What a difference air conditioning makes!

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Naturelover, use a filter/isolation for each of these 3, ensuring the filter/isolation cleans up all the mess and does not allow contamination of the power line. I would prefer doing this then adding isolation or a filter to the audio system since there is too much of guesswork there
 
Many fans use a rheostat speed control. That can mess up the sound.
Prem, I think Rehostat speed control is better as it's just a wire wound resistor and a passive element. SCR type speed control will introduce switching pulse which can introduce pulse distortion on the AC line.
I have mixed views about my DIY isolation transformer, core saturation being one and transients suckout in some high energy music being another.
 
I also experienced similar change after air conditioning my room, though it was to counter the heat in first place. Then only I realised that the fan was producing so much noise that I was missing the cleaner music from my system. The bliss lasted for a while until I started recognising the hum from the AC which now a days has become a disturbance, though it was always there from day one. Now, I cool the room to a very low temperature, switch off the AC and then start enjoying music in pure calm environment.
Yes, a dedicated, closed and contained space will definitely improve your music experience.
 
I also experienced similar change after air conditioning my room, though it was to counter the heat in first place. Then only I realised that the fan was producing so much noise that I was missing the cleaner music from my system. The bliss lasted for a while until I started recognising the hum from the AC which now a days has become a disturbance, though it was always there from day one. Now, I cool the room to a very low temperature, switch off the AC and then start enjoying music in pure calm environment.
Yes, a dedicated, closed and contained space will definitely improve your music experience.

Yes, the AC fan has its own sound. I keep it on low and that is sufficient for cooling the room. I suggest listeners couid go for a tonnage higher than the optimum for their room’s cooling so they can run the AC on low speed. It might result in slightly higher electricity bills though.
 
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Yes, I experienced this first hand recently. I had fairly upgraded and optimised my stereo system before this and I was happy with the sound. I have a largish living room (340 sq ft) with multiple windows and cross ventilation, hence I never considered air conditioning it till now. But this summer beats all records for high temperatures and I had to give in and get it fitted with a split AC.

And then after the installation was complete I fired my system up with the windows closed and air conditioning on. And guys, was I surprised! Oh yeah. The clarity went up by notches. And the details - wow! I could hear so much more of the music I have heard umpteen times before. Let me give you one example. The last song on Mark Knopfler’s album ‘Tracker’ has the instruments coming on very slowlly. Earlier, I couldn’t hear anything till about 8 seconds into the song. (Try it and see when you start listening the sound). But now right into the 2nd second I started hearing it. So, my system had the detail, which I couldn’t hear earlier due to the ambient noise.

And then I started listening to other albums and I started discovering not just more detail. The sound has become much more lively/immediate. The immersion in the music has increased manifold as I get to hear what the singer and musicians were doing at the subtler level. Also the interplay/harmony between instruments is much more nuanced now. Norah Jones ‘Come Away’ with me was a favourite album always, but now it was like the musicians playing right there in front of me with so much virtuosity, and she is tempting me to go away with her. The brushed stroking of drums, the sustained sound of the strings... so many things the artists did that you were supposed to hear in the first place, but couldn’t due to the ambient noise around you.

And mind you. I live in one of the quietest areas in Thane, Mumbai. There’s no road for about 300 m from my building in any of the directions.And am on a high floor. And yet the sound isolation I could get by closing the windows with the AC allowed me to do is causing such a huge difference! If you live in a busy place, your dividends will only be higher.

So guys, if you haven’t yet gone the AC way, and even if your house is well ventilated, do consider conditioning your living room with a good split AC - it’s the best investment you can do in your system once you’ve done all other optimisation (including speaker placement - read my other thread in it). The 50 odd K you’d spend will take your system up a couple of rungs on the hi-fi sound ladder - and you’d enjoy your music a lot more than before. I’d say especially if your are into listening to acoustic music like Jazz, Classical, Country, Soul etc, you should do yourself the favour.

Here’s the hero who made this difference

View attachment 35357

The point here is, closing the windows reduced the ambient noise.AC helped in achieving this.
This is very clear from Ops post.
Reducing ambient noise is key for better sound.
This is the main reason why music sounds so much better in early morning and late nights.
This is not a mere opinion.This is my experience.
Ops post is very relevant.


I don't understand the reason for rude comments and mokes.
 
Apparently there has been a lot of study on the impact of temperature and humidity on the speed of sound and the bigger impact is due to Humidity especially on the reverberation which can change the perception by a noticeable amount

So if you are feeling the impact then it may well be the humidity control thats doing this. The point by prem on the impact on the quality of power is even more pertinent and I have personally found the quality of power to make the most impact..so do considerthat.

Many of you would have heard about Rane corp who are very much into Pro audio and dsp... as per their research on Pro Audio

Environmental effects change the velocity and the absorption of sound in air. Even seemingly small per- centage changes may cause serious listening problems in enclosed acoustic spaces. If room alignments down to tenths of an inch are to be meaningful, temperature and humidity should be controlled tightly.

Fractional changes in the wavelengths of frequencies traveling thousands of cycles can easily result in 180° phase reversal upon arrival. No matter how small the change in the temperature, no matter how slight the humidity shift, the waves arrive shifted in phase and the resultant combination differs from the original. It will not be the way it was when the room was equalized. Not only will the waves’phase be shifted, but for higher frequencies their magnitudes will be different due to the changes in absorption.



But again the Enjoyment of music goes beyond acoustics so what would be interesting would be how much of this is Acoustics and how much is Psychoacoustics ie improved perception.

This is what I love about this hobby..you learn something all the time !!
 
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Very interesting post Arj. In fact quite a few resonators available in the market for room conditioning work on the principle of equalising the air pressure. Sound moves through air to reach you. Hence change in pressure of air affects the way you hear sound.

When I had the Franck Tchang resonators, I have heard how a resonator placed in a bedroom affects the sound in the living room. There are a few reviews too on the net where the reviewer has had similar experiences.
 
But again the Enjoyment of music goes beyond acoustics so what would be interesting would be how much of this is Acoustics and how much is Psychoacoustics ie improved perception.
Good point. I prefer listening early in the morning from 5-7am. I guess the background noise is less, power is cleaner, less stress and sort of empty stomach ;) all increases the enjoyment by several notches. Again all these are IMO which is subjective and hence non conclusive
 
Ambient noise you have to learn to be with it and not notice or ignore it. Linkwitz use to call that gestalt. For instance, if you enter a quite room, you may immediately notice the ticking of a wall clock. But after a while you get used to it and do not notice the ticking clock. Your ears also act as a filter and virtually filters these kind of noise. You can't stop people from talking in your home when you listen music. Right? The challenge is to learn to or filter unwanted noise and remove it from your gestalt. I stay very close to a busy traffic junction where ambient noise is as high as 90+ dB. Shutting the window makes it probably 60 dB. I have learnt to accept my ambient noise and they don't bother me any more.
 
Ambient noise you have to learn to be with it and not notice or ignore it. Linkwitz use to call that gestalt. For instance, if you enter a quite room, you may immediately notice the ticking of a wall clock. But after a while you get used to it and do not notice the ticking clock. Your ears also act as a filter and virtually filters these kind of noise. You can't stop people from talking in your home when you listen music. Right? The challenge is to learn to or filter unwanted noise and remove it from your gestalt. I stay very close to a busy traffic junction where ambient noise is as high as 90+ dB. Shutting the window makes it probably 60 dB. I have learnt to accept my ambient noise and they don't bother me any more.

Hari. your approach has its merits, especially at a spiritual level - keeping the noise out and concentrating on what you want to. But allow me a counter-argument.

Why then do audiophiles keep working on improving the fidelity and detail in the sound of their system and go for high res sound? Why do we buy remastered CDs? Why not instead put up with the tape hiss, system noise, speaker vibrations, jitters et al?

Because we want to control what we can! One can extend the same logic to ambient noise - one can control it by closing windows, which can be done for longer hours and in hotter temperatures by air conditioning the room.

From your previous comment to this post I though you ‘prefer’ listening to music with the ambient sounds around. That would be the Gestalt. I can understand that as an individual preference. But in this comment you talk about ‘filtering off’ the ambient by focusing the mind and sense on the music. Gestalt simultaneously perceives the figure and the ground. It doesn’t filter out the ground and focus only on the figure.

So you too, like others, want to listen to the music and filter out the ambient. Just that we prefer doing it in different ways. You, by training your senses to filter out ambient, and others by using commonly available technology (air conditioning). Guess there are pros and cons of both.

Then there’s the habit/adjustment that gets developed over period of time. Staying so close to the busy road, your ears would have got habitual to the traffic noise. Workmen in noisy factories may get habitual to the sound of the machines around them which won’t bother them as they would to someone new. But my concern is, whether this habit/adjustment is accompanied by loss of hearing? Whether an ambient sound of 90db as you say, over a prolonged period of time, impacts hearing? Studies would suggest that. Just as listening to music at higher volumes can.
 
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Good point. I prefer listening early in the morning from 5-7am. I guess the background noise is less, power is cleaner, less stress and sort of empty stomach ;) all increases the enjoyment by several notches. Again all these are IMO which is subjective and hence non conclusive
Same holds true for late night listening
 
Definitely I was thinking before but after this post definitely I will spend 50,000 or more to enjoy the sound stage and also keep my Marantz SR6013 cool. Many kudos to post this relevant article. I am loving it. God bless you. With regards. Vinayaka
 
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I am now at Sachin's home to discover the magic and am enjoying his hospitality. We started with his AC, then his Plasma TV and later audio. They indeed are sounding nice compared to last time we met couple of months ago

He may join me back home to listen to my setup after my LPF interconnects modification 2 weeks ago
 
I am now at Sachin's home to discover the magic and am enjoying his hospitality. We started with his AC, then his Plasma TV and later audio. They indeed are sounding nice compared to last time we met couple of months ago

He may join me back home to listen to my setup after my LPF interconnects modification 2 weeks ago

Hari, thanks. Your visit made my day. Your ‘ok’ from on the audio characteristics means lot more to me than many others’ ‘wow’. Not just because you are knowledgeable, but also because you point out the gaps without any hesitation. (BTW, the improvements Hari noticed are largely due to meticulous speaker placement - I’ve explained those in another thread).

Guys, we moved to Hari’s place after that to listen to his additions (sub woofer) and some other modifications. Though I don’t understand the technology involved as much, I truly dig his full range speakers. I haven’t yet warmed up to the subwoofer sound which is new to me. The icing on the cake was listening to a very old LP by Vasant Kumari & Lakshmi Shankar and the LP of film Baiju Bawara. And as always, a trip to his place results in major addition to my meagre AV technology knowledge. Today’s learning was about power supply.
 
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