Minor diversion to the cable and vinyl threads 
and an attempt to put some traffic back on the board.
I recently had to reposition my gear after a couple of years. I basically shifted everything to the short side of the room. Since I only had a dvd player as source, listening to music had taken a back seat. Then on the previous Friday, the once-broken CD player came back. Couldn't wait to soak my ears with sound again.
Saturday, the initial tests revealed that the CD player was working. I was slightly bothered by the harshness to the sound though. However, I brushed it off to the new music I had not previously heard through it and maybe the player being 'rusty'. Needless to say, halfway to last week I was convinced listening to my system was not the same anymore. There was a distinct lack of bass, and the highs were much more pronounced than I'm used to. It was just dry, no meld, no fun, trouble. Strangely, I could hear slightly better bass from outside the room(e.g. bedrooms, bathroom,etc).
I spent considerable time fiddling with the speaker positions but I was still not 100% happy. I needed more bass. I was ready to concede I was probably expecting too much considering I was at least 1.5m further away from the speakers in the new position. Speakers also had close to 7m to fill instead of 3.6. But I'd been there before when the room had carpet on and I was happy. I've read about tiles being bad for sound but I didn't expect the difference to be so much.
Fast forward to the weekend and I go home. I've always noted the system there, althought with dated components sounded just right, so was looking forward to it listening to it. It just struck me how well rounded it sounded compared to the Durban one. Even more considering I was just playing the iPod's mp3s. The iPod sounds rubbish on the Durban kit, and here I was tapping foot to its music. This got me really worried about the Durban kit. I slept very late throughout the weekend just listening.
The home kit is
Arcam delta 90.2 (posted a few months ago here)
Tannoy MX2 standmounts with flatline AR cable.
in a 3x4.5m tiled room.
Durban kit is
Classe 70/30 combo and IXOS Interconnects
Marantz 5400OSE and some AR Audio interconnect.
B&W 602S3 on B&W stands and QED cable.
Armed with new 'benchmark' information on how my music should sound like for me to like it, I spent Monday night checking the Durban kit out and playing around with speaker placement. I got close but there was still that dryness that stops me from extended listening.
Yesterday I stumbled across some post here from last year about Antman's similar room issues with his B&W 601s. I'm not in a position to get new speakers now and I do know they were good, until I switched the position. But the problem was too similar to Antman's to rule out the B&Ws as the culprits. Anyway, I went home taking advise from that thread(i.e the room, treatment, position, toning down brightness, getting back the missing bass). I experimented with using soft materials in front of the speakers and it helped tone down the highs a bit. Still not enough bass though. What helped in this regard was pushing the speakers back by about 35 cms. Immediate results. Didn't consider this last week as I never put my speakers that close to the corners. They're now basically at the position where rear bass-ported speakers will be booming. There's still some small work to do in refining the definition of the newfound bass but I'm pretty pleased.
Just want to give a shout out to everyone who contributes to this site. The feedback given to posts may not be always to everyone's liking but we all benefit in the end. I will not take room acoustics for granted anymore.
Sharp
and an attempt to put some traffic back on the board.I recently had to reposition my gear after a couple of years. I basically shifted everything to the short side of the room. Since I only had a dvd player as source, listening to music had taken a back seat. Then on the previous Friday, the once-broken CD player came back. Couldn't wait to soak my ears with sound again.
Saturday, the initial tests revealed that the CD player was working. I was slightly bothered by the harshness to the sound though. However, I brushed it off to the new music I had not previously heard through it and maybe the player being 'rusty'. Needless to say, halfway to last week I was convinced listening to my system was not the same anymore. There was a distinct lack of bass, and the highs were much more pronounced than I'm used to. It was just dry, no meld, no fun, trouble. Strangely, I could hear slightly better bass from outside the room(e.g. bedrooms, bathroom,etc).
I spent considerable time fiddling with the speaker positions but I was still not 100% happy. I needed more bass. I was ready to concede I was probably expecting too much considering I was at least 1.5m further away from the speakers in the new position. Speakers also had close to 7m to fill instead of 3.6. But I'd been there before when the room had carpet on and I was happy. I've read about tiles being bad for sound but I didn't expect the difference to be so much.
Fast forward to the weekend and I go home. I've always noted the system there, althought with dated components sounded just right, so was looking forward to it listening to it. It just struck me how well rounded it sounded compared to the Durban one. Even more considering I was just playing the iPod's mp3s. The iPod sounds rubbish on the Durban kit, and here I was tapping foot to its music. This got me really worried about the Durban kit. I slept very late throughout the weekend just listening.
The home kit is
Arcam delta 90.2 (posted a few months ago here)
Tannoy MX2 standmounts with flatline AR cable.
in a 3x4.5m tiled room.
Durban kit is
Classe 70/30 combo and IXOS Interconnects
Marantz 5400OSE and some AR Audio interconnect.
B&W 602S3 on B&W stands and QED cable.
Armed with new 'benchmark' information on how my music should sound like for me to like it, I spent Monday night checking the Durban kit out and playing around with speaker placement. I got close but there was still that dryness that stops me from extended listening.
Yesterday I stumbled across some post here from last year about Antman's similar room issues with his B&W 601s. I'm not in a position to get new speakers now and I do know they were good, until I switched the position. But the problem was too similar to Antman's to rule out the B&Ws as the culprits. Anyway, I went home taking advise from that thread(i.e the room, treatment, position, toning down brightness, getting back the missing bass). I experimented with using soft materials in front of the speakers and it helped tone down the highs a bit. Still not enough bass though. What helped in this regard was pushing the speakers back by about 35 cms. Immediate results. Didn't consider this last week as I never put my speakers that close to the corners. They're now basically at the position where rear bass-ported speakers will be booming. There's still some small work to do in refining the definition of the newfound bass but I'm pretty pleased.
Just want to give a shout out to everyone who contributes to this site. The feedback given to posts may not be always to everyone's liking but we all benefit in the end. I will not take room acoustics for granted anymore.
Sharp
