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Acoustics
10.11.2002
A short introduction to the do´s and
don´ts of room treatment.
Unfortunately there is little or no understanding of the importance
of acoustics amongst normal hifi listeners.
There is a widespread conception that good electronics is the key to
good sound. Therefore people tend to buy more and more expensive
equipment in the search of sonic nirvana. Unfortunately this may end
up very expensive and without even being close to ”live music at
home”.
The naked truth is: It is impossible to get really good sound
without good acoustics!
To get really good acoustics you need to design a room from scratch
or to be very lucky. Since most of us fall outside both of these
criterions, we must do the best out of what we have.
First of all the not-to-do:
Don´t force into small spaces.
Don´t dead-damp the room.
Don´t put speakers in the corners.
Don´t think that electronics are vibration insensitive.
Don´t work against the room.
Don´t try to get deep bass in small rooms.
Avoid square rooms.
Do:
Use a big room.
Get the best loudspeaker placement first. Then start working with
room treatments.
Listening on the short length of the room: speakers º from front
wall, listening close to back wall.
Listening on the long length: speakers 1/3 from front wall,
listening close or 1/3 from back wall.
Small speakers generally close to front wall, listening ½ from wall.
Toe in soft and ”neutral” speaker pointing directly at the listener.
Toe in lively speakers to cross in front of listening position.
Place bass absorbers in the room corners.
Diffuce (or absorb) first reflection points on side and front wall.
Use furnitures, shelves, curtains, etc.
Absorb the floor reflection with heavy carpet or similiar.
Stockholm high-end two channel show
05.02.2002
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Having spent the last Saturday listening to what the high-end dealers in Stockholm have top offer, I must say that I am a bit worried.
The whole segment seems to be very business oriented. Smart marketing and selling skills ranks high, knowledge and true performance low...
Of course, all products were well built and good looking, but the sound quality... especially on a sound per euro basis, can only be rated as poor.
Worst of the pack, though not alone, was the top flight Linn system. With a system price of about € 100.000 the sound was very far from what you would expect.
To be honest, not a single exhibitor produced real high-end sound. The quality ranged from good hi-fi to decent high-end. Considering the prices and that many so called high-end brands wre displayed, this is not enough!
This brings me to the point of this article. In wich direction is high-end audio going?
If this is high-end, and quite a few think so, I understand that MP3 and compressed audio are gaining pace. Hugely overpriced gear, dealer snobbery, bland performance and lost focus on what it is all about, the music, make every sane person run in the other direction.
Only because I am lucky enough to know great a musical experience you can get from a true high-end system
( high-end as in true to the music ), not necessarily an expensive one, keeps me going in this business.
Now over to another thing that caught my attention, audiophile preconception.
Most audiophiles are not able to judge the sound on a system for what it is, the sound of that very system in that very environment.
Instea they try to identify good qualities on products that are expensive, have gotten rave reviews or are from"good" brands. Normally they are able to hear these qualities, no matter how it sounds…
In the same way they try to hear the faults they "know" or have read that "poorer" products have.
This is most common in high-end circles, where people want to be able to "hear the difference", to understand the why´s and wherefore´s.
Ordinary people, mid-fi and budget-fi, hear what they hear and, except for the high-end wanna-bees, do not expect to hear anything special.
Eventually to come: The most important thing in ashieving good sound, room acoustics.
Show report
27.09.2001
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During the last weekend I heard
the most of what high-end Finland has to offer and I was not
impressed.The same would of course go for
most high-end in the world.
But, to the point, it is to me
like everybody is trying to make ( and sell ) the best
black-and-white picture of a full-color reality.Even the best systems where, though good, just
black-and white. The worse ones just plain grey...Everybody is listening for that "
tight, clean and punchy (black) bottom, the neutral and uncolored
(grey) mid and the mellow and sweet (white) top, when we all know
that the bottom is actually light, round and textured ( light
brown), the mid nuanced and colorful ( rainbow ) and the top
lightning fast, metallic and shimmering ( glowing bronze). It is a
lack of emotion, color, shadings, nuances, dynamics ( especially
small scale ) and vitality that makes the sound really boring and
unmusical.
Nowhere did I ever felt fooled
into believing I was listening to the real thing, not even close...In one room they played some music that felt
familiar to me. Decent sound, like many other. After perhaps one
minute I recognized it to be Pat Coil, my biggest favourite! Without
these qualities that I have gotten used to and take for granted, the
music had lost its meaning so much that I had problem recognizing
it! Everywhere I
always ended up listening to the sound, not the music.
While listening to my own systems it is the other way round. HiFi
should not be boring, boring grey...
I also discovered that
recording quality seldom is an issue in most systems. They have the
same character with different recordings. Not a quality proof
exactly... I am used to that recording quality makes the biggest
difference in music replay. At least in my systems...Many a so called High-End sound
suffer from a "bare to the bones" kind of sound. No body, no
overtones and harmonics. Yes it is clean and clear... but not at all
like music...Such things as sound staging
and U are there feelings, we need not even discuss.The best systems are really impressive in their
black-and-white qualities, but no matter what the goose bumps are
always missing.
It is the music that matters.
Listening Evaluation 20.06.2001
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It is not an easy thing to get
the true picture of a component by listening tests. Some reviewers
seem to think that it is some kind of technical understanding of some
chosen aspects of sound, like soundstaging, transparency, bassquality
i.e.
Unfortunately it is not that easy. Therefore I have decided to put
down some small guidelines in print. Here it goes.
1. To know how a system sounds, you must first know how the recording
you are listening to really sounds. Get at least one audiophile quality
recording of real instruments in a real acoustical environment.
2.
Listen whith your heart, not your brain. Music is emotional.
3. Close
your eyes, listen with your ears. The price and the looks do not tell
you anything about the sound.
4. Listen at normal levels, not too
loud or too soft.
5. Listen from the next room if possible. Most people
can tell good from bad sound, when listening in the next room. In
front of the system most fails.
6. Understand the hierarchy of good
sound. Some things matter more than other.
- Dynamics
- Tonal accuracy
- Timbral accuracy
- Frequency responce
- Soundstaging, details, clearity…
blah, blah…reviewer nonsens ( If the important things are there, you
get these for free. If the important things are missing, these things
do not matter.
Vane 08.05.2001
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Vane is the world today, that
is perfectly clear.
The success of the digital formats is more about convenience and
outer beauty, than about
music and musical enjoyment. They offer a perfect outside, free
from cosmetical faults.
Dead silent, clinically clean, sterile…
Being a vinyl lover and valuing
substantial qualities, I am not bothered by minor cosmetical faults,
that do not interfere with the substantial quality within, which
regarding HiFi is the music. I enjoy listening to emotionally envolving
music on vinyl, with ticks and pops, much more than listening to
boring clean music on cd.
Cosmetical faults are no problem as long as they do not obscure
the beauty that lies within.
The same moment they interfere, they are NOT tolerable.
My
design philosofy follows the same principles. Quality, functionality
and performance have top priority, while the cosmetics have to step
back and follow the technical design. The only costs that have been,
or will be, cut are regarding the cosmetics!
The
vane people of today do not value this strategy so much. To reach
the customers and to sell, you should really go for nice cosmetics
paired with flashy ads.
Most people seam to value outer beauty, even if it is only skin
deep, higher than a humble outside on a firstclass construction.
To be vane is to value the things that don´t mean a thing
( substantially).
I
am not sure that I want to change…
SMA was founded on the enjoyment of music and a fascination for
sound, NOT as a way of making big money. Once You get caught in
the wheel, You loose the joy and with that the visions.
HiFi customers
26.11.2000
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Hifi and high-end buyers are very interesting and very divergent
people. There are a lot of different minds that hide behind the
face of a"normal" customer.
1. The "besserwisser". Know exactly how different
products sound, their strengths and weaknesses, what to do and what
not to do and so on. Very seldom are these opinions based on actual
personal knowledge or empirical wisdom. No, it is more often than
not something they have read or heard by somebody else! No matter
how vague or incorrect it may be, they declare it as the ultimate
truth.
2. The tweaker. The one absolutely sure about his/her
own ability to make their system great, no matter what kind of gear
they are using.Quite a few of them are also successful and manages
to elevate their system at least a bit. The ones focusing on acoustics
are normaly most successful.
The problem for the tweakers is that they often loose sight of whats
important and what it is all about. It is so easy to become absorbed
by all small details, that might or might not have been improved,
that the wholeness blows away. ( trust me, I´ve been there )
3. The Elité customer. Thinks everything goes down to the size of
ones d**k! The more expensive, the better. If it costs much it has
to be good, hasn´t it? Own listening evaluation? Value for money?
4. The technocrate. Science, science, science. Everything can be
measured and scientifically explained. If it doesn´t measure good,
it is not good. No matter how it sounds! Believes very hard that
science shall save mankind ( the world of today might prove him
wrong…)
5. The early adopter. The one who really is afraid of being on the
platform when the plane for the future takes off. Buys everything
new as soon as it leaves the drawing board. Has bought the kings
new clothes at least a dozen times.
6. The musician. Haven´t ever realy listened for sound quality,
but definitely has an opinion of whats good or not. Has a very good
ear for pace, rhythm, pitch and timing, but the rest is long, long
gone.
7. The basshead. Thinks that music should be felt, not heard. The
louder, the better. Have serious hearing losses ( or will soon get
) and totally flips out at the look of big numbers like 12", 15"
or 1000W, 2x300W.
8. And then there are all the rest…
Show report
06.11.2000
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I just want to share some thoughts with you regarding the annual
HiFi show in Helsinki. First of all I want to thank all visitors
( and co exhibitors ) for your kind response to our room and the
sound we had on offer. As many visitors agreed on, vinyl and tubes
still rules when it comes to real lifelike reproduction of music.
And that's what it is all about. Let's forget all the techno babble
and hyperbole.
I think it is very sad that so many exhibitors care so little
about sound quality. To my ears the sound quality in most rooms
where not remotely on par with the asking price for the system.
High price doesn´t equal good sound. Sad, but too often true.
I have also noticed that people in general are very afraid
of expressing their own point of view. Or maybe they don´t even
have an opinion of their own? Most comments follow the reviewer
jargong. It is always safe to repeat what others have said, no matter
how incorrect it might be. And there is also the " warm and natural
tube and/or vinyl sound", even if the system playing uses transistors
and cd-player! Funny how people know how it sounds only by looking
at the system ( even if they are looking at another system than
the one playing)!
I also find it amazing how highly regarded the american crap
is in Finland. In Sweden most american high-end manufacturers have
a hard time. Even in the USA the sales of american gear is struggeling
with many brands on the edge of bancruptcy.
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