Spending ratios on a hifi system

[JohnBooty]

I also much prefer a moderately absorptive room.

What's your definition of "moderately absorptive?"

(Are there quantifiable units of measurement for the "liveness" of a room? Decay times, etc?)

I guess it depends on how we define "moderately absorptive" but I don't think I can imagine anything less than "moderately absorptive" being very enjoyable. My personal definition would be a typical residential room with padded furniture, shelves, etc.

I wouldn't imagine many speakers sounding good in a room consisting primarily of hard, reflective surfaces. Case in point, I heard an iteration of this "million dollar" system at Capital Audiofest this year. The sound did not impress, and others I talked to agreed with me. Sounded merely like the worlds okayest PA system to me. Even Herb Reichert gave it the faint (almost backhanded) praise.

My impression was that the gear itself was stellar but the room itself was not great. Big reflective glass walls/doors right behind the seating area. Essentially just a big bare conference/showroom at a hotel. The room problems were 100% understandable, because it's not like you can customize the room for acoustics for a brief three-day expo. I don't blame the exhibitors.

 

[Theriverlethe]

I also much prefer a moderately absorptive room. I'm now in the process of turning my office into listening room nr 2, and I immediately noticed that sound bounced too much around the walls. I find personally that I come a long way by adding book shelves and a thick carpet, though... but your miles may vary I also genuinely think that this is to a certain degree a matter of taste, preference and habituation - and partly taste in music. There's some evidence that transent-rich rythmic (electronic) music is better suited to "dry" acoustics than orchestral/classical music, for example.

Toole comments on different genre preferences in the article. I should probably read his book. Have they done research in what “normal” people would consider a small room? My room is 18’x12’x9’, but I sit about 7’ from my speakers.

 

[Theriverlethe]

What's your definition of "moderately absorptive?"

(Are there quantifiable units of measurement for the "liveness" of a room? Decay times, etc?)

I guess it depends on how we define "moderately absorptive" but I don't think I can imagine anything less than "moderately absorptive" being very enjoyable. My personal definition would be a typical residential room with padded furniture, shelves, etc.

I wouldn't imagine many speakers sounding good in a room consisting primarily of hard, reflective surfaces. Case in point, I heard an iteration of this "million dollar" system at Capital Audiofest this year. The sound did not impress, and others I talked to agreed with me. Sounded merely like the worlds okayest PA system to me. Even Herb Reichert gave it the faint (almost backhanded) praise.

My impression was that the gear itself was stellar but the room itself was not great. Big reflective glass walls/doors right behind the seating area. Essentially just a big bare conference/showroom at a hotel. The room problems were 100% understandable, because it's not like you can customize the room for acoustics for a brief three-day expo. I don't blame the exhibitors.

If I have any idea what this graph means, I'd say RT60 mostly in the 200-400ms range.

 

[ernestcarl]

The problem with subwoofers is that you really need at least two.

With a single subwoofer, the "subwoofer crawl" method is nearly always going to reveal an ideal placement that is extremely inconvenient.

A pair of decent subwoofers is not cheap. I have a pair of SVS SB-1000s in my main listening room and I think they're awesome, but realistically that's $950 that might have been better spent on better speakers that simply play deep enough on their own. For nearly any musical purpose, you don't need to go too much deeper than the 30hz range.

It can work esp. well for a single location. But, yes, speakers first. Get the sub(s) later.

 

[Blumlein 88]

What are the room dimensions? You can use the modeling tool in REW to see the effects of room dimensions and treatments on predicted response. In my room, for example, which is 24'x14'x 8' the combination of the 8' and the 14' dimensions causes a large 46Hz resonance that needs bass trapping and/or a combination of speakers that don't go too low and multiple subs to live with.

A friend of mine has a square room that no amount of treatment will fix; he has reverted to headphones.

This reminds me, a friend years back was forced to relocate into a room that was metal walls, and 11 feet in every dimension. We could never get any kind of decent sound in that room. Today with more DSP and active source and sink woofers maybe it would have been possible. He was able to move to another room in short order otherwise the plan was to lower the ceiling in a ratio that would help.

 

[thefsb]

2

This reminds me, a friend years back was forced to relocate into a room that was metal walls, and 11 feet in every dimension. We could never get any kind of decent sound in that room. Today with more DSP and active source and sink woofers maybe it would have been possible. He was able to move to another room in short order otherwise the plan was to lower the ceiling in a ratio that would help.

What is a sink woofer?

 

[RayDunzl]

What is a sink woofer?

One or more woofers on the wall behind the listening position that cancels the wave as it approaches the wall from the mains by emitting an inverted phase wave at the right frequency, time and amplitude, to elimnate or greatly subdue the room modes.

I think.

Some day I plan to give that idea a try, having 4 cheap subs to play with, and a weird low frequency room response.

 

[patate91]

I would place room acoustic first too, followed by minidsp SHD, speakers, amp(s).


Once your Room is setup it will be ready for all kind of speakers and configuration. Speakers and dsp can't correct nulls and room mode. Acoustic treaments won't correct everything, but will give you a lot of benefits.

For corner bass traps, you can use pack of rockwool (still packed). Just stack two in a corner, and voilà.

 

[mechapreneur]

KEF LS50 Wireless are on sale for $1799 right now. That covers pre-amp, dac, amp, streamer... add a Sub for $500 (or $2k for the KEF KF92) and you've got one hell of a loud and clean system and budget left over for room treatments and a TV.

The biggest problem you're going to have is too many choices. There is no correct way to build a room and you've given yourself a handsome budget to play around with.

 

[LeftCoastTim]

1. Room treatments
2. Speakers
3. Amplifier
4. DAC
5. Source components (if not integrated with 4).
6. Cabling

1. Room treatments - $1000
2. Speakers - $1500
3. Amplifier - $1500
4 and 5 combined. - $1200
6. Cabling - $50 to $250

My two pennies (rub them together for good luck!):

1. Room treatments: $0
2. Speakers: Revel something something, JBL Pro 708p something something $4000.
3. Amp: Run of the mill AVR (Yamaha?) $500 if Revel speakers, $0 if 708p.
4. DAC: $0 if AVR, something reviewed by Amir $200-$500.
5. Source components: $0 - $500
6. Cabling: $50.

The reason for not doing room treatment is that speakers with good directivity index (like Revels and JBL Pros) behave very well in any room, even reflective ones. If your listening position is in the middle of the room, speakers can be near the walls and everything would be fine.

If your listening position is near a wall, then you'd want to remove room mode peaks (1 or 2) with a DSP (miniDSP $100, calibrated mic $100, REW $0) at the listening position. Don't bother with the dips.

This set up will give you 96.2% of the fidelity you'd get out of your room. You can spend $10,000+++ for the next 3.8%, and that's up to you

PS. You can try some used JBL 6328p's ($1500?) and get 90% of 96.2% for a bunch less money.

(I'm kidding about 96.2%. It's more like 98.5%)

 

[thefsb]

One or more woofers on the wall behind the listening position that cancels the wave as it approaches the wall from the mains by emitting an inverted phase wave at the right frequency, time and amplitude, to elimnate or greatly subdue the room modes.

I was trying to imagine what sort of equipment could actively absorb sound energy. But I guess it's not really that sort of thing and rather a cancellation trick.

 

[thefsb]

For corner bass traps, you can use pack of rockwool (still packed). Just stack two in a corner, and voilà.

The packages appear to be rectangles wrapped tightly in plastic. Isn't that tight plastic a reflector?

 

[patate91]

The packages appear to be rectangles wrapped tightly in plastic. Isn't that tight plastic a reflector?

Yes but it mostly reflect high frequencies. It's ok to have some reflections though, but it can be easily corrected by covering it with fabric.

It's really effective for low frequencies, specially for the annoying room mode and nulls.

I placed two packs behind my speakers and removed around 15db on my room mode. Since I bought only to pack I experienced the effect on various placement combinations (Along with my 8 diy acoustic panels). Once I'll have the budget I'll fill all the cornersof my room.

 

[patate91]

The packages appear to be rectangles wrapped tightly in plastic. Isn't that tight plastic a reflector?

Note that I'm using the pack along the acoustic panel.

It's pretty ugly, but like I said it can ne covered. The aestetic will be the next step for me.

 

[RayDunzl]

I purchased two "bags" of Rockwool a few years ago. Eight 7"x24"x48" slabs, just firm enough to stand on end by themselves.

I was surprised by the amount of random sound they absorbed, just sitting in a stack in the middle of the kitchen.

 

[thefsb]

I purchased two "bags" of Rockwool a few years ago. Eight 7"x24"x48" slabs, just firm enough to stand on end by themselves.

Do you happen to have a picture?

 

[RayDunzl]

Do you happen to have a picture?

Of what?

---

Old Joke:

Cop stops a speeding car. Talks to driver:

You got any I.D.?

'Bout whut?

--

They're currently stacked 1 on top of 2 vertically (so, 8 feet tall) in the corners behind the speakers, and two standing upright behind the couch (4'x4' sound shield) between the couch, the PC and its fans down near the floor, and the wall behind the couch.

Nothing photogenic there.

 

[MattHooper]

My two pennies (rub them together for good luck!):

1. Room treatments: $0
2. Speakers: Revel something something, JBL Pro 708p something something $4000.
3. Amp: Run of the mill AVR (Yamaha?) $500 if Revel speakers, $0 if 708p.
4. DAC: $0 if AVR, something reviewed by Amir $200-$500.
5. Source components: $0 - $500
6. Cabling: $50.

The reason for not doing room treatment is that speakers with good directivity index (like Revels and JBL Pros) behave very well in any room, even reflective ones. If your listening position is in the middle of the room, speakers can be near the walls and everything would be fine.

If your listening position is near a wall, then you'd want to remove room mode peaks (1 or 2) with a DSP (miniDSP $100, calibrated mic $100, REW $0) at the listening position. Don't bother with the dips.

This set up will give you 96.2% of the fidelity you'd get out of your room. You can spend $10,000+++ for the next 3.8%, and that's up to you

PS. You can try some used JBL 6328p's ($1500?) and get 90% of 96.2% for a bunch less money.

(I'm kidding about 96.2%. It's more like 98.5%)

I had a nasty run-in with acoustics.

For many years my 2 channel listening room had been the front room of our house: 13' wide (with a big opening-way to the hall) and 15' deep (to the deepest points of some bay windows). My sofa had always been against the back wall facing the bay windows. Speakers would go on the bay window side of the room. It was a fabulous sounding room. Every pair of speakers I put in there from monitor to full range, sounded even and wonderful.

Then I got the bright idea to add a big screen so it would also do home theater duty. That meant switching the room seating 180 so now the sofa was at the bay windows looking at the back wall. Once I swapped position of the listening sofa and 2 channe speakers the sound went to crap!
Bad suckouts, thin, coloured sound. It was so bad I didn't even want to listen. It seemed like I'd torpedoed my 2 channel hobby in order to do the home theater thing.

So I ended up doing a much more extensive reno of the room with the input of an acoustician. Afterwards speakers sounded great again, better than ever. It doesn't matter what type of speakers I put in there, they all seem to perform close to optimally.

I'm sure some of that could now be done with DSP, but I doubt I'd get as good results. And frankly I'm still somewhat old school and love all sorts of passive speaker designs, I use tube amps etc, so I don't care to bring in the stuff for DSP, hence having a room with good acoustics fits the bill.

 

[HammerSandwich]

So I ended up doing a much more extensive reno of the room with the input of an acoustician. Afterwards speakers sounded great again, better than ever.

I'd be very happy to see more details about this project.

 

[Snarfie]

I did a combo of placing diffuser panels (adressing mostly first reflections) in combination with room correction software. Results in my case/acoustic where more than i aspected. If i have to compare (quality) DAC's or amplifiers versus/comparing using diffuser panels & roomcorrection software is around 60% choosing between comparable speakers around 25%, choosing between quality DAC's amplifiers around 15% of overal listning results.