The Pain of Neutral Sound

[Clive]

Matching rooms to those speaker measurements is vital. Forgetting the huge issue of tuning bass for now....It's easy to believe that speakers which are forward in the 2k to 8k range will over-excite a live room but in room with deep carpet, thick curtains and lots of soft furnishings. We've got to look at the suitability of speakers for specific rooms.

[realysm42]

Nice write up
Worth going to Windows 8 to get a even better sound from JRiver special deal till end of Jan

Sorry I know this is a bit ot, but you think windows 8 sounds better? I've no experience but am interested to hear more... Maybe by pm?

[Juha]

Thanks for comments and suggestions.

Windows 7 or 8
As far as I understand the J.River Media Center uses low level Microsoft operating system libraries to play standard audio files.
These services date back to Windows Vista. How could Windows 8 sound better??
I have compared Windows audio to ASIO. Cant hear any difference.

Velleman K8020 preamp
How good is it?
This preamp is sold as a kit. Maybe this is why it is not well known.
I bought mine second hand and it was assembled.

The K8020 has a simple valve preamp with very small amount of quality components.
The pictures of Croft preamps look similar. In addition the Velleman has a good relay based input selector and audio mute when valves are heating up.

Tone controls
Computer based audio players bring back all kinds of tone controls. This is good.
I wish I could find emulators of famous audio equipment. How about a Foobar 2000 plugin to emulate good CD players.
This has been done years ago on microphones, guitar amps, tape recorders etc.

Listening room
My listening room is not very live. I have soft furniture, curtains and stone walls with bare limestone pieces.

ESS Amt quality
These were hand made in California about 30 years ago. ESS used its own components. The woofers even have BBC Bextrene cones.
Here is a scan of ESS documentation.

[Clive]

Preamp - a lot depends on the circuit design, I don't know any details.

Room - your description suggests it's more live than neutral - what sort of carpets do you have and how much of the room has bare floorboards?

Speakers - they have a rising response.

Room and speakers may not be a great match...without some room treatment.

[jostber]

What power amp do you use?

[Juha]

My amp is a Quad 522. This is a rack-size Quad amp for pro use.
The 522 version has Sowter balanced input transformers.
Many references on the 522 point to the BBC.

I have been testing the LS5/8 500 Hz to 2500 Hz 3-4 db suckout from DSJR's post on page 1.
Installed a 31 band equalizer on foobar2000 and copied the suckout.

Did a frequency response chart on my ESS AMt today with HolmImpulse software.
This was 1 meter from speaker. Uncalibrated microphone AKG C1000S

[PaulStewart]

Lastly, the one big pro model of quality I really want to hear is the SP Acoustics active monitor. The designer did the original AE1 and relatives from the mid 80's and is using the Illuminator drivers, regarded as amongst the best out there these days, the mid unit covering most of it, with the bass and tweeter augmenting the mid, rather than crossing over where the ear is most sensitive..

Hate to contradict, but the AE1 and early Acoustic Energy stuff was designed by Phil Jones previously of Vitavox later of Wharfdale, Boston Acoustics and now Pure Sound. Just before he started AE he ran a live PA called dB Hire I was the sound engineer there at the time. One of the things about AE was the metal diaphragms and the ferro fluid, which is a concept I introduced Phill to at the time. Shortly after, he came out with the first prototype of the AE1. The SP site shows Steve Phillips as the designer.

[DSJR]

Thanks for putting me straight. My original post is too old for me to edit now I'm afraid. Have you heard the SP monitors, as I'm told they're rather good?

[PaulStewart]

Thanks for putting me straight. My original post is too old for me to edit now I'm afraid. Have you heard the SP monitors, as I'm told they're rather good?

've not heard them but my Tascam VX-5s are getting long in the tooth I would like to hear a pair of the SP1MA active monitors as a possible replacement, they look tasty

Paul S

[Pharos]

My joining this forum was prompted by my coming across this thread, it having a great resonance with my own path.
Please, any posters here, compare and discuss.