[peter braun]

I always forget how much a difference the room can make to speaker based system. For the last two hours I have listening to my parents setup in a different room than usual, as we had to move everything out of the main listening room in order to paint it. Unfortunately we have discovered that the room the equipment is currently setup in sounds WAY better. The room is much longer and fairly open as it leads it other parts of the house. The soundstage has much more depth in the present setup and much a punchier low end. Disapointingly, my mother will never allow the stuff to be kept in that location. Anybody else found their stereo equipment to sound drastically different after altering the location or setup?

 

[jefemeister]

Absolutely. There is not a single more important/dominating factor than the room acoustics and speaker placement. It easily overshadows all else.

 

[rickcr42]

Singing to the choir man.You can take the best speakers your budget will allow,put them in a bad situation and all you will get is bad but even a budget speaker well set up can sound great.
The reason for all those after market acoustic "fixes' is to make the awful room work by beating it into submission but even that if done wrong or overdone will only make the sytem worse.

 

[bhd812]

Yelp which is why I have to move out alot of stuff and clean my room out before I get anything serious. even then I will still be left with a host of room acoustic issues at hand.

I always said if your going to do a serious speaker setup then it needs its own built room. a room built upon acoustic treatments and done rite...

the probelm with my room is the walls on the side are all differently formed (shaped), I have a long throw 25x15, and only a 7.5ft ceiling..
and the tile floors aint helping much...

the worest part is there is a 7inch center beem that cuts rite down the center of the room (side my side).

nomatter any speaker I have had (and I even mean p.a. subs) I have had bass issues with my room..

 

[rickcr42]

Quote:

I always said if your going to do a serious speaker setup then it needs its own built room. a room built upon acoustic treatments and done rite...

Not really.

a room solely for music would not even use the same constuction methods used in the modern home.

2x4 studs and 1/2 inch sheetrock walls could be considered the "anti-room" for audio.toss in the usual floor and you have a room that flexes and is sypathetic to vibration.add that fact that every surface is reflective and you have a damn nightmare if you want full range audio at any volume level above background music.Toss in the low ceilings in modern homes (7ft.) and you have a trouble wating to pounce.
The older houses with their heavy timber construction and multilayer lath/plaster walls and ceilings are far far better (plus the average ceiling height was 9ft,many higher ).

so what to do in the "modern" home ?
A home using construction methods purposely used for speed of assembly AND calling for labor,not skilled labor to construct ?

Get it done fast and get it done cheap is not condusive to good acoustics

move to the basement with its concrete fllors and walls then build the ceiling for selective diffusion/reflection/absorption or make do with what you have and FORCE it to behave

Beat that sucker into submission.Have the room cry for mercy and not your ears !

There is not a whole lot you can do with room flex but you can add mass and diffusion at the same time by adding fully loaded bookcases or record cases at the room nodes.This will also break up that node and eliminate reinforcing certain frequencies there.
Next get rid of the reflections right behind your head and at times right next to the loadspeaker,put a heavy wool throw rug 1/3 of the way between the loudspeaker and the listening position to eliminate bounce right there,maybe a bass trap in the corners if that is a problem,a couple of DIY diffusors on the walls.........

all work but if overdone will make the system sound dull and lifeless.

One thing about room acoustics is EVERYTHING is audible.Moving a pice of furntiure one foot can have a dramatic sound change as can simply opening a single window or door.

the good news is those high cost after market solutions are mostly not needed.Even a simple throw pillow absorbs and a bookcase if fully loaded "diffuses'

 

[ssportclay]

I have a medium large living room with carpet and my Von Schweikert VR-1 speakers do not seem the least bit fussy.I guess I must be lucky.I wish I could find headphones that sounded this good.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by peter braun Disapointingly, my mother will never allow the stuff to be kept in that location.

I would try to negotiate it, you never know, she could take it as a decorating challenge to see how to convert that area into a home theater entertainment spot.

 

[jefemeister]

I don't think you need the fanciest room with the perfect dimensions and tons of "real" acoutic treatment. But you do need to do everything in your power to ensure the most ideal setup possible. But I believe that there does become a point where buying fancier equipment just doesn't make sense until you have an absolutley ideal room. For most normal folks, including lots of audiophiles, this point is never reached.

 

[drminky]

Well, I shipped my system across the world, so the exact same system has been set up in two very different rooms. In England, it lived in a large carpeted living room of a ground floor victorian flat. Thick, solid walls and floors in that 'they don't build-em like they used to' kinda way. It sounded AWESOME. Now, it is set up in Australia in a small, long and thin room of a wooden flat raised on wooden stilts. To make matters worse, one of the long walls is entirely glass. Nothing i can do can get it to sound half as good any more, particularly in getting it to image stably.

Now I'm starting to see why hifi is so much bigger in england than australia

Oh yeah, my speakers are VR-1s as well!