New room, new problems...
Posted by: Top Cat on 05 November 2002
Hi folks. Just moved into a new house, so I've now got a completely different listening room, and I'm astonished at how that really has influenced the sound of the system.
I feel that a lot of the crispness has gone, though there's more weight in the midrange. I'm now sitting around twice the distance from the speakers as they are apart from each other (around 16' versus around 9' apart) - and I've of course lost my old dedicated spur (for now - as soon as I can figure out where the kit is going to sit a spur will follow).
The strange thing is that some tracks sound much better than they did before, which had the speakers slightly closer together but also closer to the listening sofa.
I'm a bit confused. I've not yet tried Cara on the room, but I'm a bit lost as not only is it a new room, but it's also a kind of 'new way of listening' to the system - being further away, it's less 'near-field' and at once sounds less detailed but more together, if that makes any sense at all...
Sure, I've yet to stick the Mana under the speakers (I'm waiting until I'm better able to work out where to place the speakers) and I now have a carpet where before there was a stripped wooden floor, but I feel a bit like everything's been chucked up in the air and I don't really know where to begin!
Question for you: can I be sitting 'too far' from the speakers relative to their distance apart (can't really move them much further apart right now due to other furniture that 'er indoors wants placed in particular places)? Also, given that I'm sitting on a sofa which is placed hard up against the wall, and the system is at the opposite end (in a sort of window recess, though it's a reasonably big window - maybe 12' across), am I asking for trouble - should I bring the speakers further into the room (they're about 1.5' in and fractionally toed) or should I move the sofa forward from the wall a bit or place something behind it to absorb reflections?
Just a lot of questions from a humbled music lover, challenged but not defeated by a new room...
TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."
I feel that a lot of the crispness has gone, though there's more weight in the midrange. I'm now sitting around twice the distance from the speakers as they are apart from each other (around 16' versus around 9' apart) - and I've of course lost my old dedicated spur (for now - as soon as I can figure out where the kit is going to sit a spur will follow).
The strange thing is that some tracks sound much better than they did before, which had the speakers slightly closer together but also closer to the listening sofa.
I'm a bit confused. I've not yet tried Cara on the room, but I'm a bit lost as not only is it a new room, but it's also a kind of 'new way of listening' to the system - being further away, it's less 'near-field' and at once sounds less detailed but more together, if that makes any sense at all...
Sure, I've yet to stick the Mana under the speakers (I'm waiting until I'm better able to work out where to place the speakers) and I now have a carpet where before there was a stripped wooden floor, but I feel a bit like everything's been chucked up in the air and I don't really know where to begin!
Question for you: can I be sitting 'too far' from the speakers relative to their distance apart (can't really move them much further apart right now due to other furniture that 'er indoors wants placed in particular places)? Also, given that I'm sitting on a sofa which is placed hard up against the wall, and the system is at the opposite end (in a sort of window recess, though it's a reasonably big window - maybe 12' across), am I asking for trouble - should I bring the speakers further into the room (they're about 1.5' in and fractionally toed) or should I move the sofa forward from the wall a bit or place something behind it to absorb reflections?
Just a lot of questions from a humbled music lover, challenged but not defeated by a new room...
TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."
quote:
Clearly you also need to swap your CD player for a CDX/XPS to get the dynamics you may now be missing
Nah, tried that and prefered the cd player I ended up buying. However, take your point about the lack of space behind the sofa. I'll try that tonight. The other thing that might be affecting things is the temporary speaker cable I'm using (whilst mine is getting reterminated to fit my amp) - the temp cable is Chord Carnival which is definitely inferior to the NAC A5 that I use in the second system (and infinitely inferior to the cable it's filling in for). Certainly, dynamics aren't lacking in the system, but the presentation is very different to how I have had it in the past (not sure if I like this difference yet...)
TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."