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Ron’s New System
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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Even dictators look at polls. It is your choice whether to be Dubai or Singapore, or be Yemen
Judging from all the cooks and recipes on this thread, maybe more like Bosnia.
The best I've enjoyed of her performances was through vinyl, i.e., Fleetwood Mac and Rumours. I heard them twice on tour at the San Diego Sports Arena in support of aforementioned albums, but the acoustics were horrendous.
Fair enough, but that is an answer to a different question.
Which do you think is the most natural and convincing Stevie Nicks recording?
Maybe "Landslide"?
"Landslide" on the vinyl 1980 Fleetwood Mac Live Album. Lindsey Buckingham is also epic on the previous cut, "Never Going Back Again" from that album. a demo disc i play for visitors. everyone has it, but maybe don't realize it has gems. one of the best pop groups ever at their prime "live". great straight up recording.
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Robbes visited last night. We played with TubeTraps a bit. We played with the damping factory adjustment on the VTLs.
I have never been very good at hearing what TubeTraps do on bass.
However I hear surprisingly clearly what they do for sound-staging. I have an orphaned TubeTrap, so I stacked it on top of a existing TubeTrap in the center right up against the front wall (diffusion side out; silver dot facing forward).
That one TubeTrap addition noticeably truncated the depth of the sound-stage, and shortened the perceived height of standing singers. I was surprised the difference was so easily discernible. I removed it, and the singers returned to normal height.
Then, Robbes doubled-up the pair of TubeTraps I currently have covering the first rear reflection points. This meant that the TubeTraps now are covering up the first reflection points to above the full height of the Clarisys speakers. We both heard an improvement in sound-stage depth.
However I hear surprisingly clearly what they do for sound-staging. I have an orphaned TubeTrap, so I stacked it on top of a existing TubeTrap in the center right up against the front wall (diffusion side out; silver dot facing forward).
That one TubeTrap addition noticeably truncated the depth of the sound-stage, and shortened the perceived height of standing singers. I was surprised the difference was so easily discernible. I removed it, and the singers returned to normal height.
Then, Robbes doubled-up the pair of TubeTraps I currently have covering the first rear reflection points. This meant that the TubeTraps now are covering up the first reflection points to above the full height of the Clarisys speakers. We both heard an improvement in sound-stage depth.
Tube traps do little to fix bass problems, which are mostly caused by standing waves. To really fix that (break up the standing waves) you need sub woofers placed elsewhere in the room. If your main speakers do the bottom octave, then you'll only need two subs to do the job. They must be placed asymmetrically and crossed over well below 80Hz so as to prevent them attracting attention to themselves.
By placing the lone trap in the middle, reflected sound from the backside of the speaker was attenuated. This tells me that your speakers (without the traps) are at least 5 feet from the wall behind them, which allows the reflected energy to be used by your ears as echo location, thus intensifying the centerfill and depth of the sound stage.
So yes, that's a bad place to put a trap if your speakers have rear-firing energy.
Thank you for your comments, Ralph.
Interestingly, many planar dipole users apply absorption or diffusion on the front wall centered between the loudspeakers.
I generally keep the front wall moderately reflective, with no acoustic treatment.
I also found that Tube Traps did little to fix my bass. They did filter out certain frequencies by absorption that resulted in enhanced frequencies elsewhere. I liked the effect until I realized that information went missing from the presentation and nuance and ambiance were reduced. I got rid of the tube traps and worked on speaker positioning for a more natural presentation.
A friend had panels and placed them close to a short wall where his gear lived. On the sides behind each toed in speaker was open space, one side open to a kitchen beyond, on the other side to a staircase. He seemed to like the lack of reflection behind the speakers. There was little to no sense of a soundstage or decent imaging. He cared about tone and dynamics above all else.
For them to really work properly they'd have to move dynamically about room as the bass notes change. Since that is impractical and dangerous
they just sit in one place and so are very limited as you describe.Using multiple subs works a treat though! -And very easy to integrate into any system, allowing you to place the main speakers for optimal sound stage presentation.
For them to really work properly they'd have to move dynamically about room as the bass notes change. Since that is impractical and dangerous
In my experience TubeTraps are extraordinarily effective, especially in approximately the 60 - 90 Hz range where many rooms typically have modes. Sure, they won't do anything for the deep bass.
Most rooms with standing wave problems are regular in shape. The wavelength plays a role as at 80Hz its 14 feet long.
By the time your ear sorts out what note it is that waveform will have bounced all over the room unless its exceptionally large.
On this account, multiple subs are far more effective breaking up standing waves which are the number 1 problem with bass in most rooms. Once you have that sorted out then the bass traps will be found to be far more effective.
You mean subwoofers that are setup for some room-EQ in the bass only ? (for instance, subwoofers corrected by the "plug-n-play" DSP tools developed by Finnish designer DSPeaker)
Would you qualify PSI AVAA "active bass traps" as a thing that could play the role of those "subwoofers that are far more effective breaking up standing waves" ? (despite their name, "active bass traps")
To the former; no. To the latter, possibly. I had considered designing a product like that myself a few years back. The research I did suggested the device would not need a lot of power to do its job, which is about as far as I got. In my system, its apparent that the subs I'm using are not working very hard too.
I think we should separate using a subwoofer in out of phase mode to cancel a bass peak from an active device that has a sound sensor and a feedback system to cancel bass. I could not see how the PSI AVAA works from your link.
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