Audio Truths

[ralphpnj]

In an effort, while hopefully won't turn out to be futile, to bring some sanity and usefulness back to this section of the forum suppose we have a thread on Audio Truths.

By Audio Truths I mean a list of common things that a budding audiophile might do to improve the sound of their system without wasting money on unproven tweaks and ideas.

For example general guidelines for proper speaker placement, recommendations for nice sounding inexpensive cable and wire, how to properly match components and exactly which components are needed.

We can also identify which tweaks which are well grounded in science and are known to work and which tweaks fly in the face of known science and should be approached with caution. For example room treatments, which are known to improve the sound of one's system by eliminating room nodes, versus expansive USB cables, which have absolutely no scientific basis and have not been reliable proven to improve anything.

Proper system set up and speaker placement would be a good place to start. Any takers?

[magiccarpetride]

In an effort, while hopefully won't turn out to be futile, to bring some sanity and usefulness back to this section of the forum suppose we have a thread on Audio Truths.

By Audio Truths I mean a list of common things that a budding audiophile might do to improve the sound of their system without wasting money on unproven tweaks and ideas.

For example general guidelines for proper speaker placement, recommendations for nice sounding inexpensive cable and wire, how to properly match components and exactly which components are needed.

We can also identify which tweaks which are well grounded in science and are known to work and which tweaks fly in the face of known science and should be approached with caution. For example room treatments, which are known to improve the sound of one's system by eliminating room nodes, versus expansive USB cables, which have absolutely no scientific basis and have not been reliable proven to improve anything.

Proper system set up and speaker placement would be a good place to start. Any takers?

The first thing people should do is rewire their houses with dental floss (waxed or unwaxed, it's still a raging controversy, and I don't think it'll be over any time soon; rather than waiting for it to get resolved, I recommend everyone should go with the cheaper option).

Following that, everyone should ditch their analog speakers and replace them with digital speakers. The sound will then improve to no end...

Apply the above two battle-tested audio truths, and you'll be one happy puppy/camper.

[ralphpnj]

The first thing people should do is rewire their houses with dental floss (waxed or unwaxed, it's still a raging controversy, and I don't think it'll be over any time soon; rather than waiting for it to get resolved, I recommend everyone should go with the cheaper option).

Following that, everyone should ditch their analog speakers and replace them with digital speakers. The sound will then improve to no end...

Apply the above two battle-tested audio truths, and you'll be one happy puppy/camper.

Although you may not have meant to, your post did contain a small kernel of audio truth:

despite all the marketing hype there really aren't any "digital" or "digital ready" speakers. Yes there are some pro-audio speakers with built in DACs but these speakers were not was being marketed. Speakers are perhaps most "analog" of all components in that speaker drive itself cannot be fed a digital signal.

Now about that dental floss controversy.....

[Mnyb]

there is computer programs avaible for speaker placement like cara or some where you feed the room dimensions, note this is usuallynfor normal speakers planar electrostats and dipoles have other considerations ( and some true advantages ).

this may lead to a counter post with some factual correction but as long as I learn I'm game .

I noted that a program i used sugested a lot of placement options and ranked them I noticed that many of them where based on 1/3 and 1/5 of the involved distances L*W*H .
These apearently excite less resonances across those axis ?

H this is often decided by other factors a floorstanders have the hiegth it has and for stand mounts you want the tweeter sligthly above ear level so the stand is of such length that it fits your heigth and that of your sitting furniture .

Given the other aspects of the room where windows and doors are and that it is an actual living space that has to be furnished, that leaves you with surprisingly few options .

i used this as base for my speaker placement experiments to have a base line so that i did have to begin at a random piont .
Due to my rooms dimension speakers along the long wall was prefered, that made options even fewer .

so my main L & R speakers are placed at 1/3 and 2/3 of the long wall and 1/5 of the short wall in to the
room Some minor adjustment and a serius session with different toe in angles sub is 1/5 in both directions measured at the center of the down firing driver bass port closer to the back wall .

i try to measure speaker distance from the bass driver not the backside of the speaker.

This may be completely b*ll*cks

But a quick way to work with limited resources and limited options I then use drc < 300Hz as provided by my preamp .

[TheOctavist]

if you want to improve things, you MUST

Acoustically Treat the room(this is the SINGLE BIGGEST FACTOR in how our systems sound)

select good speakers. place them right.



to be honest, nothing else really matters.

Source

Room

Speakers

these are the holy trinity.

[Mnyb]

have some rudimentary damping in place to kill the flutter echo and most of it is placed behind me due to room dimensions i sit against the back wall :-/ not optimal there should be some space (if i had a larger room and it is to narrow/unpractial to use the other way ).

I have some real acoustic panels, not eggcrates

Is there a good rationale for the common opinion that one should damp the wall behind the loudspeakers instead ?

What probaly is worth the money for us amateurs is to consult a real pro in acoustic to come home and measure and advice .

Must admitt the results are random and often you get results out of a lucky guess combined with your own amateur measurements, the pro migth fix it faster and better.

[darrenyeats]

I agree with the rule of thumb about odd fractions of the room dimensions. They should be measured from the centre of the bass drivers.

I believe the rationale is SBIR (Speaker-Boundary Interface Response) interacting with room modes.
Darren

[Phil Leigh]

I agree with the rule of thumb about odd fractions of the room dimensions. They should be measured from the centre of the bass drivers.

I believe the rationale is SBIR (Speaker-Boundary Interface Response) interacting with room modes.
Darren

The best sounding rooms have non-parallel surfaces and are dimensioned according to the Golden Ratio. This will probably not be popular with the domestic authorities...

[Mnyb]

The best sounding rooms have non-parallel surfaces and are dimensioned according to the Golden Ratio. This will probably not be popular with the domestic authorities...

I think some audiophiles at least have slanted the back wall in combination with some dispersion.

If I had a house and a dedicated home cinema room I would consider have the ceiling and back wall non parallel and maybe the side wall "wavy" in some fashion , bass trapping could be integral to those non prallel surfaces as they could be "stuffed" and have some vents ,(there is probably all real parallel wall behind ).

You can see such nice rooms on some HT forums

And of course a pro could help with the design, this would not cost so much compared to a small building project, but I have no house :-/

[evdplancke]

Without wanting to fall into controversy, I think speaker cable matters as well since they act as a LRC filter on the analog signal path. We should keep a low impedance ratio btw cable and speakers on the whole frequency range. For low freq that means the thicker the better. For high freq however, auto inductance and skin effect are increasing inductance. Twisting +/- pair may help reducing auto inductance and using multiple isolated low diameter cables in parallel may help countering skin effect. Capacitance should have less impact if we consider that the amp is acting mainly as a current source.
I tried to apply these principles by using 3 Utp cables in parallel and perceived more details in the treble and hence great improvement in spatial representation. Unfortunately, I don't have the equipment to confirm these results by measurements.