I am somewhat embarrassed by this, I have been building my current system for over two years now. And tonight was the very first time in two years that I inhaled the special smoke and sat down in my chair.
The soundstage is better than ever before. And the clarity!
Oh. My. Goodness.
The best part is the special smoke was a gift.
It truly is a best inexpensive Tweak.
Indeed. The right “additive” is the icing on the cake.
And speaking of cake…
Geez, where’s Bootzilla with the “Welcome to the Club” meme?
The “best inexpensive tweaks” are the ones that are totally free… And actually provide great improvements when done properly.
Of course, I am referring to extensive loudspeaker placement tweaks. Finding that sweet spot for each speaker in the room and just the right amount of toe-in. It pays dividends in the long run if you’re willing to put in the time and effort.
Running a subwoofer or two (or more)? Placement for these guys in the room are every bit as important as it is for the main speakers in the system. Don’t ever assume just plopping them in the corner is the best option. Most often, that’s the worse spot for them.
After that’s done, then comes the time consuming fun of adjusting the levels, phase and crossover points on those subs. I’ve always had best results of leaving the main loudspeakers (no matter their size) playing fullrange, then bring the sub(s) in to fill in that bottom octave as seamlessly and as “unnoticeable” as possible. I don’t care if you’re using one sub or seven in your 2-ch system. If done right, you shouldn’t even notice those subs are in the room.
Performing these three things are totally free to do and gain you the most improvements you can do to your system. All it takes is time and patience.
Another free tweak for your system…
Listen late at night, typically anything past 9 pm. And the later it gets, the better.
The later it is, the cooler it is outside and air conditioners aren’t running as much and people are usually done cooking their dinner, so less noise on the power grid. Later yet, people are going to bed so their TV, etc, etc are turned off, so even less noise on the power grid.
Also because it’s later in the evening, there’s less noise outside due to kids playing, traffic, lawn mowers, calmer weather (usually no heavy winds or thunder late at night), etc, etc.
You don’t realize how nice it is to have a very quiet to near silent ambient background environment and how it impacts your listening enjoyment. And again, it’s totally free!
After comments by The Big Boss, @Paul about speaker positioning, I tried moving my speakers closer together by one inch total, keeping toe-in constant.
The improvement in center channel definition is remarkable. For years, I thought I had it right but this is “more right” and free.
I can’t get mine far enough apart. My center image is tooo stable much of the time!
For my room, with my speakers, it’s a balancing act… bring them together and it creates a wider soundstage (counter intuitive to me at first); move them farther apart and it tightens the focus of the center image.
How do you figure out when the center image is enough? Personal feel/taste? Specific recordings and placement?
My most recent technique has been to use a song called Amused to Death by Roger Waters. The first ~15s of the song has a distant radio playing that, I believe, is supposed to sound like it’s coming from directly left about 15 feet away (not from speaker). I place my toe-in and center distance for that sound. I find that moving toe-in minutely can affect the position of that sound, so I find the boundary where that sound starts to come from the left speaker. When I do this, I find the center channel to be just right (to taste) – not hyper-focused center where I lose the periphery image. – I wonder if this yields a correct result for you guys.
Basically you move your speakers apart in increments until there is a hole in the center of the sound stage. -Then go in reverse until the hole disappears.
I like Little Room by Norah Jones, her voice is dead center and it’s a good reference for me. Song you’re referring to is Ballad of Bill Hubbard off the Amused to Death album which uses Qsound to produce that effect. Cheers, Jim
Basically what @John_Dubya said.
I heard an improvement in the density of the horn in the center of the soundstage. It is now much more believably there.
And the width of the sounstage also improved simultaneously.
I find the best way to check center image is to play a mono source. All mono content should sound like it comes from the center.
Once I have the center image for mono recordings correct, I find that the center image for stereo sources end up also sounding correct.
This. It’s not easy to accomplish for me in my room. . . but I listen to a good share of mono material, and when I get this right, the stereo image is wonderful.
It might not work for all speakers, but Tilting back really helped my Tannoy Cheviots – about 2 or 3 degrees – and it opened up the soundstage and helps to fight that “head-in-a-vice” problem that I hate so much. Myi sweet spot is much, much larger now. My music now sounds great from almost anywhere in the room. Not kidding.
Hi, mm I will try that too - I have a speaker system with a tilt system for the mid high unit. Only aimed to my listening spot - this is an option never thought about.
A very good mention by Ron about tilting back the speakers. I have 1/4"bamboo coasters under the front “footers” I use with my speakers (Decware HR-1 speakers, Herbie’s Audio Lab “Iso-Cup” footers with deep green moss quartz “balls”) and just that little degree of tilt moves my sound stage back a bit and gives an “immediacy” to imaging.
Decware HR-1 speakers, MMMMMmmmmmmm
I listened to those at Decware and I really loved what I heard although the tweeter reminds me of a babies bottom.
I’m not really a fan of tweeters in general–I can hear high frequencies well still and I have my tweeters on the HR-1 padded way down with large value resistors–Duelund, which are very nice ones.
Cake you say…?
