Dealing With Large Glass Windows and Doors WITHOUT Spoiling the View?

[gds7368]

Thanks for your kind words Mike. I recently upgraded my speakers from Kudos Titan's to ProAc K6 Signatures. I will have to invite you back for a listen once they run-in.

I'm no acoustician but I make a great sound with no edge or fatigue. Could it be better? Sure, but combining hi-fi with everyday life requires compromises. A big part of good hi-fi is well engineered electronics and meticulous attention to setup. Do your best with what you have to work with.


View attachment 62287 View attachment 62288

Chris, do you have any more pictures? Wow that looks stunning !!!

 

[ChristopherBell]

Here's a few more views of my new speakers and room. The K6 Signatures are running-in nicely now... it's amazing how much bass two 6-1/2" woofers create and the ribbon tweeter is revealing details I never knew existed in familiar recordings. Don't get me started on the dome midrange. Very pleased with this upgrade.

Hope everyone is staying safe and staying home!

 

[kach22i]

Fantastic.

 

[sbo6]

What I find amusing about this hobby is that audiophiles equate materials visually to sound signatures. For example, glass is shrill as if you scratched your nails on it, wood sounds warm and "natural", metal drivers sound tinny, "You can hear the metal sound". I think it's mostly BS and more human nature than science. That's not to say that materials don't have resonances which depends on the dimensions, especially the thickness of the composition.

In this case, the room and view are beautiful. I see you have curtains; I would look into acoustic material that can be inserted behind your curtains that will ameliorate the affect of the large, hard and flat windows. When you want to critical listen, shut them, when you want to listen and enjoy the view, draw them back.

 

[Folsom]

What I find amusing about this hobby is that audiophiles equate materials visually to sound signatures. For example, glass is shrill as if you scratched your nails on it, wood sounds warm and "natural", metal drivers sound tinny, "You can hear the metal sound". I think it's mostly BS and more human nature than science. That's not to say that materials don't have resonances which depends on the dimensions, especially the thickness of the composition.

In this case, the room and view are beautiful. I see you have curtains; I would look into acoustic material that can be inserted behind your curtains that will ameliorate the affect of the large, hard and flat windows. When you want to critical listen, shut them, when you want to listen and enjoy the view, draw them back.

Indeed. While some intuition might be right, other is not. If you apply simple physics you start to be able to separate out the paranoia from reality. I still believe listening is the final test but we know many let the paranoia set in even when they don't hear anything.

 

[kach22i]

What I find amusing about this hobby is that audiophiles equate materials visually to sound signatures. For example, glass is shrill as if you scratched your nails on it, wood sounds warm and "natural", metal drivers sound tinny, "You can hear the metal sound". I think it's mostly BS and more human nature than science......

I've done a lot of experiments with various materials under my turntable, preamp and speakers.

Materials do in fact have sounds similar to what we can see and feel.

Tommy

See me
Feel me
Touch me
Heal me

 

[sbo6]

I've done a lot of experiments with various materials under my turntable, preamp and speakers.

Materials do in fact have sounds similar to what we can see and feel.

I don't want to get into A/B testing but isn't it a strange coincidence that what you expect to hear you hear with different materials?

For me - my speakers' drivers are all metal (Al.), all 5 per cabinet yet they are some of the least colored and lowest distortion speakers I have ever heard. I hear no metal - like sound from them at all. One might surmise the transducer that actually produces the sound you hear would be the ultimate test for material signature.

 

[kach22i]

I have NOT assigned or attributed much to the materials of drivers other than Martin Logans sounding "transparent".

I once heard a diamond encrusted tweeter that sounded hard though, really.

Do your own experiments, and trust your ears.

 

[sbo6]

Hard like a diamond? ;-)

If the MLs panel was made of tinted mylar would it sound dark?

Trust your ears, not your eyes.

 

[Folsom]

Metal doesn't have to ring. Some speakers with metal do, others don't.

 

[sbo6]

All drivers may / may not ring, as I said above all materials have resonances. However if the topic is - materials' sonic signature in this case glass, I think it's overblown. I've hear rooms with glass windows sound stellar and I've been to audio showrooms with treatment galore that sound like shite. It's about the proper implementation of speaker and sweet spot placement for each room and appropriate treatment if able to do so. Surface material, not so much.

 

[JackD201]

Is it possible to acoustically treat a listening room that features panoramic windows and/or doors without putting large absorbers and diffusers against them that spoil the view?

RPG makes a film for commercial applications and spaces like pool houses and the like. Bad news is that it still isn't fully transparent.

 

[kach22i]

All drivers may / may not ring, as I said above all materials have resonances. However if the topic is - materials' sonic signature in this case glass, I think it's overblown. I've hear rooms with glass windows sound stellar and I've been to audio showrooms with treatment galore that sound like shite. It's about the proper implementation of speaker and sweet spot placement for each room and appropriate treatment if able to do so. Surface material, not so much.

I think we have three topics under the heading of "Materials and Sound" if not more, and being interchanged like playing cards in a deck.

1. Acoustic aspect of rooms and materials in them via sbo6.

2. Ringing drivers via sbo6.

3. Sympathetic resonance of equipment and speakers via kach22i

I'll introduce a fourth topic, and it sort of blankets over everything else, the reason authors/writers/people use visual terms to describe what they hear is because we are a visual species, somewhere near 90% of the input to our brains is via our eyes.

In fact I think we in this forum recently had a discussion on this very topic. So it may not be a case or trusting one's ears over their eyes, but language limits and liberal use of visually charged adjectives.

 

[Mark Seaton]

I designed my old listening/living room in a Miami condo with 180 degree ocean view. 16 separate
acoustical/black out curtains with
different settings for critical music
listening, movies and party mode.
The room had no parallel walls,
hurricane proof floor to ceiling glass
and granite floors. The end result
was surprisingly good for critical
music listening. The 120 inch
screen and the center speaker
had motors and disappeared into
the ceiling when not in use.
The door into the kitchen was a floor
to ceiling bass absorber/diffuser that
could slide for opening/closing.
The speakers where dipoles, and
i preferred the sound with floor to ceiling absorbers/ diffusers behind
them, also on sliders, so they did not obstruct the view when not in use.
The only pictures i have, where not taken to document the system
regretfully

I was catching up on some missed posts here and in scrolling past noticed these pictures and suddenly connected the dots as your current location of Denmark had thrown me off while your stack of Statement subs had me wondering... It is a shame quality cameras weren't in all of our pockets back when your Statement E2's were installed. I'll never forget unboxing those monsters during the hurricane, on the waterfront, 14? or 16? floors up looking out at the ocean many years ago. It's a small world to run into you here as setting up your ML Statement E2's and a few others of the similar time were significant influences along the path I took into this wacky community and business.

Best Regards,

 

[Lagonda]

Mark you worked for the Chicago store or Martin Logan ? I remember asking if you preferred to stay at your Hotel because of the incoming hurricane, and you both wanted to do the setup and watch the storm from the 17 floor And we went to the Clevelander Hotel on Ocean drive for lunch the next day. That was 20 years ago, time flies and the world is truly a small place !

 

[Mark Seaton]

Mark you worked for the Chicago store or Martin Logan ? I remember asking if you preferred to stay at your Hotel because of the incoming hurricane, and you both wanted to do the setup and watch the storm from the 17 floor And we went to the Clevelander Hotel on Ocean drive for lunch the next day. That was 20 years ago, time flies and the world is truly a small place !

Hi Milan,

I worked for the store in Chicago and was the only one there who really knew how to set them up.

That was a memorable adventure with the hurricane and the many pieces to assemble in getting the Statement E2s together with that great view over the ocean visible again by the time we finished up. The bass from the Statement E2 subwoofer stacks set a frame of reference for my own subwoofer creations for many years. Crazy to realize that was 20 years ago!

 

[Lagonda]

Hi Milan,

I worked for the store in Chicago and was the only one there who really knew how to set them up.

That was a memorable adventure with the hurricane and the many pieces to assemble in getting the Statement E2s together with that great view over the ocean visible again by the time we finished up. The bass from the Statement E2 subwoofer stacks set a frame of reference for my own subwoofer creations for many years. Crazy to realize that was 20 years ago!

Yes Gayle Sanders went a little crazy with those sub towers, i was truly baffled when a helicopter flew trough my living room, a submarine got hit by deep water explosions or Jodie Foster got sent to another dimension in “Contact” All my friends came for morning party’s (after nightclub) and Sunday movies regularly, my wife was a great cook and always hungry at all hours, that sound system and the kitchen, where seriously used !

 

[cjfrbw]

The view can kind of spoil the music, too, which is why I keep my shutters closed. The music is my window.

 

[Lagonda]

The view can kind of spoil the music, too, which is why I keep my shutters closed. The music is my window.

I do my best “serious listening” in semi darkness, unless i’m a little tired, then i start nodding off