once you've heard what its supposed to sound like you dont want to accept any less.

[form109]

Today i went to wall mart and Got a Stereo System its one of Sony's Systems with the Blue Coned Woofers.

Both of the Main Speakers have Dual 5 or So Inch Woofers with a Horn Loaded Cone Tweeter....the Passive Subwoofer...or should i say just a Big Paperweight has an 8" Woofer which is just a Blue Cone version of the ones in sony's HT' Subs.

The Main Speakers are actually quite Decent....they do have a nice sound to them...however when you see how big the sub it...and then power it on expecting good bass from the sub you turn it on to find you get mostly Mud that goes not too much lower than 60 Hz....the main speakers sound better by themselves actually...so i keep the sub turned off most of the time,and i do use the word sub Loosely

for Fun...i thought id connect the Passive Sony Sub to my 150 Watt Cerwin Vega Plate Amp...not compleatly unexpected was a much higher bass output...so i conclude the systems 560 Watt Rating is a whole lotta S***

and that the sub doesnt recieve too much power...in Fact...the Sub hardly moves at all...the main speaker woofers move more at lower frequincies.

i guess i was Expecting More From a System that was 200 Bucks ya know.

its not the Whole System thats dissapointing....just the sub...i mean its Disgusting...."you Dare call you self a Sub".....and the sub's not even to blame because its not being Fed enough Power...the Ports are smallish so any higher amounts of Power would cause some serious Chuffing.

the same thing kinda goes for the Sub of the Sony HT in my Den...it has enough Power for a little bit of an Earthquake...but the Lack of a Good X-Over and a Properly Tuned port it used to sound Great to me...but now i think of it as just adequate....

when my TB Sub is Complete it will put these two to shame...

it seems that Most Commercial Consumer Speaker systems are all about being Fancy in design...and not Preforming at optimum...

and thats just....well...dissapointing.

[Geek]

Wal Mart? Whaddya expect?

Cheers!

[taj]

once you've heard what its supposed to sound like you dont want to accept any less.

Geeze, based on this topic heading, I thought someone actually had some musicians playing in their living room in order to learn about real audio. Alas, it wasn't to be. But I'll throw this out there anyway...

For those wanting to improve their "ears", here's a tip from a veteran recording engineer:

1) Find a good tenor saxophone player and invite them to play in your living room.
2) Ask them which saxophone recording sounds great to them
3) buy that recording (not MP3) and try to create a sound system that gets you halfway to reality.
4) go back to step 1 and repeat as necessary (for the rest of your life.) Welcome to DIY and good luck. :-)

FYI, the recording process is similar, just the details are re-arranged.

1) Find a good tenor saxophone player and invite them to play in your recording studio.
2) Try to create a recording that gets you halfway to reality.
3) Ask them if the recording sounds great to them
4) Go back to step 2 and repeat as necessary (until the musician runs out of money)

..Todd

[form109]

i have heard live bands too.

nothing sounds better than hearing a band live.

[bear]

Sax will get you some of the way there...

Not all the way.

Not possible, because the harmonics in a Sax are not required to be one way or the other...

What you want is vocals. Human vocals.

We are naturally sensitive to the makeup of vocals. Even plain speech.

The problem is in finding good recordings, since the mic effects things rather dramatically - so you could perfectly reproduce the original back to the mic, but not the voice. Even so, that's the way to go, if you want to really get your system "real".

A recording of your own voice or someone you know is also sufficient, and easy enough to obtain. A good place to start. Does playing it back make anyone turn around, sit up or look to see??

_-_-bear

[ra7]

I have to agree with bear! There's nothing more important in a system than the vocals!

[Cal Weldon]

Try putting a sock in the port. You might find that helps and will get you through till the TB is ready.

[Enzo]

I think everyone should go visit a recording studio. Sit in the back of the control room and don;t say anything. The recording process is often not about making the most accurate reproduction of the original sound. it is about making the most pleasing sound - at least to the recording engineer.

Just as I would shake a little salt on my steak. Not to make it taste more like steak, but to make it taste more pleasing.

[krachkiste]

Originally Posted by bear

The problem is in finding good recordings, since the mic effects things rather dramatically - so you could perfectly reproduce the original back to the mic, but not the voice. Even so, that's the way to go, if you want to really get your system "real".

A recording of your own voice or someone you know is also sufficient, and easy enough to obtain. A good place to start. Does playing it back make anyone turn around, sit up or look to see??

Just putting some mic in front of a voice and pressing the rec button is easy enough, but the recording you will get is most likely to be even further away from reality than a professional vocal recording.

The mic itsself is a crucial piont. Not only will the capsule affect the sound, the mic basket adds resonances and a certain character to the sound too. Mics that reduce these effects to a minimum are very expensive.
So a certain amount of editing will always be necessary to compensate for these effects.
And this editing should be done before you feed the recording into your stereo system and not by the system itself, because otherwise you would need one system for each mic and each recordingposition etc.

the process cited by taj shows this very well.
If you're more into Vocals, replace the sax player with a vocalist - but you will end up doing the same.

[form109]

Originally Posted by Cal Weldon

Try putting a sock in the port. You might find that helps and will get you through till the TB is ready.

Carl the TB Has been Put in a Sony Enclosure for a HT System...the Results were Shockingly Good...a Vast improvement

as with the Sony Sub with the Stereo...adding a Sock to the Port did help alot.

the Driver in the Sub is Decent...it has a Good Sized Motor with a Large Pole Vent....it has a 1 1/4 Voice Coil...which i Assume is Kapton...Sony Subs ive looked at internally before used Kapton...so it should handle a good 100 Watts RMS.

The Woofers in the Main Speakers are Sounding better too...Decent Mids and Bass from those.

Overall the System is Sounding Better....i forgot you had to Break Speakers in before they sounded their Best.