Now, whoz is that?

[arj]

Hi Asit, are you having any first reflection points from the glass doors on the cupboards ?

Regarding toe in, need to be sensitive to the speaker design as well..eg with my speakers the ear has to be to the point between the woofer and the tweeter and the toe in at 10 degree away from each ear !


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Asit]

Hi Asit, are you having any first reflection points from the glass doors on the cupboards ?

This was my worry. But it does not appear, that is the case, at least not to a significant degree. Actually the room is quite large, about 25 ft by 13 or 14ft. Unfortunately, for the system I cannot spare more space. There were other complicated topologies opening into other rooms etc resulting in some bass problem in the room, Actually Sangram initially walked around the entire room with music on and identified those regions where there is some bass problem.

Regarding toe in, need to be sensitive to the speaker design as well..eg with my speakers the ear has to be to the point between the woofer and the tweeter and the toe in at 10 degree away from each ear !

Sure arj, things ought to depend on the speakers.

 

[avidyarthy]

New placement pics ..... ?

 

[Asit]

Atish,

New pictures will not show anything newer than the shots you have put up. The changes are as follows: 1) speaker stands are now without the spikes, 2) the toe-in is now even less. That's all. I may put up new pictures, but they would look more or less the same. The sound, however, has changed for the better, a fact that cannot be captured in pictures .

Regards,

 

[prem]

Hi Asit

Good to know you have got your sound back. I somehow feel, lowering the speakers would have contributed a bit but also the fact that the spikes have been removed means the speaker stands couple with the floor differently now. This can bring about a huge change. Spikes on metal discs at times give a high frequency feedback which messes up with the music. Especially when they are on ceramic or marble floors. I have experienced this several times. In your previous home your floor may have had different type of tiles.

 

[Asit]

Hi Asit

Good to know you have got your sound back. I somehow feel, lowering the speakers would have contributed a bit but also the fact that the spikes have been removed means the speaker stands couple with the floor differently now. This can bring about a huge change. Spikes on metal discs at times give a high frequency feedback which messes up with the music. Especially when they are on ceramic or marble floors. I have experienced this several times. In your previous home your floor may have had different type of tiles.

No Prem, I do not think, your hunch is correct. The bottom plates of the stands are still not in direct contact with the floor. They are now resting on 3 small flat steel plates exactly where the spikes were. The spikes are not there anymore, as a result the overall height of everything has come down by a few inches.

In any case, these stands are acoustically dead almost absolutely and are very heavy by themselves. There is, therefore, very little coupling to the floor, because there is essentially no vibration to be transmitted to the floor.

It is true that my current home has a different flooring than in my previous place. But as I said, there is almost nothing to couple to the floor, such is the nature of these stands and speakers. However, I think, floor may still play a role of a reflector of sound emanated from the speakers. I'd know if this is a significant effect when I install a carpet in front of the speakers.

Regards.

 

[keith_correa]

I showed my wife the first pic. and asked her what she thought. She said "I want a bookshelf like that"

 

[prem]

Hi Asit

If the stands are acoustically dead then i guess it would not make any difference.

 

[captrajesh]

Spikes on metal discs at times give a high frequency feedback which messes up with the music. Especially when they are on ceramic or marble floors. I have experienced this several times.

That is exactly how my floorstanders are placed.

How did you tackle the issue Prem?

 

[prem]

Hi Captrajesh

I found ebony wooden discs better in my system. Alternatively you can buy discs from Herbies Audio Lab. Even on SRA Craz when they used metal discs, there was some special layer below the disc. Even Herbies Audio Lab has some layer below their stainless steel disc. Of late, since i use a carpet under the speakers, i have removed the discs and let the speaker spikes go into the carpet.

 

[Asit]

Hi Prem & Captain,

The discs on which the spikes rest in my speaker stands have the underneath pasted by some rubbery substance so that the whole assembly does not slip along a slippery floor or undesirable effects are produced as discussed by Prem. I discussed this in all my old posts describing my stands in this forum, perhaps Prem has forgotten that. But it was Prem (in my amp thread) who was strongly encouraging me to put my speakers on a good pair of stands. There many of these details were discussed.

Another thing I wanted to mention in my previous posts but did not address is the following: In my new place, I was not getting any meaningful imaging. I never had any problem with imaging with these speakers ever, no matter how they were placed during all these years. This is what Jacob is talking about a few posts ago, he was surprised to have such beautiful imaging despite having all kinds of stuff including a huge cabinet between the two speakers in my old place. But in the new place that was all gone, nearly. No amount of toe-in or toe-out helped me achieve that. But all this came back instantaneously as soon as the speakers were lowered. Contacts and coupling to the floor usually affect the tonality and focus of the sound (by improved focus I mean less noise floor resulting in improved macro and micro dynamics), they usually do not affect imaging.

Regards.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Are spikes not made and intended for wooden floors? They cannot dig in to tiles, although they could damage them. Also any slight imperfection in levelling could produce nasty vibrations between hard spike and hard floor, whereas wood would be more forgiving.

These are my working assumptions: please correct if wrong!

 

[corElement]

Spikes damage wooden flooring and are also unstable on wooden flooring because wooden flooring has flex.
Honestly all this vibration and spike talk doesnt kick in unless you're playing at very high spls.
I use spikes on wooden flooring and they're a bad idea. Wood flexes no matter how much you adjust the spikes.
It's better to use a coin under it (and no it does not cause high ringing sound or anything of the sort)

I was taken in by all the talk of isolation but none of it comes into the picture unless played at high volumes where a
lot of air if being pushed and that simply does not happen unless one's using very large bookshelf speakers like the yamaha ns1000
with 3 drivers and a 10" woofer.

Rubberized feet is the best option unless ones looking into gear that's got serious isolation design implementation.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Actually, I used to use coins too, because of too much damage to the wood. It's too long ago now for reliable comparison, but I'd say that the sound/experience of my speakers was better on wood than on concrete/tile.

I'm not at all a heavy bass man (never even been tempted by a sub-woofer) but there are times, like that Mahler-2nd ending, that I do miss the sensation of those low, low organ notes.

 

[arj]

Are spikes not made and intended for wooden floors? They cannot dig in to tiles, although they could damage them. Also any slight imperfection in levelling could produce nasty vibrations between hard spike and hard floor, whereas wood would be more forgiving.

These are my working assumptions: please correct if wrong!

It does depend on the speakers. Some speakers prefer being coupled and some are naturally lossy and prefer open stands (Like Harbeths/Audionote etc)

Spikes are actually meant for Carpets ..so they pierce it and couple it to the wooden floor and are a necessity in most US floors. in India for concrete floors (actually even wood is primarily a facade in india as the underlying section is concrete), you dont really need spikes. any other footer for coupling is enough.

 

[corElement]

A wooden floor/wooden tiled floor/carpet floor does indeed give a more cosy sound than the other alternatives.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

arj, corElement... Thanks, yes, just what I thought.

 

[Asit]

Folks,

Just came back an hour ago from Pratim's place. It was a mini meet. Sangram and a friend of his came, so did member subhobh (Subho from Delhi). As some of you may know, Pratim has Ayon CD1 player going into a passive pre-amp (he has an attenuator based DIY one and a Prometheus TVC), then to an Odyssey Kismet power amp, and finally into a pair of newly acquired huge looking Tannoy Turnberry speakers. I was asked to bring my Leben CS 300 amp, because everybody wanted to hear the Leben with the Turnberrys.

It was an extremely enjoyable afternoon and evening. Hours passed without us realizing it. Subho took a few pictures - I hope he puts them up somewhere in this forum.

I am sure Pratim and Subho would put up the details in this forum.

Before we left, we were treated to a wonderful chicken preparation with hadnmade rotis, and then Bengali payesh (with the seasonal 'notun gud'). Thanks to Pratim's wife.

Regards.

 

[manoj.p]

Another thing I wanted to mention in my previous posts but did not address is the following: In my new place, I was not getting any meaningful imaging. I never had any problem with imaging with these speakers ever, no matter how they were placed during all these years. This is what Jacob is talking about a few posts ago, he was surprised to have such beautiful imaging despite having all kinds of stuff including a huge cabinet between the two speakers in my old place. But in the new place that was all gone, nearly. No amount of toe-in or toe-out helped me achieve that. But all this came back instantaneously as soon as the speakers were lowered. Contacts and coupling to the floor usually affect the tonality and focus of the sound (by improved focus I mean less noise floor resulting in improved macro and micro dynamics), they usually do not affect imaging.

Regards.

Asit,

I don't know how your old apartment was, but not surprised that you had imaging issues at the new place. There is a perfect explanation for the problem. Given that left side has the opening and right side has glass walls, you were listening the speakers + reflections, mostly from right side. Most importantly, the left speaker had all the reflections coming from right side. This will definitely muddy up the imaging and the whole soundstage would shift to right with probably no imaging at all.

When Sangram reduced the tow-in, it moved the left speaker away from right wall, so the reflections got reduced. But now, the tweeter was not facing you directly and this will cause detail loss. So, he moved it in-line at least in vertical plane and got those details back. Amazing job getting the setup right with an acoustically problematic room.

Tow in is just one way to get the tweeters in-line with us in horizontal place. So at your old apartment, even though tweeters were not exactly at ear-height, the tow-in compensated for it. Personally, I have speakers towed-in and about 1" higher than ear height. Gives me a feeling of musicians standing in front and playing (instead of sitting down)

 

[avidyarthy]

Tow in is just one way to get the tweeters in-line with us in horizontal place. So at your old apartment, even though tweeters were not exactly at ear-height, the tow-in compensated for it. Personally, I have speakers towed-in and about 1" higher than ear height. Gives me a feeling of musicians standing in front and playing (instead of sitting down)

Its by default in my case. Have played around with the tow-in till settling for a very slight one, say, one may just be able to make out only if he looks carefully. The placement is more open. The tweeter being 1" higher to the 'sitting' ear level, yes .... gives the impression that the music is coming from a higher platform from behind the existing location of the speakers ... as if you are actually attending a live concert. I shan't complain about that ever!