The Influence of room acoustics on the listening experience

[DALEDEEE]

I have Crites speakers.  I bought them about a year ago and messed around with them for several months.  The sound was pretty good but fell apart unless you were within the apex of that triangle.  My room is 7.5'X13'x21'.   I bought 11 GIK sound panels.  The wall panels, diffusion panels and the bass traps are all bass traps.   They are all 6" thick and 8' thick.  At the same time I used the Vandersteen formula for speaker placement.  It is on their website.  Wallah!  After this setup and placement of the panels my bass is much better, imaging is superb and I can walk around the room and the sound is pretty much the same.  Previously I had complete cancellation of certain frequencies.  Sound panels are definitely one of the vital parts of a sound system. Granted I have a dedicated listening room and plenty of room for the panels. 

Edited September 9, 2020 by DALEDEEE

[inMotionGraphics]

4 hours ago, DALEDEEE said:

I have Crites speakers.  I bought them about a year ago and messed around with them for several months.  The sound was pretty good but fell apart unless you were within the apex of that triangle.  My room is 7.5'X13'x21'.   I bought 11 GIK sound panels.  The wall panels, diffusion panels and the bass traps are all bass traps.   They are all 6" thick and 8' thick.  At the same time I used the Vandersteen formula for speaker placement.  It is on their website.  Wallah!  After this setup and placement of the panels my bass is much better, imaging is superb and I can walk around the room and the sound is pretty much the same.  Previously I had complete cancellation of certain frequencies.  Sound panels are definitely one of the vital parts of a sound system. Granted I have a dedicated listening room and plenty of room for the panels. 

 

Sounds great! Any chance we can see a photo of the room and panels? I would love to see what 6 and 8 inch panels look like in a room.

[Tarheel TJ]

I can confirm everything that Daledee said.  Accoustic panels transformed my system.  You have to cover a pretty large surface area, so I can understand why some people are reluctant to do it (the WAF is pretty low).  However, ~$500 worth of homemade absorption and diffusion panels made an enormous difference.  Easily trouncing any electronics upgrade I have ever made.  Frequency response, clarity and imaging all went through the roof! 

[DALEDEEE]

It seems like every room will have compromises.  I have the two bass traps sitting behind the system.  Those are 8" thick.  All others are 6" and easily hung with a picture hanger.  You can get these in all kinds of colors and fabric.  You can even get pictures transferred to the front of each panel .  I will add some pictures under my system.  The ones on my computer are too big to add to this post.

[DALEDEEE]

[inMotionGraphics]

@DALEDEEE Very nice, thank you! Those really are thick boys, hey... 😉

[MicroMara]

On 9/10/2020 at 6:23 PM, DALEDEEE said:

 

The loudspeakers are correctly set up when the Loudspeaker as acoustical source can no longer be localized. This means that the stage front ,depth and width can be clearly located between the L's and even mixing effects can be heard to the left and right of the speakers.

 

The singer always stands in front of the band, at least during studio productions or on the same level with the band. The solos of certain instruments must be clearly locatable and delimitable.The whole sound spectrum should be balanced at the listening position, from brilliance to sub, and should not have any emphasis in certain FQ spectra, except for the sonic virtues attributed to them, e.g. ... "especially strong bass " . But drums and the bass, the instruments themselves, never tend to hum.

 

Two-channel stereo system:

 

(valid for slimline floorstanding Speakers like e.g. Klipsch RF7´s, RF 82, RP 280F , RP 8000 and others not for Klipsch Heritage Line like Forte , CW , LaScala, KHorn )

 

Figure 1 shows a typical speaker arrangement for a two-channel stereo system.a good starting point would be to form an equilateral triangle of the speakers and your listening position.depending on the size of the room and the distribution arrangement of the furniture,it may be advisable to increase or decrease the distance between the listening position and the line between the two speakers,but maintain a center position with approximately equal distance to both speakers.this will ensure the best stereo effect.Turning the speakers far away from each other slightly inwards towards the listening position will still give a good stereo effect.

 

Stereo placement for wide sound reinforcement :

If you are primarily interested in hearing the sound from any position in the room, rather than just from a specific seating area, you can move the speakers on adjacent walls far apart to form a large "L", which does not produce a very good stereo effect, but gives you a room-filling, well-balanced sound.If you now draw an imaginary line from the center of the two horns, the axes meet behind the head.This also requires that the listening point  (sofa, couch, or easy chair) in the back area must have at least 3 feet or more distance from the imaginary back wall. Accordingly, the sound absorbers, if still necessary, are to be positioned differently.

 

YMTC

 

[moray james]

Having your loudspeakers effectively disappear is in my opinion only the beginning of a good set up. There is much more that you can do after that to improve on stage and 3d image. Your system your ears along with your level of interest will determine how far you will ultimately go with this.

[MicroMara]

13 minutes ago, moray james said:

There is much more that you can do after that to improve on stage and 3d image.

Recommendations ?

[moray james]

6 hours ago, MicroMara said:

Recommendations ?

experiment with the placement of your speakers and experiment with all your gear including power cords interconnects speaker cables stands and components especially the front end and Pre amp. This is the part which takes dedication and work. So you won't feel cheated, I run a modified Sony as a transport and a Metrum Octave DAC  a Tortuga Light Dependent Resistor (LDR) volume control with a pair of Benchmark AHB2 stereo block amplifiers Tannoy Revolution Series XT Mini on new four post Skylan Stands and balanced power conditioners and assorted power tweaks (mostly my own). All of my cables and power cords are of my own design and build. Interface devices are all original and my own. Everything matters and everything makes a difference. What you like matters most. If you are lucky enough to find a system that absolutely spins your prop then buy that system all of it and go from there working til you have it sounding the way you want at home in your room and then move on from there with that as your reference. There is no easy answer no formula. Learn what you like and what you don't and let your ears and your gut be your guide. Most importantly enjoy the (your) journey.

[MicroMara]

Welcome on board @moray james  🤠  You should have looked at my profile before giving such smart advice.

 

[moray james]

thanks for the welcome. why should looking at your profile make a difference to my comments? working with what you have and that can be a great experience be it good or bad. If you really don't like the CW4 then go back to a two way. I think the Crites Cornscala "D" might be worth considering as it is an upgraded Cornwall in a two way format, just a suggestion again just so you don't feel cheated. Like I said what you like matters the most so my suggestions are just that, they may or may not fit with your sensibilities. The Cornscala "D" with it's much larger horn will hold it's polar pattern to a much lower frequency than the Rf7 or the RF83 horns can. A CF3 or CF4 might be more to your liking or not, they are also designed by Roy Delgado but a long time ago.

[MicroMara]

1 hour ago, moray james said:

thanks for the welcome. why should looking at your profile make a difference to my comments?

Because that is how a real gentleman should behave towards a woman !       ( see may avatar )   and your comments are off topic here. btw....The only original parts of my RF7MK II  is the horns, the two 10 " drivers and the cabinet.

Best regards MM

[moray james]

1 hour ago, MicroMara said:

Because that is how a real gentleman should behave towards a woman !       ( see may avatar )   and your comments are off topic here. btw....The only original parts of my RF7MK II  is the horns, the two 10 " drivers and the cabinet.

Best regards MM

why would your gender have an impact on my comments? I don't need to know about your RF7mk2, I think you would agree that is off topic here though I am happy to know that you like to modify. If you are offended by my response I don't know what you would expect me to do. Feel free to ignore what ever you don't like. I have attempted (and intended) to be helpful but it seems to have missed the mark. Please don't expect me to treat you differently than I would anyone else, I have no interest in getting into a gender identity discussion.

[MicroMara]

@moray james   Then you´ve looked at my profile. I didn´t wanted an two-sided discussion here either. You may have felt provoked, I´m sorry . Perhaps we´ll meet again in another thread. With respectful regards 

[moray james]

1 hour ago, MicroMara said:

@moray james   Then you´ve looked at my profile. I didn´t wanted an two-sided discussion here either. You may have felt provoked, I´m sorry . Perhaps we´ll meet again in another thread. With respectful regards 

that would be most welcome thank you and good luck with your room.

[MicroMara]

I´m not the one who has problems with room acoustics, quite the opposite. My room has the quality of a production studio with a reverberation time of only 0.2 seconds. We measured this after my music room was built by drywall builders and room acousticians. There are also no standing waves, Room- modes -resonances, -reflecting walls, etc. The whole thing was a miss-understanding, because you wanted to help and obviously didn't read the opening post, which I wrote myself. This

can happen when somebody just wants to help in good will. But make sure that the intended help is also purposeful by dealing with the topic´s subjects of the thread and not answering spontaneously and intuitively on a post. This actually applies to all virtual interactive communication in forums. 

 

YMTC

 

[MicroMara]

thought to bring this threat up front, maybe some new inputs in this matter for someone here , that´s all , thanx !

[Tom05]

Get rid of the hardwood floors, way to reflective , home listening rooms should error on the side of  being too absorbent rather than too reflective . Large Halls and auditoriums , that’s where it gets complicated.🤓

Edited January 6, 2022 by Tom05

[MicroMara]

How to place Klipsch Forte Speakers according to Klipsch recommondation ...