This is my first post here after obsessively researching and not really finding an answer. I think I’m in the right place though! I'd like to improve sound quality in the great room of my house (a small converted church). Please, read on… it gets interesting!
Here are my givens:
— Budget for improvements: $3,150. ($2,150 remaining?)
— Source: Sonos Connect running Spotify (320Kbps) as well as streaming radio. I could consider switching to Tidal FLAC.
— Our 8,000 cu ft great room reaches 15.5’ in height 40’ long and 19’ wide. It has lots of interfering trusses, and other complicated architectural elements, windows, etc, which I'm gathering might be helpful.
— I play music only and I listen to all kinds all the time.
— For sound style, I prefer musicality, sound that doesn't fatigue. I’m very much of a music lover, but I also really care about sound quality. Detail, dimensionality, etc are all very interesting, but I don’t need speakers to disappear or have a trumpet player virtually play in a specific location, though I wouldn’t mind! I tend to move around, lie on the couch, have friends over for dinner (someday soon?) in the adjacent dining and kitchen areas of the room, so I won’t be able to enjoy a small sweet spot for very long.
— I usually play music at low-ish volume, but I’d like to be able to crank it up and party sometimes. Not club loud, but home party loud.
— Used equipment is fine.
— I’m technically inclined. I not afraid to do very complicated technical projects of any kind.
— Floor plans and pics are attached. Blue Xs are the two Cornwalls and the Red squares are the remaining Missions. That animal is a stuffed peccary. I found it in an antique shop. I had to have it.
Important spouse, human and animal factors:
-- I'm married to a person who has no interest in fine audio who doesn't want obtrusive looking speakers. We can’t put speakers “in the middle of the room”, which also means that we can’t put them to either side of the wood stove which I believe is the obvious location for the room.
-- We have three kids who are thankfully now out of the ankle-biting stage, but occasionally tear around the house shooting each other with Nerf bullets. We have a young dog as well who gets balls thrown to her inside sometimes. So, there are projectiles for sure.
-- Most of my more focused listening is in the "living room" portion of the great room, but we play music in the great room while cooking in the kitchen at the other end and during dinner etc.
Here’s my problem:
I started by purchasing a well-regarded speaker within my budget that can be placed in a corner. There aren’t many choices that I’m aware of. I bought a pair of Klipsch Cornwall I’s from 1978. (Remaining Budget: $2,150). Despite the large size, their mid-century appeal works well for us, so they actually have good WAF. I hooked them up and I was initially wowed when I connected them to my old Yamaha Natural Sound AV Receiver HTR-3067. I wasted 6 years listening on a pair of little Mission M71s placed high up on brackets in the room corners with a Hsu Research VTF-2 MK4 subwoofer. Those have been removed. I left another pair of Missions in the kitchen end and will run them independently. Unfortunately for me, I quickly developed a love-hate relationship with the Cornwalls. Jazz, piano, vocalists, and live music sound amazing. Anything else sounds harsh and sibilant. I’ve literally changed how I’m listening to music because of these speakers and that’s not good.
Amp to the rescue? EQ? A different speaker? A new WAF friendly location?
I started looking for a solution and learned that horn sibilance is a very common problem. I read that pairing a tube amp, in particular, a Single-Ended Triode amp could help, and more, it could be indescribably sublime with a very sensitive speaker like the Cornwall I (98.5db). So, I placed an order for a 2.3 watt Decware Zen Triode. It’s a 5-month wait. So, I got a $200 TubeCube 7 to hold me until it arrives. It’s pretty nice, but not great. Better than my Yamaha though.
I continued to learn more and now believe that I really ought to get more wattage. But that’s not all. I’m going to wait 5 months just to be able to try out a Decware amp? The talk about their SET amps is so convincing. I can’t wait to hear one. But I’m also aware that I may be trying to solve a horn speaker imperfection with the imperfection offered by a SET, sublime as that imperfection may be. It doesn’t matter to me, I just want good sound. I don’t need to have a tube amp, a SET tube amp, a SS amp or any other particular kind of amp. Or a particular speaker for that matter (unless it’s ugly). I’m happy to sell my Cornwalls and start with a new speaker, maybe even in a different out of the way spot in the room. I even checked out pendant speakers, like they have in airports and such.
It seems that the gold standard for problem solving is try different things in my listening space. I put my brother’s old Audio Note DAC on my source. Nothing much there. I auditioned a Fezz Audio Titania, which is just a really nice and powerful version of my little TubeCube. It didn’t solve the issue. Now I’m thinking maybe a SS Marantz, or a SET that I can actually find in my budget and that is available for me to try (and return if necessary). Or maybe something else? I’ve also searched for a different speaker that can be located in a corner which I can afford and basically have found nothing.
I can also take this in another direction and EQ my setup. Or maybe there’s another solution?
Let’s not forget next steps after all this, a DAC seems like a good possibility.
Thanks for reading my little story. I hope you liked it and have some suggestions for me!
Aaron
Glen Echo, MD
Here are my givens:
— Budget for improvements: $3,150. ($2,150 remaining?)
— Source: Sonos Connect running Spotify (320Kbps) as well as streaming radio. I could consider switching to Tidal FLAC.
— Our 8,000 cu ft great room reaches 15.5’ in height 40’ long and 19’ wide. It has lots of interfering trusses, and other complicated architectural elements, windows, etc, which I'm gathering might be helpful.
— I play music only and I listen to all kinds all the time.
— For sound style, I prefer musicality, sound that doesn't fatigue. I’m very much of a music lover, but I also really care about sound quality. Detail, dimensionality, etc are all very interesting, but I don’t need speakers to disappear or have a trumpet player virtually play in a specific location, though I wouldn’t mind! I tend to move around, lie on the couch, have friends over for dinner (someday soon?) in the adjacent dining and kitchen areas of the room, so I won’t be able to enjoy a small sweet spot for very long.
— I usually play music at low-ish volume, but I’d like to be able to crank it up and party sometimes. Not club loud, but home party loud.
— Used equipment is fine.
— I’m technically inclined. I not afraid to do very complicated technical projects of any kind.
— Floor plans and pics are attached. Blue Xs are the two Cornwalls and the Red squares are the remaining Missions. That animal is a stuffed peccary. I found it in an antique shop. I had to have it.
Important spouse, human and animal factors:
-- I'm married to a person who has no interest in fine audio who doesn't want obtrusive looking speakers. We can’t put speakers “in the middle of the room”, which also means that we can’t put them to either side of the wood stove which I believe is the obvious location for the room.
-- We have three kids who are thankfully now out of the ankle-biting stage, but occasionally tear around the house shooting each other with Nerf bullets. We have a young dog as well who gets balls thrown to her inside sometimes. So, there are projectiles for sure.
-- Most of my more focused listening is in the "living room" portion of the great room, but we play music in the great room while cooking in the kitchen at the other end and during dinner etc.
Here’s my problem:
I started by purchasing a well-regarded speaker within my budget that can be placed in a corner. There aren’t many choices that I’m aware of. I bought a pair of Klipsch Cornwall I’s from 1978. (Remaining Budget: $2,150). Despite the large size, their mid-century appeal works well for us, so they actually have good WAF. I hooked them up and I was initially wowed when I connected them to my old Yamaha Natural Sound AV Receiver HTR-3067. I wasted 6 years listening on a pair of little Mission M71s placed high up on brackets in the room corners with a Hsu Research VTF-2 MK4 subwoofer. Those have been removed. I left another pair of Missions in the kitchen end and will run them independently. Unfortunately for me, I quickly developed a love-hate relationship with the Cornwalls. Jazz, piano, vocalists, and live music sound amazing. Anything else sounds harsh and sibilant. I’ve literally changed how I’m listening to music because of these speakers and that’s not good.
Amp to the rescue? EQ? A different speaker? A new WAF friendly location?
I started looking for a solution and learned that horn sibilance is a very common problem. I read that pairing a tube amp, in particular, a Single-Ended Triode amp could help, and more, it could be indescribably sublime with a very sensitive speaker like the Cornwall I (98.5db). So, I placed an order for a 2.3 watt Decware Zen Triode. It’s a 5-month wait. So, I got a $200 TubeCube 7 to hold me until it arrives. It’s pretty nice, but not great. Better than my Yamaha though.
I continued to learn more and now believe that I really ought to get more wattage. But that’s not all. I’m going to wait 5 months just to be able to try out a Decware amp? The talk about their SET amps is so convincing. I can’t wait to hear one. But I’m also aware that I may be trying to solve a horn speaker imperfection with the imperfection offered by a SET, sublime as that imperfection may be. It doesn’t matter to me, I just want good sound. I don’t need to have a tube amp, a SET tube amp, a SS amp or any other particular kind of amp. Or a particular speaker for that matter (unless it’s ugly). I’m happy to sell my Cornwalls and start with a new speaker, maybe even in a different out of the way spot in the room. I even checked out pendant speakers, like they have in airports and such.
It seems that the gold standard for problem solving is try different things in my listening space. I put my brother’s old Audio Note DAC on my source. Nothing much there. I auditioned a Fezz Audio Titania, which is just a really nice and powerful version of my little TubeCube. It didn’t solve the issue. Now I’m thinking maybe a SS Marantz, or a SET that I can actually find in my budget and that is available for me to try (and return if necessary). Or maybe something else? I’ve also searched for a different speaker that can be located in a corner which I can afford and basically have found nothing.
I can also take this in another direction and EQ my setup. Or maybe there’s another solution?
Let’s not forget next steps after all this, a DAC seems like a good possibility.
Thanks for reading my little story. I hope you liked it and have some suggestions for me!
Aaron
Glen Echo, MD
