Ron's Speaker, Turntable, Power and Room Treatment Upgrades

Ron Resnick · Oct 15, 2017

That is interesting background information of which I was not aware.

What is also interesting to me is that Flemming uses this driver as a full-range driver starting at 200 Hz (the AMT comes in at 18 kHz), and Gary uses it as a mid-range driver starting at 100 Hz, with the line array of round tweeters above.

Ron Resnick · Oct 15, 2017

Hearing Marc's system last month and Jeff's system last night makes me much more excited to get this project off the ground!

microstrip · Oct 15, 2017

Ron Resnick said:
That is interesting background information of which I was not aware.

What is also interesting to me is that Flemming uses this driver as a full-range driver starting at 200 Hz (the AMT comes in at 18 kHz), and Gary uses it as a mid-range driver starting at 100 Hz, with the line array of round tweeters above.

Just to note that at that the 200/201 speakers preceded Gary Koh at Genesis - I think they were designed by Arnie Nudell. The inclusion of the BG Radia drivers in place of the Carvers in the 201's was considered a significant upgrade.

Ron Resnick · Oct 15, 2017

Interesting, microstrip. Thank you.

Today I am in the listening room painting swatches and trying to pick a shade of grey. I don't know if any of you have ever tried to analyse the color grey, but it actually is fiendishly perplexing.

Grey can lean towards blue or towards green or towards brown. It is very difficult to achieve a "true" grey. The same colour can look significantly different on a different wall in the same room based on how the light hits each wall in question.

Ron Resnick · Oct 17, 2017

MikeL writes:

with small space acoustics (home audio) ideally you want enough space and live diffusive surfaces. but the 'enough space' part and the right shape of a room is always the rub.

reality is such that typically you are balancing live surfaces with some degrees of absorption. curtains, no matter what they are made of, will change tonality and deaden the sound. so you have to be careful if you want the perfect balance. if you have a bunch of fabric hanging away from the walls in your room, they will be changing tonality.

my room was designed with the right shape, and lots of live diffusive surfaces to begin with. my challenge was to find the right way to control reflective hash. after many years of work, I discovered that cloth applied to the surfaces of my room (not hanging drapes) in the correct places (with months and months of trial and error) allowed for the correct amount of reflective control without changing tonality or removing the live energy. then my built in diffusion can really work to retain energy.

if you have a small room for the size of your speakers, like Steve has, then maybe you need the extreme approach of hanging drapes. but otherwise it's not the way to go.

Mike, by "tonality" do you mean "frequency response"?

I can understand that some people find Steve's room over-damped, but I like very much the way Steve's room sounds, or the way Steve's system sounds in Steve's room. I hear Steve's room as damped, but not over-damped.

I am pretty sure I remember that Steve's room's measured RT60 was the ideal .4.

Why is achieving the ideal reverberation time with curtains inferior to achieving that reverberation time with other, non-drapery acoustic treatment?

Ron Resnick · Oct 17, 2017

EUREKA!

I can plan and theorize all I want, but I have to wait for Bonnie to take acoustic measurements of the clean, empty, dry-walled room.

But I just realised something: I can achieve my objective of creating "the contour of a rectangle to delineate visually the four 'walls' of a room" by wrapping only the rear third of the room -- covering only the opening to the kitchen on the left side and the opening to the equipment room on the right side and the glass rear wall -- with moveable curtains, and leaving, if the acoustic measurements call for it, the front 2/3 of room free of curtains. I just realized there is no reason to wrap the entire length of the left side and the right side of the room in curtains.

PS: I hold the view that, IF you can pull dipole speakers far enough into the room so that the reflected backwave is delayed the right amount of time, then acoustic treatment on the front wall is not necessary or even desirable (in this view you want a clean, uniform, untreated front wall to achieve an unadulterated backwave reflection off of the front wall). This is why I anticipate no acoustic treatment of any kind on the front wall (except towers of ASC Tube Traps in the corners and maybe a tower of Tube Traps on the front wall centered between the speakers).

RBFC · Oct 17, 2017

Ron,

I used towers of ASC Tube Traps in the corners and centered between my full-range Apogees and got excellent results. I had the speakers 7 feet from the front wall. It took a great deal of time and experimentation to arrive at the “optimal” location, then repeating all that work sequentially while adding/moving tube traps. Thankfully, it’s also great fun because you learn a huge amount about how your speakers interact with your chosen environment.

Lee

Ron Resnick · Oct 17, 2017

caesar writes: "Since Ron is doing an all out assault system, why settle and have faith that one experience is ideal?"

I appreciate your suggestion to be open to other techniques. I am open to alternative techniques.

I definitely do not consider what I am doing to be "an all out assault [on the state-of-the-art] system." For that I would've had to design and build a purpose-built room (not use an existing space next to a kitchen). I am upgrading the power to an existing space. I upgraded my speakers and turntable and and I have to select interconnects for a 50' or 60' run between the Io and the Gryphon woofer towers. That is plenty, but not an "all-out assault."

Ron Resnick · Oct 17, 2017

RBFC said:
Ron,

I used towers of ASC Tube Traps in the corners and centered between my full-range Apogees and got excellent results. I had the speakers 7 feet from the front wall. It took a great deal of time and experimentation to arrive at the “optimal” location, then repeating all that work sequentially while adding/moving tube traps. Thankfully, it’s also great fun because you learn a huge amount about how your speakers interact with your chosen environment.

Lee

That all makes perfect sense to me. Seven feet from the front wall is exactly where I positioned the Prodigys. That is where I will start with the Pendragons.

Not quite the "Rule of Thirds" but I will start with the speakers 7 feet from the front wall, and place the ears position of the listening chair 3 feet from the back wall. That puts the ears 14' away from the speakers.

Lee, what were the dimensions of your room, and how far from the rear wall was your listening chair?

Folsom · Oct 17, 2017

The farther you pull into the room the more some frequencies will sound like a reflection (ambiance). But at some point you will be time aligned such that it's close but not close enough to some frequencies sounding like they have the same source.

You have 4.3ft of smudge room between your bass towers and m/t towers at 250hz, where they'll sound like the same source. That will allow you to play with positioning, and straight forward facing may not be what you prefer. Finding the optimal placement will reduce the need for traps etc. The real trick is having the ear for phase.

By a similar principle you need to exceed 2.15ft in order to overcome gain in any frequency range produced by the m/t towers. (gain that offsets the balance). This is because that's the distance for the lowest frequency played by the m/t tower that reflects off the back wall forward (4.3/2). It's best to go a bit over or it'll sound sorta muddy, so 3-4ft is min to start with. If the lowest points of the ribbon are not somewhat directed then even at say 4ft, it's got 7ft to travel so it won't interfere.

The Aesthetix Io Eclipse has single and balanced outputs, why not just run cheap XLR's to the bass towers? Just order some from Blue Jeans Cable. It is not like you are going to hear a difference in the case of bass only; and if there is something is faulty. They offer a very low capacitance cable that is ideal for bass.

Do you have windows in the room?

PeterA · Oct 17, 2017

Ron Resnick said:
That all makes perfect sense to me. Seven feet from the front wall is exactly where I positioned the Prodigys. That is where I will start with the Pendragons.

Not quite the "Rule of Thirds" but I will start with the speakers 7 feet from the front wall, and place the ears position of the listening chair 3 feet from the back wall. That puts the ears 14' away from the speakers.

Lee, what were the dimensions of your room, and how far from the rear wall was your listening chair?

Ron, you may want to consider Jim Smith's advice to first find the best location for the listening seat by listening for the smoothest bass response. Once that is determined, then work on speaker positioning. This should help you figure out how far you seat is from the back wall behind your head. If it is close, then consider some absorption there to avoid reflections.

Mike Lavigne · Oct 17, 2017

Ron Resnick said:
Interesting, microstrip. Thank you.

Today I am in the listening room painting swatches and trying to pick a shade of grey. I don't know if any of you have ever tried to analyse the color grey, but it actually is fiendishly perplexing.

Grey can lean towards blue or towards green or towards brown. It is very difficult to achieve a "true" grey. The same colour can look significantly different on a different wall in the same room based on how the light hits each wall in question.

you will have a hard time with finding the right answer to this question unless you place something on the floor which has similar color to what will be there long term.

the grey color on the walls will be a combination of whatever color it is, and the reflection of the floor. and part of that will be how much daylight listening you plan on doing, and how much dim or dark listening you do.

Ron Resnick · Oct 17, 2017

Folsom said:
The farther you pull into the room the more some frequencies will sound like a reflection (ambiance). But at some point you will be time aligned such that it's close but not close enough to some frequencies sounding like they have the same source.

You have 4.3ft of smudge room between your bass towers and m/t towers at 250hz, where they'll sound like the same source. That will allow you to play with positioning, and straight forward facing may not be what you prefer. Finding the optimal placement will reduce the need for traps etc. The real trick is having the ear for phase.

By a similar principle you need to exceed 2.15ft in order to overcome gain in any frequency range produced by the m/t towers. (gain that offsets the balance). This is because that's the distance for the lowest frequency played by the m/t tower that reflects off the back wall forward (4.3/2). It's best to go a bit over or it'll sound sorta muddy, so 3-4ft is min to start with. If the lowest points of the ribbon are not somewhat directed then even at say 4ft, it's got 7ft to travel so it won't interfere.

The Aesthetix Io Eclipse has single and balanced outputs, why not just run cheap XLR's to the bass towers? Just order some from Blue Jeans Cable. It is not like you are going to hear a difference in the case of bass only; and if there is something is faulty. They offer a very low capacitance cable that is ideal for bass.

Do you have windows in the room?

Thank you, Folsom.

The Io sends a full-range signal to the bass towers. The bass towers cover only bass, but, unless I want to use one pair of 50' or 60' interconnects for the bass towers and another, separate pair from the Io to the ribbon panels, I have to use a bypass in the bass towers which sends the rest of the signal to the ribbon panels.

The back wall is almost all glass:

This photo also shows the asymmetrical ceiling soffit on the left side (right side in this photo) of the room:

Ron Resnick · Oct 17, 2017

PeterA said:
Ron, you may want to consider Jim Smith's advice to first find the best location for the listening seat by listening for the smoothest bass response. Once that is determined, then work on speaker positioning. This should help you figure out how far you seat is from the back wall behind your head. If it is close, then consider some absorption there to avoid reflections.

This makes sense, Peter. But I would have to engage Jim to figure that out. Maybe Bonnie can measure that as well.

Ron Resnick · Oct 17, 2017

Mike Lavigne said:
you will have a hard time with finding the right answer to this question unless you place something on the floor which has similar color to what will be there long term.

the grey color on the walls will be a combination of whatever color it is, and the reflection of the floor. and part of that will be how much daylight listening you plan on doing, and how much dim or dark listening you do.

I agree on all points, Mike!

Folsom · Oct 17, 2017

What kind of glass?

I've found that safety glass is tonally about as perfect as needed, where as double pane has a tendency to make higher frequencies exaggerate.

PeterA · Oct 17, 2017

Ron Resnick said:
caesar writes: "Since Ron is doing an all out assault system, why settle and have faith that one experience is ideal?"

I appreciate your suggestion to be open to other techniques. I am open to alternative techniques.

I definitely do not consider what I am doing to be "an all out assault [on the state-of-the-art] system." For that I would've had to design and build a purpose-built room (not use an existing space next to a kitchen). I am upgrading the power to an existing space. I upgraded my speakers and turntable and and I have to select interconnects for a 50' or 60' run between the Io and the Gryphon woofer towers. That is plenty, but not an "all-out assault."

Ron, That is very humble of you and so modest. However, I disagree. I would consider any system that supports/includes your four-tower Gryphon Pendragons and the American Sound turntable with top arm/cartridge to be an all out assault. It does not mean that you will achieve world class sound, though I hope you do, but the quality of the gear is certainly at the top of the high end. I agree that not having a dedicated, purpose designed listening room MAY be your challenge to true SOTA sound. Time will tell and we all wish you the best with this project.

Ron Resnick · Oct 17, 2017

Folsom said:
What kind of glass?

I've found that safety glass is tonally about as perfect as needed, where as double pane has a tendency to make higher frequencies exaggerate.

I have a rule: no exposed glass anywhere in the listening room. So all glass on the back wall will be covered with sound absorbing material.

RBFC · Oct 17, 2017

Ron,

27 ft long. Speakers 7 ft from front wall, chair 10.5 ft from perpendicular bisector of speakers, back wall 9.5 ft behind me.

Lee

PeterA · Oct 17, 2017

Folsom said:
What kind of glass?

I've found that safety glass is tonally about as perfect as needed, where as double pane has a tendency to make higher frequencies exaggerate.

When I replaced the 6/6 double hung window sashes in our historic house, I was told that I could not install double-paned glass, so I had custom single pane, true divided 6/6 sashes made with individual thick laminated glass panes. They are very heavy and really block the outside noise from the listening room. These openings are covered with wooden louvered blinds that I adjust so that they reflect the direct sound down toward the thick carpet. I was surprised how effective this solution turned out.

Even though my solution is nothing like Ron's situation and our rooms could not be more different, I mention it for general interest regarding glass types. Small, individual laminated glass panes work really well in my circumstance by both blocking outside noise and by not ringing excessively.

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