Last night was spent listening to some great music and critically appraising where have now got to with the system and the room acoustics. My system has not changed for a good while because I am very happy with it and feel it plays and presents music much to my liking. I do like to try new things but my continuous "box swapping " days are over. I learnt many years ago that you can convince yourself that every shiny new thing that comes along sounds better but in actual fact it usually just sounds different and it is those differences that torment the mind and lead to dissatisfaction with ones own system.
It is great when you get to a point where you really like how your system plays music and you can sit back and enjoy it rather than continuously analysing the sound and whether it is resolving detail enough etc. This is like photography enthusiasts who do pixel peeking, they are more concerned with the tiny details rather than the bigger picture and I fall into the later camp. For me the Big picture is what matters.
So my system is pretty much a fixed point but over the last few months I investigated the last area I think any of us consider in our hifi journey, room acoustics. I have spent 40 years buying and listening to hifi equipment and I never did anything in those years to change or consciously control my room acoustics. Ok I may have drawn the curtains but that was about it. I went through tonnes of equipment seeking the best set up I could and tried everything from polishing fuses to mad cable swapping in order to get a better sound. I have had numerous amplifiers, speakers, turntables and cartridges and a few DACSand it was always about how these items sound and how they changed the sound but never about the room. I think I have always known the room was an influence but it is only in recent years I realised how much it was responsible for what you hear. I consider it as influential as any of the equipment you put into your listening room.
After drawing a line in the sand with the equipment I decided hesitantly to just see what could be done to my room to change the sound for hopefully better. I have written a fair bit about how it has changed the sound of my system on previous posts so these are just a few thoughts on how I consider it has influenced the music and performance I am now hearing off the record.
My first choice is a jazz album I use regularly with Duke Ellington on piano and Ray Brown on double bass. It is a very simple set up and miked in the studio with a very clean and realistic presentation. When you listen to the album "This ones for Blanton" it is as if you have the two performers playing intimately for you in your own room. Clever and thoughtful recording. So the track I listened too is called 'do nothing until you hear from me". Recorded in 1975 so pure analogue if you get the original pressing.
Playing this record before and after the room acoustic work is interesting and I will try and describe the differences before and after. So before the room was treated it was a very live and immediate sound but almost too forward verging on a bit of harshness on some notes. A few piano keys jarred a bit as if the recording was a bit too hot. But as I was to find out it was not the recording but the room that accentuated this and over egged the recording. With the room treatment not only did all harshness disappear the whole weight and tonal quality of the piano improved. Also the acoustic space and dimensionality of the piano improved. It appears in the left of the recording and with the acoustic treatment there is a lovely palpability and richness to the harmonics from the instrument. It is almost a few octaves lower than before.
This also had a bearing on the double bass which is positioned in the centre of the recording. The bass now sounds deeper and more woody/ resonant. The harmonics are more vibrant and untangled so the singular complexity of the instrument is revealed in a more believable realistic way. Nothing is lost in the recording and in fact small details I heard before are still there but it as if the whole recording has been fleshed out in a more natural and wholesome way. There is a touch more richness to the whole sound that is expressed through improved tonality.
This was the first of the recordings I have ear marked to assess the work I have done on the room acoustics and I will listen pop down my thoughts on others later. But that is probably enough to bore you on this post.
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Originally Posted by Macca
