[MrMan]

So I have a pair of rokit 8's. Been listening to them for a while with a 2 part epoxy floor. The sound is amazing. I tried the speakers with carpeted room and the sound completely changed for the worse. The bass impact and sound stage both considerably lessen. I wouldn't think it would make a big difference but it does. I'd be curious if anyone else has tried this.

 

[Muinarc]

Yes it does change things quite a bit. For optimal tuning flexibility what you need are hard floors and then choose a rug that's size and thickness gives you the best acoustic results

 

[MrMan]

Yes it does change things quite a bit. For optimal tuning flexibility what you need are hard floors and then choose a rug that's size and thickness gives you the best acoustic results

Straight hard floor sounds amazing. The sound stage is crazy wide. Everything sounds like its coming from all directions.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

So I have a pair of rokit 8's. Been listening to them for a while with a 2 part epoxy floor. The sound is amazing. I tried the speakers with carpeted room and the sound completely changed for the worse. The bass impact and sound stage both considerably lessen. I wouldn't think it would make a big difference but it does. I'd be curious if anyone else has tried this.

Straight hard floor sounds amazing. The sound stage is crazy wide. Everything sounds like its coming from all directions.

If you're using them nearfield and by "crazy wide" you mean the cymbals are so far out to the flanks, having the carpet actually corrects the soundstage. The cymbals can't be where the guitars are - no drummer has arms that long.

 

[Digitalis]

Straight hard floor sounds amazing. The sound stage is crazy wide. Everything sounds like its coming from all directions.

Funny thing is studio recordings are made in environments that are intentionally acoustically damped as possible. I'm a musician, very few concert halls I have performed in have solid wood floors, and those halls sound very different when empty Vs when they are full of people.

I can't stand the reverb/echo from playing in hard coated wood flooring or tiled rooms, the room decay is too long when i'm playing fast passages.

My current PC room is well damped, I have diffraction panels, carpets, thick curtains and very solid hard wood furniture. My practice room is set up with as much sound damping as possible.

 

[redkingjoe]

Room acoustic makes huge difference to sound quality. I have been playing with room acoustic for years. Hanging some oil paints, use curtains on glass, wooden floor and furnitures...

I found that using resonators produce amazing sound.

 

[MrMan]

I think the big difference is I am not recording. So my goal isn't to get an accurate sound, rather a sound I enjoy. With the 2 part epoxy its "hard" but has a slight give too it. Prob one of the more unique flooring arrangements for an audio listener. What I love the most is how the bass hits. It's not boomy but it feels like a blanket around you. The same could be said for all of the sound.

 

[Digitalis]

found that using resonators produce amazing sound.

Interesting, however I prefer my sound un-coloured by unnecessary resonance. When I play loud passages on the flute [circa 110dB] I can make crystal glassware resonate, it is incredibly annoying.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I think the big difference is I am not recording. So my goal isn't to get an accurate sound...

Accurate sound matters for playback as well, that way the full effect of what the engineer and the artist were hearing when mastering the record is all over the playback. As much of it as possible anyway.

What I love the most is how the bass hits. It's not boomy but it feels like a blanket around you. The same could be said for all of the sound.

That sounds more like you're having a lot of uncontrolled reflections. Bass for one should be audibly in front of the listener but instruments like the bass guitar and the bass drum have to be imaged behind the vocals, either with the vocals pushed forward or those instruments are pushed to the back. All of the sound likewise should not feel like a blanket all around the listener, but laid out in front in proper, believable, but scaled down locations relative to where the vocals are. The better the speakers and the better controlled the acoustics are in the room, the more holographic the imaged audio should be.

So my goal isn't to get an accurate sound, rather a sound I enjoy.

Still comes down to this though. If you prefer a sound that doesn't actually image accurately then that's how you should listen. Same way that there are people who enjoy Grados and not Audeze, Sennheiser, or heck, the AKG K70x.

 

[MrMan]

I love music and I love gaming. When I game I can easily pin point every location and roughly how far it is from me in the game. So my guess is either the sound stage is that accurate or I'm able to interpret an inaccurate sound stage to accurate. When I listen to my speakers it doesn't sound like its coming out of the speakers. It sounds like the sound is naturally happening in my room. It feels like I have a 7.1 system but only from 2.1 setup. It's been the first and only audio purchase I've made where I was like "yup thats it, i won't need to buy anything else for this purpose."

 

[theveterans]

That sounds more like you're having a lot of uncontrolled reflections. Bass for one should be audibly in front of the listener but instruments like the bass guitar and the bass drum have to be imaged behind the vocals, either with the vocals pushed forward or those instruments are pushed to the back. All of the sound likewise should not feel like a blanket all around the listener, but laid out in front in proper, believable, but scaled down locations relative to where the vocals are. The better the speakers and the better controlled the acoustics are in the room, the more holographic the imaged audio should be.

Agree. I found the carpet on my bedroom to help with reducing reflections dramatically. I actually have a clearer image of the soundstage with my speakers. I also have wood walls and that too help absorbing those sound reflections better than cement.

 

[MrMan]

Agree. I found the carpet on my bedroom to help with reducing reflections dramatically. I actually have a clearer image of the soundstage with my speakers. I also have wood walls and that too help absorbing those sound reflections better than cement.

Is your speakers ported in front or back ?

 

[theveterans]

Back ported

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I love music and I love gaming. When I game I can easily pin point every location and roughly how far it is from me in the game.

So a shot ringing out from 10m away totally feels like it's coming 10m away, through the walls of the room and the house? I'd highly doubt that. Even a home theater speaker set up with DSP simulating distance can not image anything coming that much farther behind where the speakers are because the speakers' dispersion pattern doesn't go there as much to begin with. And then the walls. Even with acoustic panels absorbing the sound and preventing excessive reflections from messing it up it's just not physically possible to image anything far from the bounds of the speaker system.

When I listen to my speakers it doesn't sound like its coming out of the speakers. It sounds like the sound is naturally happening in my room. It feels like I have a 7.1 system but only from 2.1 setup. It's been the first and only audio purchase I've made where I was like "yup thats it, i won't need to buy anything else for this purpose."

As much as in Hi-Fi the goal is for the speakers to "disappear" and make it sound like an actual live performance that you can't trace to be coming out of two speakers, the sound is supposed to image a stage in front of the listener. It is not supposed to feel like a 7.1 or 5.1 or even 4.0 enhanced stereo all around the singer. It's reproducing the performance recorded to simulate where the listener is, and in this case, the mics recording it are positioned where the center audience - ie, the listener at the perfect spot in his own system - thus it's somewhere in front of the band facing the band, not on the stage enveloped by the band.

So my guess is either the sound stage is that accurate or I'm able to interpret an inaccurate sound stage to accurate.

What's happening is this, ie psychoacoustics, for games, but for music it's just more of your preference. Kind of like AKG vs Grado.