Acoustic effects of the audiophile shrine

[Phelonious Ponk]

I have no shrine, because I have no components, but between and behind my speakers is my trusty old Panasonic plasma, a big glass sheet. Not ideal for reflections, I'm sure. But it is ideal for running TV sound through my stereo, and sounds a lot better than the speakers in the old Panny, reflections notwithstanding. Not being an audiophile, I'm free to make the practical decision and accept the minor repercussions. If I were an audiophile, I'd be free to make any impractical decision that occurred to me, and imagine any result I desired.

Tim

 

[hvbias]

Looking at the polars of the Vivid I think I need to hear them! I take it they do imaging really well?

 

[Thomas savage]

Looking at the polars of the Vivid I think I need to hear them! I take it they do imaging really well?

They do the job, dic's speakers work better in my room than anything else I tried. They disappear, though some might say they draw attention to themselves from a aesthetic pov, but in terms of musical play back they do as they are told and get the hell out of the way leaving you listening to music not the speakers if you will...

Still they suffer from the same bass ills as all traditional speakers, though they have a very special quality to their bass reproduction your still at the mercy of you rooms limitations.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I find a lot of the big wigs with the uber expensive stereos have the gear off to the side with 30+ feet of interconnects going to the amps. The main reason for this is so the dealer can sell them more cable.

Actually, it is for convenience.
All my electronics, except for the power amps, are within reach or easy access.
I do not have to walk in front of the speakers to make an adjustment.
Besides, the center channel speaker is between the L and R anyway.

 

[Purité Audio]

Alsoif you do use a turntable it is probably a good idea to site it as far away as possible from the loudspeakers, in another room ideally.
Keith.

 

[FrantzM]

Alsoif you do use a turntable it is probably a good idea to site it as far away as possible from the loudspeakers, in another room ideally.
Keith.

On the TT issue many audiophile who worry so much about vibrations that they place their SS on specialty racks put their TT between their speakers. This is part of the audiophile aesthetics, it seems : Worry about vibrations and placing tube gears in the line of fire of woofers and/or subwoofers ...

 

[Purité Audio]

A high percentage of 'audiophile' racks won't absorb any structural borne vibration whatsoever, but some will, isolation based on visco elastic material or rolling air diaphragms but even they won't affect airborne vibration.
Keith.

 

[March Audio]

A high percentage of 'audiophile' racks won't absorb any structural borne vibration whatsoever, but some will, isolation based on visco elastic material or rolling air diaphragms but even they won't affect airborne vibration.
Keith.

I will be posting some vibration measurements soon for people to look at

 

[Purité Audio]

I see that the audio 'Ponzi' scheme that is the Mdac has taken another turn!
Keith.

 

[dallasjustice]

I did some measurements when I was moving my speakers around. The measurement I was interested in most at that time was the IACC measurement. This measurement relates to soundstage, IME. The idea behind the measurement is to determine how much the reflected late arrivals match up with the initial direct impulse for both R/L speakers.

I did notice a small difference in the IACC after moving my rack off to the side, away from the center position behind the speakers. I also noticed the soundstage improved a little. Maybe its all placebo effect and a measurement error/anomoly. But I'd recommend that you find a way to move your rack off to the side behind one of the speakers. The smaller the rack, the better as far as I'm concerned. The only thing I have in my rack is my Torus, my 2ch amp and a DAC.

 

[RayDunzl]

I don't detect any anomalous spatial perceptions, and I've had both situations in this room - tiny shrine with only a short amp on the floor with CD Player on top of it...

and the current A/V style setup with lots of boxes with a plasma on top in the middle.

The gear's height is about the same as the woofer/sub cabs, and the lower edge of the TV is about the height of the bottom of the panels.

---

I haven't measured Inter Aural Cross Correlation, although, now that I know there's a name for it, I might try.

What's your procedure? Is there a nice tool for it?

 

[dallasjustice]

Acourate is the only software I know of which can measure IACC.

I don't detect any anomalous spatial perceptions, and I've had both situations in this room - tiny shrine with only a short amp on the floor with CD Player on top of it...

and the current A/V style setup with lots of boxes with a plasma on top in the middle.

The gear's height is about the same as the woofer/sub cabs, and the lower edge of the TV is about the height of the bottom of the panels.

---

I haven't measured Inter Aural Cross Correlation, although, now that I know there's a name for it, I might try.

What's your procedure? Is there a nice tool for it?

 

[TBone]

On the TT issue many audiophile who worry so much about vibrations that they place their SS on specialty racks put their TT between their speakers. This is part of the audiophile aesthetics, it seems : Worry about vibrations and placing tube gears in the line of fire of woofers and/or subwoofers ...

TT placement is critical, esp considering subsonics. That said, certain suspended models are better suited to systems/environments which dictate placement nearer speakers. That said, my current TT is placed well away.

 

[NorthSky]

I used to hang/suspend my turntable with chains, from the wall or ceiling. The best room ever for my TT was one build on concrete floor.

A had my electronic gear all over...on one side or both, outside my main front loudspeakers, low in between them (lower than twenty inches, like right now), to the side walls, the back wall, in another room, even up high @ ear level in a horizontal plane on one side wall.
I never had a sound system in the same room for more than fifteen years. And 69% of the time the gear was real low where I would have to bend down and be on my knees, except for the TT always @ arm level. The best/worst feedback (subsonics) that I ever had from a TT was near one of the main loudspeakers (usually the right one) where the bass is more or less .... than the left loudspeaker. ...Bad idea either one; the TT goes nowhere near a loudspeaker with their drivers and magnets. Yeah, use common sense on where you put your audio electronics in relation to your loudspeakers; get the hint from professional audio publications/magazines containing professional audio reviewer's own rooms and rigs. ...Like Michael Fremer, Harry Pearson, J. Gordon Holt, Robert Harley, Jonathan Valin, Myles Astor, Kalman Rubinson, Tom Norton, Robert Greene, Anthony Cordesman, Corey Greenberg, Sam Tellig, Wes Philips, John Atkinson, Theresa, Jonathan Scull, Dick Olsher, the thirty best from Canadian audio reviewers, the forty best from the UK, the twenty best from Germany, the sixty best from Italy, Finland, Sweden. ...And the two hundred more best from the world's rest; Holland, Norway, Switzerland, Brazil, Africa, Nigeria, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Hawaii, Iceland, Ireland, China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Greece, Indonesia, Australia, Pakistan, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt and Tibet.

 

[DonH56]

Planars don't radiate to the sides much so equipment between speakers is not usually a big deal.

I used old mattress springs to help isolate my TT back when I had it set up. Since the TT weighed about 50 pounds I used nine of them, and did a bit of tweaking to optimize their resonance frequency and added some pads to dampen HF ringing in the springs (not that I think the latter really did much for the sound). I was on the second floor and it was rock-solid when someone walked in the room vs. skipping (ouch!)

 

[TBone]

I used to hang/suspend my turntable with chains, from the wall or ceiling. The best room ever for my TT was one build on concrete floor.

pros & cons, if mounting to wall, a concrete floor usually come w/concrete walls, which changes mounting process considerably.

 

[DonH56]

I have suspended TT's many times for friends, using cable springs to aide isolation from ceiling vibrations.

 

[NorthSky]

No sir Anthony, I once rented a home built by an artist for seven years, and the walls and ceiling were made of wood, some cedar, and others.
But the entire floor was built on concrete and covered with ceramics and carpets. The highest point of the wood ceiling was roughly fourteen feet.
You could jump as high as five feet and fall down on your two feet, and the sylus would remain in its groove without a tic or a pop or missed tone or a missing beat. I installed the TT with chains and a homemade wood platform attached to the wall, in this particular veranda.
And below the concrete was a rock face on the side of a mountain. In the backyard was a thirty foot high chute (water). And the area full of steep cliffs and cougars and wolves and rattlesnakes and black widow spiders (the black widows right in the bathroom walls).

This is all true. That was back in the Okanagan Valley North of Penticton, about twenty miles going towards Chute Lake.
Anyway, it was a magnificent villa with ten acres on the side of the mountain with no neighbors and a nice view on the lake and the mountains across, similar to where Blizzard (Mike) resides, but no neighbors and higher up. Some day I might go back and take some pictures, because all the ones I had were stolen from me by a very very bad man who's greed of money too over his heart and soul.

 

[TBone]

Don, did you deal with suspension designs differently?

 

[DonH56]

I don't understand the question?

My TT had (has) a suspended sub-platform and I designed my DIY suspension to have a spring rate well below the TT itself, is that what you mean? If the TT had its own suspension it complicated any after-market mods as I had to ensure the suspensions worked together (which often meant complementary resonances vs. have the whole system "ring" together). In some cases I also modified the suspension of the TT itself. Rarely did I completely "short" or remove the TT's suspension as that would led to higher noise from the motor and such. Since I didn't have good measuring equipment determining spring rates was tricky (strobe, even counting by eye with a stopwatch, etc.) and a lot of empirical testing was required (i.e. trial and error). That's engineering for yuh, not science...