What if you had $25K to spend on a listening room?

[mobile homeless]

Artto, what an amazing room you have there, by far the most serious room I have seen on this forum (although Edter00 has a nice room as well if he could get the acoustics under control).

IT really illustrates what one can do if he builds from the ground up with definitive ideas! It appears you really had ole Paul in mind with the dimensions as they are definitely Khorn with fill speaker biased with Paul's stamp. I dont know if I would personally go that direction but you have seemingly taken this idea to its final fruition and it looks to be a job well-done, surpassing what I imagined, especially in the visual domain. What a creative solution.

I dont happen to prefer the center fill - long wall speaker placement but it's probably necessary in this instance. Regardless, I would LOVE to hear your room/setup.

I am with you on the Audio Research gear - I dont think I would take any of their later offerings either, especially the more solid state sounding units. At least the SP- 3, 6, and 8 sound more musical then most of their later models. I always liked the later SP-8 and many still talk about the 6.

I havent really heard ANY Crown gear I liked but your comments definitely make me realize there might be exceptions to the rule. I had become so biased against Crown from the stuff in the 70s and 80s. Their pro-based gear just sounded about as musical as a slate patio so this perception was coloring most of my take on things Crown. Ditto with Phase Linear, another brand that I lugged around to different dumps and when set up in our band house, and used for stereo, reminded me why I would rather be playing music than listening! I justdont see how people listen to this stuff on horns... but many do.

As for the London Decca cartridges, these ARE being made again with the top notch Jubilee leading the pack. Of course, the price it not entry level by any means! See this page: London Decca Cartridges. I wish I had heard any of the Deccas or even the Arm, but cant say that I have. Allan Songer was going to send a Gold this way but I am a bit leary about how it would do on my arm as well as the possibility of an accident. I am currently getting ready to move to another table for now that is a HUGE departure from the Linn LP-12 theory and implementation. It's by Progressive-Engineering and called "The Turntable". We'll see how that works out.

Concerning your amp comments, I dont really know your listening preferences here although I can see your playing preferences! They dont always go hand in hand though. I happen to prefer the 2A3 over the 300B as I think it is more open and neutral, as well as faster sounding extremely clear while still remaining sweet in the best sense. I actually think it has better bass than the 300b in some ways, as it seems more refined and tighter, if not as much ultimate power. The 300B does have more bass impact. There are a ton of intriguing options in the SET camp right now. AS always, the iron and circuit rule here with IRON being so damn important.

Anyway, I am sure we will toss some ideas around. I have not heard the Luxman tube offerings but I have seen them and read some things. To bad the archives here are a mess. Searching is a disaster.

Throw some more room pics up, too. PErhaps I'll throw them on a page.

kh

[artto]

EJ, Actually your room dimensions should give you reasonable room response down to 20Hz using the half-room principal. 40Hz without it. You might want to download an Excel spreadheet from this link:

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/rooms.htm

The file you want is modes.xls. I don't agree with everything this guy has to say but the speadsheet is useful.

Your room proportions, while quite generous, and larger than my room, has almost 2.5 times as many room modes "piling up" below 150Hz than I do(26'10"x 18'10" <16'-8.5" on half of the back wall with angled wall/doorway section between it & the 18'10" section> x7.833' ceiling), although the average spacing of the room modes is good, only 0.8Hz. You also have room mode resonances at 60.4Hz & 59.6Hz. BAD. Any electronic hum from amps, electrical noise, grounds,lights etc. will be reinforced. The 60.4Hz is in the height. The 59.6Hz mode is a bit more serious as it has 3 occurances, all in the length direction (28.5').

artto

[artto]

EJ, Almost forgot.....

I take it you are talking about using 12ga Oxygen free copper for the electrical (wall) wiring? If so, I don't think I would waste money on it for that purpose. Plus, better make sure it meets your local building codes. Spend the money on a good isolated regulated power supply/line conditioner instead. Also, I don't think linking (or wraping) 2 of these together is a good idea, whether for the electric power, or for your speakers. This will just create more inductance, which is something you want less of, not more. Going from 12ga to 9ga is not going to produce anything significant in terms of measurable or hearable performance. If you were using a cable that was designed as a 9ga cable, you would be better off, than taking a chance with creating a larger magnetic field around your speaker cable. There's also the time-difference (phase problems) to contend with by strapping 2 cables together. This also may not be audible. But why even bother? Its just more money spent on something with potentially more problems than it solves (the cure is worse than the disease type of thing).

artto

[edster00]

artto,

You have provided a wealth of information regarding proper room acoustics. I have been trying to figure out what is wrong with my new listening room and I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned "acoustically overloaded" in your first post in this thread. Thanks for your insight and suggestions...now all I have to do is talk my wife into redecorating my new room!

BTW do you have any suggestions to make a Sony 36" TV acoustically disappear from between my K-horns? (How's that Kelly)?

[artto]

yes, I do.

GET RID OF IT

(just kidding)

checkout startrek.com

I think they have one of those "simulators" that can make anything happen.

[artto]

and shouldn't that read...

"always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they'll be going to yours"?

[edster00]

Thanks for the link!

re: the quote...I think that's why it is a "Yogi-ism"

[artto]

KH....thanks for the Decca info. How wonderful to see that gem back in production!!!

Now my only problem is, do I sprend my Christmas present budget on a lifetime supply of 8045G tubes for my Luxman MB3045's or do I buy a new Decca? lol

The Maroon version is what I've been calling Plum. I have several of these. Nice to see they've appreciated. I don't think I paid more than $100 each for mine. They were out of favor at the time.

In regards to the Crown gear, I sometimes wonder if the typical listening room coupled with a Klipsch/Crown combination was the culprit (at least partly) for dislike of this setup. Most rooms have a broad midrange peak that would probably help exaggerate that "cold hard grainy" sound. I don't find them all that disturbing. I think everyone got on the bad rap Crown bandwagon back then because of the then "newly discovered" TIM (or Otala) distortion. Matti Otala tested Crown amps himself & found them to be free of TIM under normal operating conditions. Crown was a target of this because TIM seemed to be more prevalent in amps with high amounts of negative feedback (which Crown has). Don't get me wrong, I can never get my Crown stuff to sound like the tubes. The tubes make the K-horns sing & sound glorious. But I also think there are certain colorations & distortions in tube gear that make it "sound better".

And speaking of Phase Linear, thats one piece of equipment I consider outright junk. Noisy as all hell. Ditto for Carver's latter amps. I had borrowed a trio of his "1.5t", I think it was called, from my dealer. Was supposed to be "balanced" to sound like a tube amp. I think I had those things in my system all of 5-10 minutes. May I borrow Paul's phrase? "BULL****". Have you ever read Paul Klipsch's dissertation about the "Ultimate LSH Loudspeaker" in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society? Its hilarious. Only Paul Klipsch could get away with slamming Bob Carver like that.

Lately I've been playing music more than listening, so the SS stuff gets the cue. I can't see burning these rare tubes for background music or at parties anymore either. Nobody else really cares anyway, & even if they do, its still probably far better than anything they've heard before.

[HDBRbuilder]

Just thought I would add a little input on the subject of wall baffles. There IS an alternative...but it can also be an expensive one if you hire it done...but, for those who are woodworking inclined DIY types...here goes:

Side and rear walls with raised panels...here is how you go about it...think of a wall with a raised panel wainscot, but that also has a raised panel upper section running from the wainscot to the ceiling. Now...for every linear section of panels like this(ie., one raised panel above, and one below per linear section), the next vertical inset section of raised panels will be upside down in relation to the previous.... one right-side-up, then one up-side-down, then up, then down...all the way around the room...results? A class act of baffles. The key is to have the raised panels floating BEHIND their famework in rabbets, instead of their perimeters being inserted into dados in the framework edges. In this manner, you can have the framework secured to the walls with construction adhesive, and the panels done so, too! Result? No vibration of the panels in their framework. The narrower the panels in the linear direction(ie., the panel and surrounding framework's width), the less surface there is with which they can do any reflecting...

Look at it this way...these raised paneled walls end up being somewhat akin to the wedges in an anechoic chamber!! the angles involved are close enough together to provide the baffling needed, and the appearance is loaded with "class"!!

Just my $0.02!!

[Chris Robinson]

Builder, uh, can you draw a picture and scan it in? I think I've got it but I also need a flashlight and a map to find my butt on occasion.

Thanks.

[artto]

Ive mentioned this in the architectural section & a few other places in the forum. I dont mean to sound like a know-it-all, but there seems to be a preoccupation with sound absorption through out the forums as opposed to sound dispersion (controlled reflectivity) to control room reflections, frequency response & sound decay. An anechoic chamber may be fine for testing certain performance characteristics of a speaker, but it is NOT a pleasant, nor appropriate place to listen to music. A quiet room is beneficial. But trying to achieve this by simply absorbing sound within the room is the wrong approach. Making the room quiet requires insulation/isolation of the room from the building structure & increasing wall mass, not stuffing it with anechoic wedges or sound absorbing panels. The use of wainscots should look pretty classy but use them to reflect the sound, not absorb it. Put the absorption material in the air space between the wall & the wainscot so that as the sound gets louder & louder, more & more sound gets trapped behind the wainscots (or diffusers) so that the room does not acoustically overload due to extended reverberation times at peak sound levels. What you need to do is try to make the decay more nearly logarithmic, for all frequencies, through out the room, not eliminate it. The reason for using some very large diffusers is because you need to control the reverberation time of the bass as well. The absorption of bass is greater than that of the treble & midrange with large diffusive surfaces. They also help to breakup standing waves. You need to use a combination of diffusive & absorptive surfaces. EXPERIMENT. What you want is a room with a uniform bass-treble reverberation & decay, & uniform frequency response, THROUGH OUT THE ROOM. That being saidits easier said than done.

[HDBRbuilder]

That was my whole point...sound wave refraction, NOT absorption, from the wall surface...of course insulation WITHIN the walls would be needed to achieve a quiet room to begin with...the reference to the anechoic chamber was to its sound refraction by the wedge effect, not to its absorption by the material the wedges are MADE from...instead of having curtains or something else to break up the unwanted soundwaves with their pleats...or built-in baffles, the raised panels acomplish this...minimal reflection...maximum refraction...while retaining a nice classy appearance...this was the point I was trying to make...the fact that in this technique, the rails of the framework for the panels would only have a linear horizontal distance of each vertical panel section, added to the fact that the stiles would also have angles on their inner edges(or at least some kind of moulded edges...like a Roman Ogee or whatever), even though THEY would extend from floor to ceiling(at least from moulding to moulding at those points) and would add even more diffraction to this method of interior design. All of this is pertaining primarily to stereo, but can be used for HT too! The point I was making about the raised panels being narrow is so that there is little or no flat surface to the panels...giving less reflection properties to them...the same reason for alternating the horizontal rails of the framework...no continuous horizontal rail around the room providing a continuous reflecting surface there either. As always, the room dimensions and properties will dictate the extent to which this should be done...but it IS an alternative...and it will most definitely meet even the most discerning of WAF approval...unless....she is hung up on the current "dry brush technique on a painted drywall surface" con game espoused by the "decorators" of today!!...LOL! BTW, it you only want a paint-grade surface...you can always make all of this out of MDF!! But real wood is much warmer in appearance!!

[artto]

Gotcha! I toyed with the idea of doing something wood panels like that but, as you said, it can be expensive. I was opting for something more contemporary, which I guess you could still do with the wainscots. My second reason for going with the large polycylidrical panels was that they can be bowed deeply enough to actually start damping standing waves in the bass range. But you also need the space to do this. Bowing these things 12-18" can take a lot of space out of the room.