My new Harbeth SHL5 plus

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by murphythecat, Mar 22, 2017.

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  1. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Hmm, you have concrete/hardwood floor or carpet?
     
  2. murphythecat

    murphythecat https://www.last.fm/user/murphythecat Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    hardwood
     
  3. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    I would guess the mattress is blocking many destructive and enhancing floor bounce from the hard wood floor to reach your ear. : )
     
  4. murphythecat

    murphythecat https://www.last.fm/user/murphythecat Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    Gik acoustic answer about my bed is:
    "SCIENCE! [​IMG]

    Yes a bed is a nice thick absorber. I'm not surprised it helped smooth things out. I'm not crazy about the wide-ish null centered at 400Hz, but everything else is a definite improvement. It could be a smoothing artifact though; can you turn smoothing off and repost the graphs?
    "

    Bed in front of my monitors, how bad can this be? - Gearslutz Pro Audio Community
     
  5. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Absorber is supposed to be porous. I don't think a bed is designed to be that porous....

    My bet is the bed is simply blocking many floor bounces and thus alter the freq response.
     
  6. murphythecat

    murphythecat https://www.last.fm/user/murphythecat Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    the matress is made of foam. entirely based of foam actually, no springs or latex so yes, it absorbs floor bounce at the listening position.. its not as good as roxul stone wool of course
    I wonder if memory foam has even better coefficient absorption.
     
  7. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Yeah, all foam would help.
     
  8. RavenDave

    RavenDave RavenDave

    Location:
    Chita, Texas
    Hello All,

    I'm coming in really late, not asking for a hit, and have never tried a bed at the base of a listening room before... but I humbly suggest (if it hasn't been tried already) that you raise the speakers higher to get the direct radiation from the tweeters aimed slightly above your head, possibly giving the lower bass drivers more room to react without getting absorbed by the bed linens. This is almost near-field listening and since many times you may listen with additional volume this can sometimes be when speakers tend to get harsh sometimes.

    Finally, some of what you are dealing with may also be the amplifier and to a lesser extent, the source and cabling. When speakers of this level are installed into your system you will almost always hear more of everything that your system is capable of. If you haven't raised them higher, have you tried tilting your speakers back slightly, aiming your tweeters above your ears to see if this gets rid of your problem frequencies?

    Just my take on the visual... I don't really have any idea how your head really sits when you are relaxed and listening... but it looks as if possibly you are getting much more musical information from the tweeters than from the bass driver, which I do suspect is getting absorbed by the foam and bedding. I'm no expert, just putting in my three cents...
     
  9. bgiliberti

    bgiliberti Will You Be My Neighbor?

    Location:
    USA
    How big are your feet? If over US size 11 they are probably blocking the tweeters. Suggest getting smaller feet, and/or trimming toenails.
     
  10. mds

    mds Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    Someone suggested removing the bed temporarily and listening for a difference in sound. I think this makes the most sense in determine if the bed does or does not have an impact on the sound. I am sure it does but not sure how major or if it is positive or negative. Removing and listening in my opinion is the only way to know how to proceed. If the sound issues are corrected this might be motivation to move to a sofa bed. If the difference isn't that significant then the room might be treated in some fashion but knowing how the bed is affecting the sound is critical.
     
  11. jon9091

    jon9091 Master Of Reality

    Location:
    Midwest
    I don't know why we didn't think of this before.....
    This will certainly eliminate the harshness.


    [​IMG]

    The ladies will dig it too. :righton:
     
    Robert C and action pact like this.
  12. murphythecat

    murphythecat https://www.last.fm/user/murphythecat Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    P3ESR measurements 7 feet away from the speakers at the listening position

    green line is with matress, yellow without the matress.the matress improve quite seriously the FR.
     
  13. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Have you tried tilting or rotate the speaker so that it is off axis slightly vertically or horizontally and listen and measure again?

    Or, sitting differently so that your head is at different height?
     
  14. mds

    mds Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    Maybe you don't like the sound of the speakers as it coexists in the room as they must be positioned and as the interact with your other electronics. Time to demo other speakers.
     
  15. murphythecat

    murphythecat https://www.last.fm/user/murphythecat Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    Im really happy with the shl5+. easily the best speakers ive had. biggest improvement is everything under 200hz is so much better defined.

    The phantom center is incredible. the speakers dissapear and the soundtstage fills the whole front of the room. the P3esr do not acheive such imaging.
    I never experienced such realism with jazz recordings. very happy and might be my end game speakers. i will be experimenting with restaured tannoy + improved xo and will likely try graham ls59 if a pair used pops up, but its more for fun then because I need to find a better speaker then shl5+. I will concentrate on amps now!
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2017
  16. sublemon

    sublemon Forum Resident

    "the matress improve quite seriously the FR"

    OK

    Looks kinda bad either way to me.
     
  17. layman

    layman Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York, NY
    You have shown response graphs for the speakers with the bed in the room vs. out of the room. That was an interesting comparison. Now how about graphs for grilles off vs. grilles on?
     
  18. pdxway

    pdxway Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oregon, USA
    Hmm, so, what would be a good one looks like. Would love to see your charts of your own setup.
     
  19. murphythecat

    murphythecat https://www.last.fm/user/murphythecat Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    the measurement with the matress are decent enough for me and remember my measurements are from the listening position. its the best I could acheive in my room. ive tried literally hundreds of different speaker placements and thats the best I could manage.
     
    pdxway likes this.
  20. H8SLKC

    H8SLKC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston, MA
    I haven't read every post in this thread, but is that your only room in the entire apartment? Are you bed-bound? If not, have you seriously not considered moving those speakers to a larger room, maybe a den, or anywhere, besides jammed up against your bed? I cannot look at that picture without wincing at the thought of living that way. A small pair of near field monitors would be perfect in that little bedroom of yours. I just don't understand. Is it a one-room studio?
     
    Robert C likes this.
  21. sublemon

    sublemon Forum Resident

    If it sounds good it IS good
     
  22. mds

    mds Forum Resident

    Location:
    PA
    Well you had me confused. I now understand that the complaint wasn't as serious an issue as I felt you were saying just something you would like to see if you could tweak to improve. My guess then is the improvement you want may be resolved with a detailed investigation of the equipment that you are driving the speakers with. What amplifier are you using?
     
  23. sublemon

    sublemon Forum Resident

    Are they not a little peaky? But that is probably reality in most cases. maybe I will make some in my room, i'm kinda lazy, i don't have a calibrated mic or anything. I don't think it will be much better though, my room is compromised as well. But I enjoy the sound in there for the most part.
     
  24. murphythecat

    murphythecat https://www.last.fm/user/murphythecat Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    yes, sorry for the confusion. very happy with the shl5+. the slight hardness in the uppermid is not a big issue at all!

    ive used my el84 retro stereo 50, my gainclone lm8375 and my sony ta 707es
    yes, highly recommended to get a mic and measure your system, you might be terrorised. the best studio in the world are considered world class when +-5db from 20hz to 20khz without smoothing. im about +-9db without smoothing. most untreated room are about +-20db.
     
  25. 5-String

    5-String μηδὲν ἄγαν

    Location:
    Sunshine State
    Great thread everybody, I learned a lot about speaker placement and room acoustics :righton:

    Off I go now to Rooms to Go for my next major system upgrade :D
     
    Agitater and toddrhodes like this.
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