Pictures Of Your High End System II (Same Rules Apply)
Mar 27, 2013 at 11:53 PM Post #76 of 1,052
Yup. Too bad he music is good at best since Come Away With Me, IMO. Which was absolutely stunning.


Yea, I still remember the 2003 Grammys, when she basically swept the entire show. She won so many, towards the end she didn't even know what to say lol. Ever since that album, she really lost that magic. But I guess that happens to a lot of artists.
 
Mar 28, 2013 at 12:13 AM Post #77 of 1,052
She's still a great vocalist don't get me wrong, but Little Broken Hearts was her worst work to date.
 
On the other hand I own Come Away With Me on CD, SACD, HD Tracks, and Vinyl (Both masters). It's an amazing album. It's kind of my Diana Krall, but at the risk of sounding like a dirty hipster, I was way into this album before it was an 'audiophile staple'.
 
Quote:
Yea, I still remember the 2003 Grammys, when she basically swept the entire show. She won so many, towards the end she didn't even know what to say lol. Ever since that album, she really lost that magic. But I guess that happens to a lot of artists.

 
Mar 28, 2013 at 11:36 AM Post #79 of 1,052
I hate throwing out arbitrary numbers like that, too...but everytime I move around my list it still comes out to about that much.
 
As for room treatment...I actually recently found a company that has great prices on room treatments. I should be able to do my whole room including bass traps for around $600.
 
Quote:
 
I'm not sure $10K is going to be enough for room treatment MT!
 

 
Mar 28, 2013 at 7:54 PM Post #80 of 1,052
On the 38hz on a 4" driver thing: if we're merely talking about ability to create sound at that frequency, couldn't you just play a sound tha was only that frequency, and if the driver is making clean sound (not farty/boomy/distorted etc) then it's capable? It doesn't seem like a difficult concept to me, but I'm eager to learn.
 
What does it mean for a speaker to be "too big"? If it fills the room too much, is it not similar enough to just turn the volume down? I think I kinda get the difference. I have a few songs where if it's not played a bit "loud" then it just doesn't sound good at all, or too quiet, too soft, etc. Is it similar to that? Like either the room is so full of sound it's distracting, and if not that then soft, quiet, humble, un-involving?
 
Morbid: I bet that's just for the material itself (opposed to having a professional do it). I asked a guy at a local hi-fi shop how much it would be for him to treat a room out of curiosity, and he said "anywhere from $2k to like $10k, depends on the room". We've discussed it before; learning proper room treatment (that pic you gave me was excellent to start! thank you) would be great for me. I wanna learn how to make my basement sound good. It's a pretty deep room, so it sounds kinda boomy, even though I wasn't sitting too far back at the time. But they were significantly cheaper speakers and not properly arranged (and active vs. passive in my main rig I guess), but I still have the gut feeling the room depth and being a basement had something to do with it. It's a shame; the basement for all other reasons besides sonically would be a great place for me :frowning2: .
 
I'm 15 so I still live at home and I'm not entirely fond of the room I'm in with my stereo. I'm kind of whatever the opposite of a claustrophobe is (hehe), I kinda like being shut in instead of out in the open and exposed. I still want speakers though, as I'm a soundstage junkie if anything (and basshead too I suppose), I like the music to envelop me in a different environment (I think we agree that electronic does a good job of that, right Morbid?). Maybe moving a bedroom over (I'm adjacent to my dad's room currently, I've tried and monitors do not work well. He claims to not care about the sound much, but I still do) and having studio monitors for a while would be good. What would be the drawbacks of a nearfield setup as opposed to, say, Morbid's Harbeths or just any traditional stereo setup?
(sorry to pick on you so much Morbid! I'm just very familiar with you and you're someone I look up to for this stuff. Thanks for all your advice! I'm still truly a noob, even with above 1k posts 
size]
)
 
Also sorry for the block of text just asking from the community. I'll post pics of my (stereo) rig here in a moment :)
 
Mar 28, 2013 at 8:04 PM Post #81 of 1,052

 
 

 

 

 
My turntable (actually not in this rig at the moment but still nice pictures. Selling it if someone wants it, I haven't formally listed it anywhere yet)
 

 

 
My Polk Audio Monitor 10s. Very nice for the price of free :) (this whole rig was inherited minus the laptop and DAC)
 

 
My wonderful cable jungle, teehee
 

 
Laptop on top of my PS Audio DLIII DAC and JVC R-X500B receiver. (not using that CD player)
 
Very nice rig for what it is. More bass would be nice, I'm only on passive radiators, so my bass essentially comes from two 4" (?) drivers. Trust me, they can get fairly deep, but I have to push them pretty hard to get there. EQing up the bass either throws everything off or does nothing.
 
I consider this high end for an average teenager :)
Next up should be room treatments, to see what effect that has. That room (and the majority of my house) is just wood paneling over drywall. Some parts hollow here and there.
 
Mar 28, 2013 at 8:25 PM Post #82 of 1,052
That is for the panels only. That's MUCH lower than most panels come it to when considering doing a whole room. 
 
I'm not worried about placing them. I'm confident I can do that. A little know how and a lot if experimentation.
 
Quote:
On the 38hz on a 4" driver thing: if we're merely talking about ability to create sound at that frequency, couldn't you just play a sound tha was only that frequency, and if the driver is making clean sound (not farty/boomy/distorted etc) then it's capable? It doesn't seem like a difficult concept to me, but I'm eager to learn.
 
What does it mean for a speaker to be "too big"? If it fills the room too much, is it not similar enough to just turn the volume down? I think I kinda get the difference. I have a few songs where if it's not played a bit "loud" then it just doesn't sound good at all, or too quiet, too soft, etc. Is it similar to that? Like either the room is so full of sound it's distracting, and if not that then soft, quiet, humble, un-involving?
 
Morbid: I bet that's just for the material itself (opposed to having a professional do it). I asked a guy at a local hi-fi shop how much it would be for him to treat a room out of curiosity, and he said "anywhere from $2k to like $10k, depends on the room". We've discussed it before; learning proper room treatment (that pic you gave me was excellent to start! thank you) would be great for me. I wanna learn how to make my basement sound good. It's a pretty deep room, so it sounds kinda boomy, even though I wasn't sitting too far back at the time. But they were significantly cheaper speakers and not properly arranged (and active vs. passive in my main rig I guess), but I still have the gut feeling the room depth and being a basement had something to do with it. It's a shame; the basement for all other reasons besides sonically would be a great place for me :frowning2: .
 
I'm 15 so I still live at home and I'm not entirely fond of the room I'm in with my stereo. I'm kind of whatever the opposite of a claustrophobe is (hehe), I kinda like being shut in instead of out in the open and exposed. I still want speakers though, as I'm a soundstage junkie if anything (and basshead too I suppose), I like the music to envelop me in a different environment (I think we agree that electronic does a good job of that, right Morbid?). Maybe moving a bedroom over (I'm adjacent to my dad's room currently, I've tried and monitors do not work well. He claims to not care about the sound much, but I still do) and having studio monitors for a while would be good. What would be the drawbacks of a nearfield setup as opposed to, say, Morbid's Harbeths or just any traditional stereo setup?
(sorry to pick on you so much Morbid! I'm just very familiar with you and you're someone I look up to for this stuff. Thanks for all your advice! I'm still truly a noob, even with above 1k posts 
size]
)
 
Also sorry for the block of text just asking from the community. I'll post pics of my (stereo) rig here in a moment :)

 
Mar 29, 2013 at 2:28 AM Post #83 of 1,052
Quote:
 

 
 

 
My wonderful cable jungle, teehee
 
 

 
 
Nice setup there, especially for the price.
 
I'll see your cable jungle and raise you a cable rain forest:
 
 

 

 
 
You don't even want to see the rest of it..... crazy stuff. Disgusting even.
 
Mar 29, 2013 at 8:39 AM Post #84 of 1,052

 

 
New photos of my system


 
Mar 29, 2013 at 1:11 PM Post #85 of 1,052
Nice Scottsmrnyc!!
 
 
Quote:
 
 
Nice setup there, especially for the price.
 
I'll see your cable jungle and raise you a cable rain forest.
 
 
You don't even want to see the rest of it..... crazy stuff. Disgusting even.

project86: Yours actually looks a bit more tidy and less tangly but more crowded because of the boxes and adapters and bigger cables. I think I'd prefer mine if I needed to swap something out..to each his own 
size]

 
Mar 29, 2013 at 11:26 PM Post #86 of 1,052
Quote:
On the 38hz on a 4" driver thing: if we're merely talking about ability to create sound at that frequency, couldn't you just play a sound tha was only that frequency, and if the driver is making clean sound (not farty/boomy/distorted etc) then it's capable? It doesn't seem like a difficult concept to me, but I'm eager to learn.
 
What does it mean for a speaker to be "too big"? If it fills the room too much, is it not similar enough to just turn the volume down? I think I kinda get the difference. I have a few songs where if it's not played a bit "loud" then it just doesn't sound good at all, or too quiet, too soft, etc. Is it similar to that? Like either the room is so full of sound it's distracting, and if not that then soft, quiet, humble, un-involving?

 
It's a classic tradeoff between efficiency & bass-extension vs. size. All else being equal, the bigger the size of driver and cabinet, the more efficiency and extension it can yield. There are ways to tweak this, e.g. controlled directivity via horns/waveguides (which can be a very good idea), but I'm definitely in the camp that bigger is better. Modern materials and computer design have made large strides towards our ability to build better stuff at a given size, but if you want it all then bigger is still better, and you still won't hit diminishing returns until you're at some pretty big honkin' speakers. 
 
Sure, a small driver can produce a sound at 20 Hz, but its SPL level at that frequency will be several orders of magnitude below usefulness. The speaker manufacturer can damp down the mids & treble to yield a flat response with "great" extension on a small woofer, but then the overall efficiency is terrible. Sometimes you'll see small speakers quote seemingly impressive bass extension; then just look at the horrifically low efficiency that goes with that number (if they're honest). Your inclination might be to throw gobs of power at the speaker to rectify the situation, but guess what else small speakers tend to suck at? Dissipating heat from all that power -- more than 99% of the power delivered form your amps is burned up as heat in the speaker's voice coils, even in efficient speakers (more like > 99.99% in inefficient speakers). A small hifi speaker that can handle 1000 Watts is rare indeed. 
 
With rooms there is a "room gain" that affects the lower frequencies. The smaller the room, the more the lower frequencies are reinforced by the room. A large speaker that measures flat anechoic (i.e. effectively open space; ignoring room effects as much as possible) is going to be bass-heavy when placed in a small room. The way a speaker's design accounts for room gain varies between manufacturers. For this reason, a big speaker designed to play flat into a BIG room is going to sound bass-heavy in a small room. Then -- eureka! It's too big for that room :)
 
You can much more reasonably "get away with" smaller speakers in a small room, especially in a near-field configuration -- but in those cases watch out  for issues with coherence if the tweeter/midrange drivers aren't very close together.
 
Mar 30, 2013 at 12:11 AM Post #87 of 1,052
Quote:
 
It's a classic tradeoff between efficiency & bass-extension vs. size. All else being equal, the bigger the size of driver and cabinet, the more efficiency and extension it can yield. There are ways to tweak this, e.g. controlled directivity via horns/waveguides (which can be a very good idea), but I'm definitely in the camp that bigger is better. Modern materials and computer design have made large strides towards our ability to build better stuff at a given size, but if you want it all then bigger is still better, and you still won't hit diminishing returns until you're at some pretty big honkin' speakers. 
 
Sure, a small driver can produce a sound at 20 Hz, but its SPL level at that frequency will be several orders of magnitude below usefulness. The speaker manufacturer can damp down the mids & treble to yield a flat response with "great" extension on a small woofer, but then the overall efficiency is terrible. Sometimes you'll see small speakers quote seemingly impressive bass extension; then just look at the horrifically low efficiency that goes with that number (if they're honest). Your inclination might be to throw gobs of power at the speaker to rectify the situation, but guess what else small speakers tend to suck at? Dissipating heat from a! ll that power -- more than 99% of the power delivered form your amps is burned up as heat in the speaker's voice coils, even in efficient speakers (more like > 99.99% in inefficient speakers). A small hifi speaker that can handle 1000 Watts is rare indeed. 
 
With rooms there is a "room gain" that affects the lower frequencies. The smaller the room, the more the lower frequencies are reinforced by the room. A large speaker that measures flat anechoic (i.e. effectively open space; ignoring room effects as much as possible) is going to be bass-heavy when placed in a small room. The way a speaker's design accounts for room gain varies between manufacturers. For this reason, a big speaker designed to play flat into a BIG room is going to sound bass-heavy in a small room. Then -- eureka! It's too big for that room :)
 
You can much more reasonably "get away with" smaller speakers in a small room, especially in a near-field configuration -- but in those cases watch out  for issues with coherence if the tweeter/midrange drivers aren't very close together.

Thank you for that! You knocked out both with one answer, nice! Now I must ask: what would be the cons to a nearfield setup vs. a conventional stereo setup?
 
Mar 30, 2013 at 2:17 PM Post #89 of 1,052
Quote:
Thank you for that! You knocked out both with one answer, nice! Now I must ask: what would be the cons to a nearfield setup vs. a conventional stereo setup?

 
Hi,
Nearfield gives an option somewhat between headphones and more "conventional" speaker setups. The closer you setup, the more the need for amplifier power and large speakers diminishes -- traditional box speakers lose 6dB of SPL with each doubling of distance, so they'll sound 6dB louder at 1m away vs. 2m and so on (a 6dB difference translates to a power factor of approximately 4x, e.g. 100 Watts vs. 400 Watts). Nearfield also starts to significantly reduce the effects of room acoustics. Though IMO, the tradeoff is that (like with headphones) it takes more imagination to convince yourself you're listening to the "real" thing. Bigger setups done right will give you a bigger soundstage, a more realistically sized image, and a lifelike presence & impact. A low frequency sound limited to a very small area does not give a feeling like the same rumbling through your room -- through the floor, up into your chair and then your body, simultaneously with the primary sound. Big sounds in real life give you significant tactile feedback, because there should be a LOT of acoustic energy getting dissipated all around you! Headphones and nearfield can't do this. 
 
Of course, personal preference will largely drive what's a "proper" size & distance for things. I learned that I prefer a much bigger presentation than headphones can offer, but only after finding the right speakers for me. Though, my headphones roots still remain somewhat; my preferred speaker uses a single coaxial driver to remain coherent even when seated at close distances, and my current setup is in a relatively "nearfield-ish" configuration for the size of elements involved (a 15" coaxial driver is no small thing), at an 8'x9'x9' speakers/seating triangle.  
 
Also, the closer you get to a speaker, the less distance you're going to want to see between the critical tweeter/midrange drivers. Getting closer magnifies the impact of any distance discrepancy between your ears and these 2 drivers (and issues with asymmetrical dispersion); the ear is going to be very sensitive to issues caused by the signal arriving in non phase/time/amplitude aligned fashion here. A single full bandwidth driver design eliminates these issues, but then creates some of its own -- poor frequency extension at both ends, beaming at higher frequencies, etc. A coaxial is a 2-way driver that attempts to combine the point-source qualities a single driver with the extension offered by multiple drivers.
 
Mar 30, 2013 at 6:22 PM Post #90 of 1,052
Quote:
 
Hi,
Nearfield gives an option somewhat between headphones and more "conventional" speaker setups. The closer you setup, the more the need for amplifier power and large speakers diminishes -- traditional box speakers lose 6dB of SPL with each doubling of distance, so they'll sound 6dB louder at 1m away vs. 2m and so on (a 6dB difference translates to a power factor of approximately 4x, e.g. 100 Watts vs. 400 Watts). Nearfield also starts to significantly reduce the effects of room acoustics. Though IMO, the tradeoff is that (like with headphones) it takes more imagination to convince yourself you're listening to the "real" thing. Bigger setups done right will give you a bigger soundstage, a more realistically sized image, and a lifelike presence & impact. A low frequency sound limited to a very small area does not give a feeling like the same rumbling through your room -- through the floor, up into your chair and then your body, simultaneously with the primary sound. Big sounds in real life give you significant tactile feedback, because there should be a LOT of acoustic energy getting dissipated all around you! Headphones and nearfield can't do this. 
 
Of course, personal preference will largely drive what's a "proper" size & distance for things. I learned that I prefer a much bigger presentation than headphones can offer, but only after finding the right speakers for me. Though, my headphones roots still remain somewhat; my preferred speaker uses a single coaxial driver to remain coherent even when seated at close distances, and my current setup is in a relatively "nearfield-ish" configuration for the size of elements involved (a 15" coaxial driver is no small thing), at an 8'x9'x9' speakers/seating triangle.  
 
Also, the closer you get to a speaker, the less distance you're going to want to see between the critical tweeter/midrange drivers. Getting closer magnifies the impact of any distance discrepancy between your ears and these 2 drivers (and issues with asymmetrical dispersion); the ear is going to be very sensitive to issues caused by the signal arriving in non phase/time/amplitude aligned fashion here. A single full bandwidth driver design eliminates these issues, but then creates some of its own -- poor frequency extension at both ends, beaming at higher frequencies, etc. A coaxial is a 2-way driver that attempts to combine the point-source qualities a single driver with the extension offered by multiple drivers.

So, one of these kinds of things is a coaxial?
 

 
 
And how would you compare that to other speaker setups such as nearfield and standard stereo?
 
And thank you, that helps! I figured bass and soundstage would be a lot of it. I guess I'm kind of looking for something between headphones and speakers, like that. Something that's not on my ears like headphones that I can have at my computer. I think high usage of speakers would generally be better than with headphones, health/hearing wise right? I'll have to judge for myself if I get the realism for it to work for me. Thank you again!
 

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