My happy issue correction story

A Tuesday: No one home but me. Wife went to work at the office today and both she and daughter will be home late due to after work crafting class.

I get to listen to my stereo! At any volume! And run sine wave sweeps to my heart’s content!

I was pretty pleased with the sound of my system and hadn’t felt compelled to research new gear for some time. Bass extension/texture/impact was still pleasing me since the sub upgrade. The entire frequency range was still a bit clearer and more coherent since upgrading my streamer due to the digital high pass and sub/main sync feature. I had improved some peaks and dips courtesy of room correction after getting a calibrated mic.

However, there was still a mentally-bothersome issue where the sub would sound better at 0 degree phase with one channel but at 180 with the other. And audibly bothersome was the imbalance between the sound of the left and right speakers that independent channel room correction could only ameliorate. Channel balance had a greater effect but at the expense of a shifting center image. I confirmed this was due to room reflections after swapping speakers and then speaker leads—the brighter sound remained on the right. 

Anyway, now that I was alone it was time to try the speaker stands I got for Christmas (bought from my “things you could buy me” list created many months ago). My bookshelf speakers were at the ends of a 6.5’ wide TV console. Had tried them at front edge of console (to reduce diffraction), close to wall (to reduce comb filtering), even with front baffle continuous with tv (why not?). My normal listening position was 10’ away and I would have to sit closer on the ottoman for critical listening sessions.

The speakers on the stands were maybe a foot wider than before and a foot farther from the front wall. Upon first listen, I noticed an immediate improvement in imaging and instrument separation, even more than when I was hunched over on the ottoman! I listened in amazement and appreciation for some time, then noticing the persistent channel imbalance, reran separate-channel room correction many times, trying various settings.

Imbalance between left and right remained. Sliding the balance lever from left to right sounded like two different speakers! Most recommend room correction up to 400Hz but I ran it all the way up to 8k to try to address this. And there was no way I was going to be allowed to do room treatment.

For the same WAF reasons I knew that I couldn’t leave the speaker stands sticking out in front of the console, so after appreciating the improved sound for another hour, moved them back and to the sides of the console. Well, lo and behold imaging was still improved and now the stubborn channel imbalance was imperceptible! I stared open-mouthed at the singer now solidly in the center!

In disbelief I panned the balance control from left to right and heard (mostly) the same speaker. Hallelujah!

Independent channel room correction is still enabled, but that repositioning did more to improve the channel imbalance than anything else! I have no idea why clams would be happy but that phrase comes to mind. An upgrade I didn’t care much about combined with low WAF resulted in now-complete audio satisfaction! Unfortunately, I’ve already booked flights to Schaumburg, IL in April… Wish me strength!