Cones, stones, bones, and other "audiophile tweaks"

Yes, I think you could. Actually, I think that you think so too. Don't you play the innocent with us.

Gary, have you tried the 'mirror method'?

 

Hmmm. Please excuse me for getting personal here but how would you sum up the problem? What's good, what's bad and what do you want?

Could the issue here be the interaction of your room and the dispersion patterns of your much-beloved Tangent RS8s? I don't know the speakers, although I've heard good things about them. They're 3 ways, yes? A 10" Bextrene bass driver, a mid-range driver (I don't know which) and a T27 tweeter. Do you know the crossover frequencies?

If you removed all the damping and padding from your room, what would the problem be?

I'm going to bed now - we Brits are so far ahead of you guys in that respect at least - but one final thought...

is it possible that the best way to improve your listening comfort might be to incorporate some padding and bracing on the coffee table. You could then sit on that.

 

Gary, it sounds as if, with your listening room and your equipment, you need a "livlelier" enviornment. I'm sure you already know this, but having your listening position against the rear wall is a problem. With a 12' x 13' foot room you will not be able to get the listening position at least 6' from the rear wall like most people recommend, but if you can convince your significant other, I think we can help you out.

If I may make a few suggestion, try this:

1) Remove all the room treatments from the room
2) Place the speakers on spiked stands (without blue tac) at ear level, toed in slightly about four feet from the front wall and about 6 feet apart
3) Place your listening chair (couch) about 4 feet from the rear wall. Get rid of the coffee table (sorry, but this is messing everything up)
4) Reintroduce the room treatments one at a time until you hear no further improvement. Start with the side wall reflection points first.

Hope you can do all of these - I think they will help!

 

Actually I do have them pulled forward. My B&W's Nautlis Speakers I use for surround sit further back. My audio rack sits off on a side wall but my front is still pretty crowded with the two Totems, two B&W's, a Velodyne Sub, the 64" inch TV and the surround rack.
I have a picture somewhere that I have posted here before. I'll try to find it.

Cheers-
Norm

 

Trust your ears, Gary, these are just some ideas I had. The speaker and chair positions I recommended are just starting points - you will probably hear differences of 2" once you get close!

 

Don't worry, Gary...

I'm just enjoying the reading...all of these suggestions will come in handy some time...thanks, everybody.

carry on,

 

Yup! I can vouch for the "stones & balls" tweak. I'm still curious about Tom Port's pillows under the amp, pre-amp, cdp etc. tweak though. Have you tried it yet Gary?

 

Sure did. I think I was quite witty in those days. Of course I was younger. Really though, that Mark Gdovin is knowledgeable and a nice guy as well.

 

I recommend another tweak if you have tubes...try the Audio Research tube "rings". They made a big improvement by controlling microphonics in my system.

 

Not yet Gary, but it works on the exact same principle as my (sorbethane?) feet and the marble slabs under my spikes for the speakers worked beautifully. It's a space thing, more like lack of it, that is the only reason I haven't done the superballs yet. Whenever we move though it's number 1 on my tweaks to try list.

 

I am sure the beaks would be a great conservation piece.

Hey son see what I got for $200. Cool Dad what are those for.

They make the sound sound better. Have a listen. Wow! Will you buy some for me.
Or OMG what have you been smoking.

 

Huh? A set (2) only costs $100.00 Can. $ up here. Are they really that much down in the USA?

 

No.

 

Yes, I thought they wanted one set of two per speaker.

 

Not according to the retailer I spoke with yesterday.

 

The whole isolation thing is a strange business. I find superballs work quite well with my speakers on most floors and so do spikes if the floor is concrete. Marble slabs don't do anything for them at all though. Strange.

 

Isolation feet.

Recently I made a few isolation devices at work to replace the stock rubber feet on my preamp, SACD, and tube-amp. I've been trying different locations under my TT to see if I can improve the performance over the stock feet.
They are basically an Aluminum foot and cap that has a ceramic or tungsten carbide 3/8 diameter ball separating the 2 pieces. An O-ring mounted on the shaft of the base centers and isolates the cap. The cap has a silicon o-ring inserted into it and the base has a Buna O-ring installed too.
I've seen almost the same type of system as this being sold at an internet source but it's smaller without the addition of the O-rings and does'nt support the weight that mine will.
At this point I have only placed them under my tube preamp and they definitley improved its performance. The 1st record I spun was DCC Hotel California since this recording has powerful bass as well as strings. Bass was more punchy and strings were as good as I've heard so I'm satisfied with them placed under my preamp. I now need to install them under my tube-amp and SACD player, hopefully they will work as well there too.