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Jim Smith...he of 'Get Better Sound' fame, visited a good friend of mine last week to upgrade his room and system and to say that he improved his room's sound would be a significant understatement. Everyone has heard that your room is very important to the quality of sound heard from your system.Very few of us have the ability to correctly evaluate what truly needs to be done to a room to optimize the sound.Mr. Smith certainly does. My friend's system is now amazing.I can't begin to put a percentage on how it has improved but it is way up there. After i get through upgrading my output transformers on my amps i am going to get on his list of people that await his talents. Nothing you can buy to replace any of your current gear can come close to giving you better sound then the way his system of improvemtnts can...JUST AMAZING..!!!
Follow Ups:
I would agree that it is really important to equip the room with the necessary stuff to make the sound amazing. Good furniture also creates a great atmosphere.
What is the cost for his service? Since you are only an hour away from me, maybe I should get him to swing by my place when he's done.
Oz
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
Oz..i cannot speak for him and it would not be prudent to divulge my friends cost but it is, in no way, expensive in relation to what he , Mr. Smith, was able to accomplish in my friends system.where do you live..??If you live close to Greensboro, where my friend lives, i am sure he would not mind you paying a visit to hear the system. Maybe we could get together for dinner ...Just a thought..It would be well worth it if you were even remotely thinking about the process. Pete could explain it better..
I live in Lynchburg. That's why I thought we could possibly split the cost of his travel. That is, if you are still in Danville. We can take this offline if you like.
Oz
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
He has already gone back to Atlanta. He only stays about a day and a half...depending on the system he is working on.If you are interested in talking with Peter and hearing his system you could drive down to Danville and i could drive to Greensboro so you could hear Pete's system and talk with him about the process...The 2 gentleman who made my amps live in Lynchburg...We use to, before this Covid issue,,have dinner at the Wm and Henry restaurant in the Virginian hotel downtown..
I can't imagine a transformer change, good as it might be, having the same impact as improving your listening space acoustics. Perhaps the transformers should be #2 on the list.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be
The transformer change/upgrade is my decision and has been planned for sometime. My room is very good as it is. I did move my speakers out further into the room which has helped significantly but will still have mr. Smith come and see what his expertise can help..
Maybe cheaper. No affiliation.
These kinds of systems are beguiling, and in theory, can provide a huge improvement in measured response and flatness.
But they only work that kind of "magic" sonically when you clamp you head in a vise at the same spot as the microphone was placed. If multi-mic locations are sampled, then you end up with a highly averaged and smoothed correction, which means nowhere is the correction absolute any more.
It becomes only a sort of blended/smoothed EQ overlay instead.
What usually suffers is detail, focus, transient response, and the overall sense of life a good recording can have. Yes, there are less gross frequency response artifacts and deviations, but at a cost.
On a lesser system, there can be an overall improvement, but on a high end rig, the aspects I note often suffer more than any small improvement in tonality or smoothness is worth.
The room needs to right before you try to fix things electronically, then it can become the icing on the cake, instead of the spicy BBQ sauce or thick gravy covering the blemishes up.
Jon Risch
Dirac won't physically move your speakers.
This is what's needed to do first - adjust toe-in, height, tilt, distance between speakers and back wall - and each other, etc. Then perhaps room treatment and lastly (if your speakers are still far from linear), the likes of Dirac.
My experience is that the "life" of music is often seriously reduced if electronic room treatment is applied, particularly if this is done after the DAC, as analogue signals need to be digitised, then adjusted, then back to analogue.
Not me. But I am not arguing, just pointing out my experienced.
Maybe it has something to do with each person's hearing acuity? From what I recall reading somewhere,
about 2 percent of adults aged 45 to 54 have disabling hearing loss. The rate increases to 8.5 percent for adults aged 55 to 64. Approximately one in three people in the United States between the ages of 65 and 74 has hearing loss , and nearly half of those older than 75 have difficulty hearing.
I am 52 years old.
Edits: 09/01/20 09/01/20
> > My experience is that the "life" of music is often seriously reduced if electronic room treatment is applied,
Agree. The perfect can very well be the enemy of the good.
If you don't become the ocean, you'll be seasick everyday ...
- Leonard Cohen
Get the speaker position right, room treatments right, then add Dirac under 100Hz.
I have to chuckle when I see old men who invariably have diminished hearing, TV's and racks between their speakers, and zero room treatment asserting they hear anything but an improvement after implementing Dirac. But to each their own!
"My experience is that the "life" of music is often seriously reduced if electronic room treatment is applied......"
This has been my experience too and I have heard it happen first hand.
Oz
Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
doubt very seriously it will accomplish what Mr. Smith can..could be wrong...but doubt it..the experience he has is worth whatever he charges...
There are plenty of room gurus out there for those that can justify the expense. There are also plenty of publications, magazine articles, and more assistance for others. This site included...
Good reminder that it's not just about the "system"
The system includes you and the room. System thinking is in vogue.
Gsquared
That was my intent with the quotation marks around system, that the system isn't just the electrical, source etc. to speakers.
A little more information about the room's basics and the system, as well as a summary of what the owner tried previously would be helpful.
I'm not doubting Jim Smith's abilities. I have his book and believe he knows more about set up than most people.
"The only cats worth anything are the cats who take chances. Sometimes I play things I never heard myself." Thelonious Monk
Thanks for sharing-
Question - were the changes dramatic?
or subtle movements of speakers and listening chair to wrest the best sound from the system?
Happy Listening
My experience with room treatments, is that you need Dramatic Changes to get a great listening room. It is NOT a simple matter of Moving Speakers etc.
It usually Involves Bass Traps, Acoustic Panels, Absorbent Panels, reflectors etc... All placed strategically around the room using measuring gear et. My Friend Spent about $2 Grand getting his room 'right'. And this was just the Hardware... A friend of his that was in the business offered his services for free.
You might even need to 'Rebuild' the room if the space is not conducive to improvements.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against this in the least... I'm all for it. It's just not that simple as tweaking a few things. It's lot like my wife watching HDTV and they completely remodel a House for $4o Grand.
There were no room treatments used in the improvement!!!
What type of system does the guy have?
How much thought/work did he do himself, prior to having someone in?
A general idea of what was done?
Good questions..He has an all tube front end with the best Raven mono block amps, Supretek preamp...Tidal piano speakers with diamond tweeter, Ayon s 10 II streamer...REL Gibralter subs x 2...in a room about 15' x 30 ' with the gear on the long wall. He had tried positioning everything in different places on many occasions..it sounded great but he went down to Mr. Smiths house outside of Atlanta and was impressed with what he heard from his modest system and his thoughts on what he wanted to do with his system.I have heard his system many times and new its sound very well.I was not ready for the significance of the improvement in every way. Obviously all his gear was present in the room after Mr. Smith finished..about 12 hrs, but he would have never come up with the current set up on his own without Mr. Smiths' expertise.He has a website and will answer any question you have...i think...and has helped audiophiles all over the world improve their systems.For the cost of a new moderate power cord your system can be much much better...in most cases....not all.No...i don't work for him..My system is very very good but if he can make it better..he can certainly try ...after hearing what he did with my friends system..
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