Further fine tuning of the system has bought about a significant change to the overall sound . I have concentrated over the last year or so on room acoustics and system set up in particular speaker positioning placement and gained huge rewards. These have far out weighed any gains I have made in controlling vibration, tube rolling, cable changes or indeed equipment changes! I know I have been banging on about this for a good while but I am now more convinced more than ever that the interaction of your system with the room is the biggest fundamental factor in what you hear. Through my evaluation of acoustic treatment and system set up I have gained so much but it has been painstaking and may not be over yet.
I know for many it is a ball ache to swap and install acoustic material or even move speakers around but through trial and evaluation I have been amazed at the difference and a small changes can have a large impact . But room acoustics are a complex thing with so much to take into consideration and each step that you make has consequences as I found out last week. As I have written before the areas I have had the most improvement in were soundstage, imaging, ambient acoustics, transparency, tonal quality and layering of harmonic information. All subtle stuff and highly subjective but It is what I observed.
One area that was not really on my radar was detail. I know for some folk this is everything and it drives their motivation to buy gear that forensically throws more and more detail. For me I prefer the bigger picture and all the other aspects of sound quality I have listed too, but in the last few days I was shocked at another small change I made which has had a huge impact on everything. To quantify this I must just say that with controlling room acoustics although it improves many aspects of the sound quality it does have some negative aspects mainly detail retrieval . Obviously most detail is found in the higher frequencies and this is where the room treatment can adversely affect detail retrieval. Controlling everything else can scrub off some of the detail but I found a way of bringing it back without adding any brightness or harshness what so ever!
My Heco speakers have an option to lift the treble by 2db on the crossover which they recommend using in acoustic environments probably like my own. Now before the room treatment I found this option too bright and it sounded harsh but with the room acoustic treatment is has simply elevated the high end frequency information to another level and I am shocked at how much! Even some of my poorer recordings now sound superb and the really great recordings are now off the scale!
This has now tipped the balance of the sound in all areas as the uplift in detail accentuates so many other aspects of the sound quality and makes everything sound more live. It is really hard to describe the sound now but it is extremely vivid, live sounding, very transparent and holographic. Hard to put into words but sitting there last week listening I could close my eyes and there was nothing obvious there between me and the performer but an uncanny presence in the room. This was also witnessed by audiophile buddy who sits off axis and was also gobsmacked by the uplift.
Everything is a culmination of small factors that add to the listening experience. My step by step approach to room acoustics and system set up has now given me a truly outstanding level of performance that I would not have believed could be gained from the tinkering I have done. I would say to anyone who really wants the best from their system to pursue this area of their hifi as I have found more gains from room acoustics/system set up than from anything else I have done in my 40 years messing about with this hobby!
Last edited by Jimbo; 10-02-2024 at 18:06.
Reason: Poor grammar!
Main system : VPI Scout 1.1 / JMW 9T / 2M Black / Croft 25R+ / Croft 7 / Heco Celan GT 702
Second System : Goldring Lenco GL75 / AT95EX / Pioneer SX590 / Spendor SP2