|
Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
|
|
|
Tweakers' Asylum Tweaks for systems, rooms and Do It Yourself (DIY) help. FAQ. |
|
In Reply to: Re: A few thoughts... posted by throwback on December 1, 2005 at 16:20:24:
Cable lifters can introduce brightness if they cause the cables to vibrate or have their own acoustic signature. I went through this issue with my system.My present best recipe for cheap and low-acoustic-resonance lifters is to make them out of stiff paper (80-pound cover stock or similar poster paper from discount stores) by rolling rectangles into cylinders and holding them together with white glue. Use blue masking tape to hold the cylinders in shape while the glue dries. Wrap the cylinders with Teflon thread-seal tape once the glue is dry. Fill the cylinders with plastic sandwich bags containing oil-absorbent clay granules. For heavy cables, I reinforce the top edges of the cylinders by cutting the paper a little wider and then folding tabs over and securing with glue.
Place the lifters on the carpet and twist gently to get the bottom edges down into the pile. Once the cable is place on the lifters, you should be able to tap on the cable over a lifter and feel no motion or hear any acoustic tone in the response. Support your cables as you would your components.
Yes, I noticed the tonal balance shift more when I changed from 16-gauge to 14-gauge on my power amps than I did when I made that change on my Wadia CD player. There is no preamp in my system.
I have Power Wraps all over my cables: power cords, speaker cables, and interconnect. They are essential to any cable that does not already incorporate RF damping materials. Only the Silver Audio Wattmaster cord on my InnerSound ESL-300 bass amp does not have them, because it is already damped.
Power Wraps cause dissipation of RF energy, so their primary benefit is to suppress RF resonances in cables. These resonances can exist even if the AC is filtered effectively, since there is air-borne RF energy in most locations, and the connected equipment's power supply may be a significant source of RF noise. Not all equipment is noisy, or sensitive to this noise, but all of mine is.
I've found that Power Wraps have an acoustic response. They are made of very stiff wire insulated with Teflon. I counter-wrap them with Teflon thread-seal tape to damp their acoustic response. Their bright blue color clashes with our decorations and is a major WAF-detractor. Wrapping them with white tape was beneficial for this also!
I'm not sure what you mean by "phase-related." Coherent reflected sound will interfere with the direct sound at your ears to cause enhancement or destruction, depending on the phase. This is a general property of waves, and also takes place for multiple sources in the same speaker that have overlapping pass bands. The bottom of the tweeter range overlaps with the top of the midrange to cause certain frequencies to be enhanced or diminished. Some folks put up with the overall bandwidth limitations of single-driver speakers because they lack this property. I don't think it would cause your perception of brightness, but then everyone hears things a little differently.
A simple test for your first-reflection area treatments is to talk to them. Don't do this kind of thing when other people are around, as they will think your sanity is completely gone. Say a phrase over and over as you walk up to a bare wall. Listen to the tonal quality of what you hear as you get close to the wall. Now do this with your foam treatment. Is the sound diminished relative to a bare wall, and does the remaining sound have a neutral tonal balance? If not, try this again with a wool blanket. I've found wool has the most neutral response next to Sonex foam.
One more thing to consider is any large windows or glass doors in your listening room. The glass itself contributes to the sound, even if you place curtains in front of it. A cheap method of damping the glass is to apply gel decorations near the corners. These are sold in places like Target, require no adhesive, and can be moved for cleaning or experimentation. IME, the glass affects the midrange more than the treble, but YMMV depending on where it is in your room.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
Follow Ups
- Details... - Al Sekela 10:17:26 12/02/05 (0)
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2025, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
