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...for solo dedicated listening.
How big would it be?
How would the triangulation look between 2 speakers and listener?
Would your speakers point at listener?
How would you enhance your room, if at all?
Follow Ups:
I reviewed them in StereoTimes having first found what they did to my tiny room (10 x 13 x 8 feet) in the mountains of north central New Mexico. I really had low hopes for this room in a 1500 sq. feet house, but my wife insisted on buying it.
I have a very simple system there having first tried headphones, which did nothing but put me to sleep. I have an H-Cat amp and preamp with an Empirical Audio Legacy music server and a prototype Exemplar dac. I have the amp and preamp on a double StillPoints Component stand with four of their Ultra Fives on each stand. The cables are all Exemplar Portals with the ics being their LLC Silvers.
Initially, I had tried the Zilplexes in my large (20 x 28 x 11.5') room in Texas, but I could not figure out how to install the ceiling unit. Lacking time, I just decided to try them in NM. Once there I listened to music in the room with the Syn. Res. ART Basiks already installed. I then went about installing the eleven tiny Zilplex resonators, which are 1/2" silver bowls that sit on a silver tripode anchored into a triangle of lucite.
I had last listened to Diana Krall's "A Case of you" before installing the Zilplexes. I listened again and was shocked to hear the full stage width and great depth of her performance hall in Paris. I had the distinct impression that the walls and ceiling from about three feet forward of where I was sitting had been removed.
I know all of this sounds preposterous. At the last The Home Entertainment Show in Las Vegas, I was present for many demonstrations where the demonstrator removed the Zilplexes one by one. Then he put them back again. The common comment was, "how do they do this!"
They may be a much easier way to get a good sounding room.
......by Chris Huston of Rives Audio in a barn. he was given a clean sheet of paper and a 25' x 35' x 'unlimited height' space to work with. he came up with 29' x 21' x 11'. it has an oval shape. in essence it is a room built inside another room.i have made a few minor changes in the room since it was built 8 years ago. it is the best sounding room i have heard....but i'm probably not objective about that.
i did write an article on the room building process for Positive Feedback Online here;
http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue16/lavigneroom.htm
mikel
Edits: 08/28/12 08/28/12 08/28/12
Never have I heard a room such as yours, or any well designed.
I see you have a diffuser in the middle of your wall behind the speakers. Do you still get a solid central image (when recorded as such) or is it diffuse?
i get an excellent center image. it is very focused and has natural, real life, front to back depth. and the whole soundstage is wide, deep and high. musical elements seem to fully develop and retain all the natural energy. the room, speakers and reproduction chain disappear.
but it's not just the center diffuser. it's a number of things contributing.
(1) the triple stack of (2'x 2') RPG Skyline diffusers between the speakers does help to have coherent and focused center image. the Skylines are a very agressive type diffuser designed to be in the most critical first reflection spots. (2) the Auralex T-Fusors on the side-walls and in the ceiling wells also help to a smaller degree in image focus by eliminating slap echo from the sidewalls. these T-Fusors are mostly reflective, it's important to not absorb much or you change the tonal character of the room. (3) every surface in the front of the room is reflective, including the hardwood floor, in order to retain as much energy as possible. (4) the angled panels in the ceiling eliminate any first reflection from the ceiling but allow musical energy to be reflected back into the room. (5) the built-in sidewall half round diffusers eliminate any slap echo at the listening position but still don't absorb any musical energy. (6) the shape of the room avoids any facing reflective surfaces and the large size and live-ness allows for excellent note decay and bloom but all the diffusion keeps things from getting confused.
(7) speaker set-up, location and toe-in/toe-out is important, and (8) high resolution electronics, the best possible sources, and an Equi=tech 10WQ isolation transformer all do their part to keep the noise low and have maximum musical information to allow the room to strut it's stuff.
i've not heard a room that comes close to the imaging and spacial rendering of this room.
the design philosophy of the room is to retain musical energy. it's designed like a concert hall; the front is shaped like a stage, the rear and ceiling are diffusive and the carpeted rear 2/3rds of the floor is like an audience. that is the idea. and it works too.
mikel
Edits: 08/29/12 08/29/12 08/29/12
I understand it is the total package which gets you there, but find points 3 & 4 especially interesting and helpful:
(3) every surface in the front of the room is reflective, including the hardwood floor, in order to retain as much energy as possible. (4) the angled panels in the ceiling eliminate any first reflection from the ceiling but allow musical energy to be reflected back into the room.
I was surprised to see that even the windows were not treated.
Thank you for sharing! Gives me something to dream about :^)
thanks for the kind words.
as far as the windows; i actually have inserts for those which i used for awhile. then i did some listening tests and found that i could not hear any difference in or out. the windows are small enough and high enough that their effect is not audible. and i live in the mountains and the windows look out to a ridge and i enjoy watching nature as i listen.
cheers,
mikel
Heavens to betsy, Mikel! THAT is some room! Equipment looks to perform to its best where you have your speaks. I have some very fine classical recordings from the 60's and 70's from labels like Soundstream, Syrinx, BIS, et all that I would LOVE to listen to in there instead of my wee 12x15x8' room.
thanks Jim, for the nice comments.
my previous room was smallish (18'x 12'x 10.5') and i loved the immediacy and intimacy of that room. it took me 5-6 years in the new room before i was able to reach and surpass those aspects of the smaller room. so enjoy the strengths of the more intimate setting.
if you ever come up to the Seattle area from Texas you would be most welcome to listen to some of those Classical Lps in my system.
cheers,
mikel
Thank you, Mikel, for your warm reply. If ever I am, I will. My system works nicely for me. I think I know what you mean.
When you review speakers where do you place them?
Cheers
Bill
:)
i did consider reviewing for a short period 6-7 years ago but found it was not for me. so i don't have more than one set of speakers at a time.
the speakers in that picture in the other post (Evolution Acoustics MM3's) are sold and gone and i am waiting for these speakers below (MM7's) to arrive. the MM7's are 4 towers. they should be delivered in late September to early October.
...to the eyes; I can only imagine how beautiful to the ears!
yes, they 'did' sound wonderful.....
mikel
NIIICE!! I gotta get a job like yours.
If you ever feel the urge to get rid of one of those Studers, let me know.
:)
thanks.
careful what you ask for. i've managed a large auto dealership for 30 years, 6 days/55+ hours a week, lotsa stress. audio is my stress relief. no time for a boat, or summer home, or long vacations. we all make our choices and pay our dues accordingly. i've been an active audiophile for 17-18 years since my kids were grown and spent some money each year. it's not like i wrote a big check out all at once (except when i built the room).
and there is a long line for the Studers. they are not going anywhere. they are amazing machines. easily the most magnificently engineered audio related products ever.
:)
cheers,
mikel
I'd hire someone with a good track record in studio and control room design.
That said I'm quite certain it would include bass traps and other acoustic treatment like absorbers and diffusors in the appropriate places and the speakers would definitely be soffit mounted.
Any toe in depends on the speakers I'd use. If they are anything like the ones I have toe in would probably be zero.
Room would be basically 'phi' shaped. And even though I've got Maggies, I'd also START with a 9' ceiling. LxW would be about 14.56 x 23.56
I would investigate a 'rule' to taper the walls....make them non-parallel.
2 non-opposite walls would be double sheet rock. If a room addition, walls adjacent to the parent structure would be double studded.....and offset. That way, the 2 sides of the wall would NOT be attached to the opposite sides of the same stud. BETWEEN studs would be woven a sound proofing material of some sort. The DOOR to the parent structure would be a 36" exterior door and may have a soundproofing matt on the soundroom side as additional insulation. Maybe, space allowing, a double door, 'airlock' system with a short, maybe 5' long hall betweent the parent structure and the sound room.
In BACK of the panels would be built-in quadratic diffusiors of a frequency center TBD. The corners OPPOSITE the speakers would be large corner bookshelfs. Another possiblility is a corner window with no center post.
Electrical would be from a sub panel of at least 50 amps. The service to the house would have to be at least 150 amps. A lightning / surge arrestor for the ENTIRE house would be panel installed. Point of use surge protection as needed. A large ISO transformer would feed, from at least 2 circuits, low level equipement while another pair of circuits would feed my new Pass Monoblocs. Maybe use several PSAudio Soloist 20 amp duplex outlets?
Subwoofers? A pair, TBD after test / research.
Since this room has to do double duty as a TV room, too, a Projector and screen will be researched and installed.
I've identified options for a sectional sofa. This is open at 60degrees NOT at 90 as is common. This provides an 'open' plan. Drapes for windows would be thick / lined and heavily pleated to act as additional diffusion. A trip to LosAngles Garment District is in order to identify and purchase fabrics.
Too much is never enough
At least 25' x 30', larger if possible. 8' ceiling (better for line sources). Rectangular walls unless I decided to make a control-room style reflection-free zone with facets. Lots of diffusion alternating with panel surrounds (both for low inter-aural cross correlation), then absorption added to get the Rt where I want it, but I'd make that changeable in case I wanted to use a different strategy (e.g., surround requires a deader surface than two channel).Provisions for bass traps in the walls. I wouldn't make the walls more rigid or any more soundproof than they had to be for the location, you don't want to trap bass energy if you can avoid it. Better to surround the room with dead space, e.g., closets, halls, sex toy storage. That could also facilitate infinite baffle subs around the periphery, or even a rotary woofer. You could easily build double bass arrays and other fun stuff.
Wood floors, wood studs, both made with old wood to get that warm old hall/old room sound. Plaster (I know, that kind of interferes with the built-in bass traps). Lots of load bearing in case you wanted to put your speakers on granite bases. Grounded chicken wire Faraday cage but only if a site survey found significant RF. Dedicated heavy gauge isoground power lines around the room, each receptacle configurable via home runs to the basement, since you never know where you'll end up putting stuff. Maybe run the equipment at 240 V to take advantage of the lower voltage drop and the balanced power from the transformer the power company has so obligingly provided. Air conditioned equipment/computer closet to eliminate fan noise and of course removable baseboards everywhere for signal cables. Low velocity A/C with sound traps to minimize noise. Variacs rather than dimmers to minimize RFI. A studio sound door, but no airlock required.
Variations, I might experiment with making a Fresnel reflector reflection-free zone -- basically sawtooth wedges with absorption on the orthogonal edge. Or I might try heavy absorption on the walls and go entirely with low IACC synthetic surround.
Angle of speakers depends largely on the design of the speaker, usually (although not always) you get the best response on axis. I would go with the Blumlein equilateral triangle, which always sounds best to me, although many prefer a different spread; with two channel, it's a compromise. Beyond that I'd probably use the standard arrangements for multichannel. A listening distance of about 3 meters seems to be preferred, perhaps because speakers are designed to work best at a typical distance. In any case, some of the esoteric designs apart, you want to keep the left and right speakers as far from room surfaces as possible, to maximize the initial time delay of the first reflections.
However, dipole bass works best parallel to the wall, if this can be adjusted independently. In a rectangular room, you can also effectively cancel all room modes below a certain frequency by sitting the same distance from the rear as a dipole woofer is from the front. It works like a passive single bass array. One disadvantage of a large room is the effective frequency would be pretty low.
Edits: 08/27/12
I've read that it should be equidistant instead of equilateral. Equidistant for 45 degrees from the central axis, where equilateral gives you 30 degrees. BUT, I don't understand what this means. Can you explain the difference between equilateral and equidistant?
If its 45 degrees instead of 30, you will have a right angled triangle with the distance between the speakers forming the hypotenuse. The distance between the speaker and the listener will then be the diatance between the speakers divided by square root of 2 or 1.414. I am not sure if this is a good setup.
Cheers
Bill
An equilateral has 3 sides the same length......and by necessity, all 3 'corners' are at 60 degrees.
The sum of a triangles 3 angles MUST be 180 degrees.
Equidistant just means the 2 speakers are the same distance from the listener. It is still a triangle, but the dimensions are not specified by the term 'equidistant'. Equidistant is NOT a triangle type, but rather a description of the desired setup.
The 'Wiki' may be more than you want to know, but a refresher never hurt anybody.......
Too much is never enough
As far as I know, "equidistant" just means that the two speakers should be at the same distance from the listener. Which is true with any stereo spread. Equilateral refers to an angle of +/- 30 degrees. This is the angle that Blumlein originally chose for stereo, and it's become the de facto standard (and now, I think, is enshrined in some formal standards for surround). This means that it's the standard that recording are mixed to, though every recording has a slightly different sweet spot and you have to move forward or back a bit if you want to catch it. In any case, people vary in their preferences. There's a tradeoff between center image solidity and spread. And both the speaker and room can affect what works best.
[quote]... speakers pointed directly at the listener, exactly equidistant from the listener, and each speaker 45 degrees from the central axis ... The traditional "equilateral triangle" set-up of speakers and listener (speaker 30 degrees off the central axis) just won't do if accuracy is the goal.[/quote]
Sounds to me as if there is a distinction between what you are saying and what I read here. Granted, I don't understand the difference. I don't understand, "speaker 45 degrees from the central axis".
Quoted from:
That's an interesting article, and I share his enthusiasm for Blumlein recordings. I'm not sure what to say though about a +/- 45 degree listening angle for Blumlein. It's the first I've heard of it. It may be that my source on the +/- 30 degree stereo spread being attributable to Blumlein was wrong.
Bout 21' by 15' by 9', I expect, with forward firing radiators 5' to 6' off the wall behind them with me hiney at the apex of an equilateral with 7' legs.
Edits: 08/28/12 08/28/12 08/28/12 08/28/12
...in 1990 was 27 X 17 X 10.5.
Great imaging and soundstaging.
Four years ago I moved into a house and turned the living room into a dedicated listening room - it's 17 X 14 X 8.
More intimate and immediate.
If I were to do it again, I'd make it about halfway between the two - 21 X 16 X 9 - to get the best of both.
21 x 15 x 8'4". Works well for me
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
...for the Thiels.
I'm jealous.
On the long wall
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to" Mark Twain
How big would it be?
15' x 20' min.
How would the triangulation look between 2 speakers and listener?
Depends on speaker. Min 4' from a wall.
Would your speakers point at listener?
Speaker dependent. Likely not that much toe in.
How would you enhance your room, if at all?
Proper bass traps, acoustic tile, wall treatments for reflections.
And first off make room l/w/h a good ratio for bass response.
Cheers,
Presto
20 ft long is not long enough for mch listening. My room is only 12'3" wide wish it was 15ft fortunately it is 26ft long 8ft high ceiling carpeted floor ,however audio sounds excellent . No EQ or room treatment required, No power conditioners either, I find they degrade the sound.
20 ft long is not long enough for mch listening. My room is only 12'3" wide wish it was 15ft fortunately it is 26ft long 8ft high ceiling carpeted floor ,however sounds excellent . No EQ or room treatment required, No power conditioners either, I find they degrade the sound.
studio
No fair! Two can sit at the desk!
Freedom is the right to discipline yourself.
"...for solo dedicated listening.
How big would it be?
How would the triangulation look between 2 speakers and listener?
Would your speakers point at listener?
How would you enhance your room, if at all?"
Troutbum, why would you want to design a room for solo listening? Are you extremely wealthy and don't have any friends?
You ever hear of a sweet spot?
Yes, and I prefer a large one - in audio. :)And since Troutbum is being a good sport, I'll post an actual useful reply later tonight. But first, I have to finish this bottle of '82 Lafite.
Edits: 08/27/12
Finishing a bottle solo?!
Cheers
Bill
Hey, why would I share it with a girlfriend who's happy to drink pink wine?
LOL
Also....I ain't wealthy
I love to listen solo, as well as many other things. Since entering early senior citizen status (now 64), I find out I enjoy the company of my dog rather than most people.
There are a lot of days where I would agree with you.
"Everyone has a plan — until they get punched in the face" - Mike Tyson
See ya. Dave
"How big would it be?
How would the triangulation look between 2 speakers and listener?
Would your speakers point at listener?
How would you enhance your room, if at all? "So many good questions!
I think the first thing I'd consider would be how loud or soft I'd want to listen. Loud music almost demands a larger room, while soft music most certainly demands more isolation from exterior sounds, er, acoustical pressure variations. In either case, if a person wants some degree of quality "room sound" to compliment the direct sound, it would need to be a minimum of 15' W by 20' D by 10' H. Height is often the neglected step-child dimension, but it's just as important as width and depth. I suppose a somewhat smaller room would suffice if listening levels are generally low and the budget is tight.
The triangle shape and the speaker orientation are entirely dependent upon the speakers you choose. People who say to use 'this-or-that' layout, without knowing anything about the speakers or the room, are blowing smoke out of their nose-in-the-air. Different speakers sound best in different configurations and in rooms with differing degrees of live or dead quality. In 2012, this should be old news.
Room enhancement: Hot chicks in all corners, at the first reflection points, and on the floor. Beyond that, I'd make sure that there's good diffusion - the last thing I want is "slap" or "flutter" echo. If there seems to be excessive bass or uneven bass, I'd measure that and install appropriate bass traps. And no parallel surfaces!!!
There's other things I'd do, but, since AA can use my post any way they want, I'm keeping a few secrets to myself. :)
hth
:)
Edits: 08/27/12
18 feet on the wall behind the speakers, 24 feet on the wall behind the listeners, with a distance between the two of about 24 to 28 feet. What I would really do is contact some experts.
Beatnik's stuff http://web.me.com/jnr1/Site/Beatniks_Pictures.html
About 12 rows back in the middle for the listening chair should do it.
I'd say without research into room interaction:
-About 25 x 30 x 10' high
-About what it is now; 6-7' between, 11-12' to speakers. Then 6-7' behind instead of now ~4-5'
-Depends on if tweeter in or outside (Maggie's); either in front of or behind listener.
-Similar to now. A larger room (mine is 17 x 24') would need less enhancement than a smaller one in theory but I'd keep it at: side absorption, rear diffusion, all walls sound treated, dedicated breakers....
Just my OPINION, but I'd tend to avoid whole number multiples of ANY dimensions.
Too much is never enough
I have heard electrostatic(Acoustat) and ribbon speakers(Tympani) under 20' ceilings in a Bklyn brownstone living room with oak floors thick plaster walls and a heavily draped central window ; it was heart stopping.....
I had my MG-1s.....late '70s vintage, in a CAVERN of a room with at least 20' ceilings. The speakers faced into the room while the back wave disappeared into the dining room thru 2 portals about 10' apart.....perfect! The panels sat on a slight step up leading to the dining area.
With my Carver Cube of 200x2+ it really rocked.
Too much is never enough
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