The 'Dark' Art Of Room Acoustics!

[ajay124]

Good suggestions no1lives4ever.

My music room at 14x25x12 is quite close to the Linkwitz 'best room'.I have realised that the room is the most expensive,and in the long run,the only fixed part of a hifi system.I look at my room with new respect and awe.Henceforth,I will place it on a higher pedestral than my (yet to come) Esoteric,Bryston or Vienna Acoustics.

First lesson from the Linkwitz article.I placed the speakers exactly 3 feet from the side wall,exactly 6 feet from the back wall,with exactly 8 feet distance between the speakers,and I sat cross legged at exactly 8 feet distance from them.In these times of instant gratification,I found my instant sweet spot.
Basic placements which I was unable to put into practise before,because of the dining table in the middle of the room.Earlier the speakers were further apart from each other and my sweet spot was very close to the back wall.I was getting the 'benefit' of all the indirect sound from the back wall.Now I have the luxury of sitting at the tip of a perfect triangle.I have dropped the idea of buying an audiophile leather sofa.The new,cool,smooth,tiled floor is the perfect sitting/sprawling place.Especially in the summers.

Questions needing answers.
one: How do I handle the 'discreet resonances' below 200hz?
two: Can somebody explain Reverbration Time in plain english?How do you measure it,and how is it helpful in improving the room acoustics?
three:Can somebody shed more light on the conventional box design Omni Directional speakers and the Diopole figure of eight radiating speakers?

 

[arj]

Questions needing answers.
one: How do I handle the 'discreet resonances' below 200hz?
two: Can somebody explain Reverbration Time in plain english?How do you measure it,and how is it helpful in improving the room acoustics?
three:Can somebody shed more light on the conventional box design Omni Directional speakers and the Diopole figure of eight radiating speakers?

Hi Ajay, i am really nt sure if the floor is a good place to listen to music. as
1. you may have a time alignment problem as most speakers have a minimum ear position recommended so that all drivers are phase coherent
2. you are making floor reflections a lot more relevant..typically the sound will be recessed, more bass heavy which may give a false impression of "Tube sound"

let me take a first shot at your questions.
one: a) Equalisation: digital or analogue which modulates the signal - Not recommended
b) placement of the speakers and listening position to get the best compromise

two: it is the time a signal takes to completely die down...the sound from the speaker keeps bouncing all surfaces untill it kills itself! too much and you have a smudged soundstage and a confused brain. too little and the sound is dead. a decently furnished room is usually ok as ling as you take care of the first reflection points
three: dont know too much other than regular net reads!. gradient speakers are dipoles and so i believe are most planars, Ohm walsh/Mirage/MBL et all work on omnidirectional principles

 

[ajay124]

arj
"Hi Ajay, i am really not sure if the floor is a good place to listen to music"

I acquired several bad habits in my teens. Chain smoking while sitting on the floor. Boozing while sitting on the floor. Listening to music while sitting on the floor. Listening to music in the dark. I finally managed to give up smoking a few years ago. But the other habits seem to be hard to shed ! I have read that, the listener's ears should be at the tweeter/mid range level while listening to music. But I don't listen to music with my ears. I listen to it through a sweet spot in the middle of my forehead.

Music,Reading,Cinema is inextricably linked to our mind and imagination The degree of pleasure we derive from the arts depends on the degree to which our mind and imagination has been honed by these arts. Which is why, audio nirvana can NEVER be achieved by blowing up a lot of cash on high tech HiFi,CDS or Vinyl. The pleasure we get from music is completely dependent upon the extent to which we have refined our mind and imagination over the years.

Perhaps room acoustics can be reduced to a 'light' art. But trying to understand how our brain reacts to music is going to remain a 'dark' art for a long time. The human mind is the final mystery. One that Nature/God does not want us to ever solve. But Nature/God has given us music to while away the time, and that is good enough!

 

[ajay124]

More links:

STANDING WAVES CALCULATOR
Room Mode / Standing Wave Calculator

REVERBERATION TIME CALCULATOR
RT60 Acoustic Reverb Calculator

ROOM ACOUSTICS
Room acoustics

 

[arj]

.

Music,Reading,Cinema is inextricably linked to our mind and imagination The degree of pleasure we derive from the arts depends on the degree to which our mind and imagination has been honed by these arts. Which is why, audio nirvana can NEVER be achieved by blowing up a lot of cash on high tech HiFi,CDS or Vinyl. The pleasure we get from music is completely dependent upon the extent to which we have refined our mind and imagination over the years.

Perhaps room acoustics can be reduced to a 'light' art. But trying to understand how our brain reacts to music is going to remain a 'dark' art for a long time. The human mind is the final mystery. One that Nature/God does not want us to ever solve. But Nature/God has given us music to while away the time, and that is good enough!

My friend, the human mind is a topic we should discuss over a whiskey with DSOM in the background It is a completely fascinating topic.
If sitting on the floor is so important then a possible suggestion is a thick rug at the reflection point on the floor an tilting the speaker down to have your ears on the same plane..get the dispersion to work for you.

 

[ajay124]

My friend, the human mind is a topic we should discuss over a whiskey with DSOM in the background It is a completely fascinating topic.
If sitting on the floor is so important then a possible suggestion is a thick rug at the reflection point on the floor an tilting the speaker down to have your ears on the same plane..get the dispersion to work for you.

arj
If you were staying in Chandigarh, right now we would have been sharing a bottle of a fairly decent red wine. Auditioning the XLO Reference 2 power cord on the cdp,pre and power amp. Listening to Handel.Or Miles Davis.Or Led Zep.Or Ray Charles.Take your pick

I am bad with abbreviations.What is DSOM?

OK. I got it! Dark Side Of The Moon! Discussing the human mind while listening to Brain Damage? That's a wicked idea!

 

[ajay124]

arj

I took your advise.Loosened the back spikes of the speakers just a tiny bit.Speakers tilting down.Put two sets of three seater sofa cushions on the floor, in what I presume would be the reflection points. Switched off all the lights. Tiny green eyes of the Arcam,BP6 and the 4B SST reflecting in the smooth new floor.Great!

You may have saved me form investing a packet on room treatment.I think tilting the speakers down towards the floor just a little bit, may become a permanent fixture in my Jalsaghar

 

[ajay124]

My room has muted it's 'singing' and at the sweet spot, the direct sound from the speakers, is relatively free from early reflections from walls and ceilings.There is far less reverb or interference from late reflections.

The most 'active' spots in the room have been tamed to a great extent:

The two corners behind the speakers seemed to be the most noisy. I placed a low,floor hugging,wooden chair,with a nice Rajasthani engraving, at each corner. They blended with the room furniture and also produced instant audiophile results!

A small 6x4 carpet placed a little in front of the speakers also provided a fair amount of damping. A bigger carpet may not gel aesthetically with the rest of the room.

I found a simple solution to the glass covered book/cd shelves on the wall facing the speakers. I open the glass doors while listening to music! Hopefully the direct and indirect sound waves now hit the wooden shelves and thick columns of books inside,rather than the glass surface.

I placed two small coffee tables, with hard bound books on the table top, at the point of first reflection along the side walls.

Speakers are tilting down, marginally, towards the floor. Earlier when the speakers were separated by a ten feet floor span, I used to toe them in a bit, to increase depth of the soundstage. But now I have moved them closer to each other, with current distance between them of eight feet. They are now firing straight down the room. No toe-in. Distance from side walls is three feet. And from the back wall it is 6 feet. With 2x2 tiles on the floor, it is easy to get the measurements right, even without a measurement tape.

I am planning to replace the current set of curtains behind the speakers with a thicker set.

All the tweaks I have done are amateur, playing it by the ear, tweaks. Strictly from the School of Dark Arts. I did not spend any money. The living room still looks like a living room. And the sound quality is once again oozing bliss and benovolent beauty.

 

[ajay124]

Suspended audio rack anyone?
YouTube - ESOTERIC Suspended Audio Rack - HI-FI furniture of Artesania Audio

 

[captrajesh]

Very intricate build. Hope Ali is listening.hyeah:

 

[arj]

All the tweaks I have done are amateur, playing it by the ear, tweaks. Strictly from the School of Dark Arts. I did not spend any money. The living room still looks like a living room. And the sound quality is once again oozing bliss and benovolent beauty.

hey ajay, :clapping: great to hear this..this is my idea of a listning room as well..should look like a real Living Room and not a studio

was out of station over the last few days and no internet / blackberry which can be a bliss ..

 

[square_wave]

.

Music,Reading,Cinema is inextricably linked to our mind and imagination The degree of pleasure we derive from the arts depends on the degree to which our mind and imagination has been honed by these arts. Which is why, audio nirvana can NEVER be achieved by blowing up a lot of cash on high tech HiFi,CDS or Vinyl. The pleasure we get from music is completely dependent upon the extent to which we have refined our mind and imagination over the years.

You could not have said it better ! If you are a music head, you do not need expensive hifi gear at all. The moment the music is turned on, your mind cannot think of anything apart from music. Forget cables and such !


But sitting on the floor and listening to floor standers is a very bad idea. You lose many things in the bargain.

1.Driver integration. Speakers are designed to get as close to a point source when your ear as approximately at the tweeter level. Any movement in the vertical plane completely screws up this extremely desirable quality.

2.Lopsided frequency response.

 

[arj]

1.Driver integration. Speakers are designed to get as close to a point source when your ear as approximately at the tweeter level. Any movement in the vertical plane completely screws up this extremely desirable quality.

2.Lopsided frequency response.

This is exactly what i had posted as well...but the means should follow the ends Ajay clearly has a preferred floor seating position !.
but there is nothing like sitting on a LaZboy listening to music

 

[ajay124]

square _wave, arj

It's not that I prefer a floor position all the time. But the current seating plan of my living room is such, that it is not possible to put a permanent seat at the sweet spot. The single seater sofa in the room, is too heavy to drag to my preferred listening position, everytime I play some music. Therefore I compromise by sitting on the floor, dead center between the speakers, at a distance of ten feet. Tilting the speakers down towards the carpet, has helped to curb the 'boom' effect. The XLO and Volex power cords have integrated nicely with the cdp and pre, and the Walwarts have been dispatched to a dark,desolate dungeon

Today the curtains came down, as I am planning to replace them with thicker ones. Even without the curtains, with all the glass exposed behind the speakers, sound quality was acceptable, when I played some music today. I believe that with chamber music and jazz, nothing more needs to be done. But when I play orchestral music, or something like Dire Straits or Santana, I still feel that side wall,facing wall and floor reflections in front of the speakers, still need to be curbed further. Earlier the noisiest zones were the the two corners behind the speakers. But they have been very well behaved, since I put a low wooden chair in each corner. Sometimes I even sit on one of these chairs, and listen to the music from behind the speakers

 

[ajay124]

The renovations at our house are almost done. In a couple of days the workmen will be gone, and I will return to my 'mountain abode' of ten hours of glorious music every day ( 5 hours of Russian Classical and five hour of 'miscellaneous' music ).

The music room is done. For the moment the speaker placement and room acoustics are almost entirely to my satisfaction. Listening to a state of the art hybrid SACD, released on 28.03.2011, of Shostakovich's symphony No. 3 and 10, conducted by Valery Gergiev. Accompanied by 90 ml of Balvenie single malt with 90 ml of RO water, frozen in the freezer until the glass gets covered in a scottish mist and icicles start swimming in the whiskey.
PARADISE REGAINED

 

[ajay124]

As there is a carpenter at work doing stuff around our house, I got the idea of building a new audio rack! Materials to be used will probably be 19mm board and mica from Virgo.I have the option of using board,glass,vitrified tiles or granite slabs for the 3 platforms. I would prefer to isolate each platform by using some kind of spikes. Unfortunately my visits to the neighbourhood hardware stores have drawn a blank.I would welcome advise and suggestions from forum members regarding the design of the audio rack.
Dimensions WxHxD
Esoteric SA10 17 3/8"x 5 7/8"x 14"
Bryston BP6 17"x 2 3/4"x 11"
Bryston 4B SST 17x 5 1/4x 15 3/4"

 

[ssf]

Hello Ajay,

Have I told you lately that I envy you ? Not just because you have graduated to 90ml of the Single Malt (the Goan influence ? ) but also because of the time and effort that you put into getting your Sound just right.

The way I see it, with audio racks, one could go about it the right way or (/and ?) the good looking way. No prizes for guessing in which very different ways the two of us would go eh :lol:

@ss

Audiophiletalk - audio rack v1.0

 

[square_wave]

I like the one on the left )

Good looking too.

The one the right is fake contentious Avant-garde

 

[Hiten]

ajay, since you are looking for granite platform here is good example...

I think there is a good design concept, at the back of the rack where you can insert power cords interconnects through holes so it doesn't show from the front. Also all platforms are I think separate.
Regards

 

[arj]

Hi Ajay,
I went for something like this

Metal frame with Hollow legs (Sand Fill able). 3 legged ones have the advantage of being very stable and equal weight distribution
platforms are 2 MDF planks sandwitched and veneered
ideally the point of placement on the rack can be Brass cones.

a rack is better if it has different materials as that provides a broader spectrum of frequency "impedance"


you can of course play around with platforms...

this is rather cool as well