Building a Room Full of Balanced Harmonics

Hi Michael and Zonees

Sonic has made some tuning moves that has given me a lot what I been work for but this time because thanks to Michael I have learnt more about the Tune to get this to work.

So we say “welcome home!” to the Janis W-1 subwoofer.



Here is the system driving the Janis W-1.  The Rotel amp but with the transformer back in the casing but lightly bolted down.  That yellow cable from the X-30 crossover is a Picasso from Michael.  The cable driving the subwoofer is a thin multi-strand cable. Wood blocks from Mr Green support everything you see.



What is different is the main speakers run full range.  The X-30 is driven from the parallel signal sockets in the amp to feed a preamp variable output to the crossover.

Sonic adjusted the point where the Janis W-1 cut in to reinforce the low bass matched to the Magneplanars’ roll off in the bass with appropriate level adjustment of the subwoofer.  The upper roll off is about 40 hz as indicated on the X-30 which is probably unreliable.  But I can getting deep, deep bass with less boom or overhang than in earlier attempts.  The running of the MG1.5QRs full range means no degradation from the X-30 circuitry.

And the placement of the Janis W-1 this time on the Left doesn’t give the off imaging effects when it was on the Right. Very happy with the results this time!

Sonic also placed MW under the CD player and everywhere I could in the racks which reduced the windex effect.





Was playing Brahms’ String Quartets  and Quartet for Piano and Strings (Serkin and the Busch Quartet/EMI CD), Heinrich Schutz Symphoniae Sacrae Book 1 (Nonesuch LP), Haydn Symphonies 54, 34 and 75 (Nonesuch LP) and Fleetwood Mac Rumours (LP).  The Fleetwood Mac LP gave me bass that is  room shaking.  This is good!

Sonic

Hi Sonic

I see some interesting things here that I want to comment on. However this weekend was wood weekend and my hands are so fried from sanding that I can barely type    (michael's greatest problem, he has two speeds). If I could make a variable michael I'd have it made.

So let me get back on this. But quickly let me say, I always like the idea of full range. Chopping up things does not make sense to me, and when we find the natural way to produce responses the music flows instead of sounding canned and compressed. This is way I have removed my coils from my speaker designs. The X-30is a wonderful tool, but as you are finding the settings may not be the typical audiophile settings that one usually goes for but more it's a tool that should be listened to and adjusted for the sound being heard. What will be interesting is when you move to a more full range racking/platform setup and the blocks. This will have you going back to the speaker/sub setup once again and making tunes. The wood direction is going to open up a huge window. Much bigger than I can tell you.

ok, hands in rest mode

Oh BTW Rumours is one of my all time favorite bass LP's.

Hi Zonees

The reintroduction of the Janis W-1 subwoofer and the use of wood, following what Michael taught Sonic about thumping walls has changed my system.

There is more bass and I am not so concerned about splitting the signal up because:

a. The MG1.5QRs run full range and the subwoofer does the low-end reinforcement.

b. Much worse splitting occurs in the audio chain when a signal goes through a microphone and then the DAC. After digitizing everything is synthetic. Nothing of the original signal remains.

c. Worse chopping up occurs with the CCIR and NAB EQ curves for tape or the phono record/playback EQ curve (RIAA).

d. Then in the D to A reconstruction, I don not think we reconstruct the original signal...only a facsimile of it.

Sonic is finding that adding wood under my equipment and taking out metal (cones, springs and footers) is working for the musick.

A little at a time Sonic is hearing the fullness and beauty of music, whether analog or digital. I am cautious in my descriptions given the number of times Sonic said "this is it, this is the Tune" only to find I am short of what Michael, Hiend1, Garp, Bill333 and Drewster are getting in their systems.

Anyway, Sonic is about to make a new move with my FS-DTs that may result in another approach towards the things Mr Green has been describing in his writings. More soon.

For the X-30, Sonic has also lowered the bandstop frequency a little and raised the system gain. Very nice low end reinforcement without any boom in the upper bass.

Sonic

Hi Sonic

Even though you may be loosing some info I personally think that there is more to be gained by exposing the notes and harmonic structures.

I totally believe in simplisty, but I also believe in full range rightness. I try to make products that cover the entire range so that a listener can choose his or hers perfect sound and stage. Saying this, reading your thread I feel that you learning the whole chain is the key to your greatest sound yet. In some ways your only beginning but getting to that starting place is something very few audiophiles ever get to. On the flip side you are learning how to listen to materials and transfer and "the waves". The waves (air pressure) in your room is the last part of the chain and the more info you pack in those waves the more music your going to hear.

Gain going down is the opposite direction but you will find the answer to this. For now it's important that you take note of what is better about your system now and what is not. How do you make your system make up for the walls short comings and how do you make the room compensate for the signal is what balance is all about. Again throw out the rule books because as you have seen they don't get you there, what does is your ability to hear when your system is turning left or right and how to get it to a place of rightness and rightness with all your recordings.

I believe the latest factor in the tune, introducing more voiced wood of the full range nature, is a big find and with this find listeners are going to be able to expand the structures. I don't believe they replace some of the old tools but I do believe they refine the fullness of the signal.

I agree this is not about finding "it", but more of another part of the journey.

Some comments on and additions to Michael's post:

Sonic's experience with the improvements from adding wood and removing metal tuning devices such as Harmonic Springs, Harmonic Feet, MTDs and AAB1x1 is something particular to my system.

These devices from Michael are effective and Sonic's experience should not discourage Zonees from buying them.

Remember that the Tune does not offer any "one size fits all solutions". The "audiophile acoustics control devices may give this offer" but not the Tune.

Your experience may not parallel Sonic. I have:

a. A large room

b. Reinforced concrete and rigid ceiling.

c. Acoustically leaky wooden doors

d. Rigid, non resonant front wall with a large leaky glass window. Builders' Paper on the windows help.

e. Side walls are uneven in resonance. They go from warm and deep at one end to hard, bright and rigid at the other end. The rear wall is hard, rigid without resonance.

f. Floor is poured concrete covered by parquet. Hard and rigid.

g. The room is boomy in the upper bass, hard and rigid higher up in the frequency scale.

So the set up I got deals with these things and the wood replacing the metal devices address the rigidity and harness.

Michael, where did you get the comment that my volume has dropped? With the move to wood since Christmas, I been finding that all my conventional volume control settings (by clicks on the potentiometer) are louder now than before -- sometimes very noticeably, other times just a little louder than I am accustomed for the track if it is familiar to me.

Hi Sonic

I think I mis-read this "For the X-30, Sonic has also lowered the bandstop frequency a little and raised the system gain. Very nice low end reinforcement without any boom in the upper bass." as maybe the gain needed to be turned up. My bad.

Why have I for these years been thinking your floor was joists? A concrete floor with wood flooring on top makes a lot more sense to me on the sound you are getting.

OH MY   

So you haven't got full range resonance response on any wall, floor ceiling   

This tells me tons. It so different to be talking about a wood floor vs a concrete floor.

Let me start by saying Platforms, Platforms, Platforms

Your equipment (even if you used your rack) and speakers and PZC's even, would be transformed by the use of Platforms. By adding tone to your room and system you would be shocked by what you have been missing.

You know from time to time when I hear you listening I have been thinking, what's happening there. He's got hard walls and ceiling but at least a floor that flexes. But now I see a whole new world going on there and can see why the side tracks happened. It's clear as a bell to me.

When you start to get in these wood blocks and even more Platforms you are going to see such a different world, your hobby will change completely. You have been trying to use inflexable surfaces to build full range. This is like next to impossible at least on a consistant basis. As soon as you think you've got the sound right it disappears right? Problem is your working way to hard and there is a much easier fix.

The reason why you had weird results with the rack shelves on the floor now is so obvious. Your vibration is going from components and speakers right into the floor and coming right back up into the system without dissipating/dispersing naturally. It's like your floor is acting like a big choke then reflecting back up into the system what it does't absorb. The more you open up your system the more the signal makes it's way to the floor then because the full range can not be dispersed (only a few select frequencies) the rest comes back into your system. This is also why the cones are acting the way they are. Their acting like mid to high frequecy magnets. There's not enough full range meat in the system to transfer so you get strange results. BTW thanks for the coments about my products but no need, they are made to do what they do and used in the right environment do amazing things fullrange, but I can also see why they could back fire with all hard surfaces. The cones are built to send and receive, so when they are getting only part of the signal they are sending that part clearly and in your case right now you don't have enough going on in the way of "transfer to" in a fullrange capacity and with the compressed shelving the same thing is happening.

man you saying you had concrete floors is like a huge    for me

Don't panic though     this is not going to be that tough and you are part of the way there. I can now hear exactly what is going on there. And here's the good news, you have worked hard and gotten pretty good sound out of what you have. the next few steps should be a piece of cake.

First thing though, we need to look at your transfer correctly and you need to imagine what is going on there. If you look at the people who are having fullrange you can see a common theme. Transfer that is not choked out. I would venture to say you have a good 1/3 of your harmonics gathered into a narrow band and when this is opened up you are going to hear far more of the harmonics in the way of body. This doesn't mean that this is your taste but what it does mean is you can open it up and dial (tune) it back in.

A thinner harmonic approach is not a bad one, but it can easily send the listener into high frequency and mid over load, leaving some of the content missing. I go through this with several listeners. They want a certain sound but when they get there they notice that at the time of listening it sounds good to them but after a while their ears start to scream something is out of balance. The first sign is usually in the high frequecies. Many times they take the entire musical range and move it up a couple of steps. At first things sound very clean, but then their brain starts to work and after a while they realize something is no longer natural. they think the system has changed when actually it is their brain that is trying to tell them this is not natural. I don't think you are doing this to an extreme but with having your particular components and all hard surfaces this is creeping in.

I also can see why bass has been a chalenge for you. Bass can sound odd if not played with a full structure. Certain parts will stick out and seem to overwhelm some of the other parts to the flavor of the bass notes. You can have a lot of bass but when only part of it is playing (something that can not be tested with a RTA) it can sound loud but strange (not blending with the rest of the bass note). A note is not a frequecy. A note encompasses the use of both high and low frequencies to form it's structure. If the high frequencies are thinned the lower notes will sound artifical and boomy.

I don't look at this discovery as a bad thing but we should be looking at the ways to make this system one that is able to produce and better transfer.

Remember on my thread when I went from downstairs to up? Moving up made the notes go from squeezed to full. This is what is missing. Your notes are not opening up enough. Your tuning but within too narrow of a harmonic bandwith. We need to eat some tome and get you fatten up. Once fat it's a lot easier to focus in on the details. I guess most recently I would look at Garps sound explosion for example or others that are experiencing the thickness of the music. Hiend1 has also added only a little and gained a lot. Man when he gets the low tone stuff watch out.

Step one is going to be when your Blocks arrive, but I would get started on those platforms as well, here's why.

Your vibrations are going too direct into the floor. Your speakers for example should have taken off with making them more stable but because this tightness went directly to the floor without spreading out the vibration through the floor, the tightness made the speaker sound the oposite from relaxed and effortless. If on a plaform you would have a lot more for the vibration to disperse into before entering the floor. Same with the components. The hemlock is too dense and hard for your flooring. Your signals vibration is wanting to stretch out but it's hitting into not enough warmth and the walls and ceiling are not making up the difference. If they gave more flex you might be ok and the signal to wave balance might have a better conversation, but right now there is not enough in the developing stage vs the room to compensate or compliment each other.

Hi Michael and Zonees

Good observations about my room from Michael but like thumping the walls I wished you had asked me this as part of diagnostic due diligence years ago.  I could have compressed the work and going in circles of 6 years into two or something like that.

Here is a picture of what I did this week.  Brought the two FS-DTs to help fill in a lack of focus in the soundstage in the 1/2 L and 1/2 R areas. It also improved the centre focus hugely.



I am eager to add the Redwood Blocks.  But Platforms are off my list. I wish you could supply me wood rack shelves but they are not in production.  Crawling on the floor is not an attractive aspect of the hobby and my nearly getting myself transferred to eternity by falling on gear with live electricity is not a risk I want to take.  So we work around this shall we?

Sonic

Hi Sonic

It's one of those things where your there saying "why didn't he ask" and I'm over here saying "why didn't he tell me". Even so I don't believe in time being wasted. We learn things at the time we are suppose to.

moving on

I'm a little confused by the Platform vs Rack thing. I see the rack as being much harder to get around, esspecially the bottom shelf. If you want a rack though I'll make one. But a rack in your room should go up on a Platform. Do you understand why, or not? What I'm seeing is, if you are using the rods you should allow them to have a level of transfer before reaching the floor.

So let me ask you. What is the perfect height for you to get to your components? Lets work off of what works best for you and see what the answer is.

maybe I should make a note here

I don't mind designing and making things I just think diferently now that I'm custom and not so "one size fits all" any more. I understand that back in the day there was no way a dealer and distributor network would have ever happened if I offered all these custom sizes and choices, but now I look at things according to the way the market is now. Selling over a hundred racks a month is a lot different from designing a few a year. I made back then very custom stuff, but you never heard about it cause these have to be made on a very limited basis. My racks now are very diferent. For example the wood in the ClampRak went from start to finish in 3 or 4 days. The wood came in, it was prepped, and the layering began, it was dried and went out the door. I make no appology, it was the best mass produced rack at the time and introduced people to tuning. Fast forwarding to today though. When I cure wood, it's not wam bam thank you mam. I go pick out each piece. If it's not at the lumber yard to my desire I wait till it is. Next before I do anything I dry the wood down to a working percentage. This means that the wood I start with goes from it's shelf weight and I lower it two one half or sometimes 1/3 it's weight. That means in the case of hard wood that piece of wood is going to lose most of it's moisture and if done right still maintain it's integrity, if done wrong for example too fast, that wood is going to crack and split. The other thing it will do is curl. Sometimes you might have a piece of wood that takes 2 weeks to drain and the exact same type and size of wood 2 months. I do it not by speed but by sound. When I hear the harmonics open and the sound travel in that piece of wood I know I can move to the next stage. Something you guys may not know is sometimes the wood I choose gets scrapped because it never opens up. The Music Ply is far more reliable but still you can have a sheet of ply totally mess up on you, and if it does the only choice you have is to start again.

When you look at a piece of ply you would think that there is no way that board is going to loose one half of it's weight but it does and all of it has to come out through the pores on the edge with a little making it's way through the surface. it's fairly remarkable really. The solid wood is even more shocking, but the point I'm making is this is a totally different world than the Helmlock MDF shelves I made.

That's the first part to the note. The second part is the clamprak and justarak were made thinking that people were going to use their equipment stock pretty much and put it on these racks with a transfer device. On the justarak the transfer going down and the clamp going up and down. People were using the rack for components between 1 or 2 pounds and on the same type of shelf more than a hundred. The other thought to the design was for the signal to make it's way down the rod without stopping to mess up the components on the other shelves. If the shelf is too resonant the vibrations from the component above or below are going to get into the component sitting on that shelf. As we the tunees started making our components lighter and without their chassis this started to open up a new world but I also started to hear that the old design was going to be somewhat limited in it's quality of transfer. At a point the ClampRak actually would become part of the problem. I was becoming more of an instrument builder in the audio biz than I was a furniture company.

There comes a point where you have to step from the old to the new. Cars do it every year, but I think in audio we have this attachment for the old and keep trying to make things work as if we had an old VW beatle and try to think of it as a 911 Targa. We might keep the VW running and it may be cool and have a great story, but a 4 day old wood process is not going to keep up with a piece of audio furniture designed like that Porsche. I think it's great that people have the ClampRak and the other racks built back then and to be honest compare it to the other racks out there and watch it embarrass. But the chances that the old style can even come close to the voiced products I'm doing custom now is a million to one.

If I were going to do a rack now it would be alot diferent than the racks of old. The question is in your case Sonic, what is the right piece of tuning furniture to fit your system?

I get it that you don't want to bend over, but I think something should be made that really gets the job done on all counts. You should feel comfortable with it, and it get the job done. The idea of the Platform was to give you acoustical freedom, but if this is not a concern than we should look at something where you can get to all parts easily and at the right height.

We should be thinking wood, maybe even wood legs. Yes, I do have a design, but I want you to think about how many shelves do you really want. I have a light weight Rack design that I think is really cool and although I like Platforms better it's a design that comes pretty darn close to being a performance competitor.



Or as you say make shelves for your rods, but my worry is I don't trust my hole drilling without a really good template. You may not think this is a big deal till you try to do them then flip the boards. I've had boards go to shops for drilling over the past several years and they came back off, and it makes me gun shy. I'm no longer in my factory working with the amish some things with wood working that may be simple for some are scary to me.

You know there is one other option. We make platforms that sit inside of your rack. I don't know if this gives you enough space to do what you want but it's a thought, or even something as simple as Tuning Boards that sit on the TuningBlocks.



Something like this might give you enough transfer. Then if you needed more wood under the rods. You might even like the sound without the cones on the racks cause of the amount of sound coming up from the floor. But keep in mind that you may not need as much of a transfer level step up as you think. When I did my platform on the tile floor with the blocks I was shocked.

just thinking out loud.

Greetings Michael and Zonees

Just before Christmas, Sonic had a “downer” with the sound.  Michael suggested that I slap the walls and after I learnt from him what a tuneable room sounds like. With guidance from Mr Green, Sonic arrived at the idea that adding wood to the system would get me out of the hole.

The solution involved:

a. Removing the speaker stand and supporting the MG1.5QRs on wood.

b. Using wood under every piece of equipment and sub-assembly while removing cones and springs

c. Bringing back the Janis W-1 subwoofer, the X-30 crossover and the Rotel amp.

d. Focussing the soundstage with the two FS-DTs ½ L and ½ R

These worked and despite Michael's somewhat pessimistic analysis of my room yesterday, I had a long listening session last night and remarking how much I actually enjoyed the musick and sound.

The sound is quite rich, not windex-clean nor does it sound like “a good 1/3 of your harmonics (are) gathered into a narrow band” as Michael posted.  The soundstage I get is big, focus is nice, no banana soundstage, realistic ambience, slightly warm mids and clear highs that reflect the harmonic content of the acoustical instruments I listen to, voices that articulate nicely and a bass that makes Fleetwood Mac sound like Fleetwood Mac.

While my room walls, floor and ceiling have no flex and have problems with transfer, there are more things right than wrong. If it wasn’t, this won’t be a hobby that I enjoy and a source of diversion after the stress of work.

The Redwood Low Tone wood blocks I ordered from Michael last week, and will be dispatched in three weeks (early February) according to Mr Green, is a test of what the next step should be.  I need to put a bit more girth into the upper bass and a little more projection into the upper mids.  

Do I feel the incentive to get new racks, boards and platforms?  

I am looking to the Redwood Low Tone wood blocks to give me the answer to that.

If their contribution is a WOW!  It will give me incentive and enthusiasm to build out the system further. You’ll hear Sonic say “gimme, gimme!”

As for platforms, I think they are as good as Michael says they are.  My hesitancy are not around the CD player, pre-amp and amp.  For these ten inch platforms?  No problem at all. I can drop the CD on the tray and operate the player with the remote.  Setting volume and switching inputs are easy and adjusting X-30 is not something I do every day.

My worry is with the turntable.  Sonic is planning for a serious turntable with a cartridge like the EMT for LP and EPs and a Denon for the SPs. Yes double arms too.  Try to clean the stylus of your EMT when it is 20 inches off a floor is asking for trouble.  Do this for every record side you play and you are putting a kilobuck cartridge at risk 8 times an evening if you, like Sonic, play four LPs or more a day.
 
So I am waiting for the Redwood LT blocks and see what path they define.  If the change is as great as it might be (the Tune has the ability to surprise), then we think of options.

Sonic

Hi Sonic

This is very good news!

I believe that as you learn how much the voiced wood can allow the transfer of parts of the system to become more fullrange you will see many open doors and options to uncovering some of the inner harmonics both higher and lower than the fundamentals.

Here's what I like about what you do. I see many people not take the time to learn the system they have. We read about how they go part way then don't take the time to really study what is going on, and after a while figure it can't be done and blame the products (from whom ever) or some guidence they have been given, but not you. You bounce back I think because you not only hear enough good that is going on, but your taking and have taken the time to look into different parts of the vibratory code that is there, just needs to be found and used.

a little more about me and what I see

Another thing that you guys can probably pick up is I am brutal on my own ears and designing. Sometimes you guys might see me being tough on you    You should see how I am on me. I have made so many systems and have been to so many places and taken so many avenues that I don't even (most of the time) show my own systems. I am like a magnifying glass about materials. So much so that the 20 lumberyards and mechined parts stores know be by name and say "what studio are you working on today". They see your rooms as studios. I am famous for going through bunks of wood to find one or two pieces out of that bunk or if I see that the middle was "green" (moist) I will many times pass on the whole bunk. I literally set up vibration test at the lumberyards while going through wood.

Let me give you an example. See the order you placed of 50 Low Tone Tuning Blocks. Not only did I search the bunks in several yards to get the wood I wanted I went through over a hundred blocks to approve the 50 you are getting. By the time I'm done I know the sound of each one and many of them will have been put in my own systems to listen to.

The more I read yours and others systems on TuneLand and in private the more I see into your ears. There use to be a time that I would even make clients systems in my place so I could listen to the sound somewhat of what they might have and then I would try to work around what the options are. I don't do this much any more cause I have made mental notes of about every sound there is. Still with all this I have learned one thing. "I'm still learning", "Im still designing", "I'm still a tuning babe". If I could put in my request for another lifetime to figure this out I would. My Vegas chapter has been a real eye opener for me. I think it has made me even more (I know it has) eccentric in my thinking.

I had a guy call me not long ago and he was telling me about several of my speakers he got years ago and how they are far beyond anything in the trade. His wife even after he sold one of the pairs told him he was nuts. As I was listening to him in the back of my mind I was thinking about how much better my designs are now than then. I didn't want to burst his bubble but it would be hard for me to now listen to the speakers he has. I know their my speakers right, my design. But as big as my ego is, it's not that big. This is a continuum for me. This isn't "I did it" and stop and watch people buy model X.

Look at the history of High End Audio and go buy a few used pieces of what was popular and hear how bad it sounds. Men are very compulsive shoppers when it comes to this hobby. If someone in authority says this is good they run like kids to candy. It's an ego game that was built from a couple of smart hobbyist who became known by starting magazines. A couple of guys sitting in their rooms listening and had a flair with words. Thick carpet and bedding foam on the walls and garrage EE designers sending them free gear. Honestly some of the very best of the best are things people never talked about. Their things that were made when the designer was in his zone and were never really made to be sold. Products that were good (or at least good in their home and with their system) till they got to the part of the design that needed to make it safe or make that product shipable or look right for the market.

I walk that fine line of saying (and do I'm sure) too much. I could keep my mouth shut but there's that something inside of me when I discover something that goes off like an alarm I will lay here at night thinking about it. I do this with the hobby and I do this with each persons system I'm thinking about.

Another example of my particular crazy passion of recent. garp's Platform. I knew the sound I wanted to give him to try, but I was not finding the right piece of wood that had that tone. I could hear what he was saying in his thread and could see the tone in my mind. He was able to let me see his ears. I went through 4 top boards until I had one that after finished had that magic tone. This is the one he got, and when he said sound explosion I about flipped that we mind melded so well and I found that piece of wood and flavored it. I felt like I got an A or at least B+ on the test. I have a ton of examples like these but the point is, when you say something on your thread my sound meter goes off, and if you read close enough it's usually in porportion to the writters discoveries. If you are down I am down with you, if you are up I'm there too. However even though I somewhat float with your system ride I in my mind have made a "what I would do list". I do this with everyone. The tough part is how much do I say or how much do I wait till the listener says it. If you read back through the thread of a listener you will see this. It's always about a meld, a merger of personalities and sound. For me your sound is personal. I internalize it and am always working on "what I would do". Sometimes people follow it and sometimes not, but every time there is a move (a listening change)  with the listener I get out my road map and say he went here, I better go here. A few times we go together on the same road but many times I see people heading down their path and when they get off I try to put my own driving in their head for a while to see if it takes. I only know if it worked for them when I read the comments but I keep one card very close to me "time".

A persons sound always shakes out in time. It does for me and it also does for every listener I've ever known. One thing that makes me different I think is I'm looking at things in a "make it" mode, discover it mode, and listeners look at it more immediate (what change did it just make). Their thinking about a listening session and I'm thinking about where that system is at that moment and based on what they say where that system might be days or weeks from their comments. One thing I try not to do is get "fixed" in my thinking because I know that no listener listens to their whole collection of music in one week let alone one session.

The recordings are always the teachers grading our systems and if we use more then 10 rcordings we have chosen to make things sound good we are going to always find something. Every recording has a vibratory code built into it and as we play those thousands of flavors and codes our systems react in "can I play it mode".

back to sonic's system

I think sometimes we get lost in our thinking. We forget how far we've come and how good our system really is. Getting that 90% after aclomplishing the 10% seems huge and it IS there, and I keep going back to that quote you made a while back cause that's what I think it really is. The industry is playing around that 10% and you and I are exploring the 90% and sometimes fall back into the 10% place till we think it through. When playing with energy it doesn't take much to turn a system around or get it ready for the dumpster. We just have to be students of what the system is telling us. And, as I listen design and write, I need to keep pressing on and do me best to document the big picture of the tune. Your thread for example is a big documentary and I would imagine people come here to read and say "holy cow".

In the last 2 1/2 or so years you have started to move further from the "audiophile" thinking process and open yourself up to even more of the flow and way of the tune. I have found that the more I throw out those rule books of old and discover sound for what it really is the doors of opportunity fly wide open. It's like rewritting "Good Sound" and "The Absolute Sound" and the "Acoustical Handbook".

I think that your next year as you take it more in the direction of wood (and wood improved) is going to be a big step for you and others that do it as well. My advice for you and everybody would be "Think Fullrange".

Greetings Michael

You have opened a direction that is going to lead to much pondering and an even further move from the High End. This is by addresses why in Sonic’s room the more effective and transparent the downwards and upwards transfer equipment via cones, feet and spring became, the stranger (I hesitate to say “worse”) things got. And then why Sonic's recent series of tunes with wood and less of these metal objects is working like the Tune was a V8 engine now firing on all cylinders.

It was the hard environment that reflected the “drain” back in a way different from the suspended wood floor and drywall structures in the way you explained.

With what Sonic has done and what I see Michael suggesting that I might use the racks without cones, effectively this is creating an impedance at the equipment and floor point that filters the down and up flows.

Yes, so it potentially produces two extremes – the fully free flow system at one end and a completely “impeded” flow system. Of course for conventional audiophile systems with sorbothane and foam and ferrite, the flow will not be impeded in a managed way but kaput.

For many systems in rooms of mixed materials for ceiling, floors and walls and depending on which storey they might be in a building, a system may actually need a mix of full-flow and impedance-managed flows (saying “impeded” or “degraded” flow are too negative in Sonic’s opinion). In fact in some rooms with room and concrete structures you might need full flow in the middle of the room where more flex is and “impedance managed “ flow at the places where there is concrete. Might be exciting or too far out, yes?

Sonic is getting ideas. I will apply and do a report on the system without racks under the cones. If these work after adequate settling, Sonic can draw out a number of more things that could be done!

Also Michael suggested mini-platforms for my rack shelves. This may work, in fact if you look at Sonic posts all the way thru the second half of 2013, you will see I have made sort-of platforms (or intermediate supports) between a rack shelf -- for the preamp -- or heavy platform – the amp. They work nicely. So in terms of evolving thinking, Sonic is on the same page with you.

The Redwood Low Tones will tell me what direction to take and refresh my determination.

Sonic must thank you for pulling all my experiences together and the articulating the room environment plus the tips Sonic could take up.

Sonic

Hi Sonic

Well, I just wrote a long and beautiful response to your post and then I started think and said lets wait till the wood gets there   

But I do want to say, that I still use the cones and I also top tune.

I honestly think that you have a few things to open up and when you do it is going to shed some light.

Hi Zonees

Following the posts of Hiend001's wonderful system, Sonic took my cardboard tube out of storage. Heind001 uses this on the LH corner of his room to balance the presence of the SW10 subwoofer on the RH of his room.

Sonic thought "must test". So played Beethoven's Piano Trios (piano + violin + cello) and put one ear to the tube while holding it angled down in an area near my listening chair.

The tube turned out to rather resonant and I could hear individual notes clearly emphasized in the left hand range of the piano. Also some notes of the cello were playing louder heard through the tube.

Good discovery this is though Sonic doesn't know what it signifies. Any way the cardboard tube is on the way back for testing. But I got a lot to test.

Sonic

Hello Zonees

As Sonic's system settles with my increased wood/less metal in my system, I am getting an increasing warmth in the sound. Not over-damped or choked or constricted in soundstage depth and width but warm.

Yes, there is less width very slightly but have learnt that a 1 db change in level above 1.5 kHz can audibly affect the width of an orchestral recording (from Richard Burwen). Previously, I would start making changes to reset this warmth which is like the Mullard sound Sonic sometimes describes. But this time, Sonic is going to sit it out because this is probably the settling of the system moving towards something more balanced.

Also Sonic is wondering about how to best site the cardboard tube in a room/system. Where should the cardboard tube go?

I moved the tube around the floor with music playing and me listening through the tube with one ear.

In some spots I heard nothing while in others there was a definite musical note reinforcement and/or ambience coming up the tube. Are these the spots to site the tube?

Michael and Hiend001 -- how do you find the best spot for your cardboard tubes?

Sonic

Hi Sonic

Acoustics

When I use tubes I usually use them in different sizes so I can make them pitch correct. I happen to have a bunch of diameters available to me which makes it a lot easier. I have found the smaller ones are the hardest to place, so what I do is use the bigger ones to find the spots and then downsize them till I get the one that works best. The one down side to the tubes is they are recording dependent and you might have to play with them as you put on a different recording.

I have found that with the tubes they are extremely room dependant and depend on how your particular zones are laid out. I usually start in the middle of a zone though and work out to the edges from there.

Wood cones and components

As far as the width goes, this is why I say don't move too far away from the cones just yet. Many times it takes a balance of transfer devices to make the right combo of energy dispersion. With my new platforms the screws come in handy as I can add less or more but also the tension plays a big role in space and dynamic range. Yet sometimes I find that I can even use Space Cones and the different AAB cones to use with the wood to make the stage explode even more. the more you get into the wood the more you will be able to find some interesting combos.

Yesterday here's what I did



I was listening to Feetwood Mac,  Bryan Ferry and Robert Michaels and Pines of Rome (Telarc). I'm getting so use to the tools that making the slight tunes were pretty easy and I didn't really make any big changes with this setup.

But you see I'm more of an explorer as you know and will take each recording and open it up and then tune it in. Because of the super light weight though of this setup (components and platform) I didn't even top tune (yet   )

My drums and bass guitar on Fleetwood and Ferry are explosive. The stings on Michaels tight and full and the pace of Pines is charging and full.

When I go only wood on this the stage did close in and I was aware of it. Still nice but aware of it. The key for me to enjoy no matter what combo I use is for me to stop noticing the stage and let it wrap around me.

BTW the Low Tone Reddwood you see on the bottom are 3' long front to back. The blocks under the CD mini Platform are 10".

So in this setup wood wise I'm using Argentine Pine, Low Tone Redwood (different sizes), Brazilian Pine, Magic Wood and one little piece of poplar.

Sounds like it would take me hours or days to come up with this combo right? Nope maybe 1 hour tops.

The key to it is free resonance and simple. BTW it sounds like a sub woofer is in there and only a day ago it was more mid bass.

Also BTW no acoustical change was made.

Greetings Michael and Zonees

Michael - what are the diameters of the cardboard tubes you use? What is the size of the smaller ones (that you describe)? The ones I got are 3 inches in diameter.

I may persevere to test the effect of the cardboard tubes especially to balance out the Janis W-1 subwoofer on the LH side of the room but Michael has said the placement of the tubes are "recording dependent".

These are two words that make Sonic head for the hills. The Tune is remarkably effective but to simplify my life the only "recording dependent" object I will have around will be probably a rudimentary equalizer that I can use to mildly correct for wayward recordings. No more than this for sure.

But what Michael said about correcting bass evenness is a pungent observation Sonic can relate to. When I had set up and was adjusting my X-30/Rotel/Janis W-1 system, I found the bass extension excellent but there was a note that BOOMed badly.

Just this one note made the system unreal because you never hear that kind of BooOOM in real live music unless the room was exceptionally bad. This boom problem is complex because most recordings Sonic plays back are perfectly good, made even better by the bass extension from the Janis W-1.

Since Michael and Sonic were discussing the exchange of metal for wood, I found that by adding wood to my system for support while selectively using Harmonic Springs, AAB1x1 cones and Harmonic Feet in reduced numbers, I found the bass BOOM reducing without any tweaks of the room acoustic devices!  

Just wood and the right number of Springs, AAB1x1 and Feet controlled the bass from an out of control BOOM at one note to an even bass range with the offending note just slightly fluffy.

Was it the room or the Janis W-1? Sonic listened to the bass of the track with the worst BOOM from my listening chair and at the Janis W-1 slot outlet. At the speaker, the bass was tight and controlled on every note. At the listening chair I heard the BOOM.

After adding wood and adjusting just the equipment support (not the MG1.5QRs or Janis W-1) the room response was transformed. Bass became tight enough at both the speaker and the listening seat. And not one acoustic treatment needed to be touched or adjusted!

So there goes another audiophile myth. BOOMY Bass? Conventional wisdom tells us to move speakers, treat room, add bass traps, add diffusors, move listening chair and so on.

With the Tune, just some additions of wood to the equipment controlled the BOOM to the point it became a near non-issue.

Tomorrow, Sonic hopes to post pix of my room with tunes I did recently after bringing the FS-DTs to each side of the equipment racks and my exchange with Michael starting 10 January.

Sonic

Hi Sonic

This is an excellent post   

As we tend to think bass boom is a malfunction of the math in the room, I have found a lot of the boom is found inside of our components. There's a great number of cycles being sent through that system and it's easy for a "frequency" to go out of balance. This is something Jim Bookhard and myself found many years ago. The interesting part is you may be listening for months before putting on that particular recording that sets things off like a toothache shooting through the pathway. Sometimes it is indeed the room but I find that the room is more (under control) a mirror of the rest of the system.

cardboard

I use cardboard tubes all the way to 12" or bigger. If I remember I'll do some measuring when I go over there to pick up stuff.

Zonees! 

See what Sonic did with my system. Spot the Difference(s)



On the Right:



On the Left:



Zonees will remember the circumstances and problems that led me to these tweaks in the first place.  Now that we can do this means Michael and Sonic have been able to solve or advance an underlying problem.

After Michael's guidance on using the racks without the floor cones, this is coming up next.  

By the time we get a sense of the results of that the Redwood LT blocks should be here (two weeks and counting).  Good timing   

Sonic

Greetings Michael and Zonees

Sonic is presently in another part of my dwelling listening to one of my other systems – this one a budget Sony DVD player driving a DIY 300B amp and a pair of Tapered Quarter Wave Pipe speakers with Fostex drivers.

A very simple system indeed.  It is a long way from my being tuned Magneplanar system and room but what is here is very relaxing on a Sunday evening as I contemplate another week of work.  

Playing now is Shirley Scott’s Queen of the Organ with Stanley Turrentine on tenor saxophone (Impluse!),  next on my playlist is Lionel Hampton and Dexter Gordon’s Sever Come Eleven.  

In addition to what Sonic posted of my room on Friday, the doors on either side of my room now have no MW squares and wood disks glued to them.  All round the system has no stuff dotting the sides, front and rear walls. Neater and the sound is good.

The rear corners of my listening room have FS-DTs at the floor tricorners and the DTs there are mounted on the earlier Michael Green stands with the cubic wooden feet. They used to be leaning against the walls. And all hex nuts are finger tight.

Played Haydn Quartets (Naxos), Schubert’s Symphony 1 and 2 (Nonesuch LP) and Neil Young’s first LP on Reprise



(the one with Last Trip to Tulsa, Old Laughing Lady, The Loner (LP).  This is a transitional LP, good but soon to be brilliant – then came “Everybody Knows this is Nowhere” then “After the Goldrush” which showed Young’s genius but Zonees should also make up your minds after also listening to "Harvest", "Time Fades Away" and "Tonight’s the Night". Harvest is enjoyable and accessible.  Time Fades Away and Tonight’s the Night take some effort but in the right mood, a listener will be carried away – particularly in the analog versions.

Michael, comments on what I did with my room and the musick Sonic is discussing.

I made the Clamprack move according to Michael’s advice -- the Clampracks are being settled in without their Cones.  Something is here for sure…

Sonic

Greetings Zonees

Sonic needs to say that my posts on the joys and the trials of the Tune are of the "glass half full/glass half empty" variety. When I come back from the audio saloon run with friends after our Saturday lunch and record (LP/EPs) hunt, I have to say what Michael and the Tune has given me is streets ahead of what I hear in the shops (no, my Saturday hunt friends have not heard my system) except two who are kind of bug eyed after the experience. However, they have their thing -- one is into Altecs and micro-watt amps are the other headphones of a strange variety.

Compared to the box speakers the Magneplanars are something else. For the very few who have heard Sonic's system, the soundstage is the first thing to strike everyone, the width and size of the images. They then comment that the FS-PZCs are the primary speakers. There is the bass from the Janis W-1 and the room without carpets should ring and honk but it does not.

On the other hand, Zonees should understand that Sonic also thinks of my system on the descriptions that I read on this site and I fall short by all stretches of the imagination.

However, what I got I can really live with and not move one step further if I had the willpower or failed to understand that the Tune can give a listening far better than this. I am a tunee at heart I suppose so Sonic keeps going.

I tried over the last few days balsa wood lined on one side with copper tape placed on my amp's two toroidal transformers with the copper side touching the transformers. The sound was constricted and slightly unbalanced with a drift to the Left. Tonal colors were slight bleached out. The removal restored things which shows that L-R balance is not simply a matter of the amplifiers' gain across two channels.

So this evening I was listening to Haydn's Symphony 22 -- The Philosopher (Hanover Band/Roy Goodman/Hyperion CD), then 6 Americans - Contemporary Works for Harpsichord (Sylvia Marlowe -- harpsichord, pieces by Arthur Berger, Ben Weber, Harold Shapiro and others on Decca LP). This was followed by Haydn's Music for Lute and Strings (Turnabout Vox LP -- Michael Schaffer: Lute, Eva Nagora: Violin, Franz Beyer: Viola and Thomas Blees: Viola) then some B B King on a Canadian LP. This was an odd one with BB and his guitar in the Right channel and the rest of the band in the Left channel. There must have been a lot of phase problems with the recording because when I tried listening with the system set to mono, the bass disappeared and the voices and instrument went tiny and tinny. But I still enjoyed the musick!

So all in all a very enjoyable 3 1/2 hours of excellent music with the Tune.

Sonic

Hi Zonees

Sonic found Michael’s suggestion worked well.  I removed the cones from my Clampracks and let the mild steel rods sit on MW pieces 1” x 1” x 0.25” which gave me a bigger, warmer and more dimensional sound from Sonic’s system we hear! It is also made the racks more stable.



And another perspective:



Sonic has learnt that wattage and loudspeaker efficiency are different and elastic ideas. So I tried (while looking for the ideal amp for my system – at least 200W into 8 ohms) an Experiment.



I got my 300B SET integrated amp to drive my Mg1.5QRs with an 80Hz crossover and it worked!

I then removed the bottom plate and rubber feet, screws cracked, tie wraps removed and genuine T1 wire for the mains feed from Mr Green. There are a number of more Tunes I can think how to see the Tune ability to increase system efficiency and volume.

Sonic

Hi Sonic

I'm not commenting a lot but I'm watching   

The RWLT Blocks are almost done (saying this doesn't mean they shouldn't cure more) and when they get in the system it will tell me even more.

Hi Michael

Sonic is watching too. This Experiment with the amp is half-serious, partly for a laugh before things get serious when the blocks arrive. I wanted to say more last night but was so tired after a long day at the office that I fell asleep at my laptop. Happy the post didn't end in gibberish like it did once before (or did it and Michael kindly edited?)

I know from Tuneland that Michael has been able to drive things in a Tuned system with amp wattages that make no sense to audiophiles.

The one thing here is the 300B amp is not driven full range. Everything that goes to it under 80Hz is sloped off by 18 dB/8ve. This gives the amp less work to do and avoids the worst interaction of the OP transformer with the impedance of the MG1.5s in the bass.

It sound very good on some things, not right for others and offered a very strange perspective in yet others. I'll do more real listening this weekend and see what I learn.

Michael -- when will you be shipping the blocks?

Sonic

Hi Michael and Zonees

Concerted listening with the 300B: Sonic heard a mix of large orchestral works (Connotations by Copland -- New York Philharmonic/Bernstein/Sony), baroque musick (Troisieme Livre de Clavecin by Francois Couperin/Gilbert/Harmonia Mundi and Francois Dieupart’s 6 Suites for recorder and continuo/Virgin Veritas) and jazz (Night Train – Oscar Petersen Trio/Verve) with the 300B acquitting itself rather well.

I even got a good “jump factor” from the Copland piece. This experiment is captivating. Certainly I am hearing the benefit of using the X-30 to roll off the bass in the signal fed to the MG1.5QRs. This creates less out of band problems in the overlap range when the Janis W-1 is running, less power output requirements from the amp driving the Magneplanars and of course less excursion of the MG1.5QR panels. The flipside is the effect of the crossover itself on the sound.

This experiment has also reinforced something I felt about tube amps even those adequately powered for the needs of the loudspeakers they are driving. Sonic first heard this effect in a friend’s system where a BBC monitor pair (full range, not LS3/5a) were being driven by 60 wpc push-pull EL34 monoblocks.

The sound is pleasant and slightly laid-back – must be the BBC “Gundry dip” – musical but with the tube amps there is an internal dullness. Not overall dull mind you because the cymbals and bells were reproduced sweet and extended. Yet there is something slightly cloudy in the inner voices of the orchestra and choirs and bands. The dynamic range of this system was good but also internally cloudy. We could play recordings back at high or low volumes and there was always this slight opacity and laid-backness in the sound. Sonic is hearing this from the 300Bs driving the MG1.5QRs too.

Sonic is not claiming the 300B amp has enough power to drive the MG1.5QRs in all circumstances. This is a trial for me to learn a few things about the Tune before the blocks arrive from Michael. But now underlying or wrapped up into it is that internal opacity and dullness which, whatever their weaknesses, I never hear with a transistor amp.

In fact this friend of Sonic sold the EL34 monoblocks and bought a Big Transistor High Powered Amp with outputs of hundreds of watts. He got more slam, could play back at eardrum threatening levels even with these BBC monitors. But he lost the music. The one thing the transistor amp did was remove the internal opacity and dullness. Besides this the EL34 amp was the more musical.

Since then, Sonic went about and I can hear veiled opaque quality in almost every tube amp set up except those driving horns and the big JBLs. Curious…and with the 300B, l amp hearing this opacity in my room.
Michael, what do you think causes this opacity in Tube amps. Where does it come from?

Sonic