Am I done yet? LOL


Things are sounding pretty good at the moment. The Dynaudio Contour 30i speakers are the latest addition and are working better in this room than the Maggie 3.7i speakers were. 

Usually, when I ask the wife to come listen, she'll sit for a song, maybe 2, then make a "that's nice" type a comment and leave. With the Dynaudio speakers, she stayed, and played song after song. She listened for over and hour and said she really really liked these speakers. Great to know the wife was pleased.  laugh

But the audiophile in me feels like there is more to be had. The amp & pre-amp are on my radar as the possible candidates for improvement. Any opinions on where to head next? (There's always a "next" isn't there?)

traudio

I’m done.

And I’ve given up golf, too.  It got to the point that there just wasn’t any challenge to it any longer.

 

@goodlistening64 

Just because I'll be using 2 large subs doesn't mean I also have to crank them up. It's about correcting the peaks and valleys in the bass response. 

With the 888, that bass obviously is not adjustable other than by positioning, but subs can be positioned for best sound and these have auto eq which has helped smoothed things out considerably

 

@traudio 

The 7' ceiling you have means your tweeters are about 42", or exactly halfway up your walls. Sound waves will bounce off your ceiling almost immediately. While you have acoustic ceiling tiles, as I do, I can guarantee you are having comb filtering issues.

Those few ceiling tiles can be replaced (where the reflection occurs) with Soundsulate Acoustic Drop Ceiling Tiles, or something like it. Armstrong, or similar types of acoustic tiles sold in Lowes and Home Depot provide moderate reflection of sound but if you measure your vertical dispersion your speaker sound is hitting the floor at the same time it is hitting the ceiling at absolute opposite points. Find the bottom, then look up. About 20 degrees.

If you were to punch in your room size 26 x 13, AI will tell you that you will have a primary standing wave at 21Hz and 42Hz, respectively. Big woofers will excite those specific frequencies, resulting in bloated, muddy bass. 

In order to smooth out those frequencies as you hope (and it may be easier to do it with two than one -- so you are on your way!!) to achieve, you must cancel all the room modes, find the right crossover, and perhaps use DSP or room correction, which would really be super helpful to you, considering what you are up against. 

You have a lot going on in that room and adding more seems counter-intuitive but it is the journey, or the frustration- or the anger!- that leads to selling and buying new gear. 

I had Tower speakers and instead of addressing the ceiling reflection (my ceilings are 7ft 7inches), I replaced them with bookshelf speakers and problem solved. Tower speakers have more vertical interference and send a taller cone of sound toward the ceiling. What's more is that those sounds bounce off walls so you are then tasked with having secondary reflection points that come from the ceiling.

Your equipment is really great. You do have all the pieces, but can you get them to work in harmony?? Hope so! Good luck!!

The ceiling tiles ARE acoustical tiles, and I have additional absorption at the celing's 1st reflection point....it just wasn't in the picture. 
I built this custom room from scratch, by my self.
Yes, higher ceilings would have been nice, but this is in a basement, so I was limited. On the good side I have a solid concrete floor with carpet, the walls have rockwool insulation with drywall and paneling on both sides, The ceiling has R30 insulations between the joists and CeilingMax tile system where the runners are screwed to the joists, so no tile movement or diaphragm action occurs, as well as only giving up 1" of height. The supply and return use insulated boots to prevent noise from the fam and wind rush sound, I also ran dedicated 20 amp electrical circuits.   
As for the size, it's pretty close to the Cardas Golden Ratio. 
I've done my homework :-)

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