Bass - how much is too much?

simple test move speaker around for the lowest resonance of the box by feel. 

Huge, it can be done but on the negative side you have 8sqm of acoustic insulation in your room. now that is probably more insulation than what is in my loft 

Seems quite a few speakers have a big raised hump around 65 to 90 htz to give a sense of sounding bigger than it really is.

seems to cause more troubles than a solution to great sounding systems !  Finding a speaker that's more flat and with a slow roll off - like the ATC designs would be a good start. Then Amplification with the right amount of juice to keep a grip.

Halloween Man posted:

Huge, it can be done but on the negative side you have 8sqm of acoustic insulation in your room. now that is probably more insulation than what is in my loft 

That's part of the reason why I asked the OP how committed he is!  

It can also be done much more neatly with Modex Plate 2.5 panels (probably needing at least 4 maybe six at >£600 each), the OP hasn't specified a budget.  There are alternatives in between the two solutions (such as Custom Audio Designs), but you're still looking at >£1000.

Note that GTK acoustics don't offer anything with much absorption below about 40Hz, and one of my resonances is 38.5Hz, so GTK are no good for my room YMMV.

Sorry for the rushed sketch over lunch. How this might help for ideas. Will try some photos when I get home and post some responses to questions - busy day. 

Try moving them a bit further apart. Start with them pointing straight ahead and toe in just enough to get a stable image on vocals. If they are pointing straight at your head the treble can be too beamy - I wonder if this is what's happening. 

Hi Stuart,

thanks for the sketch, it makes your situation clearer (at least for me). Looking at the sketch, I would move the right speaker further to the right and a little further from the wall, perhaps with a little toe-in and listen to the result. Does this improve things, are they merely different and in which way?

if you can then try re-arranging the room so the speakers are firing down the long length rather than short. personally, i know people have a tenancy to recommend the products they own but i really do think atc scm19 would be a good match for your room. they shoot bass from the front so you could measure the 2ft from the front of the speaker to the rear wall, this allows you to position them further back compared to the neats. they are also just limited range to reduce bass energy but the bottom e note of a bass guitar is still there. 

If possible I would try to position speakers left wall with bass traps in both those corners and have listening position right wall. To tame high / mid reflections heavy duty lined curtains / blinds behind you with acoustic art panels above fire and on the opposite wall.

agree with hh, toe in speakers so they shoot to the side of you, not straight at your head. also consider the equilateral triangle rule - listening distance should be just more or the same as than the distance between the two tweeters.

Hmm, bassiness is my hi fi pet hate. Bass notes should sound as musical and distinctive as any other part of the music, but far too many systems have whumpy bass that always sounds the same; R&B, orchestral, rap, metal . . . the same whump. Often it's the acoustics of the room, but for me that's generally caused by the speakers being too sensitive to position. Bass reflex designs sound good in the purpose-designed dealer listening room, and maybe in the acoustic room of the manufacturer, but rarely as good in your or my actual living room, where there's a tv, books, lamps, windows and teenagers (maybe that's just mine). I certainly don't have space or family circumstances where I can select the acoustically perfect position for speakers.

Solid Air posted:

Hmm, bassiness is my hi fi pet hate. Bass notes should sound as musical and distinctive as any other part of the music, but far too many systems have whumpy bass that always sounds the same; R&B, orchestral, rap, metal . . . the same whump.

I think you will need to re-define how you understand a role of a bass (let's assume it's a bass guitar) in a band - especially R&B, metal, rock etc...

As a total curve ball, throw the rule book out of the window suggestion...    looking at diagram - would the sofa fit in the space diagonally opposite. That space occupied by the rack and right speaker ?  If it does so, you can put the system rack opposite where your designated listening position 1 is, with left speaker near.  Right speaker half way along the end 12 ft long wall both pointing in an offset from walls but equal latitude to a listening position situated in the area around forward of where the rack was. 

This could mitigate the problem you have presently with your listening position 1.  Due to a break halfway along back wall to have door access, this will cause problems.  Listening opposite might draw you away more from that node.

Listen to 'the blowers daughter' by damien rice. The bass on that is not mixed the best, way too much in parts imo. In answer to your question, the recordings with over emphasised bass will affect high end systems and is something we have to accept. No such thing as a perfect mix. However, if your room is increasing the amplitude of low frequencies by a very large margin because they are unable to decay then this will grossly exaggerate an already over emphasised bass - it will sound way too loud and boomy. If you can clearly hear this and it spoils your enjoyment of the music then perhaps you should consider one of the three options i mentioned previously.

Within my experience of putting together a Hi-Fi system, having speakers NOT  in the type of position illustrated in the manuals provided by speaker manufacturer - apart from recommendation of space from rear and side walls - have given better results.   When you put speakers that have been designed to work best out in the room and have them put sentry like, you really put the room into the equation of what's being driven.  

Having speakers positioned out of perpendicular proportions regarding surrounding walls, draws the room more out of the equation. With the sound from the speakers driving and energising the air rather than the room.  But then what do I know.

I do agree with tobyjug in that its best to try to resolve bass issues first by trying different speaker and listening positions. The further away from corners and boundaries the better. Asymmetry can also help. 

Given the restrictions of your room and the placement of everything in it, I suspect acoustic treatment will a) be of limited success and b) aesthetically unacceptable. To resolve the problem without changing rooms entirely you should simply try a Linn DS. A dealer who knows his stuff will be able to easily set up Space Optimisation to eradicate the problems and sound superb with your existing amp and speakers.

Stuart, in recent threads on dedicated (radial) mains, people such as [@mention:1566878603971756] have talked about the effect cable choices have on sound. As I see you have a dedicated radial I wonder whether some of the bass issue could arise from that. You could for instance plug into a distribution block off your ring main just as an experiment.

I'm not in any way suggesting that the other replies are not worth investigating. I also note that you are not using Powerlines. If you were I might suggest you also try the standard mains lead just to see if there is a difference. I certainly don't want to start yet another debate on the sonic characteristics of mains cables though.

Phil

Dave J posted:

Given the restrictions of your room and the placement of everything in it, I suspect acoustic treatment will a) be of limited success and b) aesthetically unacceptable. To resolve the problem without changing rooms entirely you should simply try a Linn DS. A dealer who knows his stuff will be able to easily set up Space Optimisation to eradicate the problems and sound superb with your existing amp and speakers.

It is always better to minimise room problems by playing with positioning before seeking to use electronics - and while electronics can be quite successful reducing peaks, eliminating serious troughs in response can very quicky cause the amp to run out of steam, or overlad the speakers. And it will do nothing to tame a long decay time in the room, if that is the cause of problems. (Lower volume bass lowers volume, but rate of decay is unchanged.)

This is not suggesting that the Linn approach can't improve things, but saying sort th eroom as far as possible first.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Dave J posted:

Given the restrictions of your room and the placement of everything in it, I suspect acoustic treatment will a) be of limited success and b) aesthetically unacceptable. To resolve the problem without changing rooms entirely you should simply try a Linn DS. A dealer who knows his stuff will be able to easily set up Space Optimisation to eradicate the problems and sound superb with your existing amp and speakers.

It is always better to minimise room problems by playing with positioning before seeking to use electronics - and while electronics can be quite successful reducing peaks, eliminating serious troughs in response can very quicky cause the amp to run out of steam, or overlad the speakers. And it will do nothing to tame a long decay time in the room, if that is the cause of problems. (Lower volume bass lowers volume, but rate of decay is unchanged.)

This is not suggesting that the Linn approach can't improve things, but saying sort th eroom as far as possible first.

 

I agree, always best to minimise room problems however, as you'll have seen by the room illustration, there are and will continue to be problem areas that will not be resolvable without some fairly significant changes. If even moving the speakers forward is not an option, the Linn route will work. Judging by your comments, I suspect that you're not familiar with what a DS does or how it works?

Dave J posted:

Innocent Bystander posted:

Dave J posted:

Given the restrictions of your room and the placement of everything in it, I suspect acoustic treatment will a) be of limited success and b) aesthetically unacceptable. To resolve the problem without changing rooms entirely you should simply try a Linn DS. A dealer who knows his stuff will be able to easily set up Space Optimisation to eradicate the problems and sound superb with your existing amp and speakers.

It is always better to minimise room problems by playing with positioning before seeking to use electronics - and while electronics can be quite successful reducing peaks, eliminating serious troughs in response can very quicky cause the amp to run out of steam, or overlad the speakers. And it will do nothing to tame a long decay time in the room, if that is the cause of problems. (Lower volume bass lowers volume, but rate of decay is unchanged.)

This is not suggesting that the Linn approach can't improve things, but saying sort th eroom as far as possible first.

 

I agree, always best to minimise room problems however, as you'll have seen by the room illustration, there are and will continue to be problem areas that will not be resolvable without some fairly significant changes. If even moving the speakers forward is not an option, the Linn route will work. Judging by your comments, I suspect that you're not familiar with what a DS does or how it works?

No, not familiar although I have read a bit - however I do have experience with DiracLive room correction software, and with Behringer DEQ2496 and DCX2496 loudspeaker management/DSP units.

However, I don't think we're disagreeing!

Of course we're not ��

Seriously though, as you've been turned on to how good a Dave is, you might find it interesting to have a listen to one of the latest Klimax DS's. I tried for years to tame a less than perfect room and it wasn't until I got a KDS that I was able to completely remove the room from the equation. In its current Katalyst guise, it's simply tremendous.

Room correction is just eq isnt it? There might be all kinds of fancy marketing words for it like DS space optimisation but at the end of the day it just applies eq to counter the room response.

Firstly apologies for my absence it's been a busy day. A lot of posts and suggestions to take in. Had an hour after work to experiment with speaker positioning. Firstly firing down the length of the room had mixed results with bass. Some frequencies seemed better some worse. I could vary my listening point to seemingly find nulls. However imaging was poor and the overall sound muddied. Returned to across the room and moved the left speaker (as viewed from listening position) further to the left by about 14 inches. This has definitely improved things. Maybe the lower frequencies are more evenly distributed around the room. I will need to listen some more and will try and answer some more questions tomorrow. 

Hi stuart, when firing down the long length of the room did the bass improve at the listening position? Did u try keeping speakers and listening position at least 2ft away from walls and corners? The poor imaging could due to early reflections of high and mid frequencies on the side and listening walls, especially glazed areas. Ideally these should be treated for best results.

Your existing Motive 2s obviously suit your room and your listening. Apart from the money, CDX2 and either 202/200 or SN2 would make a nice set with them. OK, it's more money than a pair of new speakers but it's also a lot less faff.

A man can only take so much faff.

Chris