the tuning project

Welcome stereophile to the tuning project. This is where I will be supplying the pictures and drawings to the thread started on stereophile.

For those on TuneLand here's the thread on stereophile http://www.stereophile.com/content/tuning-project

Here's my 9x9x8 listening room.



You can see that the room started with carpet and I built a raised wood floor.

here's a post I did while making the floor

"While on the subject of floors, I almost got mine laid today. Just a couple more boards and I'm there. (would love to finish but I have neighbors peeking over the fence at my saw). "Henry if he turns that saw on one more time tonight"

Shouldn't neighbors be on my schedule not theirs?

I'm sitting here tonight just dying to throw my system in the room. The floor makes the room sound so much better than any other room in the place. In some respects it's kind of an ugly floor cause it's made from the scraps and pieced together. On the other hand I've been laying in there voicing each piece of wood as it gets put down.

Walking around the far edge of the room is brazilian pine then .75" Music ply then the .5" music ply with voiced .25" supports under it. More about these pieces later.

You can see where I had to leave the carpet for the door. Yuk, but this is temporary until I get a different door and cut it down.



The back section is done in the .75" for sitting. The middle section for the equipment and speakers is .5" with standoffs. And the front section is .5" for the front pressure zone tuning. I did some tricks where things are sitting so we will see how it works.

I'm sure the platforms in here are going to need to be custom to take things even one step further away from the carpet sound but just even laying on the floor in here it has a nice tone.

Because it's a small room you can hear everything really well and directly. It does not sound like a small room when you sit in it. Kinda cool really. Let me make a note here. I can pretty much already tell that this floor beats up on the wood over tile floor I did last year. I think this is because of the raise and not being direct. I will report of this later.

I did some pretty serious listening with my new DVD Player before I dove in on the room. I'm looking forward to reporting on exactly what takes place.

Oh almost forgot. You can't see it cause of the carpet is still exposed in that small area (where the door is), but the wood is not touching the carpet directly. I built a cardboard layer between the carpet and the stud frames. I did a little test with the studs directly on the carpet and no way. The cardboard is about .25" thick and has triple corrugation. What this does is gives me a small air cushion between the wood and carpet. Feels different walking on the floor cause it is sort of floating. I was surprised that the cardboard didn't smash when the wood was set on it. Must be the distribution of weight.

Also at least for now the frames are not standing but laying. This again is for the distribution of vibration. I thought about this one for a while and my gut said because of the capet don't think typical subfloor. I put a platform edge up and a platform edge flat (hope you can follow this) and started thinking about how the flow of vibration was happening. Those of you who know me can tell when I get this blank look and am off in vibration world. Somehow I can sense how the flow is happening most of the time and can make things according to the that flow. If I go too far one direction I will change it but I usually get pretty close when I feel and hear and think what's going on. You've heard me say this before, but it's like cooking. You add the flavors as you go (at least I do). Maybe that's why no one comes for diner  hmmm, have to think about that one

I have a few ideas for platforms but putting in the same ones to start with are going to tell me tons.

You ask me about the brazilian pine slats by the wall and door? Tone! I don't think I need much of it's flavor in the speakers but I want a little. The equipment platform has lots of this sound but I want to add both Low Tone and BP to the mix. The studs BTW are Douglas Fir super dried. Almost went with the low tone but think I'm going to have enough of it in the mix elsewhere. I will be using these woods along with some magic wood and treated balsa to also add flavor.

As I said earlier most of the floor is .5". I have .25" flavoring woods of different variaties between the studs and the music ply. I know this means changing them out if I didn't get it right but I like the flexibility to be able to flavor the music ply.

platform placement



followed by this post

"Got the floor done, and holy jumping fish batman does this sound good. haven't even tweaked it even a little and this room is transformed.

So so so much better than a floor that is flooring on top of the subfloor.

Raised floors are like huge platforms that give tons more girth and body to the music.

Industry are you hearing me? Tuned raised floors and platforms need to go on your lists seriously. Since I've been in Vegas this is my first raised flooring for myself. I've had many different platforms out here and a lot of toys but never put in the raised flooring here. Wow! It is a completely different level over any flooring. I can tell you now so many of your problems are going to vanish when you go to a raised flooring with a voiced joist or stud and the music ply.

You guys know that I did a lot of different flooring in all my places but every time I go to a raised flooring (platform style) the jump in sound is huge. And, hold on, and I did this with the scraps of other projects. Yes they are all voiced, but I look at this and say where can it go from here, wow!

So much sound guys, is in that floor!"

a couple more post so you can see the progression

"Ok so why am I listening to the Division Bell?

I mentioned that I didn't give this the respect after the split but I'm sure giving it respect now.



You know though I don't think I still put it in the same Pink family until today when listening on the new floor.

Super deep layered drum tones that I didn't know was there and a lot more of "wish" in here than I thought before. David and guys, you really did a great job with this and glad I can hear it now. The instruments really speak with all my newly gained tonality.

So I guess I need to give the breakdown between carpet and this.

let me start with percussive clarity

Nothing is thin as what happens a lot of times when people speak clear. No this is quite thick and full, with a layering that was hidden only a few days ago. I didn't know it was missing but when I hit play, right off the top was a sense of liquid punch that spilled all over the stage. i have a guest staying here tonight but as soon as they are gone I'm having me an all nighter.

As good as the room was before it now is showing me that it was not really connected to itself. The images are now a part of each other and not standing alone only. And that dull sound is history. How much dull is in carpet I can not tell you till it is gone then you feel like you took a shower and washed off the dirt. And you notice muscle where there was none because all the dirt was clouding it up.

So does carpet add punch as they say on other forums. In this case no. It added mud and that lack of much of what is in the musics content. My space seems so much more alive and real. I say alive and this should not be confused with bright because in this case what was a little brittle is now not.

The question came into my mind after about a half hour "are these really mini mods?". Is my mind deceiving me or did my tiny speakers just get a lot bigger sounding? Even from my writing room I am sensing "big" coming from the listening room. And a lot more tonal depth.

This is another area where the wood beats up on the carpet. The tonal depth is much deeper and I'm looking more deeply into my stage with a 3D type of feel and emotion. Keep in mind this is very brand newish and yet a big change from before. I welcome this change and so far have not heard one thing from the carpet that I feel I want to return to.

What are these guys talking about when they say add carpet? I just heard an acoustical guitar break that was so much more rich and detailed than with the carpet that I had to run to the room quick to see what was up. These guys who say carpet I think must have a lot of issues in their systems cause I don't have much acoustical tuning yet and with this hard wood and simple setup things are very groovy feeling with I lot of toe tapping and feel good stuff.

drums and oh my the drums sound better than my tile floors did as well"

and

"Oh the magic of closets!

You never know what your room holds until you use it.

Funny how we think sound stops at the walls of our particular space. What builds that fixed thinking in our brains anyway. Do we think that energy has these stop signs around them? Let me tell you if this is your thinking your probably limiting the possibilities. I'm sitting in this little room and the soundstage is beyond the walls by maybe 3 feet in any direction at this point. Is it a huge soundstage? No but there are many tricks going on that make me feel like I'm a part of the sound and this illusion is big enough that I have no sense of small. Last night I went from Floyd to the "Led". Oh no you say this is not going to be good cause of the different recording styles but actually they both have a ton of moving effect and that makes good for seeing the stage.



put on CD 1 and see how big and full your stage is compared to mine

If it is not flowing around your room you are looking at some "for sure" blockage.

Whole lotta love, for example right now (it will get better) the movement of the guitar to the right in this little room is



It's far from perfect but not bad and does pull you into the music.

With this recording the green is the size of the stage, but I may be being a little conservative here cause when I just walked in and sat for a miniute it actually feels like maybe the stage is a little bigger than the drawing. Some times when sitting there I get use to the overall air and forget to take that size into account. When I went back in and sat the room really did feel much bigger than what I drew, but this gives you and idea of how the right and left doesn't stop at the speaker at all but far more of a wrap around sound.

Since the floor went in I do have the speakers back about 4" from where they were before and I have a feeling when I bring them up the space will move to even a bigger environment but this was pretty fun at first setup so I wanted to take it in before tweaking.

I'd be interested to hear if you are getting the guitar clearly on the right infront and off to the right of the speaker?

The whole CD in this setup has a bigger than speaker width to it's sound. The same has been true with all the recordings so far and for me it's fun sitting in a space with the sound pushing past the walls. Kinda cool cause you forget that the room is small. It feels more like a 15' x 15' room when sitting there.

I started this with the closet so I should get back to this.

This is one of those rooms that likes the closet and the entry door to be used as ports. Sometimes rooms like being shut down and closed in and other times when you use these spaces great stuff happens.

Remember in Bob's room how magical it was at first. I was surprised when I walked in. There was some great stuff going on, but when I came back the magic got up and walked out the door and never came back. After playing last night I confirmed why. The secret to his first setup was the closet opening. It was acting as a port that allowed the sound to be controlled in a spacial way that worked. Once the configuration was disturbed the sound never returned.

In this room the closet is your typical closet with hollow core wood sliding doors.

it's in red off to the side



A tool in the sound would be an understatement as I can use this as not only a tonal balancer but a space giver. What all it does will take time and how I am to use it will be talked about but right now it is set with the door closest to me open. Without it (for now) the music goes a little sharp, with it the music fills in and has more body."

A peek at the components.

My layout looks like this.



here's a report I gave after some room tweaking


I covered the window with .5" Music Ply, and put a piece of Music Ply in the entry. The window cover took a little time to cure so I wasn't sure if it was going to stay but it ended up curing pretty nice so it's staying. The floor as well was buging me even having that little bit of carpet there so I put this board down and pow, that was a nice move.



here's where the platforms are



The door stays open so I can use the space in the upstairs landing and other space up here. I could have stuck with making the door close but I really wanted to go as extreme nearfield as I could and as you know I use this room as a constant playing room and listen to the sound from my writing room which is always a must. So I have the LTR/Brazilian Pine Platform pulled a little into the space of where the door would swing. In the next little while there will be a speaker change as I'm inching toward the Mini 6 Monitor (Hardwood). "

here's the system as it is now