Jimbos Audio ramblings

[Barry]

It does have that feel. With all the furniture etc he has now installed there is a steam punk vibe!

The effort and hard work that has gone into that room is astonishing. Well done to that man - I hope he can now 'kick back' and enjoy the fruits of his labours.

However, tastes are a very individual thing - I don't think I could relax in the room as it appears. But each to their own.

[Jimbo]

The effort and hard work that has gone into that room is astonishing. Well done to that man - I hope he can now 'kick back' and enjoy the fruits of his labours.

However, tastes are a very individual thing - I don't think I could relax in the room as it appears. But each to their own.

That is Steves third and final room. This last one took about two and a half years to build! Yes taste is a personal thing, very much like hifi?

[Jimbo]

The Room: The most important and most overlooked part of the audio chain. I have posted many photos (sorry for so many but I forget a lot if I dont photograph it). I have been in this room for over 23 years and did not seriously attack the "room" issues until about four years ago. It was the biggest and most satisfying improvement ever in my over 40 years of listening rooms. I have been in every position on every square inch of this room and after years of placement and positioning of things it was worth it all. I will say also that the textbook answer or theory is not always what ends up working as each room, gear, and pair of ears are different but there are plenty of places to read and at least get started. It may save you unnecessary money and more importantly to me it saved me time. There are no more hours of switching speakers, or positions, and on and on. just fire things up and listen. I and "WE" are types that will still always try new stuff and new ideas but once I knew this room and what it took to help it give me the best it possibly could the reward was huge. Anything now that is new or unrecognized like a component and even sometimes a cable is noticed also, and sometimes not in a subtle way.

Cheers

You are right Charles the room is the most overlooked part of the system but understandably so because it requires quite a bit of effort and disruption. I can see that you have indeed done much to yours and I expect you have spent many hours evaluating each part. Very time consuming but the final rewards are definitely worth it. I have all the theory and knowledge gleaned from my friend but putting into practise is another matter!

[Jimbo]

Right tonight is the night to read this thread !!

[Wakefield Turntables]

Jim,

Great thread! I agree with about temperature, my valve system seems to sound better in a warm rather than cold room. Room treatment is something I've been thinking about for ages but just never found time, maybe one day. Be interesting to see how your experiments pan out.

[Jimbo]

The room treatment is very interesting as it manipulates the sound so much. I have spent many years concentrating on all other aspects of my system, in particular vibration around the turntable and tweaked cables, valves and positioning but the room treatment really does give big bangs for small bucks. It not really a fine tune of the system it is a fundamental change in how the system and aspects of it interact with the room and therefore your ears!

Last night I was contemplating the significance of controlling the first reflections and its affects on the tweeter information. It is quite profound. It affects timing, direction/reflection, intensity and therefore the quality of both the detail and imaging.What I have observed is that controlling the high end sound waves obviously means you are hearing more coming directly at you from the tweeter rather than being bounced off the walls. This means the speakers are giving me a far more accurately constructed image of what is going on in the recording. Bouncing sound waves in this part of the audio band really does smear and obscure the imaging.

What I am now hearing from recordings is a much clearer picture of the layering in the recording. Instead of everything overlapping and generally muddying the sound I am now hearing layering of information and much much better imaging, so much so things in the mix that I was unaware of before have now been made crystal clear which in some cases is astonishing especially concerning vocals where the performer may have double miked themselves or added backing accompaniment of their own voice singing along. Before I sometimes heard this as one or nothing now it is distinctly separated.

I intend to do more evaluation of recordings over the weekend and can't wait to discover what other recordings I know very well have to offer with the change in room treatment.

[brian2957]

Great post again James, looks like you are making inroads into an area that few of us really explore. I may look into this in the warmer weather when I can use the garage to make up moveable frames for room treatment panels

[Jimbo]

Great post again James, looks like you are making inroads into an area that few of us really explore. I may look into this in the warmer weather when I can use the garage to make up moveable frames for room treatment panels

Definitely worth playing around with especially if you can knock something up cheaply. When you think how much we pay for even small changes to the sound of our system, room acoustic manipulation is a no brainer. Far bigger changes can be made to the sound of your system than just changing an amp or cable. I still think speakers and cartridge can have a bigger effect but in order to get the sort of soundstage and imaging up lift I have found then acoustic treatment is the way to go.

[Jimbo]

Excellent article on room acoustics. Far better than my efforts explaining the effects.

https://blog.keepcoding.ch/?p=715

[Macca]

Definitely worth playing around with especially if you can knock something up cheaply. )

yes no need to spend big money on 'dedicated' treatments in order to get significant gains. I have a roll bubble wrap sat on top of a roll of loft insulation in what was an empty and reflective corner and it works a treat.

Of course that's not for everyone.

There are ways around the WAF issues and for those blokes who care about the aesthetics. For example - first reflection points, place a couple of plants there. Maybe not quite as effective as a dedicated panel but still way better than nothing. And no woman in history has ever complained about there being more plants in the room.