Building a Room Full of Balanced Harmonics

Hi Michael and Zonees

I've got the Mye Sound Stands. Here is what the Left speaker looks like mounted:



This is how the bracing strut is attached to the panel. Because I removed the MG1.5QRs' cosmetic wings and outer grille, the fit you see in the pix is not exact. This is not Grant van der Mye's fault. The MW blocks do the job nicely to hold the panels.



The lower mounting of the bracing strut. A tuning point in the future with wood washers I think.



The bracing struts have been filled with lead by the previous owner. I'll listen first before deciding to if the lead should be removed. My leaning is to go without lead if I can given it is a hazardous material.

First impression: Michael is totally correct about the top of the panel moving at a different rate from the bottom which is more grounded. I got a large increase in coherence and clarity with the panel rigid top to bottom. The music sounds more "steady" and "anchored". THe bass has picked up some extension and is weightier.

The speakers though, while they throw a larger soundstage, appear now to be calling more attention to their positions. So there is some distortion in the soundstage -- it is deeper and wider yet there are instruments tethered to the panels.

This initial result is good enough not to be a nightmare, but I think it is going to be troubled dream. I am secretly fearing I may have solved a big problem but opened the door to a number of smaller problems that together may weaken the Tune.

Certainly Sonic's "tune instinct" tells me that a number of settled tunes in my room are going to have to be adjusted before I get the best out of the Mye Sound Stands. There is potential, they have opened my ears to what rigidised MG1.5QRs can do but there is work to be done for sure.

I'll let this settle more and then, I'll start with the filling for the bracing struts.

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Sonic poured out the lead filling from the bracing struts taking care with the stuff as it is poisonous. There was a lot of it too....

The first effect was the sound was lighter, faster paced and more exciting. BUT in a day or so, it was actually coloured -- the music took on a metallic edge. In a narrow range of frequencies, the colouration gave harpsichords have a ringy twang that does not exist in reality. Lousy. The metallic edge also made orchestras thin and "vapoury" in some ranges. Lousy, lousy.

Putting bags of kitty little on the stands improved things just a bit. It is clear the bracing struts need to be filled. What to use, lead or sand or a mix? How much to use? Here we go......

Sonic

Hi Michael and Zonees

Sonic has reintroduced the lead – a portion at a time. Half the original quantity improved things but only just. The sound was actually worse because the thinness is still there but the warmth and girth is trying to do its thing but the soundstage was odd, sounding cut in two.

Sonic looked at what could be cutting the soundstage in two and thought “aha!”

Out from the room went the central FS-PZC and the two flanking FS-DRTs from behind the main rack….then I worked to expand the centre PZ using a Michael Green classic maneuver.

Two FS-DRTs, placed one behind the other in the middle of the space between the speakers with both reflective sides facing the front wall (that is, absorptive sides facing towards the listener). This is one of the rare instances where an absorptive side faces into the room. Yes, much better. There is now one large stage and not a sense that there is a barrier between right and left. The thin/warm colouration is still there though.

Sonic thought this through slowly. Is what I am hearing a “mis-tune” started by the Mye Sound Stands or have they revealed something in my present tuning that I need to overcome to get to another step up (forward)?

It is possible we Tunees give up too early and not deal with but plaster over fundamental problems in our systems but in other instances we might also persevere when we ought not to. Sonic doesn’t know how to tell the difference yet.

I chose to keep going. So more filling back into the struts – now up to ¾ or so. Yes, this is more like it at last. The musick is enjoyable again. Was playing W A Mozart’s Sonate, Fantasia, Variazioni, Suite for fortepiano (Andreas Staier, Harmonia Mundi) and some Stan Getz. Musical…..

Next step will be to fashion a dipstick and measure now much of the strut is actually filled. Never found this out because the moment the old owner told me his stands were lead-filled, I sealed them with tape to ensure no spillage. So never found out how much of the stand was filled. If there is a lot of space to go, Sonic will pour back the last ¼ of the filling then fill the rest with kitty litter sand to trap the lead then seal up the struts.

Sonic

Hi Sonic

AND, as you are realizing this changes the formula for the whole system setup. It doesn't take much to have a completely different animal on your hands (ears).

This is enough of a system change that you might even start everything all over again and find your way back to your reference sound. One of the things I do like about changing rooms and systems is that it teaches me how to get back to "reference".

Introducing metal is very tricky and can make a bunch of sonic shifts throughout. You may need to find a stopping place till you find out what mixture of fill to use. Keep in mind that what you do goes right back into the sound of the panel and is telling the panel itself what to sound like. Try not to think of making the panels stable as the only trick these stands have. They must be voiced just like everything else. Hollow spaces can be really hard to deal with cause it's very much like a drum. In your case like a metal drum. There are two ways to tune it. One put ports in them (a tricky job) and 2 fill them (must be careful not to lose sound). Making them stable is half the battle, making them stable with "what?" is the other half.

I can hear the thin sound in my head as you said it. Heard it many times. Part of this is the lose of sound into the stand and part the feeding back of the stand, but a 3rd is the tention the stands connection points are on the maggie itself. You can change the voicing of the maggies a lot by changing the material touching the panel and the tightness of the compression at those points. Also look at the way the stand is on the floor. The transmission going on there has changed a lot as well. You can change a lot of voicing by what the stand is using to transfer with and also what it is sitting on. Try not to go too crazy with the room until you know your speaker better. Yes, you may do a lot of changes but you also may be making these changes to fix something instead of figuring out the new speaker.

See the cones on the bottom of the stand? This is and area that can make a big difference. Are these cones iron? Can they be changed out with other cones or spikes?

Hi Michael and Zonees

Here's what Sonic did with the FS-DRTs:



I've put back the lead in the Mye Sound Stands' bracing struts. Turns out they were filled almost to within 1.5 inches of the top.

The sound is much less thin now and I plan to use 1/8" thick MW squares with a 7/16 " hole drilled in them to be used as washers where the struts attach to the the base (see the third pix in Sonic's May 1, 2013 post on this thread).

The cones that are supplied and installed with the Mye Stands are brass but the contour is the usual parallel sided cylinder with a taper to a point, not contoured like Michael's MTD and AAB1x1 cones.

Again see my May 1 post -- the threaded bolt for the Mye Sound cones is 7/16" in diameter with what looks like a fine thread.

Michael -- what do you suggest I do for cones? I got large MTDs, eight pieces in all but they have 1/4 inch threads. I can remove the Mye Stand cones and sit the stands on the MTDs but there will be no stability if the speaker ever gets knocked, the whole assembly will tip over. I could have adaptors made in brass where the MTDs can thread into the Mye Stand base. Is this a good idea?

The FS-DRT pair in the front room give projected centre images which I like.

I'll be installing the MW washers for the struts tomorrow and let's see what difference they make. Certainly Sonic will not go too crazy with the room until I know the speaker/stand combo better.

Sonic

Hi Sonic

Good progress!! Take it slow and easy.

You could try the MTD style with AAB and see if you like it and if it has enough thread to go through. If you do and it does, we could make you a nut for on top, or you could make a washer nut combo for on top. It will be interesting to hear the difference in that aplication.

Moving slowly....

Getting more wood in the sound with MW washers where the struts attach to the base:



This seems beneficial. The Mye Sound Stands are coming into tune but there are a few more steps I can think of and some Michael suggested.

I have not tightened the bolts (a 5/16") coupling the struts to the base beyond seating them just a bit beyond finger tight.

The bass is strong....getting to be huge....wondering why I needed a subwoofer in the first place...OK the sub-20 to 38hz range would be flat with the Janis W-1 subwoofer which Sonic misses.....

The sound is getting to combine the openness of the Magneplanars with a certain incisiveness and projection that Magneplanars could do with but lack.

There is a reduction in some ambient information Sonic heard before on recordings but this might be a system artifact.

Taking it slow and easy....

Sonic

Yep, easy, slow, at let things settle.

As far as "ambient information", my feeling is that systems don't play nearing as much of the natural ambient effects that are in most recordings so this is an area that I give a lot of attention and even slack to. Almost every system I listen to (as an engineer) they sound ambient lacking. The audiophile fear says anything extra is distortion and I would agree, but I also say that it is distortion to leave 80% of the music on the cutting floor, which is what mostly happens. I'm not talking about echo, but info, but the two often get mixed in together as far as that fear goes.

I like a system when the room takes over and the speaker is only the tool to inject the room of sound origin. After the speaker plays it's part it's all up to the room to make the sound what it is. Whenever I hear the speaker over the room I know that I'm missing something. Most people don't know how to listen for this, but once learned it makes or breaks the sound.

As you tune these speaker parts listen to hear how much of the room your hearing as opposed to the speaker. Tweaking speakers is a good time to learn this if it isn't already planted in the brain. It's also a good time to take an acoustical playback refresher course.

Room & speaker, should never be room or speaker. A secret to great listening and one of my personal tricks. I spend a ton of time listening to the room.

Hi Michael and Zonees

The MTDs as they are will be a poor and unstable fit for the Mye Sound Stands. First the threaded piece of the MTDs is 1/4 in in diameter while the Mye cones are 7/16 inch. Then the thickness of the mounting piece is as thick as the length of the MTD stud so nothing protrudes at all for a washer and nut to lock the MTD.

Just sitting the stand on the MTDs will mean there will be no lateral stability. An accidental knock might send the stand crashing. I was thinking of getting the good Craftsman who rebuilt my AR XA to machine me threaded adapters that could lock the MTDs to the stand but he said given that 1/4 inch and 7/16 inch are so close the outer threads may cut into the inner thread when he machines them out of brass.

Sonic is noticing the sound is warming up and losing the thinness. My last listening session was enjoyment of musick rather than testing the tune. Got a couple of things I can yet do to build up girth using wood and some spare gear in my Tuning closet. I now also got a spare FS-PZC to play with but Sonic is concentrating on just the speaker/stand interaction in relation to tone. The bass and projection of the mids is very nice....Sonic also finds the treble more detailed and the sense of "anchoredness" good.

Sonic

Hi Michael and Zonees

Michael has made good points about ambience and Sonic fully agrees. Been thinking about ambience from recordings of classical musick in concert halls with reference to what I hear at live concerts.

Of course, a recording is not a live concert so comparisons have fundamental limitations.

If we are a recital room, a concert hall…anything short of a reverberant bathroom or an anechoic chamber….I suggest that if we do not see the room dimensions (blind or blindfolded) and there was absolutely no sound, we may be unable to tell the size or shape of the room. No sound – speech, musick, even sounds like air conditioning – we may have no sensory clues to define the room.

Then if some speaks, an instrument plays and KAPOW! all the sensory cues kick in. We can tell how far the source is, how it is vertically disposed to us, how large the room space is, is the space damped or reverberant and so on.

What Sonic is getting at is this – in a recording done of musick in a recital space, if the performers where silent will there be any sense of the size of the room? I don’t think so.

Once they start, the room gets “activated” doesn’t it? Then there is the issue of microphones used for the recordings. Some compress the sound by bringing up the noise floor. This is true of the cheaper mikes. If there is any compression, the ambient floor is lifted and we start to hear the room more than we do in live sound.

In my experience with live musick, Sonic hears ambience and space but they are not presented like in audio. With the Tune, the sense is more real because it is all round. With hi-fi it is like there is an added reverb somewhere. In live musick, I don’t think of ambient fields, even forcing myself to detect them at concerts, I find they are not there. Of course in a concert it is a visual as well as auditory event.

But this is why I am believing that all I should be able to tell is how large is the hall the recording was made in at most and no ambience beyond that. There is also a relation with playback levels too.

Anymore will be artifacts – like Q-sound, acoustic crosstalk removal by out-of-phase signal injection etc. Sadly my system has yet to give me consistent cues of the size of the recording space. A limitation and something for Sonic to tune to achieve.

Till then I would eschew the reverb effects that passes for "space and ambience" in audiophile thought.

Views Michael and fellow Tunees?

Sonic

Hi Sonic

Here's a simple test for you. I've done this with students before for homework.

For 5 minutes put your hands right against your ears not letting any vibrations get to your ears. Instantly your going to hear your ears working. There will be an ocean sounding noise inside of your head going on. Does it ever get quiet? No! While your doing this it is loud. You hear your breathing, heart and what ever is going on inside. Fact is you live in a world full of pressure. There is no practical way to remove it without playing some tricks. Energy is always present and never has an opportunity to stop. It never will inside of our atmosphere, it's what keeps everything moving and intact.

Now, walk through ever room in your house and even outside of your house. Hear how the pressure changes every time you enter a different space? There is no escape from movement (pressure). Now one more thing if you get a chance. Go to a lab and look at any form of energy on any level. If you do you will again see much movement. Actually on an atomic level the movement is quite active, suprisingly so.

When you turn on your stereo, even if you are not aware of this, there is a change that takes place in your room. There is no way around this, it's just the way energy works. This energy is not selective to a certain area, it spreads until it disipates into the other energy forms that are going on. Now play music through your system and walk around. You can hear it every where correct? Inside your room and out, until this energy dissolves into other energy it is present. The fact is it even after mingling is still cause and effect.

Your signal path is just as 3D as any other part of physics. There is nothing that has happened in the audio pathway that has made this recorded material turn into a fixed space. It may be disporportionate but still there. When we start to squeeze our signal it starts to gather more in the speakers and the more this happens the smaller the stage gets. The opposite is also true. The more you get the sound out of the speakers the more you can hear a full 3D sound presence. Interestingly enough this even happens when you direct recorded sounds with no room involved at all.

In the audiophile world we are so use to thinking in terms of small exclusively squeezed sound stages that we think this is accurate but it's not. Your listening to sound being in a distorted state. Speaker/room interfacing can do what ever you tell it to. It's pressure and that pressure can get stuck in the speaker or it can be let loose into the room. The more it is in the room the bigger the stage will get, even going behind the listener and way off to the sides.

Think about this from a logic side and not a taught audiophile side of thinking. There's a lot more to signal than people give credit to. But I also must say that being an audiophile it is a lot harder to grab until it is heard. That doesn't change the facts though.

Let me ask you a question that I've been asking a lot lately. How close can you get to your speaker before the sound jumps into that speaker? If your not hearing the stage go way off to the sides or behind you I can tell you how close you get before the sound jumps in. I have always used this as a measuring tool but I feel I need to use it more when talking to listeners. This one test can tell you more about your staging than many other tests. I have been able to get my ear even a foot away from my speaker and still see a soundstage. The closer you get to this the more you will have 3D sound and a huge soundstage.

This BTW has nothing to do with room overhang which is something that you are working with. Room overhang is a distortion type that is hard to get rid of and unfortunately happens when in rooms that don't have enough flex or the waves are not organized well enough. I have heard hard walls get organized but it's a battle till those keys spots are found.

The more you remove blockage the more your system is going to take on the 3D sound I talk about.

A few post back you were talking about different types of music giving bigger stages. You were comparing Rock to Classical. After I read this I did my own comparison. I found with the classical it was not all that hard to get the music to go 3D on me. Rock even easier but the classical was not so hard.

Another question for you. Why would you think that sound should not go off to the sides and behind you?

Hi Sonic

This is more of a general post but it's a good place to put it since we are talking about this.

I wanted to spend a little more time on this and also with you on recording. I think this is part of the mental mindset that causes problems.

When you go into most recording studios one of the first things you notice as an audiophile is that their systems are not setup like ours are. They have far more blockage going on in their setups and their sound stages are far smaller than a good hi fi system. I have been in a few (very few) that present a fairly large stage but for the most part the sound is fixed and stuck. The one advantage they do have is the ability to place the pan in between the speakers where they wish. This works in their studio why? Because they are placing it that way. When you or they get that recording home it is a totally different ball game. We do not have that big board infront of us and the speakers are not in the wall or on the shelving of the studio furniture. We also don't have access to the individual tracks to place them where we want. If recordings came to us this way it would be a whole new ball game.

Saying all this and being in this biz for so long, one of the things that is very real to me with studio listening vs home is in the studio the sound is usually left and right with the speakers being at the edge. At home the speakers are no longer the edge of the left to right action. If you have a system full of blockage then yes the sound will stop at the speakers, but if you have a system that is more open the left goes way past the left and the right goes way past the right sides of the stage. The more you make the speakers disappear the more this spreads out. This is not an acoustical trick or extra sound waves distorting the sound. This is the way the recordings really are.

I think folks that haven't spent a lot of time recording think that there is some kind of box that makes a soundstage fit in this little package, but the reality is that when we record or when we play back we are limiting our size and shape of the stage and information by how much we are restricting the signal as it is being played back. This happens in the studio and this happens at home. The signal itself is far bigger than the equipments play back abilities. Being a mic/acoustical tech this is something that I have also heard in the control room and as an acoustical designer who has sat behind many engineers would be thinking "what are they playing with?".

When I use to try to help engineers voice their system (a hard task because of their ego ) I would go into the studio with them and make a sound and come back in the room and play that sound. Very rarely did the (untuned) control room produce the same sound. The tonality was different along with the size and shape of the sound as it was being made. In my own studios I did find that pickup patterns had something to do with this but in all honesty it was the equipments blockage that made the biggest difference. After doing the same things I teach audiophiles to do with their home systems with the studio system the same results would happen. If I paned left I got true left, not left that ended at the speaker. Same went for right pan or any of the mic spacing or phasing.

This is just something that we need to deal with as engineer types in this hobby. The recording guys are just as in the dark as the playback guys when it comes to what is on the recording and what blockage does to shrink the stage.

This is not a weird acoustical trick of distortion (extra sound), this is reality.

If you set up a well tuned system as your control room system and pan left do you know where the sound is? If you are about 4 feet from the center plain with the left speaker being about 4feet off center the sound is about 6 feet directly off of your left ear in a straight line with your ear if you are in a control room that is about 16 feet wide. You take this same signal and play it in a control room using basic studio (untuned) components, the sound is almost right in the left speaker. What is playing through that studio equipment and the basic audio system is not what is on the recording. As you have heard the guy you refered to say "we are hearing maybe 10% of the music content". I so believe this and have proved it over and over again.

Stereo speakers setup to work with a room correctly and a system not full of block will cast a full soundstage front to back and side to side. There is no logical reason why it wouldn't. I have done this. Set up an omni directional and had the players around the mic and go into an untuned control room system and hear the players pan left to right, took the same recording and played it through a properly tuned system and heard the players around me. In reality I should be hearing what the microphone is to be accurate. now I could move around the speakers so that they work worse in the room and the sound would move toward the speakers and a left to right pan, but when I got things setup well the players were clearly around me. If I'm an audiophile wanting to be accurate which would be more true? The left to right or the same playback as the microphone picked up?

What this comes down to is are we going to listen to blockage and try to get rid of the room, or are we going after the truth of the recording through getting rid of blockage and making the room into the speakers and letting speakers play their proper role in the system?

I completely reject the small audiophile stage as being accurate. It may be what people have gotten use to and have had fun playing with but it is not the real recorded info.

Since around the late 70's studio techs and audiophiles have hit a real (the same) wall and have not gotten past it yet. We haven't as a whole mated the audio signal with the proper setup that allows it to play back. When we start to get close the difference is so huge that we start to question both the hobby and our own belief system. As we continue to mate the reality of how an audio signal works to its full potentual we are going to have to get more into turning our systems and rooms into true music reproducing tools and away from audiophile equipment collecting brokers. With the designers themselves needing to learn this total system method they, until they do, will keep making the same stuck mistakes they always have, building equipment based on the partial instead of the whole. This may be fun for those who wish to stay in a box, but for those who are finding there to be more than a tiny stage in their recordings our eyes are wide open and continue to look for just how much is there and how can I get it to reveal itself to me.

Personally I have long ago passed the audiophile method and ways of listening and enjoy seeing folks doing a new audiophile thing. It's like a new hobby that transends the old. parts of the old are still an influence, but the more we peel away at reality that influence is not nearly as much of an interest.

Just think what this hobby will be like when free resonance (and tuning) is truly the norm. Wow!

Hi Michael

Fascinating thoughts about soundstaging and the description of studio monitoring systems. As for what Sonic is aiming for in terms of musick reproduction it would appear IMO that Michael and Sonic are on the same page although at different corners.

Latest: Sonic has removed the lead from the bracing struts and refilled them with fine sand. I feel better that the toxic metal is removed from my dwelling. More peace of mind.

The sound is good and there is much better bass but the stands might be causing the sound to be linked to the speakers. On the other hand, Sonic is also getting a sound that with classical musick is enveloping all round me – that is, the instruments are not just up front between the speakers, there is ambience that surrounds me all around as the musick plays. Of course, I don’t get instruments to the side or behind me. Most upsetting of the notes of a harpsichord sounded behind my head….

There is also some impression (after introducing the stands – which I will have to work at to tune) that there is less perceived width extending beyond my room walls.

Was listening to Erik Satie’s early piano works – Reinbert de Leeuw (Philips), Cello Concertos by Lalo, Saint-Saens, Bruch and Bloch – Pierre Fournier with the Orchestre Lamoureux, Paris and Berliner Philharmonik (Bloch) DG and Haydn’s Symphonies 7 and 8 – Goodman conducting the Hanover Band (Hyperion).

A question I have is about what you described about a tuned studio monitoring system – how a pan potted image can go a couple of feet beyond the R or L speaker edge. What happens when only one speaker is playing? Where is the image?

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Sonic thinks the musick is getting right after the Mye Sound Stands were filled with fine sand. I'll now need to re-examine my racks and how they are used, what I put on them and how the top tuning is carried out along with the placement of my FS-DRTs and what I could do with the FS-PZC.

What I am getting is good and I have to observe it is not the archetypical Magneplanar sound. It is more detailed, projected (OK this is what I wanted all along), and I like the bass weight and punch. The upper mids are about right - I can hear the violins having the rosin and "edge" they have in reality.

Yet there is a slight feeling that there is colouration somewhere though.

Will test out some options this week and report on the progress.

Of course, we go step by step always allowing for settling. More important is to get the musick....not the sound...right. I must reduce the priority and focus on imaging and soundstaging and start with what the Japanese call "king tone". I think this is right because if the tone of voices and instruments are wrong nothing else matters.

I got this wonderful feeling from my inexpensive SP playback system with a Bing Crosby 78 rpm disc. The record is noisy, the recording was done through a coloured 1940s microphone but I can still hear real human voices, piano, instruments playing musick in an real physical environment. It is a reality of sorts that surprises and thrills.

Sonic thinks this is preferable to so much hi-end systems where everything is clear, detailed, layered, wide band but ultimately artificial.

I think it was the founder of Japan's Audio Tekne who pointed out that we should strive for the musick and when we achieve that, we stop listening to sound.

Sonic

"About what you described about a tuned studio monitoring system – how a pan potted image can go a couple of feet beyond the R or L speaker edge. What happens when only one speaker is playing? Where is the image?

Hi Sonic

I would not classify this as "a couple feet beyond the left or right speaker". I was reffering to a specific left or right panned single instrument placement as being outside the speaker location. If I put a guitar far left then it appeared where I was talking about, but it was accompanied with the rest of the space as well. It never sounds like a black hole then the space filled with this cut out figurine. A microphone only knows how to pick up pressure according to it's pattern. It can be very exacting depending on the room and micing, but it doesn't come with only the instrument itself. There's a wide range of mics and acoustical mechanical tricks to do to get a result so I wouldn't want to say there is a set sound. What I would say is that this concept of left pan being in left speaker is inaccurate in a well tuned setup both in the studio and in a listening room.

Now to answer the "only one speaker playing question" I would need to do this again to make sure cause I never set up a stereo system to only play one speaker so as I may have done this and forgot, it's not something on my list to do. I would think though that if you took a stereo recording and knocked out one of the channels there would be a collaspe into one of the speakers. However this is far different than a mono recording.

Having a studio and a listening setup is a very cool thing and can teach you tons about your imaging that you wouldn't think would be the case from reading high end audio journals. This is why I warn people not to get too fixed on the rules that they think are. The same goes true for those studio journals that do writing from the point of view of having only a studio playback setup. If you took a tour of studios (as I have said many times) you will see how far these two worlds are from each other if the engineer or listener is not into both and both from a tuning point of view. I've been to people who have both but have have no idea how to give a big soundstage.

My idea behind what is truth is always flavored with actually doing. For example what if I go into a studio and see that the engineer has clearly not setup his room to give all the music, then I follow this to the mastering engineers place and it again is a shut down setup, then I take this to a playback setup and again the same problem. Based on this I would not want to make a rule, however this is exactly the case almost 100% of the time.

This thing about making rules or conclusions for me has changed greatly because of me experiencing the entire chain so many times. It also is greeted by a raised eyebrow from me cause I have been in the reviewers listening rooms. When you visit music reviewers rooms it can be even more scary than high end audio reviewers. Same goes for studio expert's comments. I've met and listened with a lot of these guys, or at least looked at their systems. For myself I would not feel comfortable saying anything was the gospel after these visits. None of these guys are doing what tunees do to be honest and the chances that they can tell a tunee much about what they have done is to say at best a guess. I've listened with some of the guys that I would consider Gods in recording. Don't want them to get back at me so I'm not giving names but it's clear that their equipment used is stock and not tweaked and they have got far worse room/equipment/speaker relationships than a lot of tunees I have met.

I don't buy the audiophile rules when it comes to soundstages, nor do I the studios. When you walk into many studios for example you will find 2 sets of speakers. One is usually mounted in the wall and the other on the mixer furniture (like I have said) why? Because these two setups sound completely different from each other. A studio tech or anyone writing can come up with their own conclusions and try to convince the rest of the world that they have found answers. This is what, after all, happened in high end, and as I think it is cute and fun it is far from reality. If it was reality we would hear the same thing when we listen to headphones as when we listen to stereo setups. Same goes true for when we record nearfield vs in the wall. It's just a bunch of guys talking when you get right down to it.

Here's a good example when you listen to headphones the space is full with no dead spots. My question is, if this is true with headphones than why are there supposedly dead spots when being played on a stereo system? Truth be know, when I get a system really tuned in many times it falls into a headphone sounding type of state. An audiophile who is use to listening to his boxed sound would say that was incorrect, but he is basing this on only hearing 10% of the music so how would they know? They don't! This whole in front of you stage is something the audiophile made up. It's something that they made logic out of but it's based again on listening to systems that don't know how to open up one, and two it's based on systems that are typically placed in front of the listener. I'm sitting here in my room and have birds singing out side. When I face the window I can hear the birds in front of me, however when I turn my head from the window the birds are behind me. Which is correct? Correct is preference and the sound btw sounds the same no matter which way I face within reason. The sound is the same because my room is telling it what to sound like. When I walk outside, OK back now, the sound is completely different but still I can listen facing and away from and the sound stays where it is. Now if I recorded those birds and wanted to make a real reproducing system playback I would want for the sound to give me what I hear outside. Outside there is a huge 3D stage going on so I would assume if wanting to be accurate I would want the same thing. If I played this back on a typical high end system I would hear the playback only in front of me in the audiophile box (done this BTW). Now if I play this on a tuned system I can setup the speakers to give me a sound from the front, but I can also set it up so that the sound is like what I heard outside. Which is correct? Obviously the second one right? Well if folks saw how I did this they would not believe their audiophile minds. fact is I can reproduce this in nearfield, mid field, far field and even rear field. How? I make the room my speakers. When the room becomes the speakers and not the other way around I get the true picture of what is in the recording.

It's cool to hear audiophile know it's talk about their experiences but that is really all it is, a bunch of writers basing their sound on a system giving them playback with very little attention given to making the room sound real.

So, How do I know when something is approaching real? When I hear it in 3D just like real life. Not 3D in front of me, but real 3D. From there I can play and make my own pretend world, but I know that it is pretend.

I've done this trick many times with listeners and it freaked them out so I would put the sound back where they could deal with it. After getting the room and system tuned I would have the listener come in and listen a while then tell them I was going to make a change. They would come out of the room with a weird look telling me I put the voice right up on the ceiling above their head. It would freak them out and I would put it back, but ask them from a recording point of view which was accurate?

The game of stereo is a fun one but these folks who try to make an absolute statement about placement are only seeing things from one point of view and that view is pretty limited.

Here's my take and job. I make music making machines that take people where they want to go but I base it on making the signal and the room as pure as posible. What they do with their taste after mastering these areas is up to them. For me I like a front stage but it also needs to open up to the back as if I was in the recording and not only looking at a box. I want to feel like my interaction with the recording is so real that if someone came into the room or if there was a sound in the room it would blend into the sound and not be in a seperate stage. I need to feel the real space and real size of what folks recorded. I have a hard time settling for a picture that does not audio wise fit within the rest of my sensory intake. the smaller the stage the more the music to me sounds like compressed noise, at the same time when spread out and full of blockage that is also an unpleasant noise. I want a vivid picture so I can look into the recording but also I want the air that I know is there creating the presance of space. It's in every recording I've ever heard so I know it's not me and it makes sense cause I know how microphones and rooms and equipment works.

These things these writers write about I've long since out grown.

Hi Michael and Zonees

One thing as a room and system is getting tuned, you can start to hear gaps and spots that might be over or under damped.

I had some inklings that the higher corners could do with more control so I did this:



Yes, things are more in control, less overhang from the room. Sonic could tell the moment after the change was made and I started speaking.

Sonic thinks I may have found a good path with this but as always, adjustments may have to be made.

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Sonic thinks this might be one way to deal with a tall room. Normally, we affix the vertical corner Tune Strips, PZCs and such centred between the ceiling and the floors. This is perfectly good for rooms of about 8 ft tall. When you get past 10 ft and nearly 11 ft in Sonic's case there is a lot of bare wall in the upper 1/4 of the room and this area can ring like crazy.

So we need to put control (I am not suggesting "burn", much less damping) up high in the room where there is no furniture to block pressure wave flow.

With the Tune Strips up higher, I could feel the room recover better after transients. It is not "dead" but controlled. Another pair of ETs can go up above the rear corner Tune Strips to control the band between it and the Corner Tune.

I expect the room settling after a transient to be even better after this. If it starts going dead, I can bring in a touch more reflection with the FS-PZCs' tuning bolts or bring back the third FS-PZC placing it in the soundstage tuning zone.

Nice to have these options to work with.

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Sonic thinks the moving up of the Tunestrips to control the upper (just below top) zone of my room is working. As settling begins, I am finding the control that I was looking for all this time -- my room may be an extreme live case which may call for extraordinary measures to tune -- and as I next set up the ETs above the rear corner Tunestrips I expect we will see even better developments.

But for now I will let it settle and then describe the changes.

In the meantime, here's a pix from Sonic's collection of the wild and wonderful audio systems in Japan:







Have a look at the foreground and you'll see two graphic equalisers, one per channel I presume. Look at the correction....what does it tell you? Any Zonees have used or using graphic equalisers?

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Here’s a pix of how Sonic placed ETs between the tops of the rear Tunestrips and Corner Tunes.







The whole room is coming under control. I know Sonic has said things like this before but each step towards the goal of the Tune is a matter of degrees.

In this case, I hear the effect in the controlled decay from transients and the lack of overhang. This actually improves transient response by making the leading edges more clear and the fast settling of the room makes for more transparency and detail.

I like this sound. It is lively and projected but clear with no ringing. This tells me that in my tuning I have underestimated how live my room really is and where the “hot spots” were ( and how many there are).

The live hotspots are largely in a band extending round the room from about 1 foot below the ceiling to 3 ft down all round. But Sonic did not realize too that this band is not uniform in wiidth. It is livelier and goes further down in the corners, and there is a hot spot on the upper window. Some of the major hotspots are shockingly ringy with sustained energy.

Elsewhere it is not that live or deep. I remember discussing the existence of this acoustically live zone in my room and tried treating it but went for the wrong places. ETs on the side walls in this zone may have some effect but they did not get to the root of the problem which are concentrated in the upper corners and the top window.

At the same time, the zone from floor level up to about 5 feet generally obeyed the broad practice of the Tune. See the confusion? When Sonic hung a curtain over the front wall, the results were mixed because it improved some things in the upper window but overdamped other zones.

Similarly in the corners. FS-DRTs and FS-DTs are too acoustically dead here partly because they are low down. FS-PZCs are fine but then they allow or do not control hotspots audible higher up. In the middle of the room, FS-PZCs are too live and we needed FS-DRTs turned absorptive side out in a pair to bring things under control. So there are hot PZs all over the room separated by less live zones. The good thing is the pillow products with burn are taming the room.

If Michael was here with enough tune gear, he would have solved the problems before the first track of musick finished playing. But he isn’t here. He has to advise Sonic from the descriptions in my thread and some PMs. This is the limitation of describing the results I was getting when the Tune is something you experience rather than describe in words.

Sonic can hear how the BOO! is decaying fast now. There are still some hotspots in the front of the room which I am going to try to find and fix. This is one crazy room way beyond anything in the case studies in the Tuneland site.

Of course Sonic is glad I didn’t end up damping the system. There is so much misinformation out there to this day. An audiophile I know went to the dark side using damping and spending loads of cash on sorbothane, bitumen pads, audiophile bricks and wall absorption. One of the first things he noticed was the sound was lower in volume for a given amplifier volume level. There was actually a major loss in sound level, his 200w amp seemed like it was reduced to 20w.

The ever-friendly dealer told him “this is because all the distortion and resonance in your equipment and room is now gone. Your system is cleaner and it was the resonance that you thought was loudness.” The audiophile agreed…..I think a short time later, he felt his system was “too clinical” and he started giving away his sorbothane and other damping add-ons.

For Sonic, there is more to do. This could be like an onion, layer upon layer. I think Sonic can hear what the next Tunes need to be. But I am glad I persevered….

Sonic

Sonic.beaver wrote:

Hi Zonees

Sonic thinks the moving up of the Tunestrips to control the upper (just below top) zone of my room is working. As settling begins, I am finding the control that I was looking for all this time -- my room may be an extreme live case which may call for extraordinary measures to tune -- and as I next set up the ETs above the rear corner Tunestrips I expect we will see even better developments.

But for now I will let it settle and then describe the changes.

In the meantime, here's a pix from Sonic's collection of the wild and wonderful audio systems in Japan:







Have a look at the foreground and you'll see two graphic equalisers, one per channel I presume. Look at the correction....what does it tell you? Any Zonees have used or using graphic equalisers?

Sonic

Hi Sonic

First thing that comes to my mind is "where's the room?"

This weekend I was doing some listening with Drewster and Bill333 and while hearing a discription from Bill on the sound I noticed 2 smaller platforms leaning against the wall. I took them out of the room with a smile. The diffence need I say was huge. I look at these pics of guys with no idea of room acoustics and think "how do they think sound gets to their ears from the speakers". Answer of course in that pic is these are closer to headphones than speakers at that size depending on how close the listener is to the speaker.

Hi Michael

Sonic has been looking at those wild and wonderful Japanese systems for some time collecting Tube Kingdom, Musen to Jikken (MJ) and Stereo Sound magazines. Wonderful publications even for one like Sonic who reads no Japanese script. But so much is learnt and experienced from just the pictures and diagrams alone.

It will be a good question to ask "How do Japanese audiophiles deal with their rooms?" On one hand I see the Tube Kingdom and Stereo Sound test listening room which has RPG Diffusors on all the walls and at least at one time had what looked like Corner Tunes in the ceiling corners. Sonic has also seen rooms with perforated boards lining the walls particularly behind the loudspeakers which might be some form of Helmholtz resonators. Of course there are more complex solutions like ceilings with wave surfaces and homes built round huge bass horn systems.

Could it be that the advanced Japanese audiophiles regard their rooms and acoustic spaces differently from listeners elsewhere?

For sure, there are many systems I have seen in these magazines that appear to be based on co-existence, where the equipment and the rest of the home co-exist even though the stereo system dominates the room.

In the meantime Sonic has made more progress with my room. I bought a Technics alloy headshell and mounted the Audio Technica AT95E in it (this was last fitted in the Acoustic Research AR XA arm) and attached it to my Audio Technica turntable. With a 2 gm down force, the tracking was superb, no distortion, ticks and pops gone and no jumping grooves. Very good.

The sound was a little on the thin side compared to my Stanton 500e 78 rpm/SP broad tip stylus but what I hear is musical, distortion and skip free. Yes, the AR XA arm was defective in some way. Possibly something to do with excessive friction in the horizontal movement of the arm that caused all the noise and distortion.

The stereo playback from LPs is good but the sound of 78s played back with the Stanton is wonderful. The mono sound from these 70+ year-old records is surprisingly full and natural (not digital sounding). Sitting by the turntable and playing records, Sonic hears a huge soundstage that is larger and more full sounding than stereo LP playback. I can sit between the speakers and hear a full soundstage at the walls whichever way I look!

Sonic

Hi Sonic

I look forward to responding to your posts. I have been to the Japan audiophile scene and can tell you what I think. I have to wrap up the trip here but don't want to forget to respond to this cause I think it is very interesting.

Hi Michael

Very excited to hear what you have to say about the Japanese audio scene. I'll also be addressing your question on why I may not think we should be getting all round sound.

Actually Sonic is one of the converted. We can.

It is just that there are a lot of misconceptions and incorrect expectations among audiophiles. Also when we discuss things like imaging, girth, ambience and what the Tune does, it is within the framework of existing science and logic.

As I understand, Tuneland employs no new science or magic but a fresh understanding and application of known acoustic theory that may have been ignored or de-emphasised by the high-end industry to the detriment of musick lovers... an industry that is bent on getting audiophiles onto the "equipment of the month" and "new State of the Art every other week" treadmill.

Sonic

Greetings Zonees

Sonic needs to go cautiously here. The sound I am getting from my SPs and 78s which fills the room and "images" whichever wall I look at is with a Stanton 500 with a 5217 stylus that is broad tipped for SPs and78s. The present Stanton model line up (which some say are different from the old Stantons) are specified for 275 pFs input capacitance and 47k ohms resistance.

Thing is the sound of cartridges including moving coils are dependent on loading. Change the input capacitance and the input resistance and the sound can change a lot -- mostly in the upper mids and treble. For instance the great Shures of old were pretty flat at the specified input impedance but once you lowered the capacitance a dip in the upper mids and a peak at 15 kHz appeared which gave a distant and tizzy sound in the wrong system. The V15 mk II and III were a match for any kilobuck moving coil IMO.

So the Stanton sounds full and surprisingly full range from those SPs/78s when played through my Pioneer tube phono stage (using TJ Full Music 12AX7s). The Audio Technica AT 95E specified to 175 pFs sounds thin when played into the Pioneer. The input impedance of the Pioneer is not specified but it might be likely the match is better for the Stantons. Maybe I will pick up another Stanton -- maybe a 500 or the 681eee -- with the microgroove stylus and try it out.

There might be a mismatch with the AT 95E run into the Pioneer. Since I have one turntable with one tonearm, tuning to get the best girth from one cartridge will make the sound of others wrong.

And this is with the moving magnets. Moving coils are another thing...they are sensitive to input resistance and some like 1 ohm, others 10 ohms....the usual 47 k Ohms are not for them. Sonic likes the Denon 103 moving coil into a Denon transformer. Other than this, I have found many MCs unbalanced. Some are too bright, some too bassy and too warm, some are warm and bright at the same time, some give an exaggeratedly deep soundstage...nearly all have a nice midranges....some sound hard and "digital"...and many cost huge sums of money. Apart from the Denons, Sonic has little inclination to try MCs.

An adventure for sure.

Sonic

Sonic.beaver wrote:

Hi Michael

Very excited to hear what you have to say about the Japanese audio scene. I'll also be addressing your question on why I may not think we should be getting all round sound.

Actually Sonic is one of the converted. We can.

It is just that there are a lot of misconceptions and incorrect expectations among audiophiles. Also when we discuss things like imaging, girth, ambience and what the Tune does, it is within the framework of existing science and logic.

As I understand, Tuneland employs no new science or magic but a fresh understanding and application of known acoustic theory that may have been ignored or de-emphasised by the high-end industry to the detriment of musick lovers... an industry that is bent on getting audiophiles onto the "equipment of the month" and "new State of the Art every other week" treadmill.

Sonic

Yes, everytime I enter the world of all around sound I hear things in the recording that make more sense than if I was only hearing a frontal boxed sound. I think it's really cool that the audiophile has found a stage that they can focus on and follow, but it's not reality and I question if it should have ever been called the absolute sound cause it never was. This limited view may have given birth to as you say "equipment of the month" but I often wonder to what harm? I spend a lot of time talking to Drewster and he explains the shock of entering into the "big stage" world nicely. Audiophiles have excepted the boxed in small stage as real and when they are exposed to the bigger it is unsettling. Against the teaching of those who have been capitalizing on this for many years as being real when it is really nothing more than a portion. But in time the bigger more open sound, both in theory and the real audiophile world, will be one of exploring the whole.

This is the cool part about the hobby. The past small stage will be looked at like an era just like all the eras of the hobby. They all in their own way ad to the fun. Where I draw my line in the sand is when they call it the right way, and worse the only way.

The big Japan horn systems and headphones to me have their right to the piece of the pie. I see big horns as (depending on the room) being a way to over power the rooms effect. Done correctly it does allmost sound like the room is gone, but one has to be willing to hear the parts of both the electronics and the horns as being the truth. The speaker/room combo approach for me gives more to the ability of voicing. What I don't understand is when people who are obviously using speakers that need the speaker/room combo setup act like they don't. They think that there is a magic thing that happens that eliminates the room from the equation, and I find this very strange and limiting.

As you, I and the Tunees have seen there is nothing quite like voicing a room. It's the most flexible listening experience and closest to finding the key to unlocking any particular recording. I think the hobby letting the room become a listening room instead of a living room with a stereo in it is the biggest step the hobby has ever taken. Maybe many are confused on how to treat it and end up killing a lot of the recording but this is something that will pass and the next generation will have more of a handle. And yes, I also believe many will head back to simple systems that give less of a compressed sound so that the room can do most of the work. It has always been the case for me so far that when I introduced the fixed component that, in the bigger picture sense, I loose something. I'm not quite able to get that openess I need to start shaping with. I have found it much easier to work from simple out over working from complicated backward. This way when I do hear something that catches my ear I get to hear in the context of big to start with. As in the case with the tube amp I'm exploring. Using it without it's extra parts has made the experience much nicer than having to take it from stock to nothingness. I'm always having to take this and that off to get to the basic, then I have to start building the transfer parts. Easier to start with simple from the beginning.