Room acoustics

[Analogous]

I am struggling a bit trying to see if I can improve my room acoustics and I came across this Q&A. Important basic questions and clear answers from an experienced veteran

Q&A: Audio Expert Stirling Trayle Explains Room Acoustics, How To Optimize Audio Systems

Audio acoustics expert Stirling Trayle discusses room and system set-up with Paul Wilson...

audiophilereview.com

And this anecdote maybe helps too:

How Making Things Worse Can Improve Sonics

Paul Wilson explains how making his system sound worse actually made it sound better...

audiophilereview.com

The admins need to stop deleting legitimate posts that call attention to claims that contradict nearly a century of accumulated knowledge from science, physics, mathematics and engineering. <delete>

Mod edit: Deleted offensive sentences. those who have the technical knowledge please bring that into the discussion, personal attacks are agains the forum rules. Silly fights like these only degrade the forum and irritate other FMs. for personal attacks discussions please take it outside the forum. your deleted posts seem to be more of personal vendetta than an informative discussion .

Book a ticket to singapore and buy these and

it wil be carried as checkin luggage.
not able to find L20. I am also worried about parts getting defunct, many parts not available now.

Sorry it was my mistake, its Luxman L120A. Try to find this model. Its a Beast.
Good to know that its carried

Luxman L series are nice looking amps. Sound very sweet. They have excellent phono stages. I have had few luxmans in the past.
Recently i have got an L3 model in excellent original condition with the help of FM friend who also got an L85v model from the same seller.
I paid 15k and another 2k for shipping.
Here the pics View attachment 66328View attachment 66329

Elegant beauties , Luxman have simplest design and detailed sweet sounding amps ( before Alpine ) Pretty rare to find them in good shape and you seems very lucky

 

[DB1989]

And this anecdote maybe helps too:

How Making Things Worse Can Improve Sonics

Paul Wilson explains how making his system sound worse actually made it sound better...

audiophilereview.com

The author quotes "I discovered I preferred the gain on the preamp set to zero rather than the plus 2db where I normally had it set. I felt like it sounded less congested. On some songs, this setting made a profound difference for the better. On others, honestly, it was sonically a little thin. That is likely the fault of the recording. As far as the rest of the settings, most surprisingly, I found I liked them best in the original setting. I did make, however, a few minor changes mostly allied to the DAC and phonostage. Fate, it seems, was not yet finished with me."

Sounds to me like keeping it at 2db higher resulted in clipping on the preamp side. Coincidentally, this is something i experienced last night and wouldn't have been any wiser had my preamp not had horizontal meters which show when any given passage exceeds the clipping point at any reference weighted volume. When playing from the Allo Digione Signature (was not a problem with my PC), with a considerable amount of EQ applied, certain songs were resulting in clipping which i hadn't noticed at first in the horizontal meter. What i did notice however is an experience very similar to that of the author i.e. certain songs which had high gain to begin with sounded congested during certain passages. It is only when i looked at the horizontal meter that i realised what was happening and reduced the volume by a few decibels and lo and behold, everything immediately cleared up.

Going back to the person's experience in general, i wholeheartedly agree though the trigger, insofar as I'm concerned, is quite the opposite. It's after I've heard my system after a considerable period of time that i begin finding faults with it. The thing is, we don't listen to our entire catalogue while tuning it unless we have very limited taste. And while I use a wide selection and tune my setup according to what strikes a happy balance in the songs/tunes that i use, I'll inevitably find myself noticing flaws while listening to other songs a few days down the line (or the same song for that matter). Ergo, back to tuning to iron those "flaws" out, then rinse and repeat.

 

[Yelamanchili manohar]

I am struggling a bit trying to see if I can improve my room acoustics and I came across this Q&A. Important basic questions and clear answers from an experienced veteran

Q&A: Audio Expert Stirling Trayle Explains Room Acoustics, How To Optimize Audio Systems

Audio acoustics expert Stirling Trayle discusses room and system set-up with Paul Wilson...

audiophilereview.com

I can only speak from my own experience. I've spent the least budget on my room treatment. I have cables more expensive for a single pair, than the total cost of my room treatment. And room treatment made the biggest difference in sound quality, I've ever had. So if this is something you've neglected so far. I would urge to give it a try, atleast to the extent feasible in a domestic household. All the best

 

[Analogous]

Believe me, I have been trying.
Controlling low frequencies in my room has been the biggest challenge as I use a subwoofer. Like most of us, I love well controlled and well integrated bass. But Effective bass traps are huge (and ugly)

Searching for alternative solutions I came across these active bass traps (kind of like reverse subwoofers)

https://www.psiaudio.swiss/avaa-c20-active-bass-trap/

but they are expensive.

Listening to the engineer who invented this (

) I heard a phrase he used “hole in the wall” effect to control standing waves and low frequency reverb. Luckily I have a door (to the bathroom, behind me) and thrifty by nature I am trying to see if leaving this door open changes anything.

The aesthetic challenge with this approach is significant. I am also worried the bathroom will behave like a huge speaker cabinet.

Sigh… the sacrifices we make for this hobby!!!

 

[arj]

...

Sounds to me like keeping it at 2db higher resulted in clipping on the preamp side. Coincidentally, this is something i experienced last night and wouldn't have been any wiser had my preamp not had horizontal meters which show when any given passage exceeds the clipping point at any reference weighted volume. When playing from the Allo Digione Signature (was not a problem with my PC), with a considerable amount of EQ applied, certain songs were resulting in clipping which i hadn't noticed at first in the horizontal meter. What i did notice however is an experience very similar to that of the author i.e. certain songs which had high gain to begin with sounded congested during certain passages. It is only when i looked at the horizontal meter that i realised what was happening and reduced the volume by a few decibels and lo and behold, everything immediately cleared up.
..

Very similiar experience in Gain, and found it to be an important part which needs to be looked at with the Power of an amp.

What I learnt was irrespective of the power, the Pre+Power gain needs to be in the 28-35 range. too low and you start losing out on lower harmonics and hence bass and richness of the mid range can be lost. Too high and music can start to get congested at low volumes and you do not hear microdynamics.

This of course depends on the speaker as well and hence part of matching an amp to a speaker also involves making sure that the gain of the system is also in the acceptable range.

 

[Analogous]

I also found this informative and interesting

 

[Analogous]

This of course depends on the speaker as well and hence part of matching an amp to a speaker also involves making sure that the gain of the system is also in the acceptable range.

@arj, could you explain this a bit more?
Does this have anything to do with high current amplifiers performing better in such situations?

 

[arj]

@arj, could you explain this a bit more?
Does this have anything to do with high current amplifiers performing better in such situations?

I am not very technical on this but based on what I have read and understood

Amplifiers ( pre/power) , based on their design can either be a device for
- Current amplification ie irrespective of the impedance will be able to provide a rated current ie it the power is proportional to the load. Many Class A/SETs fall into this.
- voltage amplification ie irrespective of load will always present a constant voltage output hence if the load is halved, the power output is doubled.. a lot of the Class A ior A/B amps from krell etc used to do this very well.

Since a music signal is not a single frequency but a combination of So many different frequencies , each of signal actually "sees" a different load based on the speaker L & C and the amplifier is actually giving a current based to each of these complex loads at any given instant.

In my personal experience with a 89db 4 ohm speaker, a Sugden A21a ( 14W@4Ohms) used to play louder and more authoritatively and at a lower pot setting than a NAD ( 50W@4Ohms) as well as a leben CS 600 ( around 30W at 4Ohms).

The gain of the Sugden was almost 38dB and is a constant current source but the leben is more around 28dB and I assume the NAD is also in that region.( Note:Gain is nothing more than the Output/Input and while it is usually measured as the increase in voltage can also be measured in terms of Current or Power. )

FM @prem had done some experiments/research with gain settings on his EMT where gain can be adjusted and had suggested about looking at the Gain of the system as an approach and for that ideally the Amplification. Based on that and in my recent experience where i felt the authority of a Leben CS600 was not enough with my Tannoys ( 30dB). Since the quicksilver at 26 dB was cleaner and sweeter but missed dynamics I decided to keep the quicksilver but add a preamp for the Gain and now with the LTA ( 12 dB) added to a total gain of 38dB it plays far more dynamic and cleaner at only 30% of the volume pot setting as was with a leben. The quicksilver is only 20W compared to a Leben at 35+ W rating

Hence the ability of an amp to drive a speaker cannot be looked at by just the power.

Disclaimer: My knowledge is sketchy and limited but this is what I could figure out over time..those who know more can of course chime in !

 

[DB1989]

I can only speak from my own experience. I've spent the least budget on my room treatment. I have cables more expensive for a single pair, than the total cost of my room treatment. And room treatment made the biggest difference in sound quality, I've ever had. So if this is something you've neglected so far. I would urge to give it a try, atleast to the extent feasible in a domestic household. All the best

True that! Room treatment is the biggest difference maker and at the very least, much more palpable than DACs and cables. I've done my time with the latter. And while I won't discount the importance thereof (i still am a sucker for good quality cables and still get good quality connectors whenever demands of each new esoteric hifi equipment require it), the first thing that one needs to fix before moving on to get higher end accessories is the right room acoustics.

But there's a caveat to that as well. Its not easy to get right. While room treatment makes the biggest difference, a difference is not necessarily an improvement. Different rooms or different positions in the same room will have their own unique requirements vis-a-vis room treatment. Unfortunately, its not as straightforward as throwing in some rockwool at the first reflection points and on the front/backwall. Overdampening detracts from the experience just as much as too lively a room does. Its about getting it right for your own taste. I have noticed that while i prefer certain types, levels of treatment in the same listening space, others like it different. Its basically EQ with room treatment.

I started with room treatment at the very beginning of my audio journey but was able to set up something satisfactory only recently, after plenty of trial and error and after watching countless hours of lectures and tutorials on youtube about acoustics and room treatment. I have more room treatment lying in the store room than actually treating my listening space.

P.s. - I'm about to get evicted.

 

[Analogous]

A recent video on the impressive results on room acoustics following treatment.
The results are arguably better than upgrading electronics or speakers.
Have a look-listen:

The jaw-dropping results of a Vicoustic installation | Darko.Audio

Featuring before-and-after measurements and 'clap test' sound clips.

darko.audio