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Sound quality vs. volume

Looking for a bit of expertise here:

I recently made a few changes to my setup and while overall pleased with the results, I’m on the quest for better.  I’m hoping you all can help me diagnose an issue I’m hearing.

When listening to music at lower volume levels - say less than 1/2 total volume, the clarity, imaging and dynamics come across far more coherent and “in focus”.  To use an often over-coined phrase “It’s like I’m there in the room”.  As I start to push the volume up a bit, closer to live-performance levels, the sound becomes increasingly “mushy”.  I know, a highly technical term, but the best way to describe what I am hearing.  The bottom-end loosens up - getting a bit boomy, the crispness of the mid-range and highs fade and the imaging falls out of focus.  These are all incremental with volume until I get to the point where it’s just unbearable.   

I’m no expert by any means but feel it might be room acoustics.  I already know I have a less than ideal setup with a nearly square room (21x20ft) with 60% of the surface covered with clear birch wood paneling. Some things we can’t change (easily).  I do not have any acoustic treatment, just lots of soft furniture.  What I find interesting is that my old setup (Magnepan 1.6) didn’t suffer to such a degree.  Maybe with the new setup there is more to loose?  A mystery.  

For a bit more context:  
Speakers:  Dynaudio Contour 60
Streamer: SoTM sms-200 Ultra
Amplifier: Peachtree Nova500

Within the 20x21ft. room, my speakers are 4ft. from the wall, I am seated 13ft. from the front wall (a bit back from room center). Speakers are 9ft. apart.

Any thoughts?  


wanderingmoo
elliottbnewcombjr
5,103 posts
 
3 wheels (move carefully) because they always self level themselves
Ag insider logo xs@2x
lonemountain
415 posts
 
There is one way of separating the system from the room and know for sure "is it system or room?" Set the system up outside in your driveway, far from any walls or boundaries.  Set up your seating position in the same place.  Repeat your tests and see if you get the same audible effects with level.  Its a simple test but an effective one and always a dramatic experience to hear what your [nearly] boundary free system sounds like!  Now you can better identify what is a system problem vs a room problem.  It's much easier to find a fix when you can clearly identify the problem.   Audio problems are so often solved via a process of elimination.   

Like Geoffkait said, there are so many different problems affecting system + room behavior that most of us cannot figure out where to start or where to end.  It's usually beyond us as the science of it is truly complex and overwhelming.  Just from the myriad of answers above it is easy to see that almost any place you start applying a fix yields a difference.  But is this difference better or just different?  That's the real question that is very difficult to answer without some kind of a baseline, a reference of some sort.  

Brad
Lone Mountain Audio
TransAudio Group
ATC USA    

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,159 posts
 
Hi wanderingmoo, what you describe has nothing to do with room acoustics. You are just running out of power supply. You can prove this to yourself fairly easily. The Peechtree has a preamp output. You will have to borrow a large AB amp from your dealer or a friend, hook it up to your speakers and use the preamp section of the Peechtree to drive it. If distortion at high volume improves you have your answer. The Peechtree just does not have a power supply big enough to support the volume you like listening at.
vinylfan62
119 posts
 
Go get a pack of Roxol/rockwool for $50. I like the packs that are 12 slabs of 3.5 inch thick panels 47 inches tall by 15 wide. That’s enough to diagnose room problems. Stand some in the corners, then lay some along the base of the wall behind the speakers, maybe stand some up on the wall behind each speaker, then try at the first reflection points. Try other locations and combinations. When you notice it changes the sound, that’s  an area that you need to work on with real room treatments.  Don’t spend money guessing what treatments you need and where. $50 bucks and a weekend of experimenting with rockwool will lead you to know your room better. Yes there are more scientific methods. This is one method everyone can do. I’ve used these rockwool slabs to help many people find room problems. 
gosta's avatar
gosta
839 posts
 
+1 vinylfan
No, dsp does not make for a boring sound. Quite the opposite. It clears the low-mid and gives you back the imaging, the transients and the liveliness. Toghether with a deep and tighter bass. Maybe if you use dsp also for higher frequencies, up to 5 -10 khz, it may make a lot of speakers sound very close! Naturally there are better and worse dsp. Nothing is perfect. If you go for Lyngdorf they have very usable fixed eq curves from 200 Hz and down that I use depending on what the recording needs. No recording is perfect.
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