I almost want to cut off my ears...

[DrWho]

The heresy's I used to have worked fine at around 4 feet in an equilateral triangle with the listener.

The Heresy doesn't converge until around 10 feet either. If you get the chance, try taking a single Heresy outside and note how far back you get when you notice a very sudden transition in the sound. For the Lascala it's about 30 feet back. The change is extremely dramatic so you'll know when you're walking through that region.

The reason you can get away with closer in a typical home setting is because a dense sound-field is created from the energy reflected back from the walls in the room - creating this wash of sound everywhere and ultimately masking the effects. It masks a lot of other things too, but apparently people like a washed out sound.

[DrWho]

So what's this post by Craig that got removed?

For the record, I never commented on the MF/HF sound of Craig's room at

AK Fest because it made me want to tear my ears off. Since Craig claims

that is never possible for room acoustics to introduce that problem, I

guess he is saying there was something wrong with his amplification? It certainly wasn't the CD Player since I'm also including

all the songs we heard on vinyl too.

There are many more examples where dozens of people have experienced

the effects of poor room acoustics. Take for instance the mixer at the

Hope Pilgrimage two summers ago. That farmhouse sounded like a giant bathtub....do we blaim all the amps and speakers heard there? Or how bout

one of the first pilgrimages in Indy where we had the mixer in the

hotel meeting room place. Again that sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Last summer we

had the Jubilees in the same hotel - but this time with amps that would

make Craig puke. Yep, it still sounded like crap. What's absolutely fun

about this is that the Jubilees with "puking amps" in a decent

room sound absolutely fantastic. In fact, it absolutely smokes

everything else I've ever heard (yep, that includes Craig's AK Fest

setup with his frankenscalas)...and no I'm not exagerating the level of

smoking either.

My own experiences indicate that the room was a limiting

factor for everyone at AK Fest. So instead of blaiming the amps like Craig is encouraging, I'm going to rely on my own

experiences and just mention that the rooms made me wanna rip my ears

off. This reaction jives with all the other Klipsch mixers too...a

crappy room is going to yield crappy sound - no matter how fancy the

amplification is. By the same token, a perfect acosutical environment

with crappy amplification is going to sound bad too. However, my

experience with decent sounding rooms and Denon receivers is that they

really aren't as crappy sounding as some might expect. When the room

improves, the differences between amps becomes significantly less.

Anyone with experience with treated rooms feel free to disagree, but

anyone with experience would absolutely know where I'm coming

from. Just read all the literature out there from people playing around with this stuff. The people claiming great sound in a crappy environment are merely

demonstrating a human's ability to focus on the music. That argument however is the same argument I would use for listening to a Bose wave radio. Trying

to argue the effects of a room without any experience is just

narrow-minded foolishness...of course, I can totally understand how

difficult it is to accept the rambling of some young punk kid -

especially when one has the biased opinion that the kid doesn't know

what he's talking about. But that's ok, how bout we don't shoot the

messenger and concentrate on the content? Oh wait, some here don't

understand the content and would rather proclaim the world was flat and shoot the messenger

than change their views. So how bout we go to the literature of the wise old farts that are playing around with this stuff?

Sorry for being blunt, but the facts be what they is.

[maxg]

I missed it too - and it was apparently aimed at me.....Craig?

[PrestonTom]

Stepping back a bit and taking a larger look at things....

I actually think it is sad when the Moderator has to become involved.

I think it is even sadder when the Moderator is then picked on for having to do their job.

-Tom

[Erik Mandaville]

Just per chance, what if the B&Ws mentioned sounded immediately and distinctly better in all important ways (to the individual listener and the one who lives in the house) than the other speakers mentioned in the same acoustic environment? Is the answer to completely change the properties of the room to try to hopefully get the others to sound better (because they are Klipsch and this is a Klipsch forum), or to listen to some music because it's good for us to do that.

Erik

[cjgeraci]

Stepping back a bit and taking a larger look at things....

I actually think it is sad when the Moderator has to become involved.

I think it is even sadder when the Moderator is then picked on for having to do their job.

-Tom

Did you actually read the post before it was removed? Or are you just blowing smoke for the sake of blowing smoke - that is, supporting the decision to delete the post without having knowledge of its contents?

Sure, it is Klipsch's forum, it is privilege to communicate in here, and they have the "right" to remove any post that they want to.

That being said, there was nothing offensive in the post that required removal. So, it was surprising that the moderators resorted to removing the post in its entirety. We'll just leave it at that.....

Carl.

[cjgeraci]

I missed it too - and it was apparently aimed at me.....Craig?

No, Max, it was not aimed at you.

Carl.

[Deang]

Mike, Craig has never said the Jubilee "sounds like crap" -- but that positive reports regarding her performance are overstated. Even though he'd have to had heard one or two to make either comment -- there's still a difference.

I don't know what you heard at AK this year, but I did hear what I'm sure was a similar room and setup the year before and I thought it sounded pretty good -- certainly one of the best sounding rooms on the floor. No, the rooms aren't very good by any stretch, but please don't try to tell me that with a bit of room treatment -- a mid-fi HT receiver is going to produce better sound than $4000 worth of tube gear. I mean, did you get to sit in the sweet spot, or were you standing off to the side?

[Deang]

"You know, you train your own self interest."

That's pretty good.

[DrWho]

I don't think the above is possible. I have a feeling that what you meant to say is that in better rooms listeners are "less concerned with amplifier differences."

It's just speculation until you try it out for yourself.

I did mean it the way I originally wrote it - the differences become less. There are plenty of reasons that support this notion too.

[DrWho]

Mike, Craig has never said the Jubilee "sounds like crap" -- but that positive reports regarding her performance are overstated. Even though he'd have to had heard one or two to make either comment -- there's still a difference.

Good point - edited.

I don't know what you heard at AK this year, but I did hear what I'm sure was a similar room and setup the year before and I thought it sounded pretty good -- certainly one of the best sounding rooms on the floor. No, the rooms aren't very good by any stretch, but please don't try to tell me that with a bit of room treatment -- a mid-fi HT receiver is going to produce better sound than $4000 worth of tube gear. I mean, did you get to sit in the sweet spot, or were you standing off to the side?

Best on the floor certainly doesn't mean "best ever" - far from it actually. In fact, I can think of dozens of systems using "mid-fi" gear that sound better than anything at AK Fest or Klipsch mixers or anything similar. I think the notion that more expensive means better is exceptionally misleading. I'm really not recommending room treatments either - there is far more to "acoustics" than hanging crap on your walls. A bad room with perfect gear is always going to sound bad (how else could it be defined as a bad room?). A decent room with decent gear is going to sound decent. A perfect room with decent gear is still going to sound decent - so there's still potential to enjoy the benefits of improved amplification.

[maxg]

Just per chance, what if the B&Ws mentioned sounded immediately and distinctly better in all important ways (to the individual listener and the one who lives in the house) than the other speakers mentioned in the same acoustic environment? Is the answer to completely change the properties of the room to try to hopefully get the others to sound better (because they are Klipsch and this is a Klipsch forum), or to listen to some music because it's good for us to do that.

Erik

Fair question Erik - but possibly not relevent to this thread. The original questioner mentioned how he was not satisfied with the sound of his Klipsch and asked what he might be able to do to improve the situation. All answers thus far have been aimed in that direction. The additional imformation that the B&W's he heard sounded better were not, apparently, either in his listening space nor with his supporting equipment.

Noticably the guy has not returned to the thread since about page 2 - so I guess he has sold his Klipsch and bought the B&W's.

He is probably now posting on the B&W forum as to why his speakers don't sound as good in his home as they did in the shop...[^o)]

[Erik Mandaville]

Max:

"Fair question Erik - but possibly not relevent to this thread."

With due respect, I entirely disagree. I understand what the original poster was saying, and that he was also impressed enough with another pair of speakers (non-Klipsch) to mention how much better they sounded. Of course I may be wrong, but it seemed to me he was responding to certain characteristics that (may) or may not be related to the listening environment.

I also indicated that suggestions given by others may indeed help, and if that is the case, good. The point I was attempting to make was simple, really. Just that that there is the possibility that he stumbled on a speaker design that appealed to his personal tastes and preferences more than did the Klipsch. This I followed up with a question that, if just BY CHANCE he had the opportunity to listen to another pair of speakers (the name brand is not important) in the same environment (his own home and electronics), and the result was one that contrasted strongly in favor of the new speakers, would it not be possible to worry less about room issues and acoustics and just enjoy listening.

I would not presume to assume anything about this person's actions or behavior, Max. That's really his own business.

Erik

[PrestonTom]

Stepping back a bit and taking a larger look at things....

I actually think it is sad when the Moderator has to become involved.

I think it is even sadder when the Moderator is then picked on for having to do their job.

-Tom

Did you actually read the post before it was removed? Or are you just blowing smoke for the sake of blowing smoke - that is, supporting the decision to delete the post without having knowledge of its contents?

Sure, it is Klipsch's forum, it is privilege to communicate in here, and they have the "right" to remove any post that they want to.

That being said, there was nothing offensive in the post that required removal. So, it was surprising that the moderators resorted to removing the post in its entirety. We'll just leave it at that.....

Carl.

Carl, I don't even know why I bother responding to your comment, but heck ....

Yes, I was on the Forum on Friday night,

Yes, I do vaguely remember some of the silliness that was being posted.

Yes, I still think it is sad that the moderator has to waste their Friday night cleaning up.

Yes, I still think it is wrong to pick on the moderator.

I have grown tired of this.

-Tom

[Erik Mandaville]

"He is probably now posting on the B&W forum as to why his speakers don't sound as good in his home as they did in the shop..."

As I said, this conclusion is possibly abrupt and not accurate.

I will say that every speaker I have owned was one that I first heard in an environment away from home -- either at someone else's house or at a store that sold audio equipment. That was surely the case with our Heresies, which we will never sell. I was so impressed with them compared to the sound of the others in the store, which happened to include B&Ws, by the way, but had to leave without a pair. I couldn't afford them then. This was also a few years before I started building my own, and with the essential sound of the Heresies strong in my mind, went from one outlet store to another trying to find another less expensive brand that would hopefully come close to that very clear and open sort of sound I heard from the Heresy. The best I could do then was a 3-way from Cerwin Vega. I actually liked those quite a bit, but again, I didn't have the chance to listen to them at home.

All I could do, and I would venture to say that the same is true for many of us, is compare them to others in the same shop and make a decision based on that. I also never told this person to go out and by a pair of B&Ws. I responded to his honest statement about finding something else that sounded better to him than what he had.

Hopefully this is clear.

Erik

[DrWho]

Ok, let's say that after all the complicated impedance relationships that amp A has 0.5dB more output at a certain frequency than amp B. If the room happens to have some kind of resonant nature at that frequency, then the length of the decay will change more rapdily with amplitude. It's not so much the 0.5dB that is audible as it is the decay of the resonance changing length by a few ms. If you got rid of the resonance (or took the speaker outside), the differences would be far less noticeable or even completely inaudible. This same effect can also happen from spectrally unbalanced later arriving reflections too.

How bout another fun one? You can have disortions introduced into the amplifier from the microphonic effects of the speaker reacting to the modal response of the room. The lower the damping on your amp, the more susceptible it will be. If you address the modal response (or went outside), you wouldn't have a modal response to deal with - so no distortion imparted from these effects of the room.

Comb-filtering from reflections also exagerates any small frequency response differences between amps.

In more layman terms, if you have a harsh room and you're comparing a warm amp to a forward amp, the forward amp is going to sound rather awful. Get rid of the harshness of the room (go outside) and you'll notice that the forward amp probably sounds quite nice. The warm amp might sound ok inside and outside it is also going to sound quite nice. Think of a bad room as an unstable environment ready to exagerate the effects of any minor change.

But really - don't listen to me talking about it. Try it for yourself.

[Deang]

Seems to me the less interaction from the room, the more pronounced the differences will be (between gear).

"I think the notion that more expensive means better is exceptionally misleading."

Sure. I could have left tubes out of it too since my fearsome Super-T at a whopping $150 sounds as good at lower volumes as most things I've heard -- but most people need more than a couple of watts. O.K., I'll rephrase: gear that sounds like sandpaper or fingernails going across a chalkboard will sound like sandpaper or fingernails going across a chalkboard no matter what you do to the room. OTOH, in my 30 years of doing this I've never heard good gear be rendered unlistenable by the room.

[maxg]

Wow Erik - 2 responses to my brief and rather tongue in cheek reply!!?

B&W's may be a better speaker for him - I have no idea. You will notice however that in his second post on page one he thanks people for their suggestions (as to how to make his existing speakers sound better) and invites others. Nobody seems to have picked up on an invitation to discuss the sound of B&W Vs Klipsch - I think largely because he is not asking that.

Nobody on here can tall a guy - remotely at that - what he does and does not like to listen to - therefore, hopefully, no-one is trying to. At the same time the guy has clearly invested something in his existing Klipsch setup and is looking for ways to improve the result for something in the $600 (or not more than that figure) area.

This is why I stated that his preference for B&W is not actually relevent to the discussion at hand- he simply isnt asking that (not unreasonably - this being a Klipsch forum and all). He appears (to me at least) to be asking for help with his Klipsch speakers.

[mikebse2a3]

First I want to emphasize that the description of an audio system and the chain that it in effect becomes must include the room to be complete. Any weakness/errors in this chain causes problems in our attempt to have accurate reproduction based on the input we feed into the Audio System. The room's acoustics is by far the most uncontrolled and ignored part of the chain for many reasons and to ignore it's influence when describing/buying equipment/speakers sets a person up to misinterpret the problem areas and also to continue to swap equipment/speakers in search for a cure that never seems to come or last in the long run.

I believe anyone has to acknowledge that there is no perfect piece of audio equipment or room. I contend that it is possible to have equipment that can be measured to be within a certain reasonable performance standard yet when we begin to assemble a total audio system which must include the room we can begin to have issues were errors/charateristics begin to become cumulative and this is were the system's synergy for lack of a better discription comes into play.

The Ear/Brain is amazing in how some problems appear to be very small and yet are easily noticed while other problems that appear to be much more sevier are ignored by it.

Anyone that has spent any amount of time with treating a room acoustically can tell you that it can easily improve or worsen the sound depending on how accurately the acoustical room problems are identified and treatment is applied. Opinions on the quality of recordings and equipment/speakers can easily shift once a room is brought into a region of neutrality. So I believe it would be accurate to say that changing the room acoustics will not change the differences in amplifiers or any other piece of equipment but our sensitivity to these differences can change once the room becomes better balanced/neutral.

Ok so it comes down to this for me:

IMHO at this time in audio history everything in the reproduction chain is important.

The Loudspeaker and Room Acoustics are the two weakest points in the reproduction chain and thus for the highest quality of reproduction they are the most important areas to spend money and effort on.

Unfortunatly way to many hobbiest are searching for the cure for their dissatification with their current system in the wrong places and spending lots of money on a never ending search for the right piece of equipment or speaker to solve the problems of the loudspeaker/room interaction and acoustics issues.

mike tn[]

[mikebse2a3]

DeanG said:

OTOH, in my 30 years of doing this I've never heard good gear be rendered unlistenable by the room.

Hey Dean

I could have given you plenty of experiences of good equipment giving unlistenable sound especially when I was dealing with small rooms and many experiments of trying different room treatments.

mike tn[]