Strange phenomenon positioning the speakers

[FrankBRC2]

Good evening everyone,

I'm facing a strange situation and I thought I could use your help.

I have no experience in hifi gears, I just love listening to music and I wanted to improve the sound quality.

So I bought my first passive system, simple system.

Parassound hint 6 connected to my PC, and Kef r3 speakers.

Before, I only had active speakers, Yamaha, KRK, Edifier s3000 pro, all on stands far from the desk, because of the desk space. They all sounded bad. I even bought two dacs, I imported Topping d90 and then gustard x26pro, which made little difference in the results.

It was then that I thought of investing in something more expensive. It was frustrating not hearing the improvement the seller promised me.

I have to buy everything online, I can't audition. There are no stores in my state that sell these products. Got to read and listen to reviews, lots of them.

One day I put the r3 on the floor to put the edifier speakers on the stand to make a comparison. The Edifier 3000pro has a built in dac, so I connected an long optical cable to the PC. I listened a little and changed the settings on the PC to listen to Parasound + Kef (speakers on the floor).

I had a shock. The songs gained bass, dynamics. Life. I did the same thing with the edifiers. Again, the sound was much better than on the stands.

So I thought the problem was the cheap stands I have. I bought a much better stand. Heavy, steady, 70kg capacity each. For my surprise, same result as the cheap stands I already had.

So after some tests, I saw that as I lifted the speakers the sound got worse and worse.

And that's the mystery. I cannot understand this phenomenon.

I'm thinking of buying floostading speakers, but will that solve the problem, or will I just waste money?

My room doesn't have acoustic treatment, it's small. has no echo at all.

Can you help me?

 

[hnash53]

Sounds like (pun intended) that you're getting significant room interaction with your speaker placement. If it sounds good on the floor, it is good. Go with it.
Floorstanders might sound great.

 

[Philbo King]

When you put a speaker next to any boundary (wall or floor) the omnidirectional bass is boosted by 3 dB per boundary by reflecting off that surface. So, in a corner on the floor, you can see as much as 12 dB bass boost in an untreated room. The corner effectively forms a megaphone... If it sounds good, go with it.

 

[OldHvyMec]

Put a piece of cardboard the width of the speaker and from the base of speaker to the floor. It will stop the bass driver from going under vs forward.
Second the baffle width and length are points of first reflection. It's called bearding a stand. Think of a triangle and the flat part forward and even with
the front baffle. Your not going to get better bass from a standmount. It can actually add to much bass if the room is to small. Shorten the bottom and
make sure the beard is pretty tight against the bottom of the speaker cabinet. The shorter the beard the less bass you will generate.

Height is usually for tweeter placement.

I think what I suggested will work for an inexpensive fix. You can dress the beard up any way you like. Wood, ceiling tile, laminate cardboard.
Convex, Flat or Concave make a difference too.

Fruit for thought.

Regards

 

[HarmonicTHD]

@Philbo King explained it correctly. These phenomena can easily be measured with a UMIK1 (ca 80 USD) and REW (free). As these phenomena also can be unnaturally boosting bass in some frequencies, with those type of measurements one can identify potential problems and compensate with eg RoomEQ. Alternatively a modern AVR does the same to various extent (Audyssey, Dirac etc).

 

[Eetu]

In addition to boundary gain you also have to consider SBIR. Typically at stand height you might get a dip at 90-130Hz due to cancellation from the floor. When you place the speaker on the floor the effect is stronger and shifts up in frequency so that you might get a big dip at ~900Hz. You can try experimenting with different distances here.

There's also floor bounce to consider which shifts up in freq as well as you place the speakers on the floor vs keep them on their stands.

So when you have the speakers on the floor you likely get boosted bass and scooped upper mids.

 

[Cote Dazur]

It was then that I thought of investing in something more expensive. It was frustrating not hearing the improvement the seller promised me.

Most electronic make zero difference (if not defective) Speaker of similar design, will also sound remarkably similar.

I had a shock. The songs gained bass, dynamics. Life.

You are lucky, many never make it that far, you just found out that where you place the speakers and where you sit is paramount to how your music will sound in a given room. The equipment is negligible in comparison. You can now stop wasting money on "upgrade" and place everything where it sound great to you for free.

I'm thinking of buying floostading speakers, but will that solve the problem, or will I just waste money?

I hope you know by now, until you know where to place speakers and where to sit, you are just wasting your money.

When you have a good grasp on that concept, then, yes, depending on what you want to improve, bigger speakers or adding subwoofers, if correctly located, can make a big improvement on the sound.

 

[napfkuchen]

Floorstanding speakers might have more bass output. But if this cancels out at your listening position 2x0 is still 0. With additional subwoofer(s) you have much more freedom regarding placement. Maybe you can also try out different positions for your desk / seating?

 

[FrankBRC2]

First of all, I wanted to thank you for the advice you are giving me.

You have certainly noticed that English is not my native language. I am using translators to write. So there are many terms that have been mentioned that I am not understanding even by translation, such as "beard" in relation to speakers.

I wanted to give more information: Room size - height: 2.76m; length 4.11m; width 2.42m. Walls and ceiling are made of bricks and cement. The floor is plain ceramic without any covering, very simple. In this environment, in addition to the desk, there is a wardrobe and a bed. It's my bedroom. I don't have a dedicated space for listening to music.

The problem is not only the lack of bass in the music, but also in the midrange and the lack of dynamics. It's as if the room sucks almost all the life out of the music, making the sound thin when the speakers are on stands. I know that ideally the tweeters should be at ear level. I can tell that the cymbals, the high frequencies of the tweeter, decay when I put the speakers on the floor. I think my room is already super over-damping, dull.

The source of my music is Qobuz, Audirvana, and lossless albums stored on my SSD. I exclusively listen to heavy metal.

And I don't have many options for large speakers to buy here. Kef, Dynaudio, B&W... I heard that Genelec can be magical in adapting to the environment using its GLM. But once again, thank you very much.

 

[Chrispy]

What about heavy metal particularly needs hi fidelity reproduction unless at original spl ? Which isn't likely at home....

 

[DVDdoug]

I know that ideally the tweeters should be at ear level.

Or if the speakers are on the floor you can angle them up to point at your ears. And you might want to angle them in (so if the tweeters were spotlights they would point at your head).

You should get similar bass gain if you hang the speakers near the ceiling or put them on a shelf near the ceiling.

Of course, you'll hear the sound coming from above or below so you won't get a "natural soundstage", if that bothers you. My tweeters are near the ceiling, angled in and down, and it doesn't bother me that the sound comes from above.

 

[ozzy9832001]

What about heavy metal particularly needs hi fidelity reproduction unless at original spl ? Which isn't likely at home....

I would assume the kick would be best for metal with a low decay time -- though, he wouldn't need a great system, but a good one with some quality room treatment.

 

[FeddyLost]

Room size - height: 2.76m; length 4.11m; width 2.42m. Walls and ceiling are made of bricks and cement. The floor is plain ceramic without any covering, very simple. In this environment, in addition to the desk, there is a wardrobe and a bed. It's my bedroom. I don't have a dedicated space for listening to music.

Download REW and try out to simulate placement of speakers and your head in Room Sim.
If there will be no deep bass dips due to modal issues (very possible according to your description) most probably you just like much more bass than you have "naturally" in your room. It's very often in case of metalheads. Then you can try out some subwoofer augmentation for best punch and kick.
Otherwise you can try out rearranging furniture and speakers.

 

[kirk02]

Add some room treatment on ceiling and walls and corners. You will hear an improvement and not that expensive.