Planar Speaker Asylum

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Planar Speaker Asylum

RE: Attacking the problem at the wrong end

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In Reply to: RE: Attacking the problem at the wrong end posted by magiccarpetride on February 25, 2011 at 13:42:14

"I've recently invested some effort toward experimenting more aggressively with speaker positioning and room treatment, only to achieve substantial degradation in the sound quality."

That statement leads me to believe either you had a pretty good room to begin with or you totally missed the mark with your efforts. I tend to believe it's more of the former than the latter. Logic says, if you changed something and the results are worse, then it's a bad change.

Follow Ups:

agree, OP does not make any sense - farfetched 22:13:34 02/26/11 (2)
The idea that you decided to "improve" your speaker positioning and ended up with worse sound is absurd. That is like saying, "I improved the fuel efficiency of my car and got worse gas mileage." It makes no sense.

The OP obviously did not actually explore his setup at all. He just moved stuff around randomly, didn't like what he heard, then thought being a contrarian would prove how clever he was.

It is an objective fact, a matter of logic: you improve your speakers location and positioning, and take care with your room (ie, early reflections, listening chair location) and the sound ipso facto improves.

And, my experience has been, it is the cheapest upgrade in the world. Dedicate the room to sounding good, and obey the simple maxim that is in my sig line:

optimally proportioned triangles are our friends
- RE: agree, OP does not make any sense - magiccarpetride 09:53:35 02/28/11 (1)
  "The OP obviously did not actually explore his setup at all. He just moved stuff around randomly, didn't like what he heard, then thought being a contrarian would prove how clever he was."
  
  As I've explained an another thread, I did everything 'by the book'. Meaning, I took pains to follow various 'best practices' (i.e. instructions found on the Cardas web site etc.) You could hardly qualify that as 'moving stuff around randomly', could you?
  
  None of these worked to my satisfaction. Starting from these 'best practices' suggestions, I then continued with gradual (inch-by-inch) adjustments, moving the speakers closer to the walls, farther away from the walls, making sure that the distances between the side walls and the walls behind the speakers are never equal. I've also played a lot with the toe in. Nothing worked for me.
  
  In addition to that, I was experimenting a lot with the room treatments (I never use artificial fabrics, only wool, linen or cotton). Nothing came close to how I'm expecting Maggies to sound.
  
  My conclusion: Maggies like odd shaped large rooms with high ceilings; the room must be quite lively. Only in such conditions was I able to get the sound that is super exciting, alive, with lots of detail combined with a shocking visceral impact, while retaining the sweetness, silkiness and the lack of any detectable glare.
  
  Maggies don't seem to like mid-sized shoebox shaped rooms, no matter how you place them or how you treat that room (at least in my experience).
  - RE: agree, OP does not make any sense - josh358 15:16:04 03/01/11 (0)
    They definitely like big rooms, and moderately live ones, liver than box speakers do. Not sure about the shape, some people say they love symmetry but I wouldn't know because I've never had a symmetrical room :-|.
RE: Attacking the problem at the wrong end - JBen 22:50:14 02/25/11 (4)
Ricky, that's a good point, too. I don't think he missed the mark, as such.
In fact, in another thread, as he mentioned what happened when he used some room treatment, I could recognize what he observed. It had happened to me also after doing it in a similar fashion.
This stuff can take time to get from good to best . If nobody can remember it, I'll repeat what has been observed by many here for years.
Maggies can quickly react even to minor changes in their environment.
One may have gone just 1 inch past optimal and not know it. A piece of furniture moved, even a few inches WILL have an effect, even if you can't hear it at first. Mind what is in front of the Maggies almost as much as what is behind them. AND...
...Maggies love bilateral symmetry in a room. When the room is not dedicated, and mine isn't, it is an extra challenge to give Maggies what they love.

Edits: 02/25/11 02/25/11
- RE: Attacking the problem at the wrong end - magiccarpetride 21:07:27 02/26/11 (3)
  I agree that introducing changes into the listening room affects the sound. That's not what I'm questioning here. Even though it is very obvious to me that every and any change in the room (new piece of furniture, another person entering or leaving the room, etc.) affects the sound, I'm still not convinced that this is the place where we should expend most of our money, time and effort.
  
  Here is why: I'm a guitar player, and I spend a lot of time playing my guitar. I've noticed that, as I change my position in the room, the guitar naturally sounds different. Still, it is the same old guitar, with the same old familiar sound. The added coloration that affects the guitar's sound as I move around the room is there, but it does not affect the instrument's character even one bit. This is an extremely significant fact.
  
  If I go and get a shitty guitar, no matter how carefully I may choose the optimal spot in the room as far as the acoustics go, that guitar will continue to sound like shit. And vice versa -- if I get an amazing guitar (Martin D28, for example), no matter where I am in the room, and no matter how I treat the room acoustically, that guitar is continue to sound abso-bloody-lutely amazing!
  
  That is what I mean by the ultimate importance of the source. Shitty source will continue sounding shitty even in the best possible room. Fantastic source will continue delivering impressive sound even in a shitty room.
  
  The moral of the story? Same as I would advise you to go and spend at a minimum a few thousand bucks on a decent guitar if you want the instrument to sound musical, I would advise you to spend at a minimum a few thousand bucks on a decent source (including the amp). Once you get there, sure, by all means, expend the extra effort to create an optimal listening room and to position the speakers optimally. But remember -- source first.
  - Well... - RickeyM 21:45:58 02/26/11 (0)
    My source and amp retailed for a coupla' grand....when new. Does that count? =-))
  - RE: Attacking the problem at the wrong end - esande 21:41:14 02/26/11 (1)
    I'm sort of with you on this. I do a lot of headphone listening, which cuts the room out of the equation. In that case the source IS the most important element. Not to belittle the room treatment part, I'm sure mine would benefit from some judiciously placed damping.
    
    I don't need to obsess about it however because my neighbor apparently has ears like a bat and doesn't like my music collection, even though it is a finely selected collection based on exquisite taste honed over many years.
    
    :-)
    - my neighbor doesn't like my music collection, - RickeyM 22:28:05 02/26/11 (0)
      Pearls before swine my friend, pearls before swine.

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