Need help understanding room interaction with upper mids/high frequencies

[MadFloyd]

Personally I would leave the speakers in the best position that Floyd has found, deal with room acoustics and wall treatments and use DRC. problem solved

I will use DRC for digital, but not for LPs.

 

[MadFloyd]

Hi Floyd,

I was just wondering if you were running your amplifiers through the V-Ray IIs.

No, I'm not.

 

[Steve Williams]

I will use DRC for digital, but not for LPs.

Floyd

I am presently in Dallas at my friend Marty's house. Those who know me have heard me comment about his system many times over the years. I have been in this hobby for almost 50 years and have heard some amazing systems over that time but I can say in all candor that his system hands down is the very best I have ever heard. period. End of story. In a million years I would never have bet Marty (who also has vinyl and uses a Goldmund TT) would go to DRC.

It has been a few years since I heard his system last and I can tell you that listening to vinyl last night as well as digital one would be hard pressed to tell one from the other. It was simply the BEST sound I have ever heard.

Floyd...all I can say is that if you are stressing about the deficiencies of your room and speakers and having tried other options IMO you would be remiss in night considering DRC as I think your eyes would be wide open when you would listen.

BTW, he uses the Tact for DRC only and does not use it's preamp for gain control but rather his VTL 7.5

 

[MadFloyd]

Floyd

I am presently in Dallas at my friend Marty's house. Those who know me have heard me comment about his system many times over the years. I have been in this hobby for almost 50 years and have heard some amazing systems over that time but I can say in all candor that his system hands down is the very best I have ever heard. period. End of story. In a million years I would never have bet Marty (who also has vinyl and uses a Goldmund TT) would go to DRC.

It has been a few years since I heard his system last and I can tell you that listening to vinyl last night as well as digital one would be hard pressed to tell one from the other. It was simply the BEST sound I have ever heard.

Floyd...all I can say is that if you are stressing about the deficiencies of your room and speakers and having tried other options IMO you would be remiss in night considering DRC as I think your eyes would be wide open when you would listen.

BTW, he uses the Tact for DRC only and does not use it's preamp for gain control but rather his VTL 7.5

Steve,

Does your friend Marty use DRC for his LPS as well?

 

[MadFloyd]

I bought a Behringer DEQ2496 Digital 24-Bit/96 kHz EQ/RTA Mastering Processor yesterday and tried it briefly. It is supposed to be transparent in the digital domain and I hooked it up between my two Berkeley Alpha devices (Berkeley Alpha USB -> AES cable -> Behringer -> AES cable -> Berkeley Apha DAC). This unit is neat in that it has a RTA and different forms of EQ (graphical, parametric). I simply went to the graphical EQ and pulled down the 80hz band a couple notches and the improvement in bass was remarkable. Also boosted the highs around 10k a tad. I'll have to get a little more precise with it, but it's great value for $286. If only I didn't listen to LPs...

 

[Bill Hart]

So that's more of an equalizer than room correction? aren't there transparent equalizers that could be put into the system so you can do vinyl too? rockitman has one that he uses for his tape, but don't know much about it...

 

[edorr]

I bought a Behringer DEQ2496 Digital 24-Bit/96 kHz EQ/RTA Mastering Processor yesterday and tried it briefly. It is supposed to be transparent in the digital domain and I hooked it up between my two Berkeley Alpha devices (Berkeley Alpha USB -> AES cable -> Behringer -> AES cable -> Berkeley Apha DAC). This unit is neat in that it has a RTA and different forms of EQ (graphical, parametric). I simply went to the graphical EQ and pulled down the 80hz band a couple notches and the improvement in bass was remarkable. Also boosted the highs around 10k a tad. I'll have to get a little more precise with it, but it's great value for $286. If only I didn't listen to LPs...

You could take digital room correction a huge step up by trying the new (4 channel) Trinnov Amethyst (shipping in january I have been told). You would run your Alpha USB digitally into the Trinnov over AES/EBU, apply digital room correction and bass management in the Trinnov (you can build active cross-over, integrating mains with subs). For your mains, you would use the digital outs of the Trinnov into your alpha dac. Your subs would use the Trinnov DACs. All time/phase aligned, fully EQ'ed and never leaves the digital domain.

The turntable would run through A/D conversion into the analog inputs in the Trinnov. Must analog afficionados will cringe ot the notion of doing this, but why not give it a try - you have nothing to loose (you can probably get the Trinnov on 30 day trial). The Trinnov would do A/D conversion at 192/24, do bass management and room correction, and then send 192/24 digital to your Berkeley DAC.

 

[MadFloyd]

Yup, it's just EQ. You can use it to mimic room correction though (have a friend who is an expert on this who will talk me through it at some point). I can also do room correction in my music server.

There are no transparent analog equalizers unfortunately.

 

[Steve Williams]

Steve,

Does your friend Marty use DRC for his LPS as well?

I said he does and I defy you to tell me that there are anything other than a vast improvement in the sound. Floyd, you need to think seriously about trying it. DRC is what you need and you have already proved it works on the digital side with huge gain.

You are being hard nosed like every audiophile thinking it is going to screw with your vinyl. IMO you are going to be pleasantly surprised. As I said Marty uses a very expensive Goldmund TT. When I was at his house a few years ago there was a an audiophile visit to hear his room. If I mention his name (which I won't) you will know how good a system he has (which BTW is all vinyl). BTW, he is a member here at WBF. He came over on a Saturday evening and listened with us for a few hours. Marty started with digital which is the TOL Meitner single box unit, VTL 7.5 Mkll, VTL Siegfried. He sat there politely listening and commented how good it was sounding but said he preferred vinyl and could he hear vinyl. Having played vinyl then for several hours there was a huge smile on his face as he turned to us and commented about how wonderful the vinyl sounded. To this day we have never told him he was listening to it through the TacT. Bear in mind that he uses the TacT only for crossover points and target slope and not as a preamp

I defy you to try it Floyd and then let us know. You can do it without and have the top end drop off and poor bass or you can have great sound and smile to your friends like the story I related above

If only I didn't listen to LPs...

IMO misinformed statement

 

[MadFloyd]

You could take digital room correction a huge step up by trying the new (4 channel) Trinnov Amethyst (shipping in january I have been told). You would run your Alpha USB digitally into the Trinnov over AES/EBU, apply digital room correction and bass management in the Trinnov (you can build active cross-over, integrating mains with subs). For your mains, you would use the digital outs of the Trinnov into your alpha dac. Your subs would use the Trinnov DACs. All time/phase aligned, fully EQ'ed and never leaves the digital domain.

The turntable would run through A/D conversion into the analog inputs in the Trinnov. Must analog afficionados will cringe ot the notion of doing this, but why not give it a try - you have nothing to loose (you can probably get the Trinnov on 30 day trial). The Trinnov would do A/D conversion at 192/24, do bass management and room correction, and then send 192/24 digital to your Berkeley DAC.

That sounds very interesting. Thanks for bringing it to my attention; I'll have to look into it.

 

[MadFloyd]

I said he does and I defy you to tell me that there are anything other than a vast improvement in the sound. Floyd, you need to think seriously about trying it. DRC is what you need and you have already proved it works on the digital side with huge gain.

You are being hard nosed like every audiophile thinking it is going to screw with your vinyl. IMO you are going to be pleasantly surprised. As I said Marty uses a very expensive Goldmund TT. When I was at his house a few years ago there was a an audiophile visit to hear his room. If I mention his name (which I won't) you will know how good a system he has (which BTW is all vinyl). BTW, he is a member here at WBF. He came over on a Saturday evening and listened with us for a few hours. Marty started with digital which is the TOL Meitner single box unit, VTL 7.5 Mkll, VTL Siegfried. He sat there politely listening and commented how good it was sounding but said he preferred vinyl and could he hear vinyl. Having played vinyl then for several hours there was a huge smile on his face as he turned to us and commented about how wonderful the vinyl sounded. To this day we have never told him he was listening to it through the TacT. Bear in mind that he uses the TacT only for crossover points and target slope and not as a preamp

I defy you to try it Floyd and then let us know. You can do it without and have the top end drop off and poor bass or you can have great sound and smile to your friends like the story I related above



IMO misinformed statement

I hear you loud and clear. I will certainly try it. I could see how if the converters are good enough that the room correction benefits would supersede whatever slight loss there was in conversion. I just wonder if at that point one might at well just listen to digital. My friend had this to say (tongue in cheek of course):

If you want to dump those records, I call your attention to the various vinyl VST plugins that are available when you feel the need to mask your music with some additional mechanical noise, turntable motor rumble, worn record surface, 60 Hz grounding hum, dust noise and scratches, warping, second harmonic distortion, moving coil cartridges with high frequencies that take off like an airplane, etc... all of these things can be effectively modeled digitally.

 

[edorr]

That sounds very interesting. Thanks for bringing it to my attention; I'll have to look into it.

You can achieve same with the currently available trinnov St2-pro. However, the Amethyst will have a few more bells and whistles and be more of a consumer oriented product. Additionally it runs at 192/24 (the st2-pro is 96/24).

As an additional datapoint, I used a marantz ud9004 as an "analog" source for SACD into a high grade MCH analog preamp (Theta Six Shooter). I then inserter the Trinnov and did A/D conversion for SACD. The benefits of DRC easily outweighted the loss of A/D conversion.

If this works well in your system, you cannot use your Doshi preamp (you need four channels of volume control provided by the Trinnov). The good news is selling the Doshi would pay for the Trinnov. However, - horrors of all horrors - you will be going from tubes to digital domain volume control!!! I had the same healthy sketicism until I found out the digital route simply sounded better and I sold my Modright 36.5 LS/PS tubes....

Not suggesting you will have the same experience. But keep an open mind and give it a try. Being able to keep your high grade audiophile DAC with the digital output is a huge benefit of the Trinnov architecture. You will be listening to your LPs through the Berkeley!

 

[Steve Williams]

I just wonder if at that point one might at well just listen to digital.

He too is misguided. If anything it will sound better than what you have now. Do you want to listen to vinyl with the issues in your room and say you have vinyl or do you want to have great sound and listen to vinyl. As Frantz commented correctly yesterday that the mention of DRC to an audiophile makes them cringe. Have a listen and let us know

 

[edorr]

He too is misguided. If anything it will sound better than what you have now. Do you want to listen to vinyl with the issues in your room and say you have vinyl or do you want to have great sound and listen to vinyl. As Frantz commented correctly yesterday that the mention of DRC to an audiophile makes them cringe. Have a listen and let us know

You could however make the case though that if you are converting your analog sources to 192/24 PCM in real time to apply DRC anyway, you might as well record your LPs in 192/24 PCM, put them on a hardrive play them though JRiver, and have all the convenience of your entire music collection at your fingertips. This could sound even better than applying A/D conversion in the Trinnov in real time, if the A/D converters used for archiving the LPs is of superior quality.

 

[A.wayne]

I said he does and I defy you to tell me that there are anything other than a vast improvement in the sound. Floyd, you need to think seriously about trying it. DRC is what you need and you have already proved it works on the digital side with huge gain.

You are being hard nosed like every audiophile thinking it is going to screw with your vinyl. IMO you are going to be pleasantly surprised. As I said Marty uses a very expensive Goldmund TT. When I was at his house a few years ago there was a an audiophile visit to hear his room. If I mention his name (which I won't) you will know how good a system he has (which BTW is all vinyl). BTW, he is a member here at WBF. He came over on a Saturday evening and listened with us for a few hours. Marty started with digital which is the TOL Meitner single box unit, VTL 7.5 Mkll, VTL Siegfried. He sat there politely listening and commented how good it was sounding but said he preferred vinyl and could he hear vinyl. Having played vinyl then for several hours there was a huge smile on his face as he turned to us and commented about how wonderful the vinyl sounded. To this day we have never told him he was listening to it through the TacT. Bear in mind that he uses the TacT only for crossover points and target slope and not as a preamp

I defy you to try it Floyd and then let us know. You can do it without and have the top end drop off and poor bass or you can have great sound and smile to your friends like the story I related above



IMO misinformed statement

Are you using DRC too Steve ...?

 

[FrantzM]

You could however make the case though that if you are converting your analog sources to 192/24 PCM in real time to apply DRC anyway, you might as well record your LPs in 192/24 PCM, put them on a hardrive play them though JRiver, and have all the convenience of your entire music collection at your fingertips. This could sound even better than applying A/D conversion in the Trinnov in real time, if the A/D converters used for archiving the LPs is of superior quality.

I have downloaded Audacity and began the painful learning .. Moving an LP collection to digital is a lot of work, I find it to be a chore .. So I bought a TT

last OT before we go back to MadFloyd thread .. How much is the Amethyst? I am interested

And Steve ... I have witnessed several audiophiles being fooled by CD copies of Vinyl as well ... Strangely it doesn't change their perspective ... I have downloaded a VST plug-in for vinyl will listen to it later ...
Floyd what DRC or EQ product do you have?

 

[FrantzM]

If you want to dump those records, I call your attention to the various vinyl VST plugins that are available when you feel the need to mask your music with some additional mechanical noise, turntable motor rumble, worn record surface, 60 Hz grounding hum, dust noise and scratches, warping, second harmonic distortion, moving coil cartridges with high frequencies that take off like an airplane, etc... all of these things can be effectively modeled digitally.

@Madfloyd
I like that guy

hapy Holiday to you all People , Gals and Guys!

 

[MadFloyd]

I have downloaded Audacity and began the painful learning .. Moving an LP collection to digital is a lot of work, I find it to be a chore .. So I bought a TT

last OT before we go back to MadFloyd thread .. How much is the Amethyst? I am interested

And Steve ... I have witnessed several audiophiles being fooled by CD copies of Vinyl as well ... Strangely it doesn't change their perspective ... I have downloaded a VST plug-in for vinyl will listen to it later ...
Floyd what DRC or EQ product do you have?

This is the hardware EQ product I just purchased:

If you want to do DRC via software, here's an option (courtesy of my friend Alan Jordan):

 

[edorr]

I have downloaded Audacity and began the painful learning .. Moving an LP collection to digital is a lot of work, I find it to be a chore .. So I bought a TT

last OT before we go back to MadFloyd thread .. How much is the Amethyst? I am interested

And Steve ... I have witnessed several audiophiles being fooled by CD copies of Vinyl as well ... Strangely it doesn't change their perspective ... I have downloaded a VST plug-in for vinyl will listen to it later ...
Floyd what DRC or EQ product do you have?

Pricing of the Amethyst is not know yet. The ST2-Pro which has fewer inputs and a different form factor, but which is otherwise very similar in functionality is $5K - $6K, so I expect the Amethyst to be in the $7K - $8K ballpark. If you want to give this a try and don't need the features of the Amethyst - I'll probably be selling my ST2-Pro to get an Amethyst when it becomes available. I need the additional digital inputs. I am currently using a digital router / input switch before the Trinnov (I have three digital sources), which is a kludge.

 

[Steve Williams]

Are you using DRC too Steve ...?

Not yet. I am in the process of getting plan approval for my new room as we moved back to southern California a few months ago and my room will be smaller than my last. I am working with an acoustician who feels the speakers should be fine as do the folks at Wilson Audio. The room will be heavily treated and if necessary I will use DRC. I can say in all honesty I was never a believer in DRC and as a typical audiophile said I would never consider DRC but I am a firm believer. I have spent the past 3 days and the next two listening to what I feel is the best sound system I have ever heard. Any audiophile who feels they would never consider it need to take a trip to Dallas for a listen to what I heard