I believe the right phrase is "fully sick", @Ittaku .  

 

Andy

 

I would install a new version of REW that's buggy AF the day before. 🙄

RT60 response with recalibrated DSP. Used to peak at 0.8s, rising between 200Hz and 8k

16 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

 

RT60 response with recalibrated DSP. Used to peak at 0.8s, rising between 200Hz and 8k

 

 

So I assume this is better than before, Con - as:

• the maximum is much lower than 800ms
• and it basically decreases to 350ms?

In comparison (the same 'Topt' graph) ... my graph has a totally different shape:

 

 

 

... so what does this say about my room?

 

Andy

 

 

1 hour ago, andyr said:

So I assume this is better than before, Con - as:

• the maximum is much lower than 800ms
• and it basically decreases to 350ms?

In comparison (the same 'Topt' graph) ... my graph has a totally different shape:

 

 

... so what does this say about my room?

I can't say anything from that alone, as I'm no expert with RT60s,  but they're all low numbers so your room is not very echoic at all. Most pundits recommend about .4-.5 for listening rooms, and suggest a bit higher for larger rooms like mine. Mine is on the lower side now which doesn't worry me in the slightest. I can close the front wall cupboard doors if I want to make it a bit livelier. It's still too early to tell which way I prefer it but I can't fault it being better in every way so far. Still need to get my thoughts in order before I can describe the changes.

 

Just for reference, here's what my FR at the listening position looks like down to 16Hz. Bear in mind I optimise it around an average of 9 positions rather than just for the central position, but with more emphasis on getting the bass flat in the centre. The treble peak is intrinsic to the MBLs, as is the dip after that peak, even though they go up to 40k after that; I can't say I notice it, and the fact there's a little peak there probably offsets the fall after it.

Exceptional result, Con!  

 

Andy

 

2 minutes ago, andyr said:

Exceptional result, Con!  

Thanks! I may have a little crack at gently taming that treble peak just for completeness too.

16 hours ago, Ittaku said:

Finalised, let's hear some tunes.

 

Looks amazing Con!

Here we go, tweaked "final" frequency response.

 

And RT60 with front doors open.

 

And with front doors closed, showing clear increase in the reflection/echo in some frequencies, though still quite low overall.

 

A quick listening comparison suggests I prefer the former, but it's splitting hairs.

Nice results @Ittaku. I'm more tempted to think about doing my ceiling right now after seeing this.

 

I've got a big reverberant space which I've treated a bit but I think I'd like to go a little harder on it. Try and get that circa 600msec down a bit.

 

It was crazy before, much better now.

 

Finally gave in and removed my homemade OB speakers from the shelf behind It was a matter of necessity in the end as the one on the left was so close to the subwoofer that it would actually resonate. It cleaned up the soundstage on that side even further as a result. I'll post my notes shortly on the effect of the room treatment and then shut this thread down in favour of a completely revamped one as planned.

Things I've noted since putting the sound treatment in.

Articulation. There's an immense increase in the clarity of high and mid frequencies with the underlying detail simply breathing through and then stopping on a dime.  It's like taking away a layer of grunge surrounding the frequencies we're most sensitive to. There's no sense it's had any effect on the leading edge of high hats, cymbals, drumsticks being hit together, cowbells, etc. in the process.

 

Blackness. Oh that inimitable quality people chase in electronics. No that's nothing compared to this. The delicacy of low level passages or soft music playing with a sense of peacefulness almost added because of the lack of background noise. The numbers don't lie, there's an enormous drop in background noise and this is the real blackness people should chase instead.

 

Softness. Natural instruments have a softness to them even when they're percussive in nature. The piano was the most striking of these - a combined percussion and string instrument, suddenly the hammer hitting the strings had felt on it like the real instrument does, but without losing the leading edge detail that goes with it. It never even occurred to me that it was the construction of the piano hammer till I heard it so obviously.

 

Stage. It was already ridiculously good, but really? Even that improved. The interesting thing my son pointed out when listening was "this was recorded in a studio because I can't hear any room from the recording, unlike the other recording." My room itself is imparting very little of its own character on top of the recording any more - little enough so that I can only notice the room's ambience, if any.

 

Bass. "What the hell?" was my first thought. Why on earth did the bass change? There's virtually no absorption of bass with the room treatment I added, and the frequencies are all too low/long wavelength for diffusion to do anything. It turned out to be two separate things happening to the bass. Firstly, as with all instruments, bass producing instruments create harmonics that are higher frequency. These are usually small in amplitude compared to the fundamental, yet now that they'd been cleaned up there was suddenly much more texture, articulation, and stage focus to the bass. The second change was even more interesting - there was now more bass, too much bass in fact. Obviously I'd done my DSP previously based on REW measurements, which show the primary wavefront as signal and all reflections as noise.  However after applying a gentle curve, I had actually gone and tweaked the bass up further till it sounded natural to my ears. Well it turns out what I was doing was compensating for the extra reflected energy in the midrange and treble, even though it was effectively noise. It makes sense now in retrospect, and also explains why my suggested curves sounded too bassy to Andy with his relatively low echo room. So I had to redo the DSP without the extra low bass hump (but still keep a Harman type curve.) Now I actually understand why  the Harman curve sounds more natural than flat too.

13 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Bass.

Indeed.   It's why there's a lot of disagreement around the best target, as it depends so much on speaker directivity and room size, etc.

 

Quote

RT60

Those RT60 numbers are great (very flat) ...  high or low, again depends on room and speaker directivity (and also taste) so there's no right answer and people should definitely not "copy", aside from that flatter (within +/- 25% or somesuch) is desirable.

 

BUT... the RT60 really tells very little in such a small room... and there are much better charts to look at.

 

For the low frequencies (eg. <300Hz), look at a waterfall (or decay, for a more simple representation).

For the rest, you are really interested in much shorter errors... and so you want to look at the ETC.

 

So it's all well and good to talk about Bass, treble, articulation etc., but what have I actually "fixed" in the music? Well as it turns out, with my Meniere's disease, my affected ear has both badly reduced amplitude and is extremely sensitive to anything that could even hint at harshness or shrillness, making for a catch 22 - I need to turn the music up loud to balance it out, but loudness sets off all my glare receptors and amplifiers.

 

Playing Beethoven's appasionata sonata now has this amazing delicacy to the otherwise percussive incredibly dynamic piece of music, and no hardness to the percussiveness; it doesn't sound like a glockenspiel or celesta anymore.

Listening to Sopranos at concert level loudness with their rich sonorous tones and the recording venue ambiance no longer has any unpleasant added shrillness, harshness, hardness, or sibilance. They're just beautifully rendered in the room. Mahler's 4th symphony, and even more so Solbeig's song from Grieg's 6 songs for orchestra.

Children's choirs such as in Mahler's 3rd symphony have that glorious angelic sound.

Bass in instruments like the double bass (probably more than any other) such as in Patrica Barber's Clique are texturally rendered with their body and solidly positioned in the sound stage instead of potentially diffusing at different notes.

The most dissonant chords in say a Shostakovich symphony are now just that - dissonant chords, rather than an affront to the ears.

Electric guitars played loudly, (especially with effects like overdrive), really hang in there loudly in front of you in the stage instead of ringing loudly in the ears - Comfortably Numb anyone?

There's this dude there now in Toto's Rosanna. I've mentioned this track as being one of my reference tracks, and sure enough it sounds better, but there's this dude there now. There's a backup singer who I've never noticed before except towards the end. Now he keeps interrupting at low volumes at regular intervals in the music.  Where the hell was he all that time? Now that I've pointed him out, you'll all go and listen for him, and you'll never forget he's there and hear him from now  on, as is always the case once you notice something new in music. But it was this change to the room that made me notice he was even there.

 

Disadvantages:

The temptation to turn it up louder than ever is there. There's a breaking point for any room beyond which it becomes unpleasant. I'm out of amplification before reaching that now for most things.

And at last, here's my replacement thread:

 

5 hours ago, Ittaku said:

Here we go, tweaked "final" frequency response.

 

 

3 hours ago, davewantsmoore said:

Indeed.   It's why there's a lot of disagreement around the best target, as it depends so much on speaker directivity and room size, etc.

 

I'll also add the actual content one is playing makes a massive difference to what target curve sounds best too.

I use all 4 profiles on my miniDSP SHD (Flat, 2dB Bass Boost, 3 dB Bass Boost, 4db Bass Boost) depending on what I'm playing.

In fact if I could I probably would use more if available although that might start getting a bit picky.

Edited March 31, 20223 yr by Satanica

Con i'm sure it sounds amazing, but the room also looks the part too.  Congrats and enjoy!!!!

The MSO have announced next year's concert programme, and it includes Saint Saens Organ Symphony at the Melbourne Town Hall August 10-11. Anyone who has been to one of my get togethers knows what that entails. I've already booked my tickets.

Valve testing time now that 2,000 hours is up.

 

Replaced one small signal regulator tube in the preamp and shuffled the power tubes in the power amp for better matching. No I can't hear the difference, but I've fixed a bias imbalance I couldn't correct previously.

 

1 hour ago, Ittaku said:

Valve testing time now that 2,000 hours is up.

 

Replaced one small signal regulator tube in the preamp and shuffled the power tubes in the power amp for better matching. No I can't hear the difference, but I've fixed a bias imbalance I couldn't correct previously.

 

 

 

yeah, regulators just burn and burn, sometimes at nearly full power, every moment they are switched on.  Not surprising they go first.

Just heard Rachmaninov's symphonic dances with the MSO. I would have to say of all the large symphonic works I've heard live this is one my system comes closest to recreating the real experience.

36 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Just heard Rachmaninov's symphonic dances with the MSO. I would have to say of all the large symphonic works I've heard live this is one my system comes closest to recreating the real experience.

Interested to know if anything actually stood out as sounding a bit different

 

... Plus what happened to your 'other' showcase thread? 😀

Brain fart