6 different frequencies and how to spot them

Use one of these to measure your room – they were on sale a while ago – import duty is about £50 or so.

Dayton audio omnimic

Could also look at how your speakers are sitting on the floor – a direct mount rather than spikes might work better.

Someone posted a link to some well-priced sound isolation pads for mounting speakers and amps on, but I have lost it.

This guy has no problem with his bass levels :

/\ 🙂

Thanks for the advice guys. Some going straight over my head but I’m in awe of how much detail some of you go into. In hindsight I think the construction of my living room is having a huge bearing on the sound. I will go away and play with speaker positioning, and look into possibly insulating the floor as it’s currently suspended over the subterranean garage space. When I’m in the garage I can hear every note and best of the stereo playing above!

Moved to a house with wooden floor:
Indistinct, flabby bass, the whole room joined in too.

Granite chopping boards, about £15.00 from Tesco – felt pads underneath.
Sorbothane (try with Blu-Tac, pretty much as good) between granite board and speaker.
Should let you hear a bit more of the speaker and less of the floor.
You can slide the speakers around easily to play with positioning too.

Using spikes on the speakers (resting on the granite board) in place of the Blu Tac sounds similar, but a bit thinner in the bass.
I went with the Sorbothane because it sounded better to me, with a firmer more distinct bass.
Grandkids too, so spikes might not be suitable.

Rugs, blinds and pictures on the wall all help too, from personal experience.

Tried loads of different speaker cables over the years.
Yup, they do sound different, but as above, you don’t need to pay a fortune.
Try some cheap 2/2.5mm solid core against decent, cheap 79 strand or similar.
Bet you can can tell which is which.
Not yet tried a cable that could ‘save’ a system, more gently nudge it in the right direction.
🙂

I love Marantz amps, by the way.
You could get a pair of Monoblocks for £500 which would solve your power issues.
😀

Oh, if you really solid bass, have you tried the Dali stuff?

The Dali 3’s are exciting, bit too much for me but could be what you’re looking for.
I went for Tannoys.- not Lionel flappers, but they do go deep and sound good too.

Cheers Rusty. Have just played around with speaker positioning and that’s instantly added more depth to the bass and seemingly prolonged the duration of each bass ‘note’. I have some granite slabs to play around with so will have a go under each speaker and keep trying minor adjustments over the course of the weekend.

Interesting to hear about the Dali range, may look into it

When you find a sweet spot, measure your distances between rear wall and speaker.
I found halving, or quartering that distance gave similar results, say 10, 20 and 40cm away.
Or try sticking them flat against the back wall – if you move them out a little at a time you’ll hit a sweet spot – double that distance, you’ll hit another.
Try toeing them in a bit more, or moving them away from the sidewalls a little as you bring them forward.
If you can keep them a similar distance from sidewalls, that’ll help.
Works for me.
🙂

There’s supposed to be some magic ratio for rear/sidewall spacing, but I find doing it by ear works best.

Edit, the granite slabs do make a huge difference.
The polished ones even look ok on a wooden floor too.

even better is to get a couple of mates to hold one each whilst you sit at your listening position – and get them to move them around.

Also look at your seating position as this has similar effect to moving the speakers around, you will be receiving reflections and being at frequency nodes at your listening position in a similar manner.

True, the bass in our room disappears if you push your chair against the back wall.
Pull it out a foot or so and it sounds excellent.

And they can’t charge you a penny to try it.
🙂

Rather you than me moving that unit though!!

Ha! Yes, there’s quite a bit to shift..

Need to find a happy compromise with speaker positioning.

Sitting hear listening to Bill Callahan/Dream River on the RP6.. It’s bloody brilliant. Bongo drums floating in front of me and bass guitar plucking away and delivering some rich bass.. I think the amp may be loosening up

It’s more the convenience of getting your mates to move the speakers around quickly so you can find the sweet spot. We did this in a hifi show with some LS3/5as and it was like bringing a camera into focus when they were in the right place.

When I’m in the garage I can hear every note and best of the stereo playing above!

Bass has a longer wavelength, I’ve read in the past of hifi owners in a row of terraced houses puzzled by a lack of bass, and house owners a couple of doors away complaining about booming bass from next door, when the actual source was two or even three doors away.
It does seem that the descriptions I linked to describe exactly what the OP is getting, ie fast, controlled bass, but lacking in very low frequencies, the fact that the speakers are fairly small in volume being crucial. Being rear ported going back closer to a rear wall would obviously help, which the OP seems to have found, and the room being basically sat over a big empty space means there’s a whole bunch of factors conspiring against the deep, bowel-moving bass he really wants. I think there’s going to be either a certain amount of compromise having to be arrived at, or more money thrown at the system, ie bigger speakers with the volume and drivers to get the lower frequencies he wants.

Sounds like you could mount the subs on the ceiling of the garage, which would mean the wife shouldn’t complain about them…

The location of the ports has absolutely no bearing on boundary effects from nearby walls.

and look into possibly insulating the floor as it’s currently suspended over the subterranean garage space. When I’m in the garage I can hear every note and best of the stereo playing above!

The room below is probably of little consequence. Low frequency resonances within that room are highly unlikely to couple with low frequency resonances in the listening room, and therefore cause an adverse effect. Here I’m talking about resonances of the air volume in each room, not the physical structure of the building.

As for improving the sound insulation, if you make the floor more rigid by adding mass you will contain the sound within the listening room more. This will actually make the cancellations/nulls caused by low frequency resonances worse, as the rigid floor will reflect more.

You should consider some acoustic absorption in the listening room itself, but unfortunately this then opens up a bit of mine field for the uninitiated!

On the web, I’d steer clear of hi-fi forums/sites for acoustics advice. Better resources are to be found on recording studio sites, E.g. http://forum.studiotips.com/

I’d steer clear of hi-fi forums/sites for acoustics advice.

Just to add my reasoning for that the hi-fi sites will contain good advice but this can be obscured by a lot of bad advice/half truths. Recording studio forums tend to have a good grounding in acoustics/physics and are peer reviewed better

@chiefgrooveguru

Balanced Mode Radiators look very technically impressive, do you think they’re likely to replace cone loudspeakers?

At a guess that cabinet is about the size of two bookshelf/standmount loudspeakers, so what sort of bass extension will you get from those drivers? Have you considered the Bose trick of unequal length ‘lines with EQ to the larger ‘line?

There’s also subjectivity. Someone will often tell you X is better than Y without telling you why they prefer that sound. Studio types tend to be (though not exclusively) interested in hearing accurately what they are working on.

There’s also subjectivity. Someone will often tell you X is better than Y without telling you why they prefer that sound. Studio types tend to be (though not exclusively) interested in hearing accurately what they are working on.

The last time I checked, the laws of physics were the same in my front room as those in a recording studio. The acoustics ideas and solutions in critical listening do apply to hi-fi, yet there seems a reluctance to accept this. The OP has some fundemental acoustics issues to solve before they can begin to tweak it to their preference.

The listening room should treated as an additional item in the signal chain.

Have you considered the Bose trick of unequal length ‘lines with EQ to the larger ‘line?

Bose may use tricks but have they actually ever produced anything that really sounded good – in a class leading way? I am discounting their bluetooth speakers as in reality they all sound average at best.

Umm, I’m not really sure, but splitting the cabinet into two differently tuned pipes for each full-range driver, and then allocating the frequencies so you still get stereo but also get the benefit of deeper bass makes the Wave Radio pretty innovative.

Other than that (and only really in the bass department) I have never heard any Bose equipment I was sonicly impressed by, but they do shift a lot of pro gear and much of it looks to last. They also make some laboratory equipment.

andylaightscat – Member

Read this OP or is this you?

http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=183021&highlight=elicit

🙂

(2) dedicated mains power line wherever possible . Do it if you can – This was BIG !!!! …. Arguably more influential than all of the tweaks already listed. Contemporaneous with this, I replaced the wall plugs with audiophile grade receptacles – another extension of the same theme. FWIW, a separate line for your amp and another separate line for your source(s) also was another further improvement, but admittedly somewhat less dramatic than the “wow ” moment with the initial insertion of the initial mains line .

I think you need to upgrade your cheap granite plinths to audiophile grade granite, it’ll really open up the soundstage.

bigjim – Member
I think you need to upgrade your cheap granite plinths to audiophile grade granite, it’ll really open up the soundstage.

Of course, only available from one tiny, almost inaccessible quarry on a tiny island off the north coast of Scotland…
😉

Yeah that’s where I got my plinths from