Has my self delusion reached new bounds! ..... or am I on to something

Dear All

As you know over the last year I have moved into a new house and purpose built listening room

This is a great room overall, though it was challenging at the beginning being overly bright

I tamed it too much and some professional input brought balance back

I use ML CLX art reference, and since getting the bakoon amps have been very happy

Recently having set up my record library I have been working on optimising my turntable phono stage front end

This had started to really come together in a big way.....


Ok enough preamble, I was fooling around on the weekend, and thought hey I have some professional powered monitors, what would happen if I put them at the back and
created some sound reinforcement

I was just mucking around and unpacked them (Event opals) and started to reach for some long xlr cables to connect, when i realised....oh they will be closer to me than main speakers... i need a delay circuit....

I had an old behringer 2496 lying around, and sure enough it has a delay circuit

I mainly use dsd with accuphase so i could not connect in digital domain, so had to go ad-da

I calculated the main speakers as 8 metre away and dialled in the delay

I thought this will be fun... and probably a load of rubbish but...


I quickly decreased the gain in rear to compensate for nearness to me.......


what I was greated with was nothing short of astonishing!!!!

I could not stop listening and went on all day and into the night

Several things were very obvious

1. The sound stage was enormous and layered, and went miles back ( and wasnt bad before!)
2. The room acoustic of the recording venue was much more obvious, for example on the RR recording of Symphonic danses by Rachmaninov, the acoustic of the venue was very obvious but natural, like you were at the recording venue, The air around performers seemed to shimmer from the playing with the natural decay into space of the sound both forward and back. Harmonics of instruments was beautiful, such as bells
3. The timbre of instruments was much more precise and detailed, but more in an earthy organic way; ie an instrument seemed of a piece... eg classical guitar the interplay between the plucking, strumming, fretboard, guitar string and woodiness fo the guitar body had a natural balance, each was there but in the correct proportions
4. Instruments with similar timbres were clearly separated, such as horns, trombones and trumpets
5. Bass was very very deep and fast with tremendous air, and started and stopped on a dime! This was most obvious on "Fanfare for a common man", where bass drum had incredible impact but just stopped, double bass plucking was lithe and textured such as final two notes of the 'largo' from Symphony 9 "from the New World" by Dvorak
6. Power factor, orchestral crescendos just seemed to launch at you, and up and away, where as before, your brain would start to cringe
7. Details in soundscape became much more obvious, both of interplay between orchesral instruments, but also extraneous sounds, chairs moving, strings slightly playing out of time, width of string sections etc

I am simply "gob-smacked"

This isnt surround sound

Its simply sound reinforcement

Also is interesting is I never 'hear' the rear speakers even though only 2 meteres away ie have the impression sound is coming from behind

I am wondering whether I have tippped the balance in the room to more direct sound, rather than reflective ( my room is very long 42 feet, but only 12-16 ft wide)

I have no experience with "surround" sound" so others may tell me "what! you only just discovered this??"

I listened again this morning in case was delusion and it was all still there....

So I guess I am one "happy camper" but I would be interested in "what the heck is going on"

Thanks for your time

And happy listening

I am sure your right about the Behringer lol

Was just what I had kicking around, remember its only ruuning on the rear speakers as a delay circuit, its not in the loop of the main rig...

Happy to have suggestions on whats better

Yes Your right about the room correction

I have an accuphase DG 48 use to control room bass anomalies dont touch anything else in frequency spectrum
The accuphase makes a huge difference....

Hmmmm...

I just remembered that accuphase make a digital frequency divider DF 55..............this has delay circuitry

This has same dacs as my DC901, two channel is 4 Dacs a side I think

And you can connect via Hs Link so run the lot at DSD!!!

Hmmm,

So one cable (RJ 45 ) to rear running at DSD rates or 24/192)

Better evaluate further......

Another day another euro …..

Experimented with time delay

Original was 10 metres which is distance between two speaker systems

tried 5 metres terrible
tried 11 metres harsh
back to ten magic


Very interesting, whether this is a phase issue

Difference is quite dramatic … an analogy would be like focusing a lens, hence i am thinking this is a phase issue..

interested in others thoughts

I think i can rule out direct sound effect as decreasing delay sounds worse….