Disappointed with Star and path moving forward

0.5m behind the speaker isn't enough for those full range (large) speakers.

0.25m at the side isn't enough either, this will reduce clarity in the sound.  Hence the suggestion of putting the speakers along the wall opposite the window (even if you have to run a mains extension cable up and over a door).

@Huge - Yes you are right. I see the manual and it recommended A,B >= 0.5m. So 25cm is probably not a good idea. Will need to move it out

Huge posted:

0.5m behind the speaker isn't enough for those full range (large) speakers.

My googling of special 40 found small standmount speakers - is there more than one model with the same name? 

Innocent Bystander posted:

Huge posted:

0.5m behind the speaker isn't enough for those full range (large) speakers.

My googling of special 40 found small standmount speakers - is there more than one model with the same name? 

Nope. S40 is jz a bookshelve speaker. No floorstander

So I guess greater or equal to 50cm is workable maybe

nice, huh!

Just from a site, not mine, unfortunately :-)

mech posted:

So I guess greater or equal to 50cm is workable maybe

Not necessarily, it depends on the design of the speakers.  Most (including most standmount speakers) are designed for 'free space' positioning, i.e. well away from walls.  You need to play around with distances.  The 0.25m to the side wall is even more problematic.

The reason you need the plugs in the ports is due to the sound output from the port exciting the standing wave resonance across the room (you haven't told us the dimension, so I can't work out the precise frequency (but looking at your diagram, it's going to be between 30 and 55Hz).

Odd thoughts, my room is a awkward shape, a five foot wide chimney breast opposite the only place a sofa can go means I would sit just four feet from the speakers, so they have to fire down the room, sitting in front of an eight foot by five foot window. So, I have "heavy" curtains, a linen slub weave that allows light through. Then just to the left of the speakers is a 32 inch flat screen tv. It really messes up detail and with many recordings create a left side bias to the sound. (With the TV disconnected) a large towel draped in folds makes a very big difference.

So possible experiments, because I am certain Huge's information is right-

Try hanging a duvet or blanket in front of the window.

Can the TV be taken away?

If these bring about a change, is it better, can a domestic compromise be reached, could for instance, you have a folding screen and blanket that is opened out for listening sessions?

Get a quote for an additional mains point, it may be cheaper than changing equipment. And, don't trust those ear buds, just compare the specification, Klipsch do not give limits for the frequency response, you may be listening to a big treble boost?

@Huge - Yes I am very aware the 0.25m is troublesome... My room width=4m and length=8m roughly.. the ceiling height is 2.8m. It is amazing you can do the calculation, I don't even know what that means haha .. 30-55Hz ?? That for low frequency like bass rite?

[@mention:70835623847444621] - definitely I can remove the TV away to experiment but ultimately it need to sit right back haha.. or else my whole family will stare at me..  I might try the curtain .. but honestly I hate not letting the light come in.. 1st thing definitely is to move it away from the side wall of 0.25m

Per another post on another thread, why don't you try moving the whole arrangement (including the sofa) about 15 degree off parallel with the window wall? See the pics where the gentleman had his speakers in the corner (I think on system pics thread) and the video Max posted.

 Would be a no cost fix if it worked, and your family wouldn't have to stare at you!

if both of the speakers and star are brand new , then as mentioned they will both require a few weeks of settling in.

leave them running for 24hrs a day and revisit them to hear the improvement.

I can't really add much to what has already been suggested, other than I have recently heard the Dyn 40s with serious Naim amplification and both the Atom and Nova with serious speakers and all three systems sounded superb. Naim amplification and Dyns have historically worked well together so I see no reason why the Star and 40s shouldn't sound great together.

I doubt the speaker cables are the issue, you have checked the wiring up and although there might be some burning in that would help, the entire system should still sound pretty damn good out of the box.

This leads me to think that it is at least partially due to speaker positioning, room acoustics and your predilection to listening via earphones. Do also give some thought to the 'source' of the music you are listening to. Ripped CDs stored on a NAS/external hard drive (in WAV or FLAC format) or downloaded hi res files will always sound superior to Tidal or Spotify (particularly the lo-fi versions of those streaming services).

One thing is for sure, you have a great all-in-one/speaker combo there IMHO. Keep playing around with positioning and room acoustics as already advised (the chaps on here know a good deal about room acoustics) and possibly try a NAS or external hard drive with some rips or hi res downloads if you have not already done so.

If you have no luck, get your dealer involved, that is what he is there for.

Tks for the advice. I think I have lots more to do in terms of positioning work. Star and Dynaudio probably is a fine combo. I will keep playing around with different settings to how it goes. And let it run in real good.

This is very strange cause i have my speakers 5cm to the walls lol, and man... i'm in heaven when my Nova playing music. That's really strange! I guess when i get my room get ready and have them 50-100cm distance i will have even better sound. 

That's really strange guys, some make amps some make acoustics, u like 1 acoustics and u like 1 amp and they can be shit together... that's really one idiotic issue people have to solve. 

For those who like Naim amp i have 1 huge adviсe to pair it with Davis courbet 5. These were made for each other guys. No info about them yet since the product is very new but the guy who always had Naim amp on in his demo room had so many speakers passing his Naim Nova and when he paired them he said he just loved the sound and so did i! 

By the way, why u placed speakers near room doors? or the other side is kitchen? 

Malik posted:

This is very strange cause i have my speakers 5cm to the walls lol, and man... i'm in heaven when my Nova playing music. That's really strange! I guess when i get my room get ready and have them 50-100cm distance i will have even better sound. 

That's really strange guys, some make amps some make acoustics, u like 1 acoustics and u like 1 amp and they can be shit together... that's really one idiotic issue people have to solve. 

For those who like Naim amp i have 1 huge adviсe to pair it with Davis courbet 5. These were made for each other guys. No info about them yet since the product is very new but the guy who always had Naim amp on in his demo room had so many speakers passing his Naim Nova and when he paired them he said he just loved the sound and so did i! 

By the way, why u placed speakers near room doors? or the other side is kitchen? 

It depends so much on both the speakers and the room. Indeed, some speakers need to be close to a wall to get any bass response to speak of

My speakers, which are reasonably big floorstanders, in my present room, measure flattest with the front baffle about 65cm from the rear wall - placing the backs of the speakers only 20cm away.

personally I’d love to do what is done in professional sound studios, namely mount the speakers in the walls with the fronts perfectly flush (which are angled appropriately), because then you get no wall effect - but in most domestic properties it is not feasible - however it could be possible to simulate the effect with full bookshelves or similar... parhaps I will try one day.

The other side is indeed the kitchen and parallel to the main entry door which I did not draw. The 2 doors I draw are for bedroom. That is why I could not place the speaker opposite current position because main entry look directly at the kitchen and in the middle couldn’t possibly have a speakers

[@mention:41551091830475636] - mount it on the wall. That is interesting proposition. No need to bother with faulty rocky spike stand perhaps. Hmms. 

mech posted:

[@mention:41551091830475636] - mount it on the wall. That is interesting proposition. No need to bother with faulty rocky spike stand perhaps. Hmms. 

I was talking about IN-wall not on - and those speakers have rear ports, so may not wirk well either way.

Did you audition the speakers at home?

Not really unfortunately. I listen at the showroom.

mech posted:

Tks for the advice. I think I have lots more to do in terms of positioning work. Star and Dynaudio probably is a fine combo. I will keep playing around with different settings to how it goes. And let it run in real good.

Hi Mech, very sorry that your lovely new music system isn't delivering the musical joy that you had hoped for.  Only a small minority of people have a full audition of the complete system before buying it.  Naim and a few other high end manufacturers recommend it and indeed include an allowance for it in their recommended sale price but most people don't know so buy the various parts of the system separately.

Huge has already given an excellent explanation as to why your in ear headphones will sound slightly unnatural, so nothing more to say on that point.  Richard and HH have both confirmed that your speaker cable will be fine, if slightly different than 3.5m of Naim's NACA5.  The Naim Star, the Dynaudio Special Forty (lovely speaker by the way!) and the Dynaudio stands should all be excellent, once you have given them time to run in.  Using CD or Tidal hifi (it is the hifi version of Tidal, isn't it?) will also be fine as sources. So, the core parts of your music system should all be great.  So don't change them in your attempt to solve the issue.

What is not great is the set up of your speakers in your room.  Your current layout is very sensible from a practical, living in the room and letting the doors open perspective.  Sound-wise it is crippled.

First, a speaker that only wobbles a bit won't provide the rigid support that your Dynaudio bass drivers need if they are to reproduce bass notes properly.  The amplitude of even a small wobble (1-2mm at the top of the stand) is equivalent to quite a loud musical note.  This alone will make bass notes sound ill-defined and woofly.  Keep fine tuning your speaker spikes until the stand stops wobbling.

Second, your speakers have a large reflex port at the back which pushes out low bass.  When the speakers are in a corner, the corner acts almost like a horn to reinforce the bass, but in an ill-defined and ill-timed way, so the sound you hear will be full of reinforced, ill-defined, woofly bass.  Not ideal, even if you are clubbin'!

Third, the perils of glass.  Both the TV and the window are in critical positions to reflect the high pitched notes from the excellent Esotar tweeters.  The window is also at what's called a "first reflection point" in the room for you (an internet search will explain this).  In both cases, you will hear the high pitched notes directly from the Esotar speakers.  Then, a fraction of a second later, you will hear the same notes but bounced off the TV screen or the window glass.  These reflected sounds will effectively "smear" or blur the high pitched notes that your ears pick up.  As a result, high pitched notes will lose definition (i.e. the resolution that you like from your in ear 'phones) and also risk sounding harsh & distorted.  Any stereo image is also lost along the way.  Not ideal.  This is why you have received several recommendations to put curtains in front of your window, to move the TV or to rearrange the room layout.

Now, we too have a TV in between our speakers (heretic!).  However, when listening seriously to music, we throw a much loved blanket over the TV.  The blanket absorbs & diffuses the high pitched notes.  We find that music sounds a little calmer, less tiring and the stereo image is far better when we do this.   Try it for yourself as a free experiment.  

So in summary, keep all of your music system, move the speakers as far out of the corners as you can, mount them rigidly without stand wobble and throw a blanket over your TV when listening to music.  With a little luck, your system will sound a whole lot better as a result.

Hope this helps, FT

I dunno how to give u points in those summary.. all well put and very nice action points for me to take away. Cheer for helping me do such a fine summary.. could not have done it better myself at writing down the list of things I need to perform this weekend.

Very much appreciated to all who have offer valuable advice, Huge, HH, innocent bystander, ryder, richard dane, analogmusic, dan.s, notnaim man, nigelb, malik

tks in particular for [@mention:41551091830475636] to nudge me to manage my post timely hehe.. 

I have one last tip...

When considering placement of speakers REW (Room Equalisation Wizard - a free download) has a very useful facility; the 'Room Simulation' dialogue.  Provided you have a rectangular room this allows you to construct a mathematical simulation of the acoustics of the room.  The difference with REW is that it also allows you to simulate the position of the speakers and the listener at the same time.

This is particularly useful as it allow you to very quickly (theoretically) play around with the position of speakers and see what happens.  It won't accurately tell you the best position (you still need to listen for that), but it will tell you what positions don't work well; if the simulation indicated a poor acoustic result that particular set-up will never give a good result (and there'll be a lot of these!).  This way you can eliminate a lot of the worst positions, even if, initially, you thought that those positions may be good; then you only have to test the remaining ones.

@Huge - Oooo.. not sure if I am expert enuff to operate this.. looks quite an expert-level to operate.. I am afraid is out of my league haha.. but I will bear this software in mind.. Hmms..