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Topic: Romy The Cat's new Listening Room

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-28-2010
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I am staring this thread as an organic continuation of the former Real Estate thread:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=11190

As any other threads at my site it will be a collection of thoughts and diaries of action related to my new listening room. The room is VERY interesting in my view that has a LOT of potential. Still I know it will take a lot of efforts to convert it into the musical interment tune to do what I need it to do. I think it will be my major audio afforest during the upcoming months. I did not measured anything in the room but I hope that with my techniques of  the “sane listening” I will be able to handle what the room m will throw to me.

The room has 4 in wall speaks and I have played the First movement of the Bruckner Seventh on it.

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/TreeItem.aspx?PostID=13203 

Meanwhile I am re-panting the room, renew the carper, organize the location of the CD, LP, equipment and the rest amendments.  In two days I will bring my playback in the game with the room will be officials start. I am curios how it goes…

RoomDecorating.jpg

Rgs, Romy the Cat

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-03-2010
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This weekend I was unpacking. I had a change to give to my new listening room a first early run. I was re-strategizing how the room will be setup and moved equipment in the room. My initial planning was fine and the equipment was fitting in the room perfectly. Macondo as is turned to be a wonderful size for the room. The listening distance is very flexible. The rack, in fact racks, with gear has a good stop and very non prominent in the listening space.  I have a wonderful space for records, CD, Records cleaning etc - In other word – truly perfect.

Acoustically the room looks like pays off my entire long search. It surely too early to say anything defiantly but I have played my insertion channels full range and it was nice. I mean - try to listen any just painted room with nothing in it and bare walls. It will be reverberated and bright. My room with absolutely nothing in it is has not a lot of HF problems and it is very subdued. My notion to fight with first reflections by means of real-estate does work marvelously.

So far I am very happy.  The only problems that I experience now are the problems of different type. For instance I hate the fact that it takes sometime 15-30 minutes to find my Cat in my home. I hope I will get use to it. The big problem is that the listening room looks on reservation land and there are some very mean birds in there. At nigh they sound like car alarm – very annoying. I have discovered that when I flip the pool light then the birds shut up for a minute but then they do it again. Probably I would need to consult ornithologists to deal with the birds. I hate to see myself on the roof with falcon scaring the local birds in order to play some tunes… The local folks tell me that I am a nerdy idiot and that I will get accustom to the birds. Well, will see…

The Cat

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-04-2010
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It is a lot of work but it a lot of pleasure to work on it. I put Macondo in as is position. The ceiling will be painted and painter will be moving the speakers, so where the speakers are now is irrelevant. Still, the image below gives an idea what will be the configuration of the speakers in the room. The room is much wider then it looks in the picture. I just do not have wide-enough angle lens unpacked to cover it all. The room is truly the long-wall type of the room.

NewRoom_FirstShot.JPG

The Cat

Posted by mats on 04-04-2010
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Good for you Romy.That looks just fantastic.Wonder if the long view into the forest will effect your depth of soundstage.Our friend Kurt had a huge basement with some towers set up in the middle.It could feel like a string quartet was somewhere 20 feet back.Either way, it looks like a splendid beginning.  Mosseltov.Mats

Posted by RonyWeissman on 04-05-2010
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good to see that your cat likes the room as well! Recently my family was adopted by a stray cat, he spends most of his day sleeping in the middle of my music room as well.Nice choice,R Weissman

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-07-2010
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I recognized that I have tired for the last week like hell. Do not ask me what I got tired from – I will not be able to say. That whole moving, packing, unpacking this was too exhausting… The good thing is that I go an interesting room as a result. That all crap about ownership of the house is not very much attracts me. In fact I am not sure if I like the whole idea but the room and the arrangements around the room in this specific house is very much pleases me. What I do not know at this point how the room sound.

I pretty much do not have playback setup for a month or even more. I kind of begin to miss it, not only Sound itself but the whole experience to invoke it at my will. Unfortunately the Sound as I understand it long away in my room…

The last nigh I decided to take it easy with unpacking and with working in my new house. All those tasks not going to run away from me. My pool was attacked by frogs that made those crazy noises during their breading period. I won that little war and I decided do not do anything else to the rest of the week and just to relax, this would imply to play some music. I did not connect the Macondo and Melquiades – it would be too complex and long to make them to work properly. I took a few monitors I had but they did not make it to me. Then I took Dunlavy SC3. The Dunlavys has an advantage that they are “as is” and they do not need anything else beside the power amps.  I dumped Dunlavy in the location what I think Macondo would be, connected the Dunlavy to Yamaha D2 and setup CD player (TL0 and Lavry 924).  I used Radio Shake or any other random cables throughout – there are no need to do anything better. I do not want to criticize Dunlavy – they have own problems but I know all of them and I thought it would give me some idea of what my new room is capable of. The sound all together was despicable, literally dreadful – but this did not particularly bother me, I was looking not for the sound itself but how it interacts with the room.  I moved speakers a bit, but nothing evolved – juts to get a generally acceptable presentation.  It was “somewhere there” and it was enough to stop “working”.

Then I took the biggest cigar I had, “laid” on my couch and give a good couple hours just to listen how it works all together. I was very interesting. The room has very-very appealing friendliness – it is just a pleasure to be in there. There is no acoustic treatment of any kind in the room, the playback sucks and the speakers are crap – still it was semi-enjoyable. With Dunlavys you can play only very specific music and only in a certain way and I decided to give it a full run. I played the whole Osvaldo Golijov’s St. Mark Passion. It is not exactly my type of music but it is insanely talented music and it is the only Passion that is possible to play on Dunlavys.  The room responded very interestingly. It was very different then what I am accustomed but in the way it was the same.  In this room it is possible to make HUGE presentation. The room has a god 35 feet width and all of it; even more might be used for presentation.  I think that by using properly set diffusers on the peripherals I will be able to curve that useable 35-40 feet. The room also has some superbly interesting back of the listening sit potentials. I have a good 10-15 feet behind the proposed listening spot where I am planning to put some reflections randomizers. It will be VERY interesting  to play with it what the sound will be at the right level.

Meanwhile I recognized that I do have a small wall section, approximately 50’ by 35-45’ that I would need to treat somehow. The problem with this section of the wall is that it needs to be very attractive treatment from a décor perspective. So, I am looking for some kind of “artistic” panel with good defusing characteristics. I have seen some of them here and there. Auralex does Shockwave AudioTiles that might be useful but I am looking for something sexier. Probably the large-grain of Tectum Acoustic Panels I might recognize as some king of Kandinsky’s paintings. I am juts partially kidding. This 50 by 40 part of the wall is very prominent in the room and I would like to have the diffuser to look attractive. The whole idea it to have living room not a dedicated listening room and it’s typical dental office ornamentation. So, if anyone knows a satin looking acoustic diffuser then point me out.

The Cat

Posted by tuga on 04-08-2010
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If you can live with more modern, slightly pop-ish looking, panels you will find a few interesting designs here:

http://www.architonic.com/pmpro/acoustic-panels-systems-wall-ceiling-finishes/3220942/2/2/1

About your large room with huge presentation, do you think this room might require more power than you get from your current setup?


Cheers,
Ric

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-09-2010
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Ok, my new listening room is repainted and ready to accept audio setup. Probably this weekend, if I have time left, I will make a first try with Macondo.  I think the main thing that I need to figure out now is what would be a listening distance in relation to the speaker spread across the room’s width.  I know very well the critical near-field configuration and I have a lot of tricks under my belt how to make it to work. In this room I might go even for 15 feet listening distance and the width of the room still also to have my favorite wider then usually speaker positioning. The key in this is to see how the room will be able to image in the middle hole. There are a lot of variable in play and I would need to learn all of them in the new room. I do not think that at this point I will be hit any positioning that will be more or less “final”, I am far from this.  Still, at this point I might see how the room will sound all together and will be able to do some very basic measurements.

Posted by msaudio on 04-11-2010
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Room is extra nice, better then most i have seen on the web. We all will hear from you telling us there is no bass, in your new room. It looks like 300Hz down will suffer because square footage increase like 10 fold from last room. You will have much harder time building bass presure in new room and possible midrange horns mite need to be increased in size to get same sound presure level you had in old location. I have been there my self moving over the years, ending up with 15 inch woofers in the larger room. In the long run you will be much happier, Take your time, it will reward you and save money.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-11-2010
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The more I play with me room the more I fell in love with it.  As I mentioned before there are so many truly perfect features in the room that I very frequently note that if I build the listening room from scratch according to my own design then very many things I would do exactly as my room has. For instance I was trying to preliminary catch the LF hot spots in the room (read about the Imbedded Macro-Positioning) and I was moving the small Dunalvy 3 trying to see where bass would pick up. I do not do any measurement at this point as I do not know in wish box I have my analyzers. Anyhow juts by ears it looks like that most bass active zone is exactly where I meant to put my Macondo Bass Line-Arrays. Aren’t I lucky? I put the small Dunalvy in those corners and they fell the while room with very very nice, very dance LF sound - I perfect location for MiniMe and the perfect location for Macondo LF channels.

NewRoom_BassCh_Instaled.jpg

Last night I was listening BSO broadcast with premier of Harbison Double Concerto and Mahler 7. I was using Indore Dynalab antenna as I do not have a mast for my polarized installed yet. The reception was bad and I promised myself to do something with it – I think it is the time. This morning I took the Dynalab antenna and mount it temporarily atop of the swimming pool poll (the one I use to catch frogs).  The reception got very nice and now I can get WCRB without noise – Hallelujah! 

NewRoom_TempAntenna.jpg

The Cat

 

Posted by scooter on 04-11-2010
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 Romy the Cat wrote:
I know very well the critical near-field configuration and I have a lot of tricks under my belt how to make it to work.
Hi Romy,

Your process of optimizing the system and new room is exciting and a great learning opportunity for everyone. It looks like everything is going well.

I am curious about your "tricks" but really a lot more interested in how you actually plan and execute.I know you are very busy but while you are in the process of setting up your new room over the coming months, it would be fantastic if you might periodically discuss your though process in real, painful detail. For example, on a given day, such as next Sunday, what are your goals, plan of attack, what you actually do to realize your goals and why, what works and what does not work and why, what other stuff do you wander into unintentionally. Hopefully this is an interesting intellectual exercise; in any case, documenting processes often helps bring execution to the next level.


Best of luck!
Thanks,
S

Posted by Amir on 04-12-2010
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I interested so to the subject of room and speaker position.
hope romy have time to write more about this process in new room.

sometimes i imagine (like Jules Verne stories) robot deigners should make a robot for this complex process in the future, DPOLS finder Smile

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-12-2010
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Scooter,

I know what you ask. I wish I have a cleared time to deal with audio. Unfortunately since my move I am engaged into a chain of events that has nothing to do with audio and that I do not particularly enjoy, but I need to do it now. This stupid “suburbanization” and some rebuilding in the house that I intended to do will take perhaps another month or so (I wish) the key in it is my understanding that if I won’t do it now then I will not do it ever. All of those work on the house take too much time and too much efforts and I neither physically nor emotionally have time to engage the room in audio in the way I would like to.

I do think about the room and opportunities and do some perpetrations that I know I will harvest in future. For instance I made some ordering of new CD and LF storages that will perform very good acoustic double duty. Or I made some arrangements to solidify the suspended floor in my listening room. Or I made holes in the floor what the cables would go to the “far” channel (I do not what cable running across the room). Or I found the way to power the system and made the preparations to enable it. Or I planted privacy hedge with fast growing evergreens to further isolate the room from external noises…There are many other actions that  do not have anything to do with sound but that all will work out together what I will take my time to actually deal with room. While I am doing all of it there are some other parallel project going on (like rebuilding of bathroom and digging a French drain with natural outflow to nearby reservation). So, I have plenty on my plate now, not to mention a full time work….
 
About the planning. I think I will be able to face the sound in my room with the necessary level of seriousness somewhere in mid of May. It does not mean that I will not be listening anything until then but whatever I will do I will be listening “as is” and the most important without the objectives to FINALIZE anything.

The Cat

Posted by Paul S on 04-12-2010
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Romy, I am pleased but not surprised to hear that you have quietly ascertained and begun to implement corrective measures to ensure the overall balance of critical elements in your new situation, since without these in place, you would likely come to be miserable in your suburban digs, sooner or later.  FWIW, I recommend waiting until the floors are shored up before you order treatment for the interior walls, ceilings, etc.  And if you use screw jacks to shore up, then I recommend that you play with them before ordering interior damping tiles, etc.  Althought recent pictures you've posted depict the ceiling of your new room considerably lower that I anticipated, still, I'm guesing this room will require very little in the way of absorbtive "treatment", once the "correct" spots for speakers are realized and the floor is snugged up to taste.

With respect to the schedule, I urge patience.  It is tough to convince non-professionals that a crapload of unforesee-able variables condition results during a remodel like yours; but this is indeed the case.  Either you want it to end at a certain time, or you want particular results.  I hope you get what you want when you want; but these two propositions may be mutually exclusive.

Best regards,
Paul S

Posted by jessie.dazzle on 04-13-2010
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Romy wrote:

"...The big problem is that the listening room looks on reservation land and there are some very mean birds in there. At nigh they sound like car alarm – very annoying. I have discovered that when I flip the pool light then the birds shut up for a minute but then they do it again. Probably I would need to consult ornithologists to deal with the birds. I hate to see myself on the roof with falcon scaring the local birds in order to play some tunes…The local folks tell me that I am a nerdy idiot..."

Let the local folks know exactly what they're dealing with rightup front: Instead of the standard pink plastic pellicans, get yourself two or three of the most evil, most bad-ass looking fake owls you can find, and mount them on the roof of your new room (or on your antenna when you get it set up).

Fake Owl.jpg

This is a recognized solution to a common problem over here where the offending creatures are pigeons; it might also prove to be an effective tool in negotiating with your new friends. Despite what you might find posted here and there on the subject, I can tell you I've seen this solution in action... Its effectiveness in dissuading pigeons is the reason good fake owls fetch such a high price over here.

I see that Amazon has them... Oh, I think I just stumbled upon a new Day Job!
http://www.amazon.com/Dalen-OW6-Gardeneer-16-Inch-Molded/dp/B00002N8HZ

And here's something to keep in mind should the process of "suburbanization" start to wear on you:

Ayn Rand wrote:

"...Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men..."

The room looks FAB!

jd*

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-13-2010
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Well, jessie, this "home move" turned to be a bigger discovery of myself in many ways then I thought. I am 42 and I lived all my live in city, I never had any usable backyard, garden or even plants. The only green things I ever have seen were inside of my Minestrone soup. Suddenly I was damped to suburban half acre land bordering a reservation – too much new things for me to deal with and I am discovering the things dally.

For instance the house has a nice pool, which is covered now. During the transition of the property no one care about maintaining of the pool cover and did not even knew that I need to do anything. As the result I got a colony of frogs mated in my pool’s cover. They scream like crazy at night and my bedroom is next to the pool.  It took for me a few days to recognize that they were frogs. Thanking about the super ignorance… I do not think I even have seen alive frogs before …

I spoke with former owners and they told me that I need to pick them with pool’ stick and send them to fly back to the forest. So, I did it for a couples days – was throwing the grog back to the conservation land. In few days I was driving home and I asked myself what the fuck I was doing? Frogs do not do anything wrong, they do what they shell do. They are nice creatures who peacefully eat insects and are looking for a comfy for themselves place to procreated. Suddenly an asshole with an awaken in him stupid feeling of lend ownership is throwing them out of his man-made swamp, probably killing them on lending. It is not that I care about the frogs too much but I was wondering where the hell this anger of protecting the idiotic pride of ownership had come to me? I did not like that feeling at all and I feel a shame for a few days. I dried out the pool cover and frogs done but the recognition of the fact that I was perhaps keeling those creatures and was not able to act more intelligent is something that did not make me happy. I would understand if they were republicans, but the frogs - they did not do anything bad….

Anyhow, the idea with the mean owls looks good.  I have a whole array of new sounds from outside that I need to get accustomed and to recognize. Still, generally the place look like very a quiet one, at least a number of my suburban friends who had visited me told me that it is quiet. The location of the listening room toward to the house helps to the quietness and I will make some extra measures to keep the noise from outside to a reasonable minimum.

The Cat

Posted by ArmAlex on 04-14-2010
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Romy, francley the biggest reason that I'm very happy you moved to your new place is, you have a very big listening room-like mine-so speaker placment and search for DPoLS wuold be more helpful to me. I hope so!
Anyhow congradulation for new place.

Armen 

Posted by Romy the Cat on 04-14-2010
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It is not the size that matters. I do not have big listening room and I do not like “big listening rooms”. I have a room of reasonable dimensions for what I am planning to do. It rather is on the small side of the “big listening rooms”. However, I do feel that it is even a bit larger then what I would like to have ideally. The good in this room is not the size but how it laid out. I do feel that the layout of the room is perfect for my need and here is what I do feel very lucky.

The Cat

Posted by ArmAlex on 04-14-2010
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We can't "choose" everything in our life, like size of our listening room! So we have to use what we have.
Anyhow I was reffering to your post aboutDPoLS in which you were showing a way to find AEZ. In that post you wrote:Most of the mid and small size rooms (very large room is a separate subject) have two types of the room modes...
Now that your room is much bigger than previous one maybe you will use some other technics for DPoLS.Armen

Posted by diz1 on 04-15-2010
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Are the First reflection points for horns speakers are different from other type of speakers?


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