New listening room

[Macca]

There's no hard and fast rules with room tuning as there are just too many variables.

Loudspeaker performance and personal taste in presentation being the two biggest.

For example absorption at first reflection points may narrow the soundstage and if you want wide soundstage this will not be for you. But do the speakers have wide or narrow directivity? This will also affect that decision.

Personally I would not randomly build in any treatment to the construction as if it doesn't work out ripping it out will be a real pain. For a dedicated room where you can do what you like I would start by setting up with normal furnishing, do some extensive listening to adapt myself to the acoustic, and then consider treatments.

Hopefully there will be no low frequency problems so then dealing with the rest of the audio band will be a matter of taste. IME most situations will benefit from diffusion on the wall behind the speakers and absorption on the wall behind the listening position. But nothing about room treatment should be taken as gospel.

[Jimbo]

The great thing about room treatment is that you can adapt to your own listening preference.

Good point Martin about adapting to the acoustic first before adding treatment.

[Macca]

My own view is that as far as mid and high frequencies go ordinary furnishings should get 90 percent of the way there, but bass issues are a whole different ballgame.

One problem is the modern trend for minimalist living doesn't equate to 'ordinary furnishing' - no carpet, no curtains, no bookshelves, bare walls, no clutter etc. None of that helps sound quality. Those warm, inviting sounding systems of the 1970s sounded that way at least in part to the furnishing style of the times.

Lots of HF bouncing around is never pleasant even when just conducting a conversation with someone. We don't adapt to that. Regrettably many ascribe their 'brightness' problem to the electronics and/'or the loudspeakers and start trying to fix it with valves, or cables, or NOS DACs and so on, which doesn't work. (Okay, it can be that sometimes the loudspeakers are at least partly to blame).

My advice is always - get some stuff in your room!

[Mika K]

Wise words. Good luck with the project and keep the pics coming

[rmcin626]

Well after several delays the room is nearly complete, just starting to set everything up again. When everything was on a rock I had no issues with cable lengths but there are now a couple of challenges.

Two choices

Leave the turntable in the middle and purchase some longer cables

Or move the amp to the middle.

Decisions decisions





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Jimbo]

I think the TT looks great in the middle.

[struth]

nice looking unit robin... whatever you like is way to go. meantime try it another way so it fits then decide

[rmcin626]

nice looking unit robin... whatever you like is way to go. meantime try it another way so it fits then decide

Got from it Ikea , very happy with it so far, I have swapped things around to have look prefer the turntable in middle but going to swap the Phono stage and Arcam over

[rmcin626]

I think the TT looks great in the middle.

Cheers, I agree

[AJSki2fly]

Well after several delays the room is nearly complete, just starting to set everything up again. When everything was on a rock I had no issues with cable lengths but there are now a couple of challenges.

Two choices

Leave the turntable in the middle and purchase some longer cables

Or move the amp to the middle.

Decisions decisions





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hi Robin, very envious of the dedicated listening room. looks good, if only I could do similar.

One thing you might want to consider for the TT is this to get better oscillation, I have done so with mine and it gained slightly better clarity and improved soundstage separation and focus.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08X3L3M...sin_title&th=1

use this under to stop slippage https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0042AHC...t_b_asin_title

I also put Phono stage and CD player on https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/aptitli...mboo-00233429/ with anti-slip under.

I had read up on this and quite a few on this and other forums do similar. It's not expensive and worth it IMHO.