We all wish our multi thousand dollar equipment and speakers were tone coherant directly with all recordings, but in general this is nothing more than a fantasy, and honestly the only way I have found fairly consistent and liveable with almost no adjustment is a Very good analog source.
By no way does digital ever consistently come close I don't care how much the transport or player costs, maybe this is opinion, or my experiance souly. I don't think this is so much to do with the equipment however just the recording, and vinyl seems more even in general and fairly consistent. I am not selling the idea of vinyl here, But an Eq is not a bad thing especially with multiple sources that need to be tuned in, but can overdo some stuff definatley. |
Shadorne, good catch... Yeah I would bet fact is the richness and harmonic resonance of vinyl is in fact part of the whole equation.. However I have been lucky as of recent to find the miracle of room acoustics, I just treated my whole room with Killer results! Digital sounds nearly just as smooth, not all recordings hit rock bottom, but more of the panels I add keeps getting the room deeper and deeper in the gut region. Now of course you can overdue it, and I am done adding panels, very excellent balance, However I will probably get some of the little foam corner wedges to run along the long part of the ceiling soon cutting off that one major 90 degree angle left over.
As for balance, My Digital and Analog sources come SUPER close now, some albums show very rich bass, but the Cd's that are done low compete very well now too. Also for a good solid dose of analog bass in a digital system, I can't recommend Highly enough of giving a Cardas Digital cable a shot, this is the most analog I have heard CD since getting a hold of one for the Coax digital duties. |
Warnerwh, I do understand where you are coming from.. It is amazing how much we will spend on gear, gear, and More gear! But gets tuff to justify 500 or 1000.00 on room treatments. Well I myself was not capable of doing much before recent due to finally getting a room I could do somewhat a dedicated area. And today I am getting a bunch of fancy Lenrd Corner traps from auralex with cubes etc.. for the corners in my room cause now I am driven to see what happens with more control over the room. However, I don't think this is limited to having to put dedicated acoustic designed material in a room.
I found with my surround system I could add a 200 pound very full and puffy couch really works with very similar effects. We did this with my friends room as well in his 2 channel, and if you pull the speakers out of that room they fall flat, but with his giant full room couch surrounding them they have so much impact you would swear there are massage chairs built in everywhere. So if your in a very steril Ikea furnished room, yes you will have lots of issues more than likely, and people with these huge investments that really think their 20 k speakers are performing well would be shocked when they get to hear them in a room that is not just a wood floor with a glass end table and that metal framed 1" cushon audiophile chair. I would go as far to say that in general many showrooms you go listen to this stuff in is very similar and why it always sounds bad, with a 1/4" thick commercial carpet, end table and some 500 dollar chair that looks good but is nothing for sound absorbtion. I notice this issue at all these pictures of the shows in hotels too, basically Card table chairs sitting in front of bare wall, hard metal components, and a pair of stellar speakers that just don't have a chance in such an environment.
Note that many of the best sounding rooms seem to utilize something in the way of portable acoustics, or even several Plants placed throughout the room, now its all I notice in many of these pics is the PLANTS! nobody notices this, but they serve purpose, Add humidity to the room, have some diffusion, and the pots with heavy dirt etc.. can have some bass trapping properties. |
Shadorne,
actually I have a similar trap to the realtraps, its from Gik, and it works pretty well when you span the corner as a hemholtz type should.. Cleaner response, way better Vocals in my experience, its weird but it cleaned up the lower midrange a lot too..
Beyond that I found that the panels minimum will be very dependent on the room size, actually a smaller room does take more due to so much reflection vs. a bigger space that kinda helps itself much more, not to say this is exact and that a big room can't benifit from many treatments as well.
Anyway I say Definatley killing the first point reflections on all sides of a speaker, via floor, ceiling, and both sides really helps. And some bass trapping in corners can resolve and increase response quite a bit too. Getting rid of any echo is key I noticed as well, but all this is relative to listening position, how much furniture, and what kinda space you have I would guess.. I am not an expert at all, just now realize the common sense benifits of even some simple treatments.. Diffusion etc.. is a whole other thing, and basically keeping things pretty well balanced seems to be the key.. Also, I kinda notice if a room looks like it will not sound that great or feels it, then it will not sound that great. Some care in setup can go a long way I guess, but I have limited experience in only about 4 different areas that I have somehow got to sound pretty dam consistent vs. when first just sounding like crap. |
Shadorne, by the way I just saw your setup, and being everything is like flush mounted, and other issues being inside the walls etc.. with a pretty good sized area, and very Hard walls built around everything, you would be almost forced to maybe try something with return policy or get the professionals at Rives audio draw you up something very effective.. I could say this you have a very non traditional type install for the guys running 2 speakers out in the middle of the floor looking for 3 dimensional sound, I know enclosing my speaker cabinets into another cabinet within a wall would restrict a ton of air and space.. So you may be best just going after the most Bass trapping possible with aesthetic appeal you can in that room and hope for results with your subs. Or add a lot of large couches! But seriously you have a very different and other set of issues the traditional crowd probably does not deal with. |
Shadorne, you can look at my new system pics I added 16 linear feet of trapping just hours ago, and I am updating the pics right now.. I have no idea of the sound yet as I don't have the time to mess with it yet, however it looks pretty good! you could maybe go look into this type treatment, the Corner wedges with blocks, they come in Brown, red, burgundy etc... and really take up no space, you could do an entire ceiling with pretty good results, not super cheap, but cheaper than most other ways to get around it I would assume.. Auralex is the main brand on them, but I got them direct from the foam maker for far cheaper.. about 200 bucks for it all..Including the 8 24" pieces of trap, and the 2 blocks for the corners and the auralex install kit, which is tabs that do not destroy the foam or the wall and can be pulled down anytime and used in another room over and over again.. Its kinda like an out of control crown molding in many colors! Check it out, might be more acceptable than foam panels all over the walls, and you bass is supposedly mostly concentrated in all the 90 degree corners anyway. |
