasons for using an EQ that are outside the norm. If you didn't have your hearing issue, then my post would be more relevant to you. But I was in no way suggesting that you should stop using your EQ. If you'll remember, I was one of the people that pushed you to try it. I have the same EQ myself that I use to try and fix bad recordings. |
"BTW, and somewhat off subject, some time ago I started a thread regarding phase testing using pink noise and how I noticed some migration of the sound as I progressed through increasing frequencies. I performed the same test after I did the automatic room equalization and, although this resulted in auto adjustment in only the lower bass frequencies, this migration of sound in the upper frequencies seems to have been reduced.
Broadstone (Threads | Answers | This Thread)"
That's a good observation. I don't know if FIM distortion would be the proper technical term, but that's kind of what's happening. By having the lower frequencies not proportioned correctly, they were having an effect on other frequencies.
Something similar, that you can try with your EQ, is to do the same thing with sounds that are bothering you, and the EQ is not helping. Sometimes, if you try to lower specific frequencies with an EQ in an attempt to fix an annoyance, you'll find that sometimes the problem gets worse. What happens is that along with lowering the problem sounds, other elements that are in the same frequency range, that are not giving problems, get lowered as well. This may actually have an enhancing, or spotlight effect on the problem, because you're cleaning up everything around it. On occasion, if you're lucky, you can actually raise the EQ frequencies that you are working with, and the other sounds in the same range, over power the problem. I know that sounds counter intuitive, but it does sometimes work. |
"Now that I'm using the equalizer (Behringer DEQ2496), between automatic room balancing and frequency adjustment to compensate for age related hearing loss, I'm able to get back much of what I've lost. If I had discovered the EQ approach years ago I could have saved significant time and money in this quest. I tried, as I said previously, to use the EQ as a sort of loudness control for low volume listening but it hasn't really worked that well so far. That being the case, I still want to try the autoformer approach and will as soon as my checkbook recovers from purchase the new speakers.
Broadstone (Threads | Answers | This Thread)"
I was just reading through your comments again and have a question. You say that the EQ helps but its not a complete fix. What are you lacking? What is it that needs to be corrected to get the sound you need?
Also, I have something for you to try, if you haven't already done so. I'm sure you recall some of the posts where people feel that there's usually a sweet spot to where an amp will sound its best. For the most part, I would agree. You can control the overall gain with your EQ, in addition to the individual EQ bands. If you raise and lower the overall gain with the EQ, you can vary how hard your amp is working, while keeping the SAME volume level. With some experimenting, you should be able to identify your amps sweet spot. |
"04-09-15: Broadstone
I've become a strong believer in the part that all frequencies play in such important factors as timbre, even, or maybe especially, those beyond our sensory capabilities. As was discussed earlier, the base frequencey of most any instrument or voice falls within even my upper audible range of about 8-9000Hz. Their associated and critical upper harmonics, though, will far exceed these values. "
I'm not sure if they still make it, but Whest came out with a component to do exactly what you are talking about. It goes in between a CD player and the preamp. CD stops at 20k, and this component tries to reconstruct the high frequency waveforms above and beyond what you can hear. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to hear it for myself, so I can't say if it works or not. But It does seem like a good idea. |
"ZD, thanks for the "whest" idea but I'm going to stick to end of the stream experiments for now."
My intent when I posted the info on the Whest was just to lend some creditability to the idea that having the audio signal intact above what we can actually hear is something that's probably worth while. I don't think you could get one, even if you wanted it. I'm pretty sure they're not made any more, and I don't think I've ever seen a used one come up for sale. |
