Now, whoz is that?
- Thread starter avidyarthy
- Start date
srinisundar
Well-Known Member
what is this ???
baijuxavior
Well-Known Member
Whose system? OPs?
corElement
Well-Known Member
I'm gonna take a guess, Asit
Canton spks + CA740 cdp/scheu TT + CA phono + Leben tube amp
I can't help but feel there's too many reflective surfaces around and the glass bookshelves might rattle.
A carpet will most likely help but with kolkata weather I can understand why he doesnt have one.
Canton spks + CA740 cdp/scheu TT + CA phono + Leben tube amp
I can't help but feel there's too many reflective surfaces around and the glass bookshelves might rattle.
A carpet will most likely help but with kolkata weather I can understand why he doesnt have one.
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iaudio
Well-Known Member
Yep, My guess is this is Asitda's system. The beefy Cantons, Leben Amp, CA 840c iirc, Scheu TT etc. But I remember seeing it in an entirely different room.
avidyarthy
Well-Known Member
yep ........ Asitda's 10 day old (new) swanky apartment, when I visited him end-week October.
No, Core. The glass does not rattle a bit. Very good, 'tight' wood-work. Yes, Asitda would be adding a carpet shortly ... thats what he said. He'd just moved in, and still was in the process of shifting in the tit-bits from his previous place.
No, Core. The glass does not rattle a bit. Very good, 'tight' wood-work. Yes, Asitda would be adding a carpet shortly ... thats what he said. He'd just moved in, and still was in the process of shifting in the tit-bits from his previous place.
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avidyarthy
Well-Known Member
Equally nice is the 'mehmaan nawazi' as well as the deeper insights to the intricacies of 2-channel audio!
square_wave
Well-Known Member
Nice room for music and reading.
Yes, that's my new very humble place planned with a lot of love by my wife and me. We moved into the new place just before the Durga Pujas last month, and, for a few days initially, literally lived with boxes all around.
A day or two before Atish visited me, I set up the system partly. An hour before he arrived, I set up the TT. So far, I have not tried different speaker positions etc, but in the present position the sound is reasonable. One unfortunate thing is that unlike in the previous apartment, here we cannot keep the speakers at more than 6 or 7 feet apart (because on the left side of the pictures, there is human traffic and I do not want anybody to tip the 45 kg combo of speakers+stand over).
The front wall (at the back of the system) is made of uneven tiles, and as Santosh already commented on, does not produce any cohesive reflection. The glass on the door of the huge bookshelf (upto the ceiling) is potentially a matter of concern, but I made sure there were many (actually 12) doors with wooden frames so that here also cohesive reflection can be avoided as much as possible. In practice, this is working, I would think.
We shall put a carpet of appropriate size in front of the speakers in 'due' time. At the moment, we are broke, and on top of that we have to also buy a car, because we need to sell off one of our cars which is almost 9 years old.
Vinny, I have a separate study and a large sized bookshelf in another room. However, I am finding that I am more fond of this room for reading purposes.
One component everybody has missed is the Nakamichi RX 505 tape deck which I am very proud of. I am yet to get my Graham Slee ReflexM phono stage. As soon as I can save up a bit more, that will be the priority.
Just yesterday, I put in a new DIY speaker cable (borrowed from Pratim). I am still to have a concrete view on this cable, need more listening.
Thank you Atish and others for the kind words.
Regards.
A day or two before Atish visited me, I set up the system partly. An hour before he arrived, I set up the TT. So far, I have not tried different speaker positions etc, but in the present position the sound is reasonable. One unfortunate thing is that unlike in the previous apartment, here we cannot keep the speakers at more than 6 or 7 feet apart (because on the left side of the pictures, there is human traffic and I do not want anybody to tip the 45 kg combo of speakers+stand over).
The front wall (at the back of the system) is made of uneven tiles, and as Santosh already commented on, does not produce any cohesive reflection. The glass on the door of the huge bookshelf (upto the ceiling) is potentially a matter of concern, but I made sure there were many (actually 12) doors with wooden frames so that here also cohesive reflection can be avoided as much as possible. In practice, this is working, I would think.
We shall put a carpet of appropriate size in front of the speakers in 'due' time. At the moment, we are broke, and on top of that we have to also buy a car, because we need to sell off one of our cars which is almost 9 years old.
Vinny, I have a separate study and a large sized bookshelf in another room. However, I am finding that I am more fond of this room for reading purposes.
One component everybody has missed is the Nakamichi RX 505 tape deck which I am very proud of. I am yet to get my Graham Slee ReflexM phono stage. As soon as I can save up a bit more, that will be the priority.
Just yesterday, I put in a new DIY speaker cable (borrowed from Pratim). I am still to have a concrete view on this cable, need more listening.
Thank you Atish and others for the kind words.
Regards.
Just saw the thread. Congrats Asit da.
Thad E Ginathom
Well-Known Member
I love the look of that wall. In fact, it's a great room. Books, music... Mmmm 
Looks really great asit ! Knowing you it should be sounding great too
Thank you all, for the kind and encouraging words. But, no, arj, it was not sounding great, at least to my ears.
When avidyarthy (Atish) visited me, I just hurriedly set up the system just an hour before he came. Basically it meant connecting the main equipments and powering on the active elements. That's all. I don't know what exactly he thought, although he had pleasant words for my system. But I knew, the system was not even close to its best.
After Atish's visit, I became busy and had time for only minor adjustments of the speaker positions. Once during this period, Pratim visited my place. And he made the comment that the magic that he was used to in my system was gone, although it was still a very good sound.
Well, I knew it. But Pratim's comments came as a confirmation of my thoughts. After this, I spent some time for better positioning of my speakers. I soon realized, with speakers 6.5 feet apart and a listening position of about 9 feet from either speaker, the toe-in should be minimal and that's what I did. I also took care so that the toe-in angles of the speakers were the same. This improved things, especially with imaging, soundstage and clarity. I carried on for a few days with the same philosophy making minor adjustments. As I said, the sonics improved and then hit a plateau beyond which it was impossible to improve. But it left me unsatisfied, because the magic that I had in my previous place (much larger room with speakers about 10 feet apart) seemed impossible to achieve.
Sangram (ex-member Cranky) has been in town for the last few months, and he was promising to come to my new place. Finally, he visited our place yesterday (I was home because I took a couple of days of leave from office for some household stuff that needed attention), along with him came also subhobh (Subho) from Delhi who is visiting Kolkata.
I am still speechless how Sangram finally solved my problem. It was an experience for both me and Subho how Sangram transformed an average system into a really good system within minutes. Sangram did two things, firstly he made the toe-in angles even smaller (so I was right about that part). But then he said he wanted to lower the speakers by a few inches (tweeters were slightly above the ear level in a sitting position which was good in my previous place, and remember these speaker stands were designed meticulously by Sangram himself). He said, in the new place they got to be lower, but before making permanent changes to the stands, he wanted to experiment. So he took out the spikes from the bottom plates, so now speakers were positioned a couple of inches lower. Lo and behold, this worked. The magic was back !!!
The good imaging , the great soundstage, the great clarity yet extensions, everything's back now. Listening to it for a few minutes and trying out a few CDs, Sangram finally said: "I am fully satisfied now". Boy, that is true.
I still have not understood how Sangram understood the problem or he just tried out an educated hunch. When he first heard the system in my new place, he started out by changing the volume, and after a low volume set, he said he was not happy with volumes any higher than that.
Having been nearly 30 years in this hobby, I know about the importance of the vertical positioning of the speakers etc. But even then I'd have never guessed this would turn out to be such a crucial make-or-break issue for my system in my new place.
I played a few CDs and at the end a few LPs to show off my TT. It was also great for Subho to watch all this happen in front of him. At the end he had to drag himself out of the listening position, because he had to meet a friend in the evening.
Although mostly made of mid-fi components, in its best form, my system has a magical element which is very hard to match. Right now, I feel it's in its best form. A few months ago, a well known forum member visited my place (old place) when my system had multiple problems (with the volume pot, CDP lens problem etc), and despite being in town several times after that he never cared to visit my place again. He has listened a lot, and perhaps thinks there is nothing at my place that he would care for any longer. If he was here yesterday, he would have learned a thing or two about this hobby and also would have seen the magic in my very modest system that is worth coming back for.
avidyarthy
Well-Known Member
Since Subho has now seen what needs to be done ... well, he is invited to visit my place at his convenience to try and implement his 'learning' at Asit's place. As such, I do not have any complaints on the SQ of my current set-up ... but maybe, it might improve to levels I had heard .. ever ......
inspired by the insight given by this post, i too experimented with the toe-in angles ..as observed by iaudio, it was quite aggressive..so i decreased it in increments and at one stage i too managed to obtain much greater clarity, immediacy ......it works....thanks asit da....
also could one achieve the effect of lowering the speakers by propping up ones listening position by using some, say cushions??
kuruvilajacob
Well-Known Member
Yes, I recognized it as Asit's den but the positioning has been changed I hope for the better. He was able to achieve wide sound stage even from the old position and I am sure the new position, things must be better. i hope I can make another visit to his music den
Atish,
Any system needs to be tweaked. Just powering up with a seemingly acceptable placement of speakers is usually not enough. I am sure you must have tried at least a few simple tweaks. There are lots of areas one can explore, but one of the most important is the speaker positioning. With the optimum set up, some times one may really surprise oneself with the improvement.
Moktan,
Good that you found improvement with less toe-in. I do not think it is a given that you will find better sound with the listening seat raised by a cushion or something. The speakers interact with the room, that is the most significant effect. Sangram felt that in this room with the distance between two speakers reduced to 6.5 ft and also the distance from either speaker to the listening position reduced a bit, there was some problem with the bass in the room, and that was what preventing the overall sonics from reaching the heights it could. In your room, it might be a different story. Generally a good starting point is to have the ears (at the listening position) at the height of the center of the tweeters, and then work from there. If the room is not having too much of an effect, generally the ear position is just a tad below the tweeters. Sometimes, given a speaker position, a little bit of reduction in the listening distance also helps. There is no set formula for any of these things. It is a good idea to try a few of these things when you have company of a few good friends having a bit of idea about these matters. I am the lazy type, and feel very lackadaisical doing these things alone.
Jacob,
Right now, I feel the sonics are better than what you heard in my previous apartment. You are always welcome to our place.
Regards.
Any system needs to be tweaked. Just powering up with a seemingly acceptable placement of speakers is usually not enough. I am sure you must have tried at least a few simple tweaks. There are lots of areas one can explore, but one of the most important is the speaker positioning. With the optimum set up, some times one may really surprise oneself with the improvement.
Moktan,
Good that you found improvement with less toe-in. I do not think it is a given that you will find better sound with the listening seat raised by a cushion or something. The speakers interact with the room, that is the most significant effect. Sangram felt that in this room with the distance between two speakers reduced to 6.5 ft and also the distance from either speaker to the listening position reduced a bit, there was some problem with the bass in the room, and that was what preventing the overall sonics from reaching the heights it could. In your room, it might be a different story. Generally a good starting point is to have the ears (at the listening position) at the height of the center of the tweeters, and then work from there. If the room is not having too much of an effect, generally the ear position is just a tad below the tweeters. Sometimes, given a speaker position, a little bit of reduction in the listening distance also helps. There is no set formula for any of these things. It is a good idea to try a few of these things when you have company of a few good friends having a bit of idea about these matters. I am the lazy type, and feel very lackadaisical doing these things alone.
Jacob,
Right now, I feel the sonics are better than what you heard in my previous apartment. You are always welcome to our place.
Regards.
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