Need Confirmation of Room Issues (Cross-posted at AVS Forums)

[CDMC]

Hi,

I thought I would post this here also to get some feedback.

So I have been looking a pair of new speakers for my main system. A little about it. I listen to music, no home theater. The room is 21 feet wide, 19 feet deep, with a cathedral ceiling that slopes from 10 to 18 feet. It open through a large opening to the dining room one side, a long hall behind, and the kitchen. The main portion of the room is 13x21 in the form of a sunken living room (thanks 1970s).

Listening position is setup on the long wall, with the speakers about 3 feet out from the front wall (speakers 7 feet apart), listening position 9 feet from the speaker and 18" from a pony wall behind the listening position (side walls are 7 feet from the speakers, so no strong first reflection). The room is lively, with hardwood floors, drywall, two sofas, windows on one side, and not much else.

I have been using Magnepan 3.5s with a Rythmik F15HP in the room. Behind the Maggies are 4 1x4' GIK acoustics Alpha Diffusor Absorbers, with another 6 2'x2' spot panels around the room to help a bit with absorption. With this the room has sounded pretty good, a bit lively, but Maggies tend to like a bit lively room.

After some time looking at speakers, I had an opportunity to listen to a pair of Salk Song 3 speakers at Schiit's Schitr and liked them. Transparent without sounding bright. While contemplating ordering a pair, a used set of Song 3s popped up for sale at a great price, so I purchased them to have a go in my living room.

The Song 3s do not sound good in my living room. They have a forward, harsh quality on a lot of music. Knowing I have heard the same speaker (same except the earlier papyrus midrange versus the titanium in mine, which is supposed to make a very small change in sound) sound very good, I decided to start playing around. I played with cutting the 1-3khz range with the parametric in Roon, cutting by 2.5db helped a great deal. I then took my office speakers (Totem Mites) which sound nice in my office, a bit warm, and a big midbass hump (which I cut down by 7db to flatten with the parametric EQ in Jriver and Roon), but really nice sounding an not at all bright or harsh. The same speakers, placed on top of the Salks, sounded forward and harsh in the living room, as well as pretty hollow.

I decided to pull out my laptop and REW and start measuring. I ended up running 9 sweeps of each speaker moving the mike in a 5" square around the listening position. I then averaged the responses to come up with a composite curve. I then took the main listening position measurements and ran waterfall plots and RT60 plots for both speakers. Finally, I ran all the same measurements on the Mites in my office in their normal desktop listening position to compare and see how they measured where they sound good.

What I found was interesting. First, above 4khz, the Totem's have more energy. I would have told you they have less treble than the Salks. Second, the Salks are very flat from 600hz to 2,500 hz, then shelve down about 2-3db from 2,500 hz to 3,000 hz. Third, there is no prominence in the midrange of the Salks that would show the harshness and forwardness I hear. I level matched the measurements at 500hz and at 2khz.

Turning to the waterfalls and RT60 what I believe I am hearing shows up. I see really long decay times in the living room. For the RT20 times, I see about 700ms at 2khz in the living room, versus 300ms for the office. The waterfall plots show similar long decay times in the living room, especially in the 2khz range.

So my thought after looking at this is that the harsh an forward sound I am hearing is an overly lively room. I think that a large area rung, curtains, and some additional absorption is needed to bring the decay times down and in turn the harshness of speakers. I have attached a plethora of photos of my measurements for reference. Thoughts are appreciated.

 

[Hipper]

I would like to see some photos of the room and perhaps a plan if possible.

How much flexibility do you have to move things about and to add room treatments? Real bass control (which is the number one priority. You can see you have bass problems when you look at the Salk REW waterfall plot. Both uneven dB levels and long resonations) requires large absorbers - say two feet square from floor to ceiling in each corner for example. Is that possible? The alternative is either using say four small subs or DSP/EQ.

Magnepans being dipole speakers (sound comes out the front AND back) seem to require different positioning to the more typical box speakers, particularly regarding the distance from the front wall, and perhaps different room treatment too. Different speakers can behave differently not only depending on their type but on their dispersion properties for the mids and highs.

My understanding of cathedral ceilings is that it is best to have the speakers at the lower end. Ideally you should also try to have a symmetrical layout particularly width ways - that is, each speaker should have the same side wall type and distance.

My general procedure for correcting frequency response is first to get the best positions for speakers and chair for the smoothest bass. Then add room treatment. Finally tidy up with DSP/EQ. You may find that once you've tidied the bass up the mid and higher frequencies will sound good too.

 

[majingotan]

Salk Song 3 speakers at Schiit's Schitr

I don't think Schiit's Schiitr room is even acoustically treated IIRC

 

[pozz]

Hi,

I thought I would post this here also to get some feedback.

So I have been looking a pair of new speakers for my main system. A little about it. I listen to music, no home theater. The room is 21 feet wide, 19 feet deep, with a cathedral ceiling that slopes from 10 to 18 feet. It open through a large opening to the dining room one side, a long hall behind, and the kitchen. The main portion of the room is 13x21 in the form of a sunken living room (thanks 1970s).

Listening position is setup on the long wall, with the speakers about 3 feet out from the front wall (speakers 7 feet apart), listening position 9 feet from the speaker and 18" from a pony wall behind the listening position (side walls are 7 feet from the speakers, so no strong first reflection). The room is lively, with hardwood floors, drywall, two sofas, windows on one side, and not much else.

I have been using Magnepan 3.5s with a Rythmik F15HP in the room. Behind the Maggies are 4 1x4' GIK acoustics Alpha Diffusor Absorbers, with another 6 2'x2' spot panels around the room to help a bit with absorption. With this the room has sounded pretty good, a bit lively, but Maggies tend to like a bit lively room.

After some time looking at speakers, I had an opportunity to listen to a pair of Salk Song 3 speakers at Schiit's Schitr and liked them. Transparent without sounding bright. While contemplating ordering a pair, a used set of Song 3s popped up for sale at a great price, so I purchased them to have a go in my living room.

The Song 3s do not sound good in my living room. They have a forward, harsh quality on a lot of music. Knowing I have heard the same speaker (same except the earlier papyrus midrange versus the titanium in mine, which is supposed to make a very small change in sound) sound very good, I decided to start playing around. I played with cutting the 1-3khz range with the parametric in Roon, cutting by 2.5db helped a great deal. I then took my office speakers (Totem Mites) which sound nice in my office, a bit warm, and a big midbass hump (which I cut down by 7db to flatten with the parametric EQ in Jriver and Roon), but really nice sounding an not at all bright or harsh. The same speakers, placed on top of the Salks, sounded forward and harsh in the living room, as well as pretty hollow.

I decided to pull out my laptop and REW and start measuring. I ended up running 9 sweeps of each speaker moving the mike in a 5" square around the listening position. I then averaged the responses to come up with a composite curve. I then took the main listening position measurements and ran waterfall plots and RT60 plots for both speakers. Finally, I ran all the same measurements on the Mites in my office in their normal desktop listening position to compare and see how they measured where they sound good.

What I found was interesting. First, above 4khz, the Totem's have more energy. I would have told you they have less treble than the Salks. Second, the Salks are very flat from 600hz to 2,500 hz, then shelve down about 2-3db from 2,500 hz to 3,000 hz. Third, there is no prominence in the midrange of the Salks that would show the harshness and forwardness I hear. I level matched the measurements at 500hz and at 2khz.

Turning to the waterfalls and RT60 what I believe I am hearing shows up. I see really long decay times in the living room. For the RT20 times, I see about 700ms at 2khz in the living room, versus 300ms for the office. The waterfall plots show similar long decay times in the living room, especially in the 2khz range.

So my thought after looking at this is that the harsh an forward sound I am hearing is an overly lively room. I think that a large area rung, curtains, and some additional absorption is needed to bring the decay times down and in turn the harshness of speakers. I have attached a plethora of photos of my measurements for reference. Thoughts are appreciated.

Hi, I would suggest that the main harshness is due to the medium Q peak around 500Hz and low Q peak around 2kHz, not the decay times. Pictures and a sketch of your living room with speaker/listening positions would definitely help the assessment.

Driver materials have no inherent sound. The main differences would be FR and speaker radiation pattern/directivity as they combine with your room.

 

[CDMC]

I don't think Schiit's Schiitr room is even acoustically treated IIRC

It is not treated, but does have carpet and bookshelves which helps.

 

[CDMC]

I really didn't want to post photos as the room is a mess. Room layout in this room is pain because of the sunken living room. I will be removing the pony wall next year, but it still doesn't fix the sunken problem. I do have some flexibility in adding room treatments, but figured I would start with a large area rug and possibly curtains or blinds.

 

[CDMC]

Also, here is just the Salk with the average of 9 measurements around the listening position and 1/12 octave smoothing.

 

[pozz]

I really didn't want to post photos as the room is a mess. Room layout in this room is pain because of the sunken living room. I will be removing the pony wall next year, but it still doesn't fix the sunken problem. I do have some flexibility in adding room treatments, but figured I would start with a large area rug and possibly curtains or blinds.

If the speakers will remain where they are, the pony wall is your main issue.

I think you should do a simple experiment: take a thick duvet and drape it over the pony wall. If it sounds at all better, you can consider getting a thick absorber, although the material will have to be pretty resilient since fibreglass, rockwool and denim do not react well to being jostled or compressed (I'm assuming you'll rest your head on them).

You could consider serious bass traps, but those will be pretty inefficient and too large given your room layout.

The easiest way forward will likely be EQ and that pony wall experiment I describe above. If you look up the absoption coefficients of rugs, drapes and so on they are largely ineffective, and are not a good use of money unless you like the looks.

 

[amirm]

Temporarily remove the table and put in a thick throw rug there (or a few towels if you don't have a rug handy). Another thing to try is the toe-in for the speakers. Rotate them out and it should make them more diffused.

 

[CDMC]

I have two GIK 2x4’ acoustic panels I will borrow from my office and try behind the sofa.

 

[amirm]

Crazy idea but cover those ribbon tweeters and see if you like the sound better ( carefully tape something over them). They are usually there to add "zing" for marketing reasons usually. I find them to usually sound too bright.

Did you listen to the same music in Schiit store as you are doing now in home?

 

[DDF]

@CDMC Its free and easy so try a simple experiment. Use low shelf eq and boost 3 to 5 dB below 200hz (if its getting you somehere, play with fc and boost dB)

A deficit of bass often head fakes itself as a mid or high end problem. Reverse is also true. A prominent 200Hz peak in my office made the speakers sound dull. Eqing the peak solved the issue.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

This is caused by the radiation pattern of the speakers in combination with acoustic properties of your room.

Both new speakers you describe has a more similar pattern, while the magnestat panels are very different, that is the reason why the panels work, and the others speakers don't. Your room looks nice, and has some properties that makes it better acoustically than measurements show you at first glance, the early reflection zone is quite good. But there is very little acoustic damping farther away from the speakers, and this causes very slow decay, there will be a lot of "room sound". If you like it, or at least can live with a quite live room, you should be able to achieve good sound. To fix this acoustically, would change the interior of the room, as it requires lots of absorption placed around walls and ceiling. The easiest and best way is to choose a speaker with better radiation pattern.

No eq can fix this, if you take down the "harshness" you loose too much of the direct sound in that frequency range, the tonal balance will always be off, no matter how you try to fix it.

If you had posted the REW .mdat-file, it would be possible to see this in the measurements you did.

 

[majingotan]

If you like it, or at least can live with a quite live room, you should be able to achieve good sound. To fix this acoustically, would change the interior of the room, as it requires lots of absorption placed around walls and ceiling. The easiest and best way is to choose a speaker with better radiation pattern.

No eq can fix this, if you take down the "harshness" you loose too much of the direct sound in that frequency range, the tonal balance will always be off, no matter how you try to fix it.

During my 2017 my USA visit, I've been on that Schiitr room and had demoed that Salk Song 3 speakers and Kef R400B sub with their schitty DAC and integrated amp (Yggdrasil + Ragnarok) and there's absolutely no absorption panels whatsover, etc. placed around walls and ceiling. I don't really think that the empty book shelf on the back and the small carpet on the bottom would significantly help with the room acoustics. From my subjective memory the speakers didn't sound harsh like what OP mentioned on his trip there nor it sounded tonally off (no EQ or any DSP applied) and I was playing it through Spotify for Mac OS.

Maybe the Salk Song 3's have a bad unit variance where newer units (like the one from OP) just give off that harsh sound while the older units have less or devoid of that harshness since EQ won't fix it without disrupting tonal balance.

 

[Doodski]

I have two GIK 2x4’ acoustic panels I will borrow from my office and try behind the sofa.

I used these directly behind my head and they worked very well. I propped them right against the wall and used them for damping and they worked wonders in a rectangular room with hard surfaces.

 

[Hipper]

Is it practical for you to place the speakers where your dog is (hoping he won't mind. I don't want to start an argument with him or her!) - the window wall? That might be worth trying.

The GIK Alphas diffuse as well as absorb. Diffusion needs a certain distance to be effective. It might be worth hearing (or even measuring) what impact removing those panels might make. Also I agree with Amir's suggestion to remove the coffee table as it might reflect sound upwards to your ears.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

During my 2017 my USA visit, I've been on that Schiitr room and had demoed that Salk Song 3 speakers and Kef R400B sub with their schitty DAC and integrated amp (Yggdrasil + Ragnarok) and there's absolutely no absorption panels whatsover, etc. placed around walls and ceiling. I don't really think that the empty book shelf on the back and the small carpet on the bottom would significantly help with the room acoustics. From my subjective memory the speakers didn't sound harsh like what OP mentioned on his trip there nor it sounded tonally off (no EQ or any DSP applied) and I was playing it through Spotify for Mac OS.

Maybe the Salk Song 3's have a bad unit variance where newer units (like the one from OP) just give off that harsh sound while the older units have less or devoid of that harshness since EQ won't fix it without disrupting tonal balance.

View attachment 43661

This room is different acoustically. Acoustic properites are affected by dimensions - distance to surfaces, location and angle of surfaces. size of surfaces. Acoustic treatment - or lack of such - does not define how it performs acoustically alone.

In the 1. post there are measurements of the speakers, and another one for reference. Those measurements show that the different speakers are more similar than the one reference speaker in different rooms. They also show that frequency response is reasonably smooth and flat for all speakers and rooms. There is nothing here that indicates there is anything wrong with the speakers. They just do not suit the acoustic properties of that particular room.

 

[CDMC]

During my 2017 my USA visit, I've been on that Schiitr room and had demoed that Salk Song 3 speakers and Kef R400B sub with their schitty DAC and integrated amp (Yggdrasil + Ragnarok) and there's absolutely no absorption panels whatsover, etc. placed around walls and ceiling. I don't really think that the empty book shelf on the back and the small carpet on the bottom would significantly help with the room acoustics. From my subjective memory the speakers didn't sound harsh like what OP mentioned on his trip there nor it sounded tonally off (no EQ or any DSP applied) and I was playing it through Spotify for Mac OS.

Maybe the Salk Song 3's have a bad unit variance where newer units (like the one from OP) just give off that harsh sound while the older units have less or devoid of that harshness since EQ won't fix it without disrupting tonal balance.

View attachment 43661

There is a lot more stuff in the Schiit room now. I am sure the issue I have with the Songs is room related, as my Totems take on the same sound in the room.

 

[CDMC]

Getting closer. I put the 242 panels behind the listening position and pillows on the coffee table to absorb the first reflection point. Definitely better sound, but still a bit forward. I took some more measurements (5 points instead of 9, but in a 10" square and the middle and averaged), 500hz peak gone, waterfall much better, but still a peak at 1.5khz (ignore the bass changes, first measurements were full range, these with the sub).

 

[garbulky]

You've got a tough acoustic situation. More room treatment might help - but keep in mind it may be a LOT more and it may ruin the aesthetics of the room.