Ha Ha !
And you've done a good job !
To get that extra that you demand you need to fatten your bank account, that is, have a large living room, also equipment from prestigious brands and finally the testing and conditioning of everything by an expert in acoustics.
Although there are those who believe that it can also be achieved with headphones dedicated to the sound stage.
https://www.xfyro.com/blogs/news/tr...roduced,production of good quality soundstage.
And you've done a good job !
To get that extra that you demand you need to fatten your bank account, that is, have a large living room, also equipment from prestigious brands and finally the testing and conditioning of everything by an expert in acoustics.
Although there are those who believe that it can also be achieved with headphones dedicated to the sound stage.
https://www.xfyro.com/blogs/news/tr...roduced,production of good quality soundstage.
It would be nice to have a large listening room, but I will have to do with my small one.Ha Ha !
And you've done a good job !
To get that extra that you demand you need to fatten your bank account, that is, have a large living room, also equipment from prestigious brands and finally the testing and conditioning of everything by an expert in acoustics.
Although there are those who believe that it can also be achieved with headphones dedicated to the sound stage.
https://www.xfyro.com/blogs/news/true-audiophile-what-is-soundstage-in-headphones#:~:text=How a sound is produced,production of good quality soundstage.
Even if had a large room and plenty of money to spend, however, I still think I would use a DIY approach rather than commercially produced speakers. I'm not convinced that commercial speakers are worth any near the amount of money they cost.
Nor am I convinced that the so-called acoustics experts are that much more capable than we DIYers here.
In order to stay away from commercial speakers and still get good sound, a lot of knowledge, spirit, courage and open-mindedness would be necessary as the DIYer would need to start from where most loudspeaker companies started, and that is zero. A less tiresome method maybe to read up on some of the research these commercial loudspeaker companies have done in the past decades and use that knowledge to make things better.
Also, if you think your room is small, the first thing you should be doing is to try and keep the room out of the equation, or alternatively, dampen the room effects, as the fact that a bathroom cannot mimic a train station usually falls under common sense. Similarly, a couple of loudspeakers cannot mimic an orchestra, unless they're large enough to have the dynamics of one, like in the picture below.
https://community.klipsch.com/uploads/monthly_2019_11/Jubes.jpg.659aef18ec79b23d1edfeb6862baa7f3.jpg
Also, if you think your room is small, the first thing you should be doing is to try and keep the room out of the equation, or alternatively, dampen the room effects, as the fact that a bathroom cannot mimic a train station usually falls under common sense. Similarly, a couple of loudspeakers cannot mimic an orchestra, unless they're large enough to have the dynamics of one, like in the picture below.
https://community.klipsch.com/uploads/monthly_2019_11/Jubes.jpg.659aef18ec79b23d1edfeb6862baa7f3.jpg
I don't agree with your initial premise that you have to buy commercial speakers in order to get good sound unless you are an experienced speaker designer yourself.
My definition of DIY is Do It Yourself, not Design It Yourself. So, I'm very happy to build speakers that have been designed by some of the experts and still consider that to be DIY. A few of the designer names that come to mind are Dennis Murphy, Paul Carmody, and Troels Gravesen. I'm sure that there are others as well, but kits from these designers are readily available for anyone to build.
In my case I've built the Piccolos by the late Jeff Bagby and really couldn't be happier. Except for the need to augment the bass somehow, these speakers are outstanding in how they sound.
I was listening to some classical music last night and continue to marvel at the clarity and quality of the instruments. Especially in the higher range, such as flutes and violins. I think the SBA tweeter that Jeff used in this design punches way above its price point and makes this speaker an exceptional performer and value, particularly for classical music.
With regard to the small room size, I think I have addressed that quite well by setting up the speakers for near field listening. That combined with very thick carpet seems to pretty much eliminate any room effects. In other words, I think the room is already essentially out of the equation and room treatments would not accomplish much, if anything at all.
I'm not going to read all 50 pages so perhaps you've answered this, but considering your amp is almost certainly the weak link, I cant understand why you don't deal with it first. At one time i was contemptuous of any japanese boxy black integrated/receiver and I have since been humbled and discovered some are very good, but none are as good as the very cheap Loxjie I think I mentioned earlier. I would expect the pricier hypex, purifi, etc are even better.
The Loxjie is so cheap, and so well featured, that even if you decided to go higher end you would likely find a good use for it. If you are going to start cutting port holes and buying ports, you'll spend half the cost of the amp. Ports can also introduce problems.
I also dont understand why you aren't considering open baffle. It seems like it is made for people like you. Certainly the best sound stage I've ever heard was from open baffle. If you dont want to commmit to a full build, try one of the cheap OB threads here. I think there is one that uses the Peerless tc9 and a cheap eminence woofer or something. It would be a cheap way to discover if this is a better direction for you. You could convert the piccolos in the same way that Zaph's little two way was made into an open baffle. You would need something like a MiniDSP though. I suspect you could use a passive xo and eq with DSP to deal with the 6dp baffle loss, but that design is above my paygrade.
On a side not, I remember when this forum was almost entirely supportive. Things have gotten a bit testy in this thread. People around here should try and keep in mind that we are talking about STEREOS!. Its fun. Its not life or death, or even religion or politics. Making it hostile will just drive people away until there is nothing but trolls.
The Loxjie is so cheap, and so well featured, that even if you decided to go higher end you would likely find a good use for it. If you are going to start cutting port holes and buying ports, you'll spend half the cost of the amp. Ports can also introduce problems.
I also dont understand why you aren't considering open baffle. It seems like it is made for people like you. Certainly the best sound stage I've ever heard was from open baffle. If you dont want to commmit to a full build, try one of the cheap OB threads here. I think there is one that uses the Peerless tc9 and a cheap eminence woofer or something. It would be a cheap way to discover if this is a better direction for you. You could convert the piccolos in the same way that Zaph's little two way was made into an open baffle. You would need something like a MiniDSP though. I suspect you could use a passive xo and eq with DSP to deal with the 6dp baffle loss, but that design is above my paygrade.
On a side not, I remember when this forum was almost entirely supportive. Things have gotten a bit testy in this thread. People around here should try and keep in mind that we are talking about STEREOS!. Its fun. Its not life or death, or even religion or politics. Making it hostile will just drive people away until there is nothing but trolls.
Well, thanks for the advice and I do appreciate it. But I’m afraid that I have to disagree with the direction you are suggesting.
There are certainly some people here that believe the amplifier can make as big as difference as you suggest. But they really are in the minority.
Having read many posts in multiple threads, including this one, it’s pretty clear that most people think that the speakers are far more important than the amplifier in determine the quality of what you hear. And I have signed up for that school of thought. At least for right now or until something causes me to change my mind.
With regard to OB, I certainly have given that consideration. However, as I said in a recent post, I’m not ready to give up the extraordinary performance of the SBA tweeter in the Piccolos and compromise the high end with sound coming from something like the Peerless Tc9.
There is far too much high end in classical music from instruments like flutes, piccolos, and violins to give up the SBA tweeter just to get a bigger sound stage. That’s not a tradeoff I’m interested in making. For vocals and jazz, it might not make much difference. But for classical it will.
Sound quality comes first for me, above all other considerations.
There are certainly some people here that believe the amplifier can make as big as difference as you suggest. But they really are in the minority.
Having read many posts in multiple threads, including this one, it’s pretty clear that most people think that the speakers are far more important than the amplifier in determine the quality of what you hear. And I have signed up for that school of thought. At least for right now or until something causes me to change my mind.
With regard to OB, I certainly have given that consideration. However, as I said in a recent post, I’m not ready to give up the extraordinary performance of the SBA tweeter in the Piccolos and compromise the high end with sound coming from something like the Peerless Tc9.
There is far too much high end in classical music from instruments like flutes, piccolos, and violins to give up the SBA tweeter just to get a bigger sound stage. That’s not a tradeoff I’m interested in making. For vocals and jazz, it might not make much difference. But for classical it will.
Sound quality comes first for me, above all other considerations.
The fact that you think nearfield+carpet solves potential room issues is basically why this is 50 pages long. You have been given so much advice, and turned it all down. It's either too bothersome, or you already know better.
That said it has turned into an excellent resource. Anyone else reading this would be well rewarded by trying out all these ideas. At some point, the ideas will be exhausted, you will have turned them all down, and this thread will chronicle all possible ways of expanding the "soundstage."
If you like your Denon AVRs features replace it with one of their transparent models.
Go audiosciencereview.com and find the Denon AVR that measures best. Its will sound as good as any high end stereoamp. Plus it has a microphone that lets you tweek the sound just how you like it. It measures better than the higher tier model also tested.
If you listen to vinyl om not sure if you will need to make/buy a good digital riia to avoid degradation from its build-in analog to digital converter.
I firmly believe its always all about the speakers and the right speakers for the room. -plus roomtreatment. (Hidden behind a painting or a poster?)
Today however unliniar speakers can be made to sound spitzen with the AVRs inbuild "roomcorrection" -IF they dont distort and resonate.
Good luck!
Cheers!
Go audiosciencereview.com and find the Denon AVR that measures best. Its will sound as good as any high end stereoamp. Plus it has a microphone that lets you tweek the sound just how you like it. It measures better than the higher tier model also tested.
If you listen to vinyl om not sure if you will need to make/buy a good digital riia to avoid degradation from its build-in analog to digital converter.
I firmly believe its always all about the speakers and the right speakers for the room. -plus roomtreatment. (Hidden behind a painting or a poster?)
Today however unliniar speakers can be made to sound spitzen with the AVRs inbuild "roomcorrection" -IF they dont distort and resonate.
Good luck!
Cheers!
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If you go back to my very first post here is how I presented the issue:
"To make matters somewhat more difficult I am listening in a fairly small room. It is only 10.5’ wide by 11’ deep and 8’ high. Plus, there is very thick carpet covering the entire floor. I sit about 2’ from the rear wall and the speakers are about 6’ apart and 2’ from the front wall.
I understand that the small room creates limitations on the sound field that can be achieved. Nevertheless, I would like to optimize things as much as possible in order to increase the size and depth of the sound stage
So finally, to the question. Am I better off building a different speaker design or is the sound stage not going to change much even if I do? In other words, is the small room and speaker placement going to be the dominant factor that determines the sound stage."
So yes, based on many of the replies here and some other research I have come to the conclusion that my small room combined with the near field speaker placement are, in fact, going to be the dominant factors in determining the size of the sound stage. At first I didn't really understand that I was listening in a near field environment. But now I'm certain such is the case and have accepted the fact that as a result there are limitations as to what can be achieved in the way of sound stage size in my listening room.
If you read this thread carefully you will find many of the ideas presented by others simply do not apply to the near field listening model. People have suggested a variety of things that just are not applicable to my situation.
Some people here might be willing to trying lots of different things just in case one of them could work out. Others enjoy the effort and chalk it to a learning experience whether it makes any difference or not. I'm not in either of those two camps. If I am going to spend my time building something I want to have a very high level of confidence in the beginning that it is going to give me a substantial improvement. And that hasn't happened here.
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@classicalfan try borrowing different speakers, a neutral amp and see how it changes things. -Also to see which type you should build if you choose to. In your case they probly shouldnt go too low.
Cheers!
Cheers!
I'm experimenting right now with trying to recreate the Polks "SDA" effect, using two sets of speakers placed adjacent to one another.
Short story; it works, but I knew that; I just wanted to see (it's been 25-30 years since I owned a pair of real SDAs...) for myself. The tweeter on the "SDA" pair is actually disconnected and only the woofer and its low-pass crossover is contributing to the effect.
Being boxes placed adjacent means I can slide the SDA pair forward / back, which changes the time alignment and effects the imaging sweet spot, relative to the arbitrary distance from the speakers to where I'm sitting.
It's pretty much the same as the Carver Sonic Hologram box I mentioned at the beginning. Some recordings the instruments are far and away from the outside edge of the main speakers and certainly not confined to the area between them. Overall sounds pretty nice.
Setup is "taking candy from a baby" easy to do.
...You have to appreciate that on a forum like this many of the posters go off onto side tracks and don’t address the main issue at hand. And that has certainly been the case here.
So the fact that there are over 1,000 posts proves nothing about the relevance of them to my initial issue. I think a careful count would show that only a very few have addressed it directly.
Nerveless, lots of people have had the opportunity to discuss and recommend things to each other that are entirely outside of the scope of my initial post. And that’s fine. I’m glad that if somehow this thread has helped other people in some way whether the subject was related to my starting post or not.
It might be a good suggestion if there was someone I could borrow equipment from. But there isn't anyone.
My approach is to continue to do as much research as possible here and other places, keep rereading Toole for specific information, and then eventually deciding on what to build. I'm in no hurry. As I've expressed before, I'm really quite please with my current Piccolo speakers. Until I'm convinced that I can improve on them there is no reason to do anything.
And I'm still very much in the camp that the speakers are by far the biggest determinate in what you hear. Not the amplifier. So speakers are where any changes are likely to occur at this point.
The SDA speakers are simply connected to the opposite channel and out of phase. While playing around, I've noticed you can easily get into a "head in a vise" situation, where slight movements side to side from an exact position moves the instrument images from one side of the sound stage to the other. That's less pronounced with the SDA speakers pulled forward about an inch or two, relative to the main.
Er, like a small, dedicated listening room (solo seating) with classical recordings? Once dialed in, it could work out wonderfully.
For my experiment, decided I like the OBs sound better. Now I did go from OB to closed box so there's that factor. Then the make-shift SDA arrangement on top of that. As many know, it doesnt work on every recording one has. However, I'm still compelled enough to try an SDA driver arrangement on an OB - just to see what happens! That's a bigger project than just a couple of little stands...and juggling a couple sets of speakers into the arrangement.
I worked some years with dsp corrected fullrange loudspeakers (only one driver for all frequencies).
I my eyes there are four main influences in what people describe as "fast bass":
1. frequency response
2. damping of the box
3. Losses in the driver
4. stability of the loudspeaker diaphragm
Concerning:
1. If there is less from the lowest octave you hear better the upper bass and mids. If you have too much deep bass it "muddles" the sound. You can simply listen to this effect with differently equalized loudspeakers. For listening experience it was very important to have a good EQ just to learn about how it sounds if you play with it
2. If you damp too much the enclosure the sound can get lifeless. This is in the area of 100 to 200% damping (i.e. if you begin to stuff the speaker)
3. Significantly you can hear the influence of losses of an aluminium voice coil in comparison to paper, glass fiber or other non conducting materials (like "2"). For experiments once the german hifi magazine Hobby Hifi or Klang und Ton ordered three same drivers with just different voice coils (Aluminium, Titan and Kapton. I am an absolute fan of Kapton which I like most.
4. A more stable diaphragm gives better dynamics as you lose less energy in bending the diapgram (losses). I cover routinely paper diaphragms with aluminium foil. You can then exert A-B listening tests with one modified speaker in comparison to the other unmodified with the balance knob on your amplifier and some mono recording.
Yours, Dragan from germany
I my eyes there are four main influences in what people describe as "fast bass":
1. frequency response
2. damping of the box
3. Losses in the driver
4. stability of the loudspeaker diaphragm
Concerning:
1. If there is less from the lowest octave you hear better the upper bass and mids. If you have too much deep bass it "muddles" the sound. You can simply listen to this effect with differently equalized loudspeakers. For listening experience it was very important to have a good EQ just to learn about how it sounds if you play with it
2. If you damp too much the enclosure the sound can get lifeless. This is in the area of 100 to 200% damping (i.e. if you begin to stuff the speaker)
3. Significantly you can hear the influence of losses of an aluminium voice coil in comparison to paper, glass fiber or other non conducting materials (like "2"). For experiments once the german hifi magazine Hobby Hifi or Klang und Ton ordered three same drivers with just different voice coils (Aluminium, Titan and Kapton. I am an absolute fan of Kapton which I like most.
4. A more stable diaphragm gives better dynamics as you lose less energy in bending the diapgram (losses). I cover routinely paper diaphragms with aluminium foil. You can then exert A-B listening tests with one modified speaker in comparison to the other unmodified with the balance knob on your amplifier and some mono recording.
Yours, Dragan from germany
Paper with Al foil. A sandwich (open face). Sort of like a MAOP where the top few layers of metal are converted to a ceramic. And similar to what i do with puzzlekoat and arcrylic gloss.
Killing the small vibrations from the wood/silk/manila/hemp… fibres increases the driver’s DDR by locking them together (do you use an adhesive to attach the foil?)
On the MAOP, all of the metal cone drivers i had heard all followed the “metal” cone stereotype. Until i heard the Alpair 7 (the first of the second gen Mark Audio). So now i pay less attention to cone material and pay more attention to execution.
But i do like paper.
These try to deal with the issues you outline.
These use EnABLed 2nd generation Alpair 7.3 (aluminium alloy), and relieve it of the heavy lifting by crossing over to a pair of Alpair12pWeN(paper) in an ML-TL. XO below the quarter-wavelength criteria. IMO, the best we have done yet (sonically).
But for sale because these are prettier. They fit my room better. I am putting my MAOPs into them. The wider baffle lets me move the XO a bit lower. Will be biamped, finally decided on XO configuration. Cones claim to be fibreglass, indeed loose fibres sitting on top of somesort of solid substrate. They absoulutely need to have those fibres tied together. Measurements show that it removes a big down and up whoop in the top ocatve giving them a smooth 1.6kJz natural rolloff. But most important, really improves the sonics. They are very good. Sealed, need some EQ to get as low, but the convultion filter should fix that. They are sonically not quite as good because the MA woofers are closer voicing to the MA midtweet.
WAW is, IMO, a really sensible solution if you find that your FR does not have enuff dynamics/bass/topend/whatever.
Do note that adding the bass will significantly increase the cost of your project. Woofers, bigger box, XO, 2nd amp if you don’t do passive, the parts cost of a passive XO at these frequencies can cost more than biamping.
dave
Killing the small vibrations from the wood/silk/manila/hemp… fibres increases the driver’s DDR by locking them together (do you use an adhesive to attach the foil?)
On the MAOP, all of the metal cone drivers i had heard all followed the “metal” cone stereotype. Until i heard the Alpair 7 (the first of the second gen Mark Audio). So now i pay less attention to cone material and pay more attention to execution.
But i do like paper.
These try to deal with the issues you outline.
These use EnABLed 2nd generation Alpair 7.3 (aluminium alloy), and relieve it of the heavy lifting by crossing over to a pair of Alpair12pWeN(paper) in an ML-TL. XO below the quarter-wavelength criteria. IMO, the best we have done yet (sonically).
But for sale because these are prettier. They fit my room better. I am putting my MAOPs into them. The wider baffle lets me move the XO a bit lower. Will be biamped, finally decided on XO configuration. Cones claim to be fibreglass, indeed loose fibres sitting on top of somesort of solid substrate. They absoulutely need to have those fibres tied together. Measurements show that it removes a big down and up whoop in the top ocatve giving them a smooth 1.6kJz natural rolloff. But most important, really improves the sonics. They are very good. Sealed, need some EQ to get as low, but the convultion filter should fix that. They are sonically not quite as good because the MA woofers are closer voicing to the MA midtweet.
WAW is, IMO, a really sensible solution if you find that your FR does not have enuff dynamics/bass/topend/whatever.
Do note that adding the bass will significantly increase the cost of your project. Woofers, bigger box, XO, 2nd amp if you don’t do passive, the parts cost of a passive XO at these frequencies can cost more than biamping.
dave
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