Listening room acoustic.
Wed, Mar 31 2010, 8:05AM
#2
Hal, Ooops, I thought you
Hal, Ooops, I thought you were using the little LS3/5A! Of course low frequencies are not a problem, esp as you are most commendably using TWO subwoofs (actually, see these are really the "woofers").
I'm not sure about the sonic qualities (or otherwise) of wooden floors, however! I had a hard time taming my suspended floor some while back. In this house the floor is marble.
Wed, Mar 31 2010, 6:37PM
#3
RE: Listening room acoustic.
G, sounds like a great house. Marble floors can definitely liven-up the sound of a listening room but my intent is to frame over the slab with 2x4s, insulation and 5/8" sub flooring ending with my same heavily padded wool carpeted surface. Like all major house improvement projects around here, the CFO will have to approve and sign off on the proposed job else the idea is strictly academic. As to what works best with what gear, I suppose a speaker's dispersal or radiation pattern is the key to what sounds good in a large/live sounding - lots of glass and reflective flooring for example - room. Cathedral ceilings, (IMO,) are a mixed blessing with all those odd-angled reflective surfaces to try and manage or not manage depending on listening taste. My preference is for a warm room acoustic that allows for wide and focused sound stage presence, precise vocalist positioning and maximum hall ambience. The later I'm discovering has a lot to do with playback volume. Who would have guessed? Best, Hal.
Sat, May 8 2010, 12:54AM
#4
RE: Listening room acoustic.
Music sounds better at night. Most noisy animals are asleep.
Thu, Feb 24 2011, 5:38PM
#5
RE: Listening room acoustic.
For many decades we thought we enjoyed listening together to classical and jazz music via a very reasonable quality hifi in our living area. Then I recently discovered that "real men" not only have garden sheds and model railway rooms, but that they also have listening rooms. I have a model railway room for myself and my wife also has a "room of her own" as Virginia Wolff argued.
And then I saw for the first time photos of these highly organized listening rooms with incredibly ugly loudspeakers, masses of so-called "kit" or "gear", carpets and padded walls. To listen to what?
The music we love was originally played in cold churches or polite sitting rooms - chamber music - while we like to sit close to the musicians in an intimate jazz basement. Our acoustics are those of a 1836 listed house, thick walls, high wooden ceilings, stone floors and no carpets, lots of windows and no curtains. Here we listen to the clarity of solo viola da gamba or solo jazz piano as it should sound. Enjoy!!! Even Cream sounds brilliant on vinyl. We have professional musicians who ask to be able to play live in our living area which is 150 square metres. Fill this living acoustic space and forget the drapes. As a number have said, music is a subjective experience.
We do not watch TV so surround sound is an unknown issue.
Fri, Feb 25 2011, 8:47AM
#6
RE: Listening room acoustic.
We do not watch TV so surround sound is an unknown issue.
'Surround sound' isn't just limited to TV/film. (There were quadrophonic LPs.)
Thu, Mar 3 2011, 11:51AM
#7
RE: Listening room acoustic.
"There were...." is what I mean. Some old quadrophonic recordings are now availble as SACDs, but not many of them around.
Regards, Barry
Tag, no argument from me about where heaven can be found. Casually arranging one's hifi gear into a rather large room helps to obviate the obvious but such wasn't always the case here. One house move ago, local waf hit an all time low when too much gear commandeered a space-challenged living room giving rise to the Stereo Stonehenge effect. Eventually we worked things out but for a while Mr. Strauss' "Also Sprach..." was absent from music playlists. Best, Hal.