New Harbeth monitors: Sound stage depth or lack of

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by cowboy, Oct 31, 2006.

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  1. cowboy

    cowboy New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    lenapah oklahoma
    I'm still waiting for all the new gear to really "kick in". On some things it sounds really great, (Norah Jones) and on some stuff the sound is really "flat", as in no depth. Could it be that the Harbeth speakers are more ruthless in being accurate than my old speakers were, revealing not so good recordings to be even more not so good? OR, as I'm hoping, could it be a room problem. If it could be a room problem, where do I start? Before, with the MC 30's, C 28, and 30 year old speakers, (4, Stereotech Model 2's), the sound would truly be holographic at times. Now, although the sound is really "accurate", it seems like a lot of the "magic" is not there. With the MX 110 replacing the C 28 and a huge upgrade in the turntable/cart, plus the Harbeth's, I expected everything to sound better. So, it must be the room, right???????:help: Tom
     
  2. Barry Wom

    Barry Wom New Member

    Location:
    Pepperland
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of


    Harbeths are wonderful speakers, they are incredibly accurate (the BBC knew what they were doing) it sounds flat because that's the way it's meant to sound.

    You'll get used to it and soon you won't be able to hear music any other way.
     
  3. Randy W

    Randy W Original Member

    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    It could be the room, or speaker placement, or the quality of your A/C. Could be any of these - "no depth" is not something you should be hearing except on the worst recorded/mastered CDs.

    Sometimes more revealing equipment means you need to upgrade your source software to fully enjoy it.
     
  4. curbach

    curbach Some guy on the internet

    Location:
    The ATX
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    Sound stage and depth should vary from recording to recording if your system is at all accurate.
     
  5. cowboy

    cowboy New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    lenapah oklahoma
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    It not only varies for record to record, but sometimes track to track. One song will sound great, the next, kinda hollow. Something I'd not noticed before.
     
  6. Gary

    Gary Nauga Gort! Staff

    Location:
    Toronto
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    It sounds like the result of your new speakers.

    You can still try some free, temporary room tweaks and see what happens.
     
  7. smctigue

    smctigue Forum Resident

    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    How far are you sitting from the C7's? How large is your room?

    Harbeth speakers LOVE current. I've owned a pair of HLP3's for 12 years now. I power them with 35 watt tube monoblocks. As long as I listen in the nearfield (less than 7 feet ear to tweeter) and don't go crazy with the volume (less than 85 db's) they are wonderful. Thet maintain a nice wide and deep soundstage when it's called for. However, if I crank the volume up or sit too far from the speakers, my amps crap out and everything flattens out.

    I'm wondering if your amps are up to driving the C7's.

    Again, I don't know how far away from them you are sitting. Don't be afraid to get nice and close to them. Remember that they are designed as studio monitors. The tweeter and woofer integrate beautifully at close distances.

    Incidentally, you are very lucky to own the C7's. I've lusted after a pair for years. Good luck.
     
  8. Barry Wom

    Barry Wom New Member

    Location:
    Pepperland
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    I refer to my earlier post -IT IS the speakers - there is nothing wrong,
     
  9. smctigue

    smctigue Forum Resident

    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    Yeah, the Harbeth's are brutally honest. If a recording stinks, you'll know about it. No sugar coating at all.
     
  10. Jamie Tate

    Jamie Tate New Member

    Location:
    Nashville
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of


    Sounds like you're describing accurate monitors. I'm amazed how bad some recordings are yet they always sound fine on lesser systems.

    Ironic that we have to pay so much to hear how bad something truly sounds. :laugh:
     
    Gordon Johnson likes this.
  11. Dave

    Dave Esoteric Audio Research Specialistâ„¢

    Location:
    B.C.
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    I tend to agree with Randy here CB. These may require a different placement setting than your old speakers. Have you tried the Cardas rectangular room set-up yet?
     
  12. Vinyl-Addict

    Vinyl-Addict Groovetracer Manufacturer

    Location:
    USA
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    Tom, How far into the room do you have the C7's?
    Harbeth's need space behind them to work at their best.

    They also sound best with the listener positioned close to them, IOW nearfield. Try bringing them further into the room and sit equadistant from them and move closer or farther until you are satisfied with what you are hearing.

    I've heard the C7's and they are very capable of creating a wonderful soundstage. I also owned M30's for the last 2 years and just picked up a pair of M40's. To say the least, I love Harbeth speakers. Take some time to get placement right and you should be happy. :)
     
  13. AudioEnz

    AudioEnz Senior Member

    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    As the real estate saying goes, it's location, location, location". For good imaging and soundstaging you need space behind, around and inbetween the speakers. Brin them out from the rear and side walls and don't put don't put a hulking great TV inbetween them. Sit an appropriate distance from the speakers (usually a little further than the speakers are apart) and toe in the speakers if that helps.

    It may seem counterintuitive, but to get good stereo imaging you first need to get good mono. If you play a mono source, is the "image" solidly placed midway between the two speakers, or is it diffuse?

    Finally, listeners differ in their perceptions of stereo. Some people hear sounds coming from outside of the speakers, others don't. Some peole clearly hear a stereo effect, others don't. Some people can't even hear stereo at all - they instead merely hear sound coming from two different speakers. One could argue that such people are hearly more accurately than the rest of us!
     
    dhoffa85 likes this.
  14. seriousfun

    seriousfun Forum Resident

    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    I'll third, fourth, fifth, or sixth that it is the speakers, and that you are lucky to have such accurate speakers.

    Remember that Mono and 2-channel Stereo are one dimensional by nature - both a point and a line are geometrically one dimensional. Mono can't really by its nature present any illusion of depth or solidity, but 2-channel Stereo can, by presenting a combination of in-phase and out-of-phase elements.

    As above, if your system can properly present Mono, it can proably properly present stereo. Sitting a few inches out of the sweet spot in any dimension, having different reflections from any adjacent surface, (or a particular listener's inability to easily hear phase distortions) etc., can impair even the best speaker system's ability to deliver these spatial cues accurately.
     
  15. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    I would experiment with placement, as others have suggested. But in my experience, the soundstage is going to be more dependent on the recordings. unless you have dipole speakers. I have my own speakers well out into the room away from the walls. Still, the majority of my recordings sound relatively two-dimensional. But some exceptionally good recordings I have jump out at me with the holographic imaging, which I take to be an indication that I've done pretty well with speaker placement, and that I'm hearing accurately what is on the disc. On the other hand, my hearing may not be as good as some other folks who can always detect depth in the soundstage. Sensitivity to phase response may in fact require a hearing acuity up to higher frequencies than I can detect. I used to worry about this, but have since come to value tonality and even response across the frequency spectrum even more, but especially a transparent midrange.
     
  16. Ski Bum

    Ski Bum Happy Audiophile

    Location:
    Vail, CO
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    If you are listening to things like rock recordings from the mid-60s, you are going to hear little depth even on the best of systems. As noted, you should be hearing soundstage depth on a recording of Norah Jones. If you are listening to a variety of more recordings from the 70s and later, you should hear a lot of examples revealing depth in the soundstage. If you are not hearing depth on recordings that should be providing soundstage depth, I have three suggestions:

    1. As noted above, the MOST likely culprit is speaker placement. Move the speakers away from the rear and side walls.

    2. You mention that you've recently changed the cartridge. Check the vertical tracking angle ("VTA"). If the tonearm pivot is too high, it tends to flatten out the soundstage.

    3. Are your new speakers introducing new vibration to the TT? Vibration in the TT will degrade the soundstage, as well as blur the details and do a bunch of other bad things.
     
  17. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    Try this trick for optimum Harbeth placement.

    Find a recording that has mono talking. Got it? Now, reverse one of your speaker leads throwing your speakers out of phase. Did it? Now, sit in the sweet spot and adjust your speakers until the floating voice is as far to your left and as far to your right as it can get. No big moves, sometimes an inch one way or the other will do it. When you have the maximum out of phase sound you can get (a voice that almost sounds like it's almost behind you to the left or right as you tilt your head a bit..) you can switch the speaker lead back to correct polarity. Now, find something that actually has a real soundstage (this will eliminate 99% of rock music.) Try some good classical or live jazz. The soundstage should be killer. Doesn't matter what your gear is for the most part. The "Stage Is In Stone" on your recording and just needs some gentle persuasion to come out..

    Report back.
     
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  18. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    By the way, I want these but they seem to be harder to get than a clean copy of The White Album...


    Harbeth Monitor 40 Domestic:
     

    Attached Files:

    bhazen and Fiddlefye like this.
  19. Vinyl-Addict

    Vinyl-Addict Groovetracer Manufacturer

    Location:
    USA
    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    Steve, Try going to the Harbeth user group and email the owner, Alan Shaw and, perhaps he can offer some help. I've only had the M40's for a few days but it's hard to stop listening to them.:)

    http://www.harbeth.co.uk/usergroup/index.php
     
  20. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me!

    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    Maybe not imaging, but certainly in depth! besides, I place more importance on depth than stereo placement.
     
  21. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Re: Sound stage depth or lack of

    I don't want to bother the guy with my little problems..
     
  22. TONEPUB

    TONEPUB Senior Member

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    If your Harbeths are brand new, they will probably take a week or two for the surrounds on the drivers to break in. Most speakers when brand new sound a little stiff. Leave your system on repeat for about a week whenever you arent around and I bet you will here a different picture. Don't get too serious with screwing around fine tuning setup until they have some hours on them!!

    Good luck, those are awesome speakers....
     
    bhazen likes this.
  23. cowboy

    cowboy New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    lenapah oklahoma
    Thanks everybody for all the replies! I'm going to experiment with some of these ideas tonight. My room is really weird shaped and no way to place the C7's equidistant from all the walls. But , I do have them out into the room and away from the side walls. I'm going to try a little closer or farther apart and move my chair a little closer or farther away and see what happens. Another post that made me think was about the VTA of my cart. When I got the Technodec and mounted the cart, the cue would not lift high enough to get the stylus of the record. So, I raised the whole arm. I later e-mailed the guy I got the table from and ask about what I'd done. In a some-what scolding manner, he told me that he'd set the arm exactly right and that I should have raised the arm rest via a tiny almost hidden allen screw. How was I to know? There were no instructions with the the thing. Anyway, I did as he said but now I don't know if I got the arm back to his "exact" height. How do you check it anyway? It looks level when you eyeball it but is that good enough? Maybe one reason Norah sounds so good is she's on 180 gram and that raises the VTA. Got me thinkin'. But, I sill don't know how to check the VTA. I'll let you know tomorrow it messing with speaker placement made a difference. Thanks everone, Tom
     
  24. Ski Bum

    Ski Bum Happy Audiophile

    Location:
    Vail, CO
    It is very difficult to measure VTA. The best way to set VTA is by preliminarily setting it by eyeball and then listen as you experiment moving the pivot up and down in small increments. When the VTA is right, the image should "pop" (get much clearer). If the VTA has been set before with the pivot too high, you are going to find that other aspects of the sound is also going to improve on the normal thickness records (it should get a bit warmer and the highs will be less "etched").
     
  25. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    I've never had an adjustable VTA tonearm, so I've always just eyeballed it when mounting for initial setup and not worried. But now I'm thinking if the image pops when you get it just right, it might be worth a little fussing. I'm planning to tweak the suspension in my 'table very soon, and I could do VTA experiments at the same time.

    My question is: are there certain cartridges or types of cartridges that are more sensitive to this than others? For example I have a moving-magnet type: the Shure V15 VxMR. Would this be as revealing of VTA differences as a typical moving coil cartridge, which tends to have greater bandwidth (response up to higher frequencies).
     
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