Embracing Simplicity in Audio: Anyone Else Skipping Room Correction, Measurement Microphones, and the Like?

[MAB]

Heh heh. Rauna you say. Okay a little OT. I grew up in the same small town as their designer, Bo Hansson. You're lucky you only have them to carry around and not the Ukko creations by Bo Hansson. I heard the Ukkos at a HiFi fair in 2008. The picture below is from that fair (not taken by me).
Big sound, awesome sound.

They could work at high volume with low distortion. At least that's how I experienced it then. Best sound at that show, but then they were also the only speakers not played in a super small demo room.Plus the only HiFi rig at the fair where the volume was really turned up. And high volume trumps as you know.

Ukko dipole:
View attachment 331100

To refer to the thread and the room's influence, this is how Bo Hansson's Ukko dipoles are described in a sales text:

Description
Ukko dipole is a so-called eight-beam (I don't know what that means). This means that it radiates in a limited forward and backward lobe. The ultimate solution in the so-called open architecture and difficult room acoustics, as the limited side radiation reduces room impact. The structure consists of two layers of concrete slabs with seven intermediate layers of laminated MDF boards, all pressed together under very high pressure. Together with the element baskets, it gives exceptional rigidity to the baffle and minimum baffle radiation. ..

The controlled directivity means that the sound is "thrown" far, i.e. that you experience the sound equally strongly at longer distances, at the same time early reflexes are minimized as the line sound source responsible for the mid-range treble limits the radiation in height. The high efficiency and power resistance mean that the dipole can also be used in smaller PA contexts.

Opus 3 Ukko Dipol - Ljudshopen

OBS! DEMO EX! HÄMTAS I BUTIK! Ukko Dipol är en s.k. åtta strålad högtalare. Det innebär att den strålar i en begränsad lob framåt och en bakåt. Den ultimata lösningen i s.k. öppen arkitektur och med besvärlig rums akustik, då den begränsade sidostrålningen reducerar rums påverkan. Detta var Bo...

www.ljudshopen.se

I don't know what to say about that sales pitch. Line speakers that go from floor to ceiling can really reduce problems with floor and ceiling reflections. Dipoles themselves and their placement, distance from rear wall is another challenge in itself. It's just not possible to randomly throw a couple of dipoles into a room
and then get superb sound, as the sales text suggests. But with the right placement, it can sound big, awesome and so on.

____

Ove Bo Hansson, born April 6, 1940, died May 20, 2011 in Karlskoga,[1] was a Swedish record producer, designer and entrepreneur.

Hansson, who has long worked with the development of advanced hi-fi equipment, founded and ran during the 1970s the company AudioProdukter in Karlskoga and in the early 1980s together with Lennart Bergstedt and Olle Neckman formed the audio engineering company Rauna with the advanced hi-fi equipment they engineered, such as turntables, amplifiers and cast speakers.

Bo Hansson (producent) – Wikipedia

sv.wikipedia.org

Rauna Freja, affectionately called Swedish Tombstones! Thanks for noticing!
I use them as desktop speakers from time to time since they lack deep bass and have a bit of a suckout in the midbass due to the bass reflex tuning, they have a broad natural notch just where I would normally EQ for desktop placement. The Freja is an example of a speaker that has a frequency response irregularity that can actually be useful, in this case it provides a natural desktop EQ. However, in-room it is a slightly finicky speaker to setup since the response. While they happen to be useful for desktop, can be tricky to avoid placements that have weak bass.

 

[Mart68]

The Rauna Freja I showed is a bass reflex with a 5" driver that has extremely limited bass. In fact, it has a reputation for little bass which is why I chose it to demonstrate that even speakers with weak bass are very sensitive to room modes.

In the example, the in-room setup shows two notches in the response greater than 10dB conspire to make a 20dB suckout in bass from ~40Hz to 120Hz. This affects both a subwoofer with 28Hz -3dB down point as well as a Rauna Freja with tiny bass reflex woofer since they both play in the region of the suckout.

This is also pointed out in multiple posts, my measurement just demonstrates what those posters are saying in a real room.
Also, small speakers don't get as boomy as large, but they sure can get their bass eliminated by a room mode. I'm not sure what sounds worse, boomy bass or missing bass, both make a speaker sound bad and neither needs to be tolerated.

In summary: I mean that even a speaker that has limited bass output like a Rauna Freja is subject to room modes; the room modes extend higher in frequency than you are thinking, and a tiny ported speaker with limited bass goes lower than you are thinking. Same as what others are saying, I just added a measurement!

again your plot includes the subwoofer - you say the speaker has weak bass but you keep posting this plot with the sub?

Here's a typical small bookshelf where the output rolls off steeply below 100Hz and is 15dB down at 50Hz, this is typical of 2 way small ported speaker



You will struggle to get this to boom and setting it up so it doesn't is trivially easy in any room without making huge compromises in the domestic environment.

Granted you do occasionally get a mini with stunt bass around 100 to 120 Hz which can be more problematic but then I would always advise to avoid such designs anyway.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I have a room mode peak at 32 Hz. Speakers with low power down there are not boomy in the room. They benefit from the mode. Larger speakers or subwoofers have more power in that frequency range and need to be EQ'ed.
When I had a powerful ported sub the peak was excited 30 something dB above avg. My current Infinity Kappas excites the peak 12 dB above avg.

 

[MAB]

\

again your plot includes the subwoofer - you say the speaker has weak bass but you keep posting this plot with the sub?

No!!! The measurements are of a Rauna Freja alone with no sub compared to a subwoofer!!! That is why it is Rauna Freja vs. Subwoofer in my post!!! I am comparing a small 5" bass reflex to a subwoofer. It is a comparison, the Rauna was measured all by itself. I can't figure out any better way to say it. Hopefully clear now. Maybe the picture of the two together caused sighted interpretation, I only took the picture to show I had a Rauna and to show I was measuring it in the same room location and mic setup as the sub. The Rauna has it's bass mangled by the room, same as the subwoofer even though the subwoofer is capable of almost two octaves lower response.

The graph below is similar to the Rauna, which I measured. In fact the Rauna has even less extension and a bit more peaked response at 100Hz. Both the LX-3 and the Rauna would behave similar.

Here's a typical small bookshelf where the output rolls off steeply below 100Hz and is 15dB down at 50Hz, this is typical of 2 way small ported speaker



You will struggle to get this to boom and setting it up so it doesn't is trivially easy in any room without making huge compromises in the domestic environment.

Yes, neither this nor the Rauna is likely to have extreme bass boom. But both would sound thin and tinny in the location I did the above measurement, which is just as bad to many people.

Granted you do occasionally get a mini with stunt bass around 100 to 120 Hz which can be more problematic but then I would always advise to avoid such designs anyway.

Yes, stunt bass is a thing. I have a pair of Carmody Overnight Sensations which have stunt bass (and response oddly similar to certain vintages of LS3/5A):

This tiny-woofer will still have issues in the placement I measured above.

 

[Geert]

I hope we misunderstand each other cause surely a bassline of say 50 Hz, which is the same as an imaginary room peak mode, played at avg. 60 dB wont result in the same as if it's played at 80 dB.

Of course the absolute level of a bass note and the associated room mode it might trigger is lower when you lower the playback level. But relatively speaking the level of the resonance is still as high as before, meaning its volume is lower but so is the volume of the music (bass note). The only additional thing that might change perception is that if the volume is really low the decay of the resonance might got lost in ambient noise earlier.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Of course the absolute level of a bass note and the associated room mode it might trigger is lower when you lower the playback level. But relatively speaking the level of the resonance is still as high as before, meaning its volume is lower but so is the volume of the music (bass note). The only additional thing that might change perception is that if the volume is really low the decay of the resonance might got lost in ambient noise earlier.

And thus speakers that roll off earlier than the room mode peak will not excite the mode as much as the ones that extend beyond the mode frequency. Making the early roll-off speakers easier to integrate IR to "boomy" sound. At least without EQ or room correction. <--Making the rule of thumb true; that small speakers in general are easier to integrate in-room.

 

[Curvature]

You will struggle to get this to boom and setting it up so it doesn't is trivially easy in any room without making huge compromises in the domestic environment.

What's boom?

I mix, and boom for me goes up to at least 300Hz. Maybe a bit higher depending on the sound.

If you wanna hear "boom", plaster thin foam panels all over your room. The mid/high hundreds of hertz will sound unbearable while deep bass, for the most part, won't be as objectionable.

Edit: Highs will be clear as a bell, of course, although less enveloping.

 

[Mart68]

\

No!!! The measurements are of a Rauna Freja alone with no sub compared to a subwoofer!!! That is why it is Rauna Freja vs. Subwoofer in my post!!! I am comparing a small 5" bass reflex to a subwoofer. It is a comparison, the Rauna was measured all by itself. I can't figure out any better way to say it. Hopefully clear now. Maybe the picture of the two together caused sighted interpretation, I only took the picture to show I had a Rauna and to show I was measuring it in the same room location and mic setup as the sub. The Rauna has it's bass mangled by the room, same as the subwoofer even though the subwoofer is capable of almost two octaves lower response.

The graph below is similar to the Rauna, which I measured. In fact the Rauna has even less extension and a bit more peaked response at 100Hz. Both the LX-3 and the Rauna would behave similar.

Yes, neither this nor the Rauna is likely to have extreme bass boom. But both would sound thin and tinny in the location I did the above measurement, which is just as bad to many people.

Yes, stunt bass is a thing. I have a pair of Carmody Overnight Sensations which have stunt bass (and response oddly similar to certain vintages of LS3/5A):

This tiny-woofer will still have issues in the placement I measured above.

Okay I am sorry but the cause of my confusion is that you say the speaker has weak bass but your plot of them shows pretty healthy output at 30Hz -which is why I assumed that it was with sub.

 

[MAB]

Okay I am sorry but the cause of my confusion is that you say the speaker has weak bass but your plot of them shows pretty healthy output at 30Hz -which is why I assumed that it was with sub.

The room changes the bass in a way that makes the speaker unrecognizable in that location! It’s the WWW, it’s all so confusing, no problem for misunderstanding.

The point here is the room mode dominates the response in that location. If I measured the speaker's sound at every room location and averaged, I would obtain a good picture of the speaker's in-room response, which actually looks like this:

But if you measure it in a single location like I did above in this thread, you are likely to see something that looks nothing like the speaker's frequency response. In this you are measuring the room and thus surprisingly difficult to tell the difference between a large subwoofer and a small driver. This is how people get the impression that a small driver can have bass, it does have a bit of bass, and if you set them up in the right place and play the right track they can surprise you by energizing a room mode. The Rauna Freja is a good example, it can sound hollowed out and tinny, or quite good, all depending on placement.

 

[ahofer]

I posted a comment relevant to this thread, and responding to the OP, here:

The pain of being a member of ASR

My pain of being a member of ASR Recently, I've been reflecting on my engagement here on the forum. The discussions in some threads, marked by contentious debates and a focus on proving oneself right, have led me to reconsider my active participation. All too often the arguments are presented...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[Buck_Rogers]

I have a 12K digital setup that sounds amazing. Some of the best digital I've ever heard.

But the LP makes it sound like a rusty nail, Not even close in transparency...

Any digital EQ, 24/96 or 24/192 I try just makes my LP sound like a 500$ Cd player.

Listening is 85% LP 15% CD and 60% Classical, 30% Pop Rock, 10% other.

Four way active 1,800 watt system using Ashly XR4001.

18" JBL @ 96DB.

15" JBL @ 98DB

Altec Manta Ray Mid horn W/EV DH 1 driver @ 112DB

18" Phenolic tweeter @ 106DB

Tonearm image from 2010

 

[DonR]

I have a 12K digital setup that sounds amazing. Some of the best digital I've ever heard.

But the LP makes it sound like a rusty nail, Not even close in transparency...

Any digital EQ, 24/96 or 24/192 I try just makes my LP sound like a 500$ Cd player.

Listening is 85% LP 15% CD and 60% Classical, 30% Pop Rock, 10% other.

Four way active 1,800 watt system using Ashly XR4001.

18" JBL @ 96DB.

15" JBL @ 98DB

Altec Manta Ray Mid horn W/EV DH 1 driver @ 112DB

18" Phenolic tweeter @ 106DB

Tonearm image from 2010

The amount you spend is irrelevant. What it sounds like to you may not be to someone else and is not necessarily correlated to reality.

 

[Axo1989]

I have a 12K digital setup that sounds amazing. Some of the best digital I've ever heard.

But the LP makes it sound like a rusty nail, Not even close in transparency...

Any digital EQ, 24/96 or 24/192 I try just makes my LP sound like a 500$ Cd player.

Listening is 85% LP 15% CD and 60% Classical, 30% Pop Rock, 10% other.

Four way active 1,800 watt system using Ashly XR4001.

18" JBL @ 96DB.

15" JBL @ 98DB

Altec Manta Ray Mid horn W/EV DH 1 driver @ 112DB

18" Phenolic tweeter @ 106DB

Tonearm image from 2010

Completely mad turntable, I love to see tangential air-bearing tonearms (I assume). Almost makes the fairly mad speakers look run-of-the-mill.

 

[Rednaxela]

What's wrong with a $500 CD player?

 

[olieb]

Any digital EQ, 24/96 or 24/192 I try just makes my LP sound like a 500$ Cd player.

I doubt that very much. The CD player will not have all the good things:
No wow and flutter, no pop and crackle and virtually no distortion. And most of all it is missing all that wonderful noise.
Of course there are options for all of this, but you probably need a computer, it's cumbersome and you will never get it "right".

 

[ahofer]

What's wrong with a $500 CD player?

He’s saying that EQ is a huge improvement, obviously. Even for compromised vinyl sound.

Of course, the master recording already has digital EQ, and his phono stage already has analog EQ, so it’s already very unlikely.

 

[JayGilb]

I have a 12K digital setup that sounds amazing. Some of the best digital I've ever heard.

But the LP makes it sound like a rusty nail, Not even close in transparency...

Any digital EQ, 24/96 or 24/192 I try just makes my LP sound like a 500$ Cd player.

Listening is 85% LP 15% CD and 60% Classical, 30% Pop Rock, 10% other.

Four way active 1,800 watt system using Ashly XR4001.

18" JBL @ 96DB.

15" JBL @ 98DB

Altec Manta Ray Mid horn W/EV DH 1 driver @ 112DB

18" Phenolic tweeter @ 106DB

Nice system - That is headphone like nearfield listening based on the chair position.

 

[ahofer]

Nice system - That is headphone like nearfield listening based on the chair position.

Yeah, reminds me of Fremer's setup, a bit.

(and this is lengthened by camera position)

gotta have those dartziels out on display, with a little bit of symbolic room treatment.

 

[DonR]

SET amp?

 

[Purité Audio]

Yeah, reminds me of Fremer's setup, a bit.

(and this is lengthened by camera position)

gotta have those dartziels out on display, with a little bit of symbolic room treatment.

Is that a hearing aid, understandable Mikey is of course of an age.
Keith