Building a Room Full of Balanced Harmonics

sonic asked

1. Shouldn't hard rigid walls be good for bass? If the walls were flexible like drywall, won’t they flex and lose energy and cut the bass?

mg

The rule of pitch is when something is tightened the pitch goes up, when loosened it goes down. In playback terms you want to have mechanics that allow both. Rooms and instruments are pretty much the same. If you play a full body guitar the sound is going to be lower in tone whereas a thin tight guitar is going to pick up on mostly the sound of the strings and neck.

Pitch however should not be confused with frequency responce. These are two different worlds and even if you have a room that measures in strong bass responce it can still sound very thin. Frequency responce is a measurement of cycles and pitch is speed and reaction of wave (sphere) formation. Frenquencies don't give you attack and warmth. Pitch formation is what makes a note of a guitar different from a piano playing the same note.

Somehow in high end audio we made this solid wall theory into something it isn't. Truth is if a wall has the ability to vibrate in tones and pitches similar to an instrument it will produce that instrument. Our goal is to find or make a room reproduce the full range and moods of the music. This is much easier with rooms that have flex and a certain amount of tonality built into the structure.

sonic asked

2. What do you mean “Not only do removing the tunes make that big of a difference but also the shape of each individual tune. Those panels inside have a mind of their own and sometimes a little shaping needs to take place." what is the "shape of each individual tune" and "sometimes a little shaping needs to take place"...shaping of what?

mg

Try this sometime. Take the pillow and flatten the front panel inside of it. You will hear a different sound to the pillow. The RT Pillow relaxed sounds a lot different than the RT Pillow with the corners pulled tight. You can also put up the RT and after push your finger in the middle of it and listen to the difference.

sonic asked

3. What do you hear from systems using a single subwoofer if the sub is placed near one of the front corners but at the midpoint of the front wall and up against the front wall? Compare this with when the subwoofer is close to or in one of the front corners.

mg

Boy, here's another question I could write a book on and probably should.

Subwoofers are so misunderstood. No two rooms play a sub the same and all these guidelines saying do this and that are completely dependent on the room itself and the way that it not only loads but also vibrates.

I like subs and what they do and the flexibility they give but they can also sometimes rob the music. I'll be honest, and sometimes will say "lets just make this easy". Meaning throw a sub in and be done with it, but then I'll hear an image float by that I know will only happen with the purest of signal pathways. Arrggg, do I pass that up or go after that deep rich tone that is almost atomatic if I get the sub right? Truth is the room is the sub if you find all the answers, but there is that something special from (for me) that bigger cone sound. Still if I can get it without the sub I'm usually happier (till I put on the next CD).

As far as where to put the sub in the room? The answer for that is the room itself and will not be found in the guidelines. My subs are fairly room friendly because they are built to resonate but rigid subs I have found to be a pain in the you know what because they fight the room and the waves and patterns being developed. Rigid subs also usually fight with the main speakers giving a completely different sound than the mains. This battle can cause a very weird sonic crossover, and many people hear this and don't know what it is. They've added a third element to the frequecy response. One the room, two the mains, and now three the sub, all fight to push their agenda. The more you make your speaker into the room and your sub also, so that they get along in harmony, the better the flow to the music.

This is all about pressure patterns getting along. You can play the same frequency off of the wall and completey fight against the speaker. Same goes true for the sub. This is not about frenquecy response as many think but about flavor. Audiophiles again try to make this into something it isn't. This is not a numbers game. You don't just start a stop a wave. Waves contain flavor and feed or fight off of other waves. If they feed you will hear the results in harmonic strutures and size. If there is a fight you will hear shrinkage and discord. You may have your meter read that the room is perfect yet it sound like crap because the frequecies are in a war with the flavor of disharmony.

Ever move something just slightly and boom, the whole room opens up   That means you have just created a harmonic moment. The waves and patterns are relaxed and can form without much effort. This is a slice of heaven and should be studied.

Kraft Paper Tale 3

The Kraft Paper on the windows is looking to be a winner though I want to wait for the settling to stabilize before posting pix and saying this is the new room layout.  

Sonic has put the lowest pair of RTS back into the tune cluster for the window (see the pix in my September 20 post of the front of my room and the ETs/RTS mounted on the window blinds in that pix for what I am writing about).  



OK the sound and room liveness is nearly right now.  I got a good dome of energy and sound.  

Longer term I got to think about the effect of sunlight/UV on the paper.  Does it harden and lose its effect or does it fall apart?  Michael have you thought about this and have any views?

Listening now to Charles Mingus’ Jazzical Moods and The Pennywhistlers’ Folk Songs from Eastern Europe (Nonesuch LP) – this one throws a very realistic soundstage across my room of the 7 singers with a much bigger ambient effect though I cannot go running out into spaces adjacent to my rooms with a measuring tape.  Michael when you talked about huge soundstages you said you ran into the next room to measure the distance of something – what was it? An image of an instrument like a piano way out there, some sound effect like a car horn or just ambience?

When Robert and I look for out-of-room imaging from our Magneplanars, what are we to expect?  Robert, do you know what you are looking for?  I am not sure what I am to expect.

Thanks Michael for the answers.  What you said makes sense – frequency response if not the same as what the Tune is trying to achieve, that the sound of an RTS stretch tight is different from one mounted loosely I understand but just pushing on the panel of an ET and the sound changes is something I find disturbing.  This tells me in a tuned system there is no stable point.  Push this, loosen this, tighten that and the sound changes. A million ways to improve the sound but a million more ways to compromise the music.

Also your comments on subwoofer placement – there is no answer…..the only one is “it depends”.  While Zonees know that sites like Audio Asylum, Audioholics and others are full of guides on how to place subs and speakers. Won't this make the Tune appeal to a narrow group of listeners and audio-fans because the majority people want to be told "put this here, turn this so many degrees, flip the third switch from the left and press Play".

Sonic

sonic asked

Longer term I got to think about the effect of sunlight/UV on the paper.  Does it harden and lose its effect or does it fall apart?  Michael have you thought about this and have any views?

mg

I don't know what the long term effects are, but I will say that all materials in general are effected by the environments we live in and this does effect the sound on an ongoing basis. To be aging can be looked at in a good way or bad, depending on your point of view. With UV adding to this, it's something to keep an eye on for sure. It might even get to the point where you will want to put Cardstock up first then the builders paper. In my upstairs listening room I will be putting up cardstock to listen to shortly.

sonic

Michael when you talked about huge soundstages you said you ran into the next room to measure the distance of something – what was it? An image of an instrument like a piano way out there, some sound effect like a car horn or just ambience?

mg

Absolutely instruments, or other recorded material. Not just air, but part of the recorded stage.

sonic

Thanks Michael for the answers. What you said makes sense – frequency response if not the same as what the Tune is trying to achieve, that the sound of an RTS stretch tight is different from one mounted loosely I understand but just pushing on the panel of an ET and the sound changes is something I find disturbing. This tells me in a tuned system there is no stable point. Push this, loosen this, tighten that and the sound changes. A million ways to improve the sound but a million more ways to compromise the music.

mg

What's disturbing for me is that this industry painted a false picture of what it really was. Gallons upon gallons of "absolutes" were thrown at guys and none of these systems held water. Every time the listener couldn't get it, they were told to buy something new instead of being told to learn how audio worked. What's so weird is we have had the music world to look at for an example forever but were bent on creating a world independent from it's roots. There's really not that much shocking about adjusting a string on a guitar, and it really shouldn't be that shocking to tune up a recording.

here's my take

If someone doesn't want to take the time to tune why don't they buy a simple sat/sub system like is found at any mass production store for cheap and find the right placement for the mini speakers and tweak the sub a little. Or step up to a simple sat/sub system that can be found at Parts Express or somewhere and do the placement game. I do this and it sounds far better the most high end audio fixed systems that have dramatic flaws.

The industry has changed and it's really not that hard (with a little guidence) to take a simple system and give a nice over all sound. What's hard is buying a high end system and not knowing how to get it to match with the room, speakers or electricity. Mass produced simple systems 25 years ago were pretty bad, but they have come a long way and there are actually some of them that used in the right context can do things that are surprising. Why? Because they are built with light weight in mind.

here's an example

The other day "Mel" (a worker here) was hooking up a mini mass system to listen to while working and during breaks. She called out to me "what happened" ? She had her phone hooked up to the powered speaker system and it sounded ok, but as soon as she hooked up those same speakers to the computer and played the same song the music sounded terrible. I did a couple of things to the computer to make things somewhat better, but still when she went back to the phone the music was far better.   Well she didn't really care enough to be shocked, she just wanted the best sound.

I need to keep stressing this till our male minds start grabbing it. Simple and low mass does things that can not be done with over built products.

Back in the early "90's" Corey Greenberg (now editor of Audio Mag) talked about how his portable CD player and simple cables were beating up on his bigger high end front ends. Right at the moment was an open door for these guys to fess up and usher in a new more progressive world, but advertising monies (I would think) called and things like that discovery were soon put in the never talk about again box.

Someday this will all be history (faster than we think) but the line between the classes will be gone and the method of listening will be what high end audio becomes more than the faceplate.

High end audio "is" that pushing on the EchoTune and turning that screw. It's taking the listening experience for any particular recording to the next level.

If you put me in two rooms side by side and gave me high ends best in one and mass production in the other (I get to choose my mass production product) the chances of the high end beating out the mass would be very slim to the average listener who just wanted great sound and wanted to listen to a big cross selection of music.

This makes the 80-2013 audiophiles so mad but really shouldn't. We have entered a new awareness and a new age of production why not embrace it? Take what we have learned and apply to what we now know even better. Slowly and one by one if need be we are bringing factors into the listening room that are bigger than just the source, amp, speaker combo. We are using the room and not killing it. Kinda makes me think of these cartoons and emoticons where this guy is banging his head on the wall. He's not going to get it till he is forced to see that listening is about what we are listening to and in.

Tuning is something for the serious listener to embrace as the answer to get closer. If they want to sit there and wish the system would do something it won't, well that's a hobby that is dead and dying. The serious listener can get closer than they ever have but it does take an awareness to what the past did right and wrong, and an awareness where the new audio has past up the old. Look how long it has taken (and they still don't get it) for the baricade acoustical setup to catch on. The high end audio forums are still way out of touch and haven't got a clue as to what is going on in the room and how to use it. Their 40 years in the wilderness has to come to an end sometime.

sonic says

Also your comments on subwoofer placement – there is no answer…..the only one is “it depends”.  While Zonees know that sites like Audio Asylum, Audioholics and others are full of guides on how to place subs and speakers. Won't this make the Tune appeal to a narrow group of listeners and audio-fans because the majority people want to be told "put this here, turn this so many degrees, flip the third switch from the left and press Play".

mg

I'm not sure the majority could be considered to be these forums. What I see in these forums is a dying breed of guys who get stuck more than move forward. They can't see past a guideline and use their ears, and this is sad. Stuck and rigid teaching adding a touch of guilt has made a bunch of listening robots with poor sound. None of these guys seem to be having much success outside of a temporary enlightenment that fades and never returns. Their trying to make a moment stick instead of enjoying the moment for what it is and was. Worse of all their making guidelines bassed on a particular song or recording in a particular room for a moment. I guarantee you will walk in any of these rooms and hear tons of things wrong when you play your music, and I guarantee if you follow their guidelines you will not get the perfect likeness of what they are describing and wonder what they were talking about.

Guidelines are cool, I have them for my product, but they and all should be considered starting points and not absolutes.

Why does audio have to be fixed? Why are we assuming that there is a one size fits all world of audio out there? Even the most uneducated listener out there knows different songs sound different. How did the high end audio hobbyist get so messed up? Every radio station on the planet has to filter (compress or boost) the music just so we can hear somewhat of the same dynamic range when the radio is playing. This is common knowledge, and for people who say they are audiophiles they should know this. We have never been plug and play till the high enders screwed up and got rid of the equalizer then didn't know how to fix the recording.

Think about it. We got rid of the equalizer to get a more pure signal, then we couldn't get it to sound right, and instead of learning how to, we started buying new gear hoping for some kind of fix. But that fix never came cause what the EQ was doing was at least making it so we could go from recording to recording making an adjustment. When the EQ was branded "evil" the audiophile community got severly lost cause they didn't understand how recordings were made and worked. They dare not hit a tone control, but they had no clue how the sound really work as it made it's way through the audio chain and what happened in the room they listened in. In other words they made their own hell and have been living in it for 25-30 years, never looking at what they did.

They want to push play and have the system do the rest but when a system reaches a certain level of transparency that's what we get, the real thing or closer to it. Honestly most of these guys should go back to EQ's cause they don't understand what it takes. We can't blame the music for our lack of knowledge, and we can't assume that their is a standard of sound when there never was.

If we don't know how to equalize or balance a system when we play dramatically different recordings we are going to hear the differences and be stuck with what it is. To me, I don't see what the big deal is, except that the average joe audiophile is traveling in a never ending circle till they learn the hobby they are in. It's like "what did you think was going to happen when the EQ's disappeared?". Did the audiophile think there was a magic chip in the equipment that was going to fix a recording? No what they first started to do was blame the recording itself. How dumb is that? I don't have my EQ, I don't understand how recordings work, I want to live with this equipment that is in tune for some things and out of tune for others, since I don't understand I'll blame the recording. It never crossed their minds that it's not the recording at all but the fact that we went from equalizing the frequencies to nothing and expected that all would be fixed based on a few reviewers listening to a few pieces of music in a few rooms.

That last paragraph is what I call narrow!

Back in the day of EQ's these guys were audiophiles. When the change happened and there were no more EQ's the audiophile needed to step up their listening skills by using other ways to tune and shape the music and that has been where they have been stuck for the longest time.

fact is

The audiophile once they started to make the signal a little more pure lost a grip and never got back on track by becoming a studied listener. All the music is still there but we have got to grow up and see it for what it really is. It's a bunch of information that has always needed to be shaped and by removing one way to shape it with another it requires a little learning of the bigger picture. This is where the mags and leaders failed their followers. They made this hobby into a money (ego) thing instead of an understanding your hobby thing. Other hobbies have moved forward but this particular part of the music playback and recording have fallen behind and needs to get (and will) it's feet back underneigh itself. It's like making a good thing but not filling in the rest of the painting (I have the trees now but the grass is gone).

When I go to my favorite music shop I don't see any old school guys there to be honest yet the store is packed from morning to midnight. These folks (both guys and gals) are listening to something and still using red book as their main source of music. Redbook will come to an end but these folks will not stop listening and I really doubt if they are going to head down another CD type road.

Why is the audiophile world so small? Because we have made it that way. The average person is not going to buy into something that doesn't work. We talk up high end audio but very few have a good sounding system in their home to show others. The stores sound horrible and the support forums are for the most part negitive to the truths of the hobby. Why would someone find this attractive? Until we become up to the times and become qualified listeners able to blow the minds of those around use we are going to keep our systems in shutdown and not have our friends over for a listen.

What makes listening cool? Why do when people come to visit me end up staying in my room till I'm irritated  ? Maybe it's because they are pulled in to this sound they hear in the hall and get curious, then they sit in the chair and go "holy smokes".

Did I do anything special? Not really, just a simple system that sucks you into it's world. A system that plays music first and asks questions later. A system that is not trying to make a name brand sound good or me standing around to whisper guidence into the ear. When they ask I tell them "no those are not speakers  " and tell them my room is my system. "wow, that is a trip" is what I get  

I'll be honest, if that same person walked into or stood out in the hall of the typical high end room they would probably never go in or stay past a song or even part of a song.

My question is, is it really that hard to understand the hobby? I don't see that people were all that confused back in the day of the equalizer, why are they now? Why is it that we painted a picture that isn't so? Shouldn't we be embracing that we have a chance to hear the music even closer than before? I personally think it's cool that the EQ is gone, but sadly disappointed that the industry has not found out how to replace it.

tuning makes this boy happy  and I'm thrilled that you and I have moved beyond the "magic chip" in our thinking

Hey, Sonic,

 Why the sudden mention of a subwoofer? Are you thinking of bringing yours back in the room again?

 I see more than once that you have mentioned others hearing your system have been quite impressed. You have to wonder if you and I can't see the forest for the trees sometimes. I have a feeling that I often go backward as much as forward, that maybe I Tune too much.

 To answer your question regarding the disappearing walls scenario, I would like to accomplish such a thing ("guitars in the neighbor's yard"). However, when listening to movie soundtracks, this may be counter-productive, but I won't know until I get there.

 In the meantime, I got rid of that weird pressure on my right ear. It occurred to me that I had loosened the screws on the platform on which the right speaker sits, but hadn't done the same for the platform with the left speaker. Having done that, I also used a piece of Commando Tape to hold one of those cardboard tubes on to the access door, vertically situated and centered. This last addition was an experiment to lessen that common complaint of mine, the right side splash of energy from out-of-phase material. Time will tell on that but currently this is either negating the mid-bass or "sizzling" the higher frequencies. If I could stay awake long enough to tell, it sure would be nice!

Mr. Green,

 It seems you have been rejecting a lot of wood lately. Did you ever see the movie "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home?" Mr. Spock didn't have all the particulars he needed to make his usual calculations, so he sheepishly informed Kirk that he would have to guess. Kirk thought that was wonderful. Spock, puzzled, turned to Dr. McCoy and related that perhaps Kirk did not understand the situation. McCoy assured Spock that Kirk felt a guess from the Vulcan was better than a sure assessment from anybody else. Could it be possible that that you are being too picky, like a movie director that never wants to release his film because he feels its not good enough? Then, the film inevitably gets released and the public thinks its great.

If only there were more Spocks in the universe.

Than again there's Kirk "I need my pain".

Kraft Paper Tale 4

Yes, the paper on the window is working and the soundstage and bass is pretty good. The dynamics are very good. Thing is I am beginning to hear a loss of harmonics in the front – all the frequencies are there but the richness of harmonics is reduced.

Michael -- any suggestions how I can fix this?

Robert – you ask why Sonic’s questions about the subwoofer?

Nope, I am not thinking of reinstalling my subwoofer system….though never say never….this came about at the “hifi club” that Sonic is part of, where one member was talking about how he wanted to go into SACD surround after hearing an impressive demo (at least to him) and participants discussed what was the optimal speaker placement. THX 5.1 came up.

Inevitably the issue of subwoofers came up and one member showed us the Audioholics guide on subwoofer placement with frequency response plots for rooms with two subs front wall, side wall etc. Then someone also brought up a Japanese movement called 3-D where horn systems were reinforced in the bass with one summed subwoofer -- large15 to 18 inch woofers from Motiograph and JBL.

Of course the question is “where should the sub go?” One said “next to listener”, another said “anywhere”, another said “front corners” and yet another said “front centre”. Sonic was asked for an opinion and I said something vague.

Then when posting, I thought I would ask Michael. These people are serious music listeners. Movies do not feature in all their set ups but all want extension down to 20hz. So that is why I brought this up.

Michael – very good write up about the audiophile mentality. As Zonees know, Sonic researches a lot into ancient sound. And it is like Michael says. Tone controls and equalizers were accepted parts of the system from the 1950s days when hifi was tube based and largely a DIY hobby.

Everyone had tone controls and using them to correct for radio, tape and records was expected. QUAD advised users to use BBC broadcast as a standard but said that their preamp tone and filtering controls were needed for record playback. Back then, every amp and preamp had tone controls of some sort. There were EQ units with rotary knobs to adjust bass, mid and treble. Later 5, 7, 12 band and 1/3 octave band graphic EQs became available.

Along the way, a change towards the current mania occurred in the industry where tone controls (not to mention balance knobs) were removed from amps as a mark of “high end”. Only the cheap stuff had the tone controls. I am told this happened in the 70s. No one could tell Sonic who started it….but the issue was someone claimed these controls were corrupting the sound.

Anyone knows which manufacturer started this? Was it a cost cutting trick?

One older audiophile who was present in the hobby from the 1960s to 1970s said to us that the first time he noticed the removal of tone controls as in an advertisement for the Naim amps that were part of the Linn Sondek, Grace G707, Supex 900 and Linn Isobarik DMS system. The ad showed the Naim preamp having no tone controls.

Come to think of it, tone controls and EQ can be used for records and CDs since recordings vary widely in tonal balance and some EQ can make the difference between great musick recorded badly and a good listening moment.

What should never be done is to use EQ to correct the time related frequency room acoustic problems.

For rooms – it must be fixed with the Tune. For programme material, an EQ/tone control used sensibly and one that can be bypassed when not required can make for a good evening of musick.

Sonic

One thing I will say about subs is. After using a platform with a sub there is such a big difference that subs sound sick without them. I say sick cause it's the right word. Subs without a platform sound like they are coughing. There is no real connection to the floor and the sub sticks out like a sore thumb. This goes for any sub I have done this with and actually there are different sizes per subs and different woods to use to make their tonality more wide band.

This is something you could turn your friends on to that doesn't conflict with their views of the way we treat rooms.

I can tell you this. If you turned your friends on to my sub platforms you would be a hero. No kidding ask Hiend1 or anyone who has try them. The difference is shocking.

Hi Michael and Zonees

The Kraft paper on the windows is an improvement but another few days of settling told Sonic that a harmonic richness is definitely reduced. Everything else is on the road to what I think the Tune should be but the harmonic complexity (not to be confused with the audiophiles’ idea of “warmth”) is reduced. This is noticeable particularly in the front of the room.

The obvious solution is Sonic needs to add wood from Michael to balance out the tone of the music.

Also after all the listening Sonic has had to analog and digital recently, I think I am arriving at a more moderated view. Analog is better than digital but the difference in 2013 is a lot less than it was in 1985. Yet, Sonic is hearing that digital (Redbook CD) is not without its benefits -- and I don't mean just freedom from ticks and pop or ease of use. There are some aspects of the mids, articulation and ambience where digital is ahead.

Michael -- Sonic read that you could fix genuine Michael Green wood panels to Deluxe RoomTunes and Floor-standing Deco Tunes. Can you supply this to Sonic so I could add wood to existing Tune devices?

Sonic

Hi Michael

Your views on my question about adding wood to FS-DRTs and DTs?

The thing from my testing and tuning is the FS-DRTs and DTs give control of the standing waves, slap echoes and sundry acoustic problems but they do not contribute Tone.

The PZCs give both control as well as Tone. So effective are the FS-DRTs and DTs (and all of Michael's products without wood and tuning bolts) that under some circumstances, they may wash Tone away.

A controlled room is of course better than an uncontrolled room but it can show up the need for Tone or sound antiseptic when Tone is reduced. Sonic is finding this with my room.

Sonic

Sonic.beaver wrote:

Hi Michael and Zonees

The Kraft paper on the windows is an improvement but another few days of settling told Sonic that a harmonic richness is definitely reduced.  Everything else is on the road to what I think the Tune should be but the harmonic complexity (not to be confused with the audiophiles’ idea of “warmth”) is reduced. This is noticeable particularly in the front of the room.

The obvious solution is Sonic needs to add wood from Michael to balance out the tone of the music.

Also after all the listening Sonic has had to analog and digital recently, I think I am arriving at a more moderated view.  Analog is better than digital but the difference in 2013 is a lot less than it was in 1985. Yet, Sonic is hearing that digital (Redbook CD) is not without its benefits -- and I don't mean just freedom from ticks and pop or ease of use. There are some aspects of the mids, articulation and ambience where digital is ahead.

Michael -- Sonic read that you could fix genuine Michael Green wood panels to Deluxe RoomTunes and Floor-standing Deco Tunes.  Can you supply this to Sonic so I could add wood to existing Tune devices?

Sonic

I'm so glad to hear you finding things in the Red Book world! I totally agree that there is some beautiful things inside of this format that the average audiophile has over looked and moving beyond this format is hasty and not a good thing at least for now.

Yes, I have to say, even though my work load has gone way up with me doing the wood that the workers couldn't quite get, for you guys, if your needing something I'm making some pretty awsome sounding stuff.

And yes you do need the flavor of wood in there to off set some of the other materials and also to add the richness.

Sonic.beaver wrote:

Hi Michael

Your views on my question about adding wood to FS-DRTs and DTs?

The thing from my testing and tuning is the FS-DRTs and DTs give control of the standing waves, slap echoes and sundry acoustic problems but they do not contribute Tone.

The PZCs give both control as well as Tone.  So effective are the FS-DRTs and DTs (and all of Michael's products without wood and tuning bolts) that under some circumstances, they may wash Tone away.  

A controlled room is of course better than an uncontrolled room but it can show up the need for Tone or sound antiseptic when Tone is reduced.  Sonic is finding this with my room.

Sonic

Hi Sonic

I'm going to tell you guys something. I've about had it with wood workers and production. Every time I make a production run or attempt to there is something that comes up missing that I don't have when I do these ugly home looking things myself. And their not really that ugly but not finished looking in the since we think of. BUT, boy do they sound good and smoke the sound of production.

I have been working on some tuning devices that you guys should have. And I hate to say this in pulblic, but the truth is with audio today so few people care about the sound first that it makes me want to try to find the faithful few and make this stuff the way I want it sound wise and let the production people go by the way side.

I think is this audio biz suicide, but then I think after talking to people in the biz, they are so far away from the sound you guys as listeners are hunting for that maybe I can in some some way make the eyes open. I mean what I am saying is there are these simple little things neccessary in production that take away from the sound. They look pretty but they take away. If I do the same basic product but do things a little differently in the final touches the sound jumps.

What does the client really want and really need to get there?

Reason I bring this up in this post is because why try to fix a tune you have when maybe you should be looking at a super hot-roded tune from me.

In recent months/years I have so hard been trying to make things production and every time run into workers who DON'T Get It! Yes you can hear my voice raise.   I think all the time and money I've waisted away from what I do to try to make workers comfortable or to try to make something that has a miter or is covered or has hot clue or, "the or's go on". WHY? I know I need to make production runs to survive, I get it, but with the tune being so ahead of the curve and audiophiles being so out of touch from you guys (the tunees) why in the meantime of them catching on and the tune being put back into circulation don't I just build the most effective product that can possibly be done.

I'm stuck between the biz world and the audio world. The box vs you guys sitting there listening to sound. The rest of the industry is trying to package something and I am making sound. Doesn't that sound snotie? Everyone claims to be making sound but you and I both know that the signal is more delicate than the packaged products we see.

So while I'm in the middle of an audio rant and production nightmere's I say. Why am I not just making what I make for me and offer it to you. Why am I trying to see if someone can do this or that instead of doing what I do and letting you have things the way I do it?

I guess I'm just tired and want to give the sound and let the audio chips lay where they will. Is this wrong to voice? I don't know, but in my life the truth builds up in me to the point where sound rules over common sense I guess. My common sense says just make it michael. Maybe my common sense has been saying this for years and I'm not listening. I'm trying to fit into others way of thinking instead of my own.

Now follow me on this guys (sonic thanks for letting me high jack this). If you guys had me make low tone frames with brazilian pine fronts and 3 point bases and made the burn so that it was covered in a netting that was held on by pins and not wraped. You would have a floorstander that smoked. Yes you would see the butted ends and the wood would be put together so that it was able to settle, but in the end you would have one bad boy listening tool. I tool that I could make and not try to have someone else do it. Or something that I could watch over while being done if I got busy.

Sonic, what you really need is not a wood front but "my floorstander". I need to stop trying to find others to do things and just deal with what is on my plate.

I know you guys have heard me in private rant about my workers but why don't I just come out and say it. You have to be a tunee to build tuned products. This last month or two making stuff for you guys without workers has been so much fun and I get to experience the sound every step of the way. This is not something I can hand over and expect some rookie to do. This is something that is a part of the tune and has a place in your system. Something that you and I should be able to talk about and voice together till we find the correct blends that you need to bring the music to the place that is heaven for you.

Just like thinking about Garps platform. In my head I think I have nailed it, but if I miss I know what to do based on the feel I have for what he is doing. I'm not kidding I lay awake at night listening to you guys system in my head. While the industry is counting beans I'm seeing when I can get to making the things I need to and how far behind I have fallen with some and how close I am with others. I what, I need to make this even and I need to have you guys listening to the very best there is.

You do indeed need the wood to take this where it needs to go and let me point out where.

I want you guys to tell me your sound so I can find the strong and weak points and make that custom toy that fits like the audio glove it should be.

Hi Zonees

Here’s what Sonic room looks like with the Kraft paper on the windows.



Of course this is a starting point hopefully to another level of the Tune.  

Given the observations that you have read from Sonic about the improvement that this tune made in terms of control but also the reduction of harmonic richness that went with it, Sonic will be working from here to find tunes that build up the girth and musick.

I am now finding that the bass extension in my room is delicate. Every note/frequency lower achieved is precious. Just upping the control of the room slightly in the wrong way can cause the bass to go thin and roll off. This might be the effect of the rigid concrete room.  Or sure every bit of low frequency extension is a battle won.  

Been listening to J S Bach Cantatas 1 – 4 (LPs), Haydn Violin Concertos, Paul
Hindemith Sonata for Viola Alone (LP),  Pennywhistle Singers (LP),  J S Bach French Suites for Harpsichord, Alain Stivell Reflets (LP), Haydn Keyboard Works, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings (LP), Music from the Time of Michael Praetorius (LP) .What great musick!

Sonic

Greetings Zonees

These last few days, Sonic has started countering the loss of harmonic richness after the paper went up on the window glass. The solution is bringing in wood and my next few posts will be about what Sonic is doing to retain control of the room while getting harmonic fullness with wood.

There have been manufacturers other than Michaekl offering wood solutions. I can think of two -- the folks with the ebony discs and another who sold poles with blocks of different types of wood mounted on them. They all had their followings but Michael is the first and only manufacturer that Sonic knows who brought in the idea of room control as well as the effect of wood.

Room control is necessary. Having all the effect of wood without control can create a mess of harmonics (which is what I hear from attempts with competitors' systems) or they have may have no effect because the lack of control in the rooms negated whatever good the wood contributed.

OTOH, control deals with standing waves and slap echoes but can make a room astringent. Add wood and you get beautiful musick.

Sonic listened this evening to Paul Hindemith's Concert Music (Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by the composer with various soloists -- EMI CD) and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir of Florence (Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Neville Marriner cond. Argo LP), Concert for Harp and Orchestra by Handel (Heliodor LP). The addition of wood is sounding very promising Sonic thinks.

Sonic

Hi Zonees

The wood is up at the front of the room -- three FS-PZCs in the mid-wall, placed in the classic \ _ / formation, fairly close to the front wall. In the two corners went the FS-DRTs.

Sonic found a sweet spot for the cluster of the FS-PZCs and know what? It is closer to the wall than I expected, in fact the flankers are touching the wall skirting and the centre one is not far away. Move this assembly forward and the effect of solidifying the soundstage drops off a lot but the effect of the wood is there.

Now the sound is getting to be whole and deep and realistic. "Getting to be" not there yet. I feel there is lots and lots of wooding this room needs before the musick is truly free. More to come.

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Sonic likes pasta and recently as I was tucking into a big plate of fettuccine, salmon and a cream sauce….I thought of then Tune (isn’t this strange?). The dish was perfectly balanced thanks to the chef. The amount of fish was right, the sauce was right, the basil, pepper, salt and optional chilli flakes balanced well. This might represent a “perfect listening room”. But things go unpleasant if we upset the balance – add another big handful of salt, throw in five times the chilli, reduce the fish by 2/3s -- and this will be similar to a good room that is untuned. Everything is there but in the wrong proportions.
In a poorly structured or shaped room (like L-shaped), we get more oddities. The salmon fettuccine dish has now added chocolate, sand, wasabi and motor oil thrown in. A nasty mess.

The object of room treatment is to get rid of the chocolate and wasabi and sand and oil, then get the chilli, fish, basil, pepper and salt in the right balance.

Most audiophiles go for the “burn”. They use lots of sound absorbing material in an attempt to kill all the problems. But this is equivalent to bringing the messed up pasta dish with the sand, basil, motor oil, salmon and sauces to a tap where all the stuff is washed down the sink. Yes, we got rid of the problems but what is left? Just plain pasta that is unappetizing and flat.

If an audiophile is going the route of using absorbing materials to control your room, this is the end state – dry, boring and (if it were food) inedible. The studio people know that a dead room is not a good listening space.

The Tune by Michael is more selective. It gets rid of the wasabi, sand, motor oil and chocolate then brings the fish, sauce, pepper, basil and chilli in the right balance after the rubbish is gone.

This is why Sonic is now going for wood. The sound of our hifi systems and rooms take on the predominant material in the space. A metallic room will sound steely, a tiled room will ring and a hard brick room like mine will tilt up if nothing is done. I dread to hear what a plastic room sounds like. Do people make plastic harpsichords? Can they sound right?

The wood is what helps the musick and has brought Sonic to the point that the major problems in my room are solved (chocolate and sand removed etc) but the musick is being brought to life so I don’t get a plain dead room (like plain pasta) but the richness and musick from controlled wood from Michael – FS PZCS, wall-mount PZCS, Shutters aeroplanes and racks.

So as Sonic moves to get more control in my room, what I am doing is analogous to getting the pasta dish and its ingredients right but not throwing out the critical ingredients.

This evening I heard a very musical but odd combination: David Munrow’s Art of the Recorder (EMI) followed by John Antill’s Corroboree (James Judd/New Zealand Symphony – Naxos).

Sonic

Hi Sonic

Since my early days of discovering "sound balancing" I have looked at things differently concerning the audio system, whether it be in the hall studio or playback room.

This goes back to what makes the sound and what plays the sound.

Every listener on the planet is going to get to the point where they realize that the room is what is playing the sound. The marketeers of this hobby try to point to all these boxes of products as if they can tell the room what to do, but all they really do is send a signal down the audio chain till it hits the air. Once this takes place it's all room.

Room correction is and always has been an interesting concept, but can altering the signal in the pathway really account for the musics content and bring the emotions of the music to life? This is something I have not yet heard happen, in fact for myself sending the signal through more parts and pieces takes me further away from the music signal.

For the high end listener, learning your room and signal is the way to success. This may seem like a long journey but honestly it's no longer than chasing the component of the month. Once we finally give in to studying the two main parts of room acoustic formation (laminar flow and pressure zones) this world of ours becomes much easier.

The laminar flow and pressure zones of any particular room are unique to that room but depending on where that room is and what it is made from we can start to come up with formulas and practices that we can apply to get that room to do what we want.

Sonic finding this close to the wall zoning might just open up a whole new chapter to the room for him.

People reading this should be mindful again that the materials of the room and the environment itself may be and is different and that guideline acoustical formulas given by the industry for speaker and product placement may be way off.

Sonic, the move toward wood is one that I have long hoped for you to embrace. I have more confidence in the sound of wood over any other material we use in our system, not only acoustically but also around the electronic signal pathway.

I don't want to marginalize metal cause they play a big part in the transfer of electrons, but I do think that we have a tendency to glorify some materials over others and when we add too much of a particular material type in a system it can take over quickly. I we can find the blend (balance) in materials in our systems we have a lot better chance of dealing with the "flow" of music.

Hi Zonees

Sonic has audiophile friends who ask me about first reflection points damping and why I don’t treat those points in my room. They get annoyed when Sonic tells them first reflections are an audiophile fiction that Michael Green has dispelled.

Since I got asked this again recently, I decided to test them and report the effect for Zonees to read and comment on.

I used a pair of DecoTunes absorptive side out (reflective side towards the wall) placed at the first reflection points along the walls (actually the doors) between my listening chair and the speaker positions. These are extra DTs so there was not shifting of in situ tuning devices during the test. Nothing shifted or was moved in the room only these two DTs were added.

Before the test, Sonic had the system idling for two hours after a cold start and with one hour of music play (CD of course). Then I listened to music (the DTs are outside the room at this time) and then ended with Mozart fortepiano works (Harmonia Mundi) as the test disc.

Then music paused and the absorbers introduced set up at the pre-measured first reflection points.

First impression was the sounded a bit more damped when a BOO! was uttered. Then the test CD resumed at the same volume level. Sonic could hear the change in a minute - the soundstage was apparently wider and the sound more airy. But the piano was no longer naturally imaged – it was too spread out and no longer focused in the middle and the exaggerated width meant the bass transients imaged in the left speaker and the treble in the right speaker. This mean the pianist had arms about 6 feet long. The height information was also gone.

The airiness was actually a thinning of the harmonic structure especially in the mid to upper bass. The speakers called attention to themselves and the whole perspective was distorted with a positionally recessed centre image (some may call this ‘depth’). Before that there was a piano that imaged in the room with the speaker panels not obvious as sources of sound, the roomtune devices in the front of my room appearing more like the sources of sound than the panels.

Removing the absorption at the first reflection points from the room was a relief.

The learning (repeated here for this thread) is first reflection point treatment will pull imaging to the speakers, give an illusion of width but at the expense realism. It may cause tonal problems and midstage imaging washout too.

So for those new to the Tune, try first reflection point treatment if you must with what Sonic observed in mind. Then see if you don’t like your sound better without the treatment at those spots.

For those still wanting absorption in your rooms, apply them in the front corners, not stuffed in the corners but mounted across them like a membrane. You should get an improvement though you’ll do a lot better with Michael’s products.

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Here are two pictures of the FS-PZC triplet at the front wall with FS-DRTs in the front corners.





The difference from earlier applications of this arrangement are how close the FS-PZCs are now to the wall and how the FS-DRTs are placed in relation to the corners.

Sonic

Sonic.beaver wrote:

Hi Zonees

Sonic has audiophile friends who ask me about first reflection points damping and why I don’t treat those points in my room.  They get annoyed when Sonic tells them first reflections are an audiophile fiction that Michael Green has dispelled.

Since I got asked this again recently, I decided to test them and report the effect for Zonees to read and comment on.

I used a pair of DecoTunes absorptive side out (reflective side towards the wall) placed at the first reflection points along the walls (actually the doors) between my listening chair and the speaker positions. These are extra DTs so there was not shifting of in situ tuning devices during the test. Nothing shifted or was moved in the room only these two DTs were added.

Before the test, Sonic had the system idling for two hours after a cold start and with one hour of music play (CD of course).  Then I listened to music (the DTs are outside the room at this time) and then ended with Mozart fortepiano works (Harmonia Mundi) as the test disc.

Then music paused and the absorbers introduced set up at the pre-measured first reflection points.

First impression was the sounded a bit more damped when a BOO! was uttered. Then the test CD resumed at the same volume level. Sonic could hear the change in a minute - the soundstage was apparently wider and the sound more airy.  But the piano was no longer naturally imaged – it was too spread out and no longer focused in the middle and the exaggerated width meant the bass transients imaged in the left speaker and the treble in the right speaker. This mean the pianist had arms about 6 feet long. The height information was also gone.  

The airiness was actually a thinning of the harmonic structure especially in the mid to upper bass.  The speakers called attention to themselves and the whole perspective was distorted with a positionally recessed centre image (some may call this ‘depth’).  Before that there was a piano that imaged in the room with the speaker panels not obvious as sources of sound, the roomtune devices in the front of my room appearing more like the sources of sound than the panels.

Removing the absorption at the first reflection points from the room was a relief.

The learning (repeated here for this thread) is first reflection point treatment will pull imaging to the speakers, give an illusion of width but at the expense realism.  It may cause tonal problems and midstage imaging washout too.

So for those new to the Tune, try first reflection point treatment if you must with what Sonic observed in mind.  Then see if you don’t like your sound better without the treatment at those spots.  

For those still wanting absorption in your rooms, apply them in the front corners, not stuffed in the corners but mounted across them like a membrane.  You should get an improvement though you’ll do a lot better with Michael’s products.

Sonic

Hi Sonic and listeners, I have guests in town this weekend but am dying to break away and give some comments here so that people can once again see the difference between a flash light technology and real sound.

I'll be back!

But let me leave you who believe in this with a question.

How big is a sound wave and what shape is it?

How many waves are heading toward that location on the wall?

What happens to waves when they hit the wall?

What is move powerful, a sound wave or sound pressure?

Are sound waves the correct term to use in enclosed rooms?

Hi Zonees

I got a pair DecoTunes, Sonic is going to see how they can be used to get more musick out of my Kraft papered window now that I know that it is a big factor in my room where the glass acted as something of a high pass filter.

So many things became right since I followed Michael’s tuning path. Even now the benefits are still building with the settling going on.

The DecoTunes will be mounted somehow on two of the 4 glass panels – the middle pair or the outer pair. Let’s see how Sonic can do this and what happens.

Sonic

So here's what they say it is and how to find it.

"Where is the first reflection point?

The first reflection point is the mirror point between the monitor or loudspeaker and the listening position. These are on the two walls either side of the mixing or control desk. The third reflection point is found on the ceiling between the monitors and the listening position. To find the first reflection point you will need a mirror and an assistant. While sat in your listening position get your assistant to drag a mirror along the left hand wall starting from the position of the monitor. When you can see the left monitor through the mirror you have found the first reflection point for the left channel. Do the same with the right hand side. In most cases this will be same distance from the corner as the left but depends on the position of the two monitors in relation to each other. The next point to find is the one of the ceiling. Directly in front of the listening position get your assistant to drag the mirror along the ceiling until you can see the two monitors in the mirror. If you only have a small mirror you may have to do each channel separately. Once you have found these three points you have the most vital positions of your acoustic treatment."
______________

So, the sound travels from the speaker to the wall, hits the wall then travels to your ears  

Is it really that simple  

The first thing that starts to make me crack up here is the guy mentions the "control desk" but completely leaves it out of the equation.

Second thing is the size and type of speaker. Most of your frequencies hit the baffle board of the speaker way before they hit any other object. Or the speaker stand, or the floor, or ?

Third and most important, what about air pressure? It really gets me that these people don't bring up the effects of air pressure on the waves while they are traveling. Sound pressure moves in two directions (back and forth). They try to make things look like it is all a one way street, when in reality it is a bunch of oscillating pressure motion with sources (origin and loading) giving direction.

When talking about mirrors, and finding reflection points with light (which is what a visual reflection is) we have to turn on our brains and get real.

A light reflection is dealing with nanometers, a sound wave is a completely different world when we are talking reflections. For example 1000hz coming out of your speakers is about 13" long. I shouldn't even say long, I should be saying round. By the time you get to the size of a sound wave in an enclosed room or relative small space (concert hall or smaller) you are talking pressure and not straight or wavy lines.

But as simple as these guys are trying to make this and sucker the listener into believing they are missing out on how waves even work.

A wave is defined as an oscillating or vibrating particle about a fixed interval that transfers energy from one point to another. The majority of waves are classified as transverse or longitudinal as determined by the direction of the wave propagation. A transverse wave creates disturbance perpendicular to the direction of the wave motion; whereas a longitudinal wave creates disturbance in the same direction that it travels. Examples of these two types of waves normally studied in physics are light, sound and electromagnetic radiation. The wavelength of a particular wave is defined as the distance between any two points occurring in the same phase. It can be calculated for each type of wave using a known or observed velocity and frequency. There is structure to these waves and when they are in harmony the pitch can aline in smooth delivery patterns.

A single-frequency sound wave traveling through air will cause a sinusoidal pressure variation in the air. The air motion which accompanies the passage of the sound wave will be back and forth in the direction of the propagation of the sound, a characteristic of longitudinal waves.



The above is what you would see if you took one sound frequency in motion and blew it up so you could see it. The pattern would be similar in motion to the ocean without the strong tidal pull. This is a far cry from a reflection in a mirror of super high frequencies so far out of the ears reach they are not able to produce the same back and forth patterns associated with the sound wave stimulating the same senses. If you saw 1000hz for example coming off of or heading toward a wall it would react to the rooms space totally different than the tiny spetrum space of reflective light. Light is so much more concentrated in nature and very easy to point in a direction whereas a sound wave (especially getting below 3000hz) become extremely hard to point in a pressurized (loading) environment.

The whole mirror thing is fairly uneducated unfortunately and is one of those things that has thrown many off track when they could actually be focused on how to make their room part of their sound.

Hi Sonic

I have a question for you.

Do you think that these guys who have bought into the first reflection thing just haven't studied how sound works before? In my research I find that no teachings are done on a school level that buys into what these guys are talking about. Everyone I read breaks sound down into a spherical pattern. For example here's one I copied.

How Do Sound Waves Travel?

This will throw you back to 7th grade science class. Remember when your teacher was talking about molecules and atoms, those building blocks of the universe that were so tiny you can't see them? Well, if you missed that class, this will be a refresher because sound waves travel through air (among other things that are made of molecules). Sound is vibration, or energy, that gets all the molecules around the source of that vibration all excited, so they vibrate too and start bumping into each other and pass along the vibrations. It's kind of a molecular mosh pit. The molecules lose some of their excitement the further away they are from the source of the vibration so the noise gets quieter and quieter until the molecules run out of vibrations and there the sound ends.

9th Grade Science, a Little More Advanced

Sound waves are essentially variations of pressure that exists, in this example, in the air. (Air is made up of molecules). To help visualize the nature of sound waves, think of yourself in a tub of water with a plastic toy boat floating in front of you. If you create waves by pushing your hand along the top of the water, the waves push against the boat and move it from one end of the tub to the other. Now think of the waves and the boat as sound. As the waves move along, so does the boat (which is also the sound). The bigger the wave, the more the boat moves up and down and the farther it can travel because the sound waves, like vibrating molecules, dissipate over distance. Now if you were in a large pool, you'd need much bigger waves to push the boat (sound) all the way to the other end.

Time to Play Dominoes

When a vibration causes the molecules to vibrate, it isn't the first molecule that just gets so excited that it rushes to your ear, bypassing all the other molecules. When it gets excited, and jumps all around, it starts bounding off all the other molecules around it that bound around to the ones next to them and so on. Now set up your dominoes on their side in a line, close enough together so that when the first one falls it will fall into the second and then the second onto the third...you get the idea. Now push over the first one and it will cause the entire line to fall. Now instead of a straight line make a Y pattern using a few of the dominoes. At the top of each Y, start two more branches, and at the top of those branches do the same until you run out of dominoes. Again, knock over the first and watch how they all fall around the Y tree you built. That more accurately shows how sound waves don't move in just a straight line but in a spherical or conical way.

Time to Put the Toys Away

For sound to travel, it needs a medium that contains molecules. It can be water, steel, concrete, anything that has molecules close enough to one another that they can vibrate and transmit the sound. In fact, the closer the molecules are bunched, the faster the sound travels. That's why when you put your ear to a railroad track you can hear it coming long before you hear it's noise in the air. Steel molecules are packed much more tightly than air molecules. That is also why there is no sound in space. The molecules in space are so far apart that when one of them near a vibration starts dancing the noise jig, it has no other molecules to pass the vibrations to. In essence, there is no medium through which sound waves can travel.

On to College

As sound waves travel from a source, they are known as compression waves. Because of the excited state of the molecules, they compress while vibrating. But once the vibration has been passed along the molecules left behind slow their vibration because they have essentially transferred the energy along. The ones left behind experience rarefaction. This is a more technical explanation of what scientists mean by sound wave. It looks like this and can be charted as a two-dimensional graph.

Why We Hear Things

When those vibrating molecules reach the outer ear, they are funneled into the inner ear, where a thin stretched membrane "catches" the vibrations, which are fluctuations in air pressure. The body then translates these fluctuations into electrical signals that are transmitted to the brain, which further deciphers them. Pretty complicated process but those are the basics.