I had it then it was ...... Gone

[Richx200]

Thank you for supplying so much information! Yes this is quite helpful.

To bring in a bit more imo relevant information, here are Stereophile's measurements for the Focal Aria 936:

Focal Aria 936 loudspeaker Measurements

Sidebar 4: Measurements

www.stereophile.com

Notice how smooth the quasi-anechoic on-axis curve is. It's very good in my opinion (ignore the low-end rise; that's an artifact of the close-mic measurement technique used for the low end).

Next, notice that the off-axis curves have some excess energy in the region from about 3.5 kHz to just about 8 kHz. This means that the spectral balance of the reflections will have excess energy in this region. Here is why I think this could contribute to listening fatigue:

The ear/brain system is constantly looking at incoming sounds to determine whether they are new sounds or reflections (repetitions of a recent sound). The ear/brain system compares the spectral balance of incoming sounds to the spectral balance of recent new sounds to make this determination. I hypothesize that when there is a significant spectral discrepancy between the two, the ear/brain system has to work harder to correctly classify reflections as such, and over time this can tire out that part of the brain and result in listening fatigue. I'm not saying this is definitely what's happening, but imo it's a possibility.

One possible solution would be to increase the direct-to-reflected sound ratio, which would decrease the relative contribution of the reflections. This could be accomplished by listening up closer to the speakers, such that the direct sound becomes louder but the reflections don't get any louder.

Something else I noticed is that the equalization applied to your Focals is boosting the region from about 1.5 kHz to about 5 kHz. I assume the EQ is based on in-room measurements, which tend to be generally downward-sloping because most speakers have a radiation pattern that generally decreases in width as we go up in frequency. So if my assumptions are correct, and if Stereophile's measurements are good, then imo arguably the EQ is degrading that really nice first-arrival sound that we see in Stereophile's on-axis curves by boosting the output in the 1.5 kHz to 5kHz region. If it is possible to disable the EQ north of 500 Hz or so, imo that might make an improvement in long-term listening enjoyment.

Again thank you for providing so much information, and I hope you find the cause(s) and a workable solution.

Thank you for all your help...truly Thank You

In the Arc software, after the readings are taken, the two attached files are what I can adjust. One is system-wide, and the other is for the fronts. I haven't Tried the Maximum Correction Frequency setting yet.

Always thought speakers with a flat response was a good thing?

I can also run some tests with REW software to maybe find the frequency/frequencies that would be causing the problem and correct just that range with an equalizer?

 

[Duke]

Always thought speakers with a flat response was a good thing?

In general (and in your case), it is not possible to have flat first-arrival sound and flat in-room response simultaneously.

My understanding is that flat first-arrival sound is generally desirable but that flat in-room response tends to sound bright. And ime bright can be fatiguing over time.

Unfortunately it is not trivial to make in-room measurements that exclude the room's reflections (which is what the Klipple Near-Field Scanner does), but it IS relatively trivial to make in-room measurements which include the room's reflections. This is what most (if not all) "room correction" algorithms use. So unfortunately "room correction" algorithms are equalizing towards a particular in-room response curve, in your case "flat", without taking into account the first-arrival sound. This is usually beneficial in the bass region but further up the spectrum it can spoil an otherwise good first-arrival sound. And I think that could be happening in your situation.

Based on the Stereophile measurements we can be confident that the first-arrival sound from your Focals is flat, or very close to it, over most of the spectrum. So my suggestion is to at least try not equalizing your Focals north of 500 Hz or so, and maybe even try extending the non-equalized region down lower than that.

And repeating a suggestion from my previous post, if you can increase the direct-to-reflected sound ratio, imo that would probably be a good idea to at least try.

 

[olieb]

Closed my eyes and BLISS .... I got it the stage was set, timbre clear, I was in the envelope. It was like I was there; Mark Knopfler singing to me. This went on for a few hours, playing all kind's of music.
Then the envelope, it was gone. The stage and timbre was still there, but the magic seemed to have faded away. I didn't change anything

I think you witnessed this guy "Bias" hard at work here. He is the responsible for manufacturing the change. You decide if he brought the magic on or made it vanish (or both).
If you change your setup and experience an exciting improvement the perception of "magic" is the reward, but to expect the same reward to happen again and again will not work most of the time. It's like having mousse au chocolate all the time.

 

[antcollinet]

It's like having mousse au chocolate all the time.

But that is magic. Every single time : when it's my Mum's recipe

 

[pablolie]

Sounds like you did a good job setting up.

Could be you just adjusted to the new setup. Could be listening fatigue. Could be you are just tired.

Come back when you are rested, in a good mood, and maybe with beverage of choice and the magic will be there.

Exactly. I think sometimes the exercise of setting stuff up, and then spending a lot of time listening to differences critically - it can be quite exhausting and sap your joy. Especially because, once your gear is good (and that's relatively easy to accomplish these days), your ears will adjust to some small increment of SQ... and all that audiophile prose about "veils lifted" becomes "hey, i just dropped 25k and maybe what i had wasn't bad after all?".

IMO, after reaching a competent level, no one ever should set their expectations to hear huge differences - that's my biggest grumble against the audiophile press. even if they have the golden ears to spot differences between some equipment, it's manipulative to claim such differences are easy to hear and make a "huge" difference.

 

[EERecordist]

You have an excellent system and more tools than the average listener.

What I would do now is start a log of the time and the content before and after. Sometimes for work a long time ago I would really be leaning in and listening analytically. I can also remember before we got our fancy control room having listening fatigue. Any medications should be in the log. State of fatigue. And as others suggest any setting changes.

A log of how often what happens is going to provide a lot of information. On the other hand, maybe you can get a prescription for a Herman Miller Eames Lounge and ottoman? It's a health expense. Guaranteed to improve the listening experience. Get 2, partner and you!

 

[Andysu]

Alcohol is the cheapest and most effective upgrade. I only really discovered that when I quit drinking.

no actually it intoxicates the inner ear which is why you see people wobbling around due to the imbalance it does with fluid in the inner ear , never drink when listening to high end game sound systems , stay healthy eat spring onions

 

[Andysu]

i don't use the singe mono mic no more least , anyway i have made my own ( diy binaural RTA head )
i may do live video and some more testing as the results early this week was very interesting over using a single mono mic for RTA

 

[Anton S]

Wiped everything; starting fresh.... Check.
All software up to date .... Check
Checked alignment of all speakers with the laser.... Check.
Room noise level 42 db .... Check
Set each woofer to 70 dB at 1 meter ..... Check
Set other eleven speakers to 75 dB with pink noise .... Check
Took a breaker (did I miss anything) NO ...... Check
Fired up, Arc Genesis .... check
Set up two speaker profiles, to 7.2.4 for Dolby Atmos ... Check
Set up two speaker profiles, to 2.2 for Stereo .... Check
Calibrated Mic.... Check
Running Arc ... Check
Spacing of mic for five sweeps ..... Check
Sweeps done results checked ..... Check
Set one 7.2.4 and one 2.2 to extended bass boost ... check
Load AVR with Arc's Files .... Check
Sets up the DAC and AVR profile number three profile 2.2 no extended bass .... check
Found my spot ... check
Found some tracks 192/24 Dire Straits Money for Nothing .... Check

Closed my eyes and BLISS .... I got it the stage was set, timbre clear, I was in the envelope. It was like I was there; Mark Knopfler singing to me. This went on for a few hours, playing all kind's of music.
Then the envelope, it was gone. The stage and timbre was still there, but the magic seemed to have faded away. I didn't change anything

Was this a matter of my brain adjusting to a new sound and waking me up?

Has this happened to anyone here?

Sure. Happens to me all the time. Pop another edible and back in the groove again.

 

[ozzy9832001]

Honestly, it sounds to me like you were just in the zone and excited about getting everything up and running.

Perhaps an adrenaline fueled hyper sonic experience.

Happens to me every time I change something or move my speakers or get that itch. Everything always sounds better for that first spin.

Mood really does have a lot to do with it as does time of day, how well we slept, if we just ate, etc.

 

[Richx200]

In general (and in your case), it is not possible to have flat first-arrival sound and flat in-room response simultaneously.

My understanding is that flat first-arrival sound is generally desirable but that flat in-room response tends to sound bright. And ime bright can be fatiguing over time.

Unfortunately it is not trivial to make in-room measurements that exclude the room's reflections (which is what the Klipple Near-Field Scanner does), but it IS relatively trivial to make in-room measurements which include the room's reflections. This is what most (if not all) "room correction" algorithms use. So unfortunately "room correction" algorithms are equalizing towards a particular in-room response curve, in your case "flat", without taking into account the first-arrival sound. This is usually beneficial in the bass region but further up the spectrum it can spoil an otherwise good first-arrival sound. And I think that could be happening in your situation.

Based on the Stereophile measurements we can be confident that the first-arrival sound from your Focals is flat, or very close to it, over most of the spectrum. So my suggestion is to at least try not equalizing your Focals north of 500 Hz or so, and maybe even try extending the non-equalized region down lower than that.

And repeating a suggestion from my previous post, if you can increase the direct-to-reflected sound ratio, imo that would probably be a good idea to at least try.

Thank you for all your help! I have been checking out the settings in ARC, trying to smooth out some of the bumps. The other day I ran "Amroc" the room calculator and came up with all kinds of "Modals" I guess I have to work on them too; from what I have read they need to be corrected with absorption.

 

[Soandso]

In the O.P. case of prolonged listening what seems to be occurring is habituation with sensory input. This over time has a relationship with neural fatigue, which is a stressor and stress alters the ratio of Alpha and Beta brain oscillations. Now exactly which range of Alpha and/or Beta brain electrical activity increases or decreases, at what pattern of cycling and where exactly in the brain that is going on is not uniform among every person or situation.

The following I think gives us an idea of where some brain oscillations occur when music "flows" and is involved in the experience of seamless musical "magic". If we as music listeners lose the "magic" despite consistent audio quality then we must look to our brain's processing. Brain mappings shown are from the recent report shown below; the free full text is available in-line.

 

[Richx200]

The following I think gives us an idea of where some brain oscillations occur when music "flows" and is involved in the experience of seamless musical "magic". If we as music listeners lose the "magic" despite consistent audio quality then we must look to our brain's processing. Brain mappings shown are from the recent report shown below; the free full text is available in-line.

View attachment 374358View attachment 374359
View attachment 374357

Fascinating stuff, it looks like the study or results fell between 10-50 Hz, I think that is because that is where the thumping happens.

I couldn't open the link to read further, maybe you could repost it?

 

[Soandso]

Fascinating stuff, it looks like the study or results fell between 10-50 Hz, I think that is because that is where the thumping happens.

I couldn't open the link to read further, maybe you could repost it?

There was no link provided. You can search the report's full title shown in bold letters and it should come up; if not let me know and I'll follow up later.

 

[Robbo99999]

Wiped everything; starting fresh.... Check.
All software up to date .... Check
Checked alignment of all speakers with the laser.... Check.
Room noise level 42 db .... Check
Set each woofer to 70 dB at 1 meter ..... Check
Set other eleven speakers to 75 dB with pink noise .... Check
Took a breaker (did I miss anything) NO ...... Check
Fired up, Arc Genesis .... check
Set up two speaker profiles, to 7.2.4 for Dolby Atmos ... Check
Set up two speaker profiles, to 2.2 for Stereo .... Check
Calibrated Mic.... Check
Running Arc ... Check
Spacing of mic for five sweeps ..... Check
Sweeps done results checked ..... Check
Set one 7.2.4 and one 2.2 to extended bass boost ... check
Load AVR with Arc's Files .... Check
Sets up the DAC and AVR profile number three profile 2.2 no extended bass .... check
Found my spot ... check
Found some tracks 192/24 Dire Straits Money for Nothing .... Check

Closed my eyes and BLISS .... I got it the stage was set, timbre clear, I was in the envelope. It was like I was there; Mark Knopfler singing to me. This went on for a few hours, playing all kind's of music.
Then the envelope, it was gone. The stage and timbre was still there, but the magic seemed to have faded away. I didn't change anything

Was this a matter of my brain adjusting to a new sound and waking me up?

Has this happened to anyone here?

Apart from the usual psychological influencers that people have mentioned, I noticed this happened one time as I was listening to headphones for a different reason. Suddenly it didn't sound good anymore so I turned up the amp and it was a bit better, but it still wasn't right, so I was a bit confused and thought it best to quit listening to music and take off my headphones as I thought I was tired or something - when I did take them off I could tell that my right ear was slightly blocked (it's the sort of thing your brain only realises when exposed to the quietness of a known room, and not immediately noticeable in the artificial environment of a headphone, and probably not when listening to music over speakers either), the wax had shifted a bit during the listening session & slightly blocked the right ear. Maybe one or both of your ears became slightly blocked by wax movement during your listening session.

 

[Hayabusa]

Wiped everything; starting fresh.... Check.
All software up to date .... Check
Checked alignment of all speakers with the laser.... Check.
Room noise level 42 db .... Check
Set each woofer to 70 dB at 1 meter ..... Check
Set other eleven speakers to 75 dB with pink noise .... Check
Took a breaker (did I miss anything) NO ...... Check
Fired up, Arc Genesis .... check
Set up two speaker profiles, to 7.2.4 for Dolby Atmos ... Check
Set up two speaker profiles, to 2.2 for Stereo .... Check
Calibrated Mic.... Check
Running Arc ... Check
Spacing of mic for five sweeps ..... Check
Sweeps done results checked ..... Check
Set one 7.2.4 and one 2.2 to extended bass boost ... check
Load AVR with Arc's Files .... Check
Sets up the DAC and AVR profile number three profile 2.2 no extended bass .... check
Found my spot ... check
Found some tracks 192/24 Dire Straits Money for Nothing .... Check

Closed my eyes and BLISS .... I got it the stage was set, timbre clear, I was in the envelope. It was like I was there; Mark Knopfler singing to me. This went on for a few hours, playing all kind's of music.
Then the envelope, it was gone. The stage and timbre was still there, but the magic seemed to have faded away. I didn't change anything

Was this a matter of my brain adjusting to a new sound and waking me up?

Has this happened to anyone here?

you changed

 

[Richx200]

Apart from the usual psychological influencers that people have mentioned, I noticed this happened one time as I was listening to headphones for a different reason. Suddenly it didn't sound good anymore so I turned up the amp and it was a bit better, but it still wasn't right, so I was a bit confused and thought it best to quit listening to music and take off my headphones as I thought I was tired or something - when I did take them off I could tell that my right ear was slightly blocked (it's the sort of thing your brain only realises when exposed to the quietness of a known room, and not immediately noticeable in the artificial environment of a headphone, and probably not when listening to music over speakers either), the wax had shifted a bit during the listening session & slightly blocked the right ear. Maybe one or both of your ears became slightly blocked by wax movement during your listening session.

Don't think so. I got them vacuumed and picked a few months back.

 

[Richx200]

you changed

Yes ... I've been reading a lot of Toole and Everest/Pohlmann that's not to say everything has sunk in but, it is getting better. I would like to learn more about how the sub adjustments change the sound; for example, is the subs sound muddy or doubling, what adjustment will correct it. (not that I have these issues, just would like to know)

Since my last post, the following has changed; replaced the MRX 720 with a MRX 1140 (better ARC Genesis and the SVS 13 Ultras amps to the new 1200 watt app adjusted (adds to the ARC DSP if needed and much easier to adjust the subs) Although, the sound of the new AVR MRX 1140 has been impressive I'm waiting to see if that wears off (as of now it still sounds fantastic) Ran the system through ARC (results attached with no adjustments) after my first listening I did adjust the fronts Max EQ from 5k to 500 HZ. (sounds smoother)

I did notice that ARC seems to calibrate the room correction very lean on the bass, so I have been messing around with the sublevels for greater impact. (Stereo about +5dbs & Atmos +15dbs) & deepbass boost 3db each. The explosions are much deeper.

Since much has been added to this thread about psychoacoustics, maybe someone can tell why I fall asleep after 3–4 hours of listening to music?

 

[Robbo99999]

Don't think so. I got them vacuumed and picked a few months back.

Good, but it's still useful information for people to be aware of. (Keeping your ears clean).

 

[Richx200]

Good, but it's still useful information for people to be aware of. (Keeping your ears clean).

Yes, good personal hygiene is always important