Hard to accept small speakers once you live with larger ones! You can get away with quite a lot shoe horning large speakers into small rooms with positioning and setup, it's the same process.
david
Sublime Sound
- Thread starter PeterA
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Hard to accept small speakers once you live with larger ones! You can get away with quite a lot shoe horning large speakers into small rooms with positioning and setup, it's the same process.
david
It's like moving from Lagonda's previous lifestyle to his current one
MBLs work well against the long wall IMHO but it's hardly surprising with side firing woofers and omni mid range and treble.
David, do you think the idea of avoiding too large speakers in small rooms comes from auditions with inadequate set ups? If all else is equal and assuming proper set up, would a larger speaker sound better than a mid sized speaker in a small room?
I agree about getting bigger speakers. In my case with my midsized Q3s, listening to large scale music from Scheherazade to The Planets to Dark Side of the Moon, is a much better experience than what I had with my smaller Mini IIs. It would be hard for me to go back.
Even in Miami, my favorite time was between the speakers in my underwear !
I think it's partial paranoia. Consider the larger the drivers, the more narrow the energy from them.
But where it's engineering making big speakers in small rooms not place nice it's a concern of how much baffle step loss correction you have. Different sized rooms have more and less gain in different frequencies. When it comes to custom horns it's easy to put them in rooms that make them look comical, but adjust the crossover.
So far, none of the larger speakers I have heard has made me wish to have them in my mid-sized room which is limited in particular by width (12 feet). And I have heard some of them with regular exposure.
There may be some advantages from larger speakers in some areas, but the financial cost of getting there is too high for me, if I don't want to accept lesser intrinsic performance compared to my current speakers in other areas, which I don't. And there are very real potential disadvantages in my room, and some almost certain ones.
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Even in Miami, my favorite time was between the speakers in my underwear !
What did they speak, Cuban?
LOL ! Ked
Some of them spoke Cuban, Brazilian, Russian, Hungarian, German, Hebrew, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian and occasional English I do not discriminate against Asian speakers, but i normally like my speakers larger !
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I really have no idea how that idea came about Peter, probably was cost related at the start in my world of vintage of speaker 10" woofer is as small as they come but most are at least 12" drivers. I remember when I was living in the UK in late 70's they were actually touting small speakers and tiny ones like LS3's were written up in the magazines all the time, the Brits tend to be frugal to put it mildly. I know a lot of the trend started with DJ's in vans or small monitoring rooms in radio stations. The Brits were very good at designing and building small monitors Celestion SL600 is one that I always enjoyed.
Before answering the 2nd part of your question we need to define midsize and larger speakers, Wilson X1 is still a midsize for me, granted at the upper edge of midsize. IME things are never equal in high end including the audiophiles but personally I'd opt for the largest speaker I can into a space and get setup properly.
david
I'm not trying to sell you any speakers or talk you into anything but 12' isn't too bad Al, if you have enough space for subs and monitors then you have room for bigger speakers too. As far as cost goes there are some extremely wonderful vintage speakers not demanding much money, it's a matter of wanting to start over.
david
Woo Al-- You've gone the almost the full Monty with your room--I trust you have thoroughly thought out and evaluated all the placements ?
I found that even though I also have a tough room--little furniture and bare walls--I was able to just need 4 Traps--I sold the same amount off.
So I presume I'm on the rather lucky end of the stick there--glad all the ones you deem necessary deliver for you--yes horses for courses.
I can see how Peters room possibly did not benefit from trapping--the classic furniture ,surrounding Art and period construction does
provide pleasing sonic portrayal( I've owned a similar residence in my past and it's Music room never needed any sound stabilisation materials /etc).
Only when I moved to more "modern" open plan live environments did I find I need to search for alternative items /methods to alleviate
and bring the sound I felt to be contented with before back into play.
Kudos on the good listening
BruceD
As an aside-i keep in touch with Art at ASC--he is a very helpful dude and would answer any q's one might have.
I found that even though I also have a tough room--little furniture and bare walls--I was able to just need 4 Traps--I sold the same amount off.
So I presume I'm on the rather lucky end of the stick there--glad all the ones you deem necessary deliver for you--yes horses for courses.
I can see how Peters room possibly did not benefit from trapping--the classic furniture ,surrounding Art and period construction does
provide pleasing sonic portrayal( I've owned a similar residence in my past and it's Music room never needed any sound stabilisation materials /etc).
Only when I moved to more "modern" open plan live environments did I find I need to search for alternative items /methods to alleviate
and bring the sound I felt to be contented with before back into play.
Kudos on the good listening
BruceD
As an aside-i keep in touch with Art at ASC--he is a very helpful dude and would answer any q's one might have.
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Peter, I sold the Prodigys and the VTL MB-750s and the REL Stentor III subwoofer about five years ago so I would not have to put all that equipment in storage.
If I remember correctly Martin Logan recommends that the distance from the listening position to the midpoint of a line drawn between the speakers be longer than the distance between the speakers by a factor of up to 1.5.
I think I had the distance from the listening position to the midpoint of a line between the speakers at about 1.25 times the distance of between the speakers.
I think an equilateral triangle was not necessarily disfavored, but was not affirmatively recommended.
The Prodigys were not close together. I think I had about 3 feet of clearance on each outer edge to its nearest wall in a room 20 feet wide, which would make the speakers about 12 feet apart.
The issue of absorption in the front corners is a different and separate question than the question of absorption (or diffusion or nothing) on the front wall between the speakers and directly behind the speakers.
I had the Tube Traps in the corners because if my eyes see hard edges and corners then my ears think they hear reflections. And I am so used to seeing Tube Traps in the corners of rooms I figured it was almost standard ASC procedure.
Different people have different views about whether the rear wave of dipole planar speakers should be absorbed or diffused or left unadulterated.
Placing the panels five feet to nine feet away from the front wall allows the right amount of time delay for the reflection off the front wall to merge with the direct wave and provide the sonic spaciousness and open-ness panel people typically like.
I have never subscribed to absorbing the back wave. I like the concept of having little to nothing on the front wall to achieve in my mind a clean and unadulterated reflection of the rear wave off the front wall.
My front wall in that room had a 3" pop out for the first three or four feet emanating from the left side. I was concerned that this pop out would asymmetrically disturb the rear wave of the left speaker as the wave bounced off the wall with the pop out. I was so concerned about this I actually furred out the rest of the front wall by 3 inches (thus sacrificing 3 inches of room length) so that the entire front wall is a continuous flat surface. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life looking at that 3 inch pop out and that asymmetric recess and wonder if I was hearing some acoustic anomaly as a result of it.
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Here is a little bit of fun for a Friday afternoon: Two drinking songs. I post these to share the music, following in @Tango 's footsteps.
Myles Astor introduced me to both recordings and I heard them on his system a couple of years ago. They make for a wonderful contrast between singing styles and recorded space. It may not come through on the videos, but the recording space is quite different. The Holst singers are a larger group further back in a larger room spread wide across the front wall while the King's Singers are a smaller group, closer up and tighter together. If you listen all the way through the second video, there are some great vocal effects. I'm reminded of one of my favorite drinks: Suffering Bastard.
It's not about tonearm comparisons this time, but for those who care, both are made with the 3012R.
Myles Astor introduced me to both recordings and I heard them on his system a couple of years ago. They make for a wonderful contrast between singing styles and recorded space. It may not come through on the videos, but the recording space is quite different. The Holst singers are a larger group further back in a larger room spread wide across the front wall while the King's Singers are a smaller group, closer up and tighter together. If you listen all the way through the second video, there are some great vocal effects. I'm reminded of one of my favorite drinks: Suffering Bastard.
It's not about tonearm comparisons this time, but for those who care, both are made with the 3012R.
Two audio friends came over to visit me yesterday. One brought his two new Shunyata Venom HC V2 power cords to try on my Pass Labs XA160.5 amps. I use 8AWG JPS Labs In Wall cables from the panel to my outlets. My favorite power cords so far in my system are some NOS Ching Cheng cords. I use five of them to power my components. I have compared them to quite a few high end audiophile cords, and they always seem to sound better.
My friend wanted to see if the three of us could hear a difference between the cords, given that my Pass amps draw some current and the Venoms are 10AWG while the Ching Cheng are only 14 AWG and almost twice as long. We kind of expected to hear a cleaner and more dynamic sound with the new Shunyatas. This was not the case.
We went back and forth listening to an orchestral movement and a jazz classic. With the Venoms, I heard an "accenting" of high and low frequencies, a “spotlight” around the musicians creating a black halo silent background around the performer, and a foreshortening of the soundstage. Bass drums and cymbals became too big and moved forward on the classical music. On the jazz, there was a softening of the sound, and a slight loss of energy and sense of life to the music, though the bass was "tighter" and the cymbals more "splashy". The CCs were simply more natural in tone, scale, and presentation. They did not draw attention to themselves, and they were less "hifi" sounding.
I heard similar "effects" to other audiophile power cords that I have tested from small to large manufacturers. They all seem to color the sound by accentuating some frequencies, creating this "black halo background space" around the performer" and homogenizing the soundstage information. With more and more exposure to different power cords in my system, I now recognize these same colorations, just to differing degrees, with all of them. I want a cable, a cord, a component, that does little or less harm to the sound and one that allows the information on the recording to come through to my listening room with as little corruption or alteration as possible.
I was actually a bit surprised by this latest result, not because I have no confidence in the Ching Chengs, but rather because the Shunyata cords are so highly regarded and they share measurements, etc. Many consider the brand to be the reference, and these latest versions are supposed to be improved.
In my system, the three of us all preferred my cheap Chinese power cords, though we did not quite agree to the same extent. The Venoms are not very expensive by audiophile standards, and they corrupted the sound less than some others I've tried that were much more expensive. It was another interesting power cord comparison with the Ching Chengs again winning the day.
I post this on my system page because I know others will have different results and impressions in different system/room contexts. This is a controversial subject, so I share it here for those who have been following the evolution of my system.
EDIT: These were NOT the much touted "NR" versions of these new Shunyata cords. There does not seem to be the noise reduction technology in them. We did try those on some amps in another system and they choked the sound, though they did sound better on a digital source component. In that system, we did prefer the Ching Cheng cords, and stock cords, in all cases to the noise reduction cords, especially on the amps. These new Venoms are designed for higher current conditions so I presume on amplifiers, they will sound better than the NR version.
My friend wanted to see if the three of us could hear a difference between the cords, given that my Pass amps draw some current and the Venoms are 10AWG while the Ching Cheng are only 14 AWG and almost twice as long. We kind of expected to hear a cleaner and more dynamic sound with the new Shunyatas. This was not the case.
We went back and forth listening to an orchestral movement and a jazz classic. With the Venoms, I heard an "accenting" of high and low frequencies, a “spotlight” around the musicians creating a black halo silent background around the performer, and a foreshortening of the soundstage. Bass drums and cymbals became too big and moved forward on the classical music. On the jazz, there was a softening of the sound, and a slight loss of energy and sense of life to the music, though the bass was "tighter" and the cymbals more "splashy". The CCs were simply more natural in tone, scale, and presentation. They did not draw attention to themselves, and they were less "hifi" sounding.
I heard similar "effects" to other audiophile power cords that I have tested from small to large manufacturers. They all seem to color the sound by accentuating some frequencies, creating this "black halo background space" around the performer" and homogenizing the soundstage information. With more and more exposure to different power cords in my system, I now recognize these same colorations, just to differing degrees, with all of them. I want a cable, a cord, a component, that does little or less harm to the sound and one that allows the information on the recording to come through to my listening room with as little corruption or alteration as possible.
I was actually a bit surprised by this latest result, not because I have no confidence in the Ching Chengs, but rather because the Shunyata cords are so highly regarded and they share measurements, etc. Many consider the brand to be the reference, and these latest versions are supposed to be improved.
In my system, the three of us all preferred my cheap Chinese power cords, though we did not quite agree to the same extent. The Venoms are not very expensive by audiophile standards, and they corrupted the sound less than some others I've tried that were much more expensive. It was another interesting power cord comparison with the Ching Chengs again winning the day.
I post this on my system page because I know others will have different results and impressions in different system/room contexts. This is a controversial subject, so I share it here for those who have been following the evolution of my system.
EDIT: These were NOT the much touted "NR" versions of these new Shunyata cords. There does not seem to be the noise reduction technology in them. We did try those on some amps in another system and they choked the sound, though they did sound better on a digital source component. In that system, we did prefer the Ching Cheng cords, and stock cords, in all cases to the noise reduction cords, especially on the amps. These new Venoms are designed for higher current conditions so I presume on amplifiers, they will sound better than the NR version.
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Thank you. No videos. Never thought of it. That would have been fun to see if the effect would come through and be audible on video. The interesting thing about videos is that despite the poor quality, people still have strong and conflicting opinions. Just look at the preferences between my two SME arms on the Scheherazade videos. BTW, we did listen to Scheherazade yesterday: 1st and 4th movements. I may try to video the 2nd movement which seems to be the one everyone else records. I like the 1st because of the bombastic, powerful opening.
I do not know if my friends will post. Some are more careful to avoid sharing negative impressions. I did like these new Shunyata PCs more than my Harmonic Technology, Transparent, MIT and some other smaller brands I tried, but it has now been some time and the system has changed, so these comparisons are really valid only in the moment and in this context. If one hears similarities over time, across systems, then some real conclusions can be drawn, just like with other gear.
I took a short video, maybe I'll post it. I am the owner of the Shunyata Venom HC v2s. in my system these were better than the Ching Cheng at least in terms of bass performance. I have 10AWG in wall and a long enough run that I think having 10AWG power cords to my monoblocks make a difference (and I think the CC are 14AWG).
The Shunyata are relatively inexpensive power cords (relative to Shunyatas other offerings) and I just wanted to try something with 10AWG to see if it made a difference (and it did) but I also guessed that it might color the sound in some way (possibly due to nickel coating on the prongs) especially since Shunyata needs a reason to sell more expensive power cords.
In Peter's system there was deeper bass with the Venoms but I found it somewhat dark overall and lacking air - so somewhat less engaging than the CCs. It was also a VERY quick comparison and hardly representative of a Ching Cheng vs Shunyata shootout. But hey, the CCs did sound better and were still cheaper!
The Shunyata are relatively inexpensive power cords (relative to Shunyatas other offerings) and I just wanted to try something with 10AWG to see if it made a difference (and it did) but I also guessed that it might color the sound in some way (possibly due to nickel coating on the prongs) especially since Shunyata needs a reason to sell more expensive power cords.
In Peter's system there was deeper bass with the Venoms but I found it somewhat dark overall and lacking air - so somewhat less engaging than the CCs. It was also a VERY quick comparison and hardly representative of a Ching Cheng vs Shunyata shootout. But hey, the CCs did sound better and were still cheaper!
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