speaker tweeks

[dantfmly]

I am wanting to do some tweeking on my speakers. What are some good speaker tweeks. I have a pair of KLF-20's and heresy II's, a RC-3 II and a MTX SUB15. Keep in mind I am new to Messing with the insides of a speaker, but i am looking for some improvement in the sound on a small budget. room treatment suggestions are welcome to. Thank you in advance for any suggestions you may give.

[DrWho]

what are you hoping to accomplish? the first most important ingredient when tweaking is knowing ahead of time what you want to accomplish, or where there might be problems.

that said, is your sound too harsh, bright, dull, lifeless, small, distorted, quiet, echoey, etc etc...? also, what is your upstream equipment (reciever, cd player, dvd player)?

you might be surprised how much better things might sound if you were to get a test disc and spl meter and then retweak all your settings.

[dantfmly]

The only thing I'm trying to accomplish is make it sound the best i can with as little money as possible. I just want to know what there is do do them and what purpose of doing it is. Up stream equipment is in my profile under system profile. But i have a yamaha rx-v2090 reciever, a HK 8380 cd player, pioneer dvl-700 dvd/LD player, monster xp speaker wire (going to upgrade with 12 gauge speaker wire not monster what a rip off I'm more educated now.), monster interlink 200 (dvd) and 300 (cd) interconnects. The only setting that i will tweek on the reciever are the levels for mutichannel. I have everything set with a flat freq responce, no EQ, or treble or bass added or subtracted. I have tweeked the sub for about a month and a half, and i finally got that where I like it. I am going to get a spl meter, but now i will probably get a test cd/dvd now too.

[dantfmly]

double post, my first one, crap.

[D-MAN]

General tweaks that worked for me...

I recommend that the listening environment be tamed before doing anything else. Any tweaking will impact with the room's reflections and absorbtion characteristics. If you get a handle on the room first, then you can start to hear some of the effects of the tweaks listed below...

1) If your speakers don't have them already and they sit on carpet, add floor spikes. If they sit on stands, add spikes to the stands if they don't have them already.

2) System tweaks: sound-absorbing mats, cones, or rubber feet to reduce vibration from underneath the system gear.

This is one of the cheapest and yet most effective tweaks. Even so, ensure that the gear in question is on a solid non-vibrating surface or it is all for naught as they will only reduce vibration, not cancel vibration completely. If you want to get elaborate, look at getting a component rack that handles vibrations. These also typically have floor spikes, too.

3) Connects: silver interconnects for your source(s); try Kimbers or such. Judging by the effect of silver interconnects, if I could afford it, I would get silver speaker cabling too, but I can't feature spending that much, so I can't recommend that; Get good, fat copper speaker cables at least 12 awg or better. This can be a very expensive tweak for silver but gives immediate results. Others on this forum will disagree about silver cabling, but I have experimented with all sorts of cabling and have owned 3 types and brands of silver interconnects in various lengths I will go as far as saying this: the worst silver is clearly better than the best copper cabling. It also unfortunately cost more, too.

4) Room tweaks: center wall (front) and behind and beside speakers. This is a general setup recommended by some HT installers that I have talked to. Bass traps in front corners if needed (i.e., too much or boomy bass). This also costs more than seems reasonable...

5) If you want to open up the speaker enclosures themselves, replace the internal wiring with better cabling. This is entirely optional and is not really required, in my opinion.

6) Hardcore Xover mods for the unafraid: replace OEM caps with higher quality ones with tighter tolerances if possible, such as Solen polypropylized, foil and paper MusiCaps, etc. This has an immediate effect but requires certain skills and knowlege to perform correctly. There are others on the forum that could help here better than I can.

DM

[JLL]

Hey this is for DrWho and anybody else that knows how I can better tweak my system. The sound I get from my Rf-3's is small, dull, quiet and lifeless. I know this for a fact because I brought my RC-3 center channel over my friends house to play some movies thru and it sounds awesome waaay better than my whole system in my room. My friend definitely has a better room than mine. My room is really small, its rectangular in shape and approximately 13 feet long by 8 feet wide and the ceiling is around 7 feet high. My speakers are probably suffocating in my room. Dunno what I should do i put blankets on the left wall, behind the speakers and the wall directly behind listening position. This makes it sound better but hardly noticable. Don't know what else to do in my room. Anybody got any pointers let me know thanks.

Joe

[ironwoods]

Hi, have you tried your Heresy II's as mains. If not, you might be surprised. Are they on stands? I use a 14" heavy mass, sand filled and spiked. They are also fastened down with finger knobs.

There's nothing wrong with Monster stuff, you just pay to much for it. 14 guage is sufficient for me.

The Audio Asylum's Tweeks/DIY is another forum to check for outragous and rediculous ideas.

I run the same Yamaha, but am looking at adding an amp for more power to the rears. I spiked my Velodyne sub, and it made a noticable improvement to my ears. Where is yours located?

I set marble slabs on the DCP and DVD to help with vibrations. Some put little sand bags on the internal DAC crystals to achieve the same effect.

Speaker placement is the best *free* tweek to experiment with, if you have the room to play with.

And don't forget the grass is always greener on the other side

[DrWho]

Here's a good thread talking about some room treatments done in a smaller and narrower room:

http://forums.klipsch.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=39766&sessionID={050AB6DA-E9FA-4A71-BD14-D1827FAAD448}

JLL...i'd mess around with speaker placement and things like that first. perhaps consider getting more hard surfaces (not blankets on the walls) to help brighten up the sound. (might even try mounting your speakers up high on their sides on top of your entertainment center or something like that).

[dantfmly]

Here is what my setup looks like.

the thing i guess i would like to fix the most is the vibrating pictures on the wall, but also the speakers seem ear piercing at higher volumes. anything to fix that. placment of speakers is very limited, due to hallways furniture and WAF. I am thinking about spiking my sub, but i was wondering how that would work out, especially since it is down firing and the legs are about 2 1/2 inches tall. I do also have a problem with the entertainment center rattling all over, to the point the cd player skips at high volumes.

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On 3/4/2004 8:19:24 AM ironwoods wrote:

Hi, have you tried your Heresy II's as mains. If not, you might be surprised. Are they on stands? I use a 14" heavy mass, sand filled and spiked. They are also fastened down with finger knobs.

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yes i have tried my heresy II as mains they just do not fit my fancy, the were the first "real" speaker i every bought. They are very warm to the hearing, but i feel they do not play rock the way that i like. for acoustical and vocal stuff i feel they are fantastic. But i mostly listen to rock, so i like my klf-20 better for that. The heresy II do a fantastic job on the rear, much better then my KG 5.5, i just sold, ever though about doing. i have them mounted on the wall with tv wall mounts. tha only thing i could find to hold that kind of weight.

[ironwoods]

Yeah, I know WAF. You certainly have a lot of stuff to rattle. Maybe a dab of Blue Tac on the bottom corners of the Pix?

Not too sure if spikes will help a down firing sub, they're more for latteral movment.

I'd just back off the treble a tad, to tame the highs, or try some felt rings around the tweeters.

You would definately do a larger room right, with all that driver Sd.

[dantfmly]

My sub has a forward firing passive radiator, would that make a difference when it comes to spiking the sub. oh and i got some 12 gauge wire today. $.34 per ft from home depot. the room is 14X18. thats pretty big

[dantfmly]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! i hooked up the 12 gauge wired, and that got rid off the sharp highs. The sound is much smother and the bass, OMG. I can believe how much better the cheap 12 gauge speaker wire from home depot is then the moster xp 16 guage wire. is. the speakers sound like they were being choked off compared to what they sound like now. Best 34 cents a ft i ever spent.

[DrWho]

it's interesting the comment you make about the wire...the physics involved cause the 16 guage wire to actually have less high end information than the 12 guage. i think what actually happened is the highs were finally being represented, which makes everything sound louder, while at the same time making the high mids relatively quieter when in actuality they're prob near the same volume. the high mids (1kHz-3.5kHz) are what generally causes that piercing sound. anyways, im just thinking out loud...trying to figure out in my head why "adding more highs tamed the high end". perhaps distortion was introduced previously? nevertheless, it sounds better and that's all the matters. i was just hoping someone else might chime in and correct me if my logic was wrong. at the same time though, it surprises me that the difference would be that big.

as far as your CD player...you might try shockmounting it (place a blanket, foam, or something soft underneathe), or you can try placing something heavy on top of it (like a brick or another component in your system). anything to reduce vibrations can have a huge impact.

[dantfmly]

i think the piercing sound was because the 16 gauge wire could not handle the load and was causing the speakers to distort. that is what the piercing problem was. The sound is so much richer and fuller now. I am very pleased with the new wire.

[Colin]

get the mains away from the front wall!

try a double layer of bubble wrap or three raquet balls under the player...

[dantfmly]

the mains are about 10 inchs away from the wall behind them. is that far enough, or do you think it should be more. i think i am going to try little rubber pieces under the cd play feet to see if that helps the skipping problem. I do all ready have the dolby digital decoder on top weighing it down, so that won't help. the mains are already spiked and i am thinking about spiking the sub. it is down firing with a forward firing passive radiator.

[soundx]

Try a little toe in, along with moving the mains away from the back wall. Does that sound like a song or something?

[Q-Man]

Fixing room rattles and noises is easy, just time consuming.

Play your sub only, have all the other speakers turned off. The room noises will be heard very easy this way. Then just walk around the room and figure out ways to stop them.

I would also try turning your rear surrounds upside down. When you lift a speaker off of the floor you loose the low bass. Use the ceiling as the floor by putting the woofer end to the ceiling. This will also put the tweeter in a better position.

[dantfmly]

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On 3/6/2004 4:57:30 PM Q-Man wrote:

Fixing room rattles and noises is easy, just time consuming.

Play your sub only, have all the other speakers turned off. The room noises will be heard very easy this way. Then just walk around the room and figure out ways to stop them.

I would also try turning your rear surrounds upside down. When you lift a speaker off of the floor you loose the low bass. Use the ceiling as the floor by putting the woofer end to the ceiling. This will also put the tweeter in a better position.

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thank you for your advice i think i will try the upside down thing, and i am going to try and find some way to keep the pictures from rattling on the walls.

[Deang]

"I think the piercing sound was because the 16 gauge wire could not handle the load and was causing the speakers to distort, and that is what the piercing problem was..."

Sorry chief, but there ain't no way in Hell -- unless your amp is an absolute POS.

Nice set up BTW.