[Westy]

When I lived in Virginia my office doubled as an audio room. I had my record player connected to a home made Tube amp driving some large ancient Technics speakers I acquired from my brother. Also played a bunch of music I had ripped at high rates from my CD collection from my Desktop PC.

After moving to Seattle I no longer had the space for a dedicated room and everything now runs off of modern smart receiver in my living room. A few years ago I replaced the old Technics with some nice for a box store Klipsch speakers. At the time I was pretty well blown away by the detail that those speakers provided and was pretty happy with my setup.

With Covid boredom settled in I recently spent some time trying to optimize my setup as the main speakers didn't play well with the Klipsch towers. I moved the sub and main speakers around until they just mesh really well together, and to my surprise repositioning the main speakers really lit them up and once again provided even more of a lively and incredibly detailed sound.

I am kind of hooked to see if I can get things sounding even better. I've been listening to crappy compressed MP3 from streaming services, just singed up to demo Tidal HiFi to get better source material and am currently saving all my old music files from the old desktop to setup a new media server.

I am curious to see how much further I can take this without spending much more money. I am pretty sure I am near the point where the return on investment starts to drop off dramatically, not to mention my room setup is likely my limiting factor. There are few industries that separate rubes from their money with a placebo effect more than "audiophile" suppliers.

I do need a better phono pre-amp.

It is interesting that most people will hear orders of magnitude more reproduced music that the real thing. Anyone else have a setup they have put some effort into?

 

[Nick]

knowing nothing about your home made amp, have you ever used a BBE sonic maximizer?

 

[jimmydean]

I had an OK 5.1 setup a few years ago, but I have not put any effort into my home setup post divorce.

I was really pissed when the in laws got bent when I asked about the old school Yamaha receiver at the FIL's house only to have them toss it in the dumpster.

I have 2 polk audio towers that I would like a stereo receiver for. But they just sit in the corner for now.

 

[jimmydean]

The year after high school I spent building car audio systems with my brother. 3 IASCA national titles, 2 were 1000+ watt consumer class, 1 was 100 watt pro class (he was proving a point the following year). A car is a much more controlled environment for tuning. I can't ever come close to that shit in a house.

 

[Westy]

knowing nothing about your home made amp, have you ever used a BBE sonic maximizer?

No, Interesting. So despite never having gotten into the audiophile crap I do have a good understanding of the science behind it. Controls/vibration was my focus in grad school and I worked for a company that made laboratory grade vibration test equipment, which were basically speaker voice coils that were attached various devices will full accelerometer feedback.

I have a separate large subwoofer with the crossover set at 45Hz and I have phase/delay control over that through my amp, of which I played with to get things tuned up. I also needed to dick around with my graphic equalizer as I have some hearing loss at some lower frequencies from Menier's Disease. Don't see being able to do much more with that than I can with my receiver. It is a Pioneer VSX-1131. I disable all the surround sound bullshit and just run it in stereo mode and tweak the various setting manually.

 

[Nick]

if you can either run your signal chain out 1/4" > BBE > amp out, or via a loop in the amp, you'd be shocked.
I literally have one not being used, cover shipping and I'll send it to you to experiment with.

 

[Westy]

if you can either run your signal chain out 1/4" > BBE > amp out, or via a loop in the amp, you'd be shocked.
I literally have one not being used, cover shipping and I'll send it to you to experiment with.

Other than the record player all my source material is digitally encoded from the receiver. Let me see what it would take to connect something like that in a loop. I am not sure what it would do for me but I do like fiddling. I may also see if I can get the tube amp to get driven from a receiver output. I enjoy having a fire/shock hazard sitting around the house.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

I do.
I also have entry level klipsch (awesome, btw), some danish made Dali, some NAD (lol) amp... and I drool over the Focal Aria setup I heard at my local audio shop.

Most of "free/cheap" upgrades I have noticed (I´m also very wary of the audiophile placebo) are sound deadening.
Place some mats (those kiddie foam things work awesome) under the towers, buy some refractive things for the walls behind the speakers, place them 2-3 feet away from the walls... and spend the money on speakers over amps.
Get the best you can afford for speakers. Klipsch has the RF3 (which are awesome) or some cornwalls/la scala (fb marketplace shows a lot of them used for sale in the US for very little compared to the "new" price). Used, they are pretty much depreciation proof.

If you are using compressed audio, I have noticed some difference going from entry level DACs to the expensive ones.
Try different receivers and see what "colors" you like. I like klipsch very much, second only to the Focals Aria.

I have been blown away by not so expensive setups, and completely dissapointed by 5 digit ones.
There is a guy on youtube, the audiophilliac (creepy nick) who reviews and recommends setups from all price ranges.
His impressions are pretty much compatible with my own observation, on the limited comparable items I have heard.

 

[Brian HCM#1]

Which Klipsch speakers are you using? I'm still rocking some original 1985 Forte's. Wife hates them, but still a great sounding, very efficient speaker.

 

[Da Peach]

Just buy an Alexa.

 

[Westy]

I assume with a setup like this the music reaches out and gives you a rub and tug.

Lamm Industries ML3 Signature Vacuum Tube Monoblock Power Amplifier

Lamm Industries ML3 Signature Vacuum Tube Monoblock Power Amplifier is a single-ended (SE) tube amplifier utilizing a very powerful direct-heated triode GM-70 (125W plate dissipation) and a separate power supply.

www.thecableco.com

 

[Nick]

Just buy an Alexa.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

Ok, one of the "mysterious" things I still do not understand on a math/physics level is the depth perseption.

What exactly and how makes some setups sound "wide", "deep" o "high"... is it the speaker? The amp? the preamp?

Most impressive memories I have of this effect are some 3 way morel elate speakers in a car (dont remember the amp, or what else was in there), and some oldschool klipschorns at a friends´s uncle house.

I really have no idea how that is achieved. It wasnt the source or some atmos/whatever variable volumen trickery. It was just a regular CD, the same one I have heard on many other setups.

 

[Westy]

Ok, one of the "mysterious" things I still do not understand on a math/physics level is the depth perseption.

What exactly and how makes some setups sound "wide", "deep" o "high"... is it the speaker? The amp? the preamp?

Most impressive memories I have of this effect are some 3 way morel elate speakers in a car (dont remember the amp, or what else was in there), and some oldschool klipschorns at a friends´s uncle house.

I really have no idea how that is achieved. It wasnt the source or some atmos/whatever variable volumen trickery. It was just a regular CD, the same one I have heard on many other setups.

Part 1:

It helps to understand the fourier series and think of things in the frequency domain. The fourier series is an idea (fact) that any waveform can be generated by adding up a series of pure sine waves with an appropriate phase shift. The frequency domain is basically the way of looking at each one of those sine waves individually vs a waveform which is an sound pressure amplitude over time. A lot of old graphic equalizers would have a string of LEDs that indicated the magnitude of the current frequencies being played. That is actually displaying the music in the frequency domain over a little nugget of time. There are phone apps you can install to visualize this for any sound the microphone can pick up.

 

[Westy]

The second concept to understand is linearity. Linearity can be summed up by saying how closely a speaker can duplicate a pure tone, a pure sine wave. If you input a pure sine wave at a specific frequency a linear speaker will generate a perfect sine wave at that same frequency. the Fourier series of a perfect sine wave, is just that sine wave at that same frequency.

A non linear speaker will output a non perfect sine wave, it may be close but if the waveform isn't exact it generates a non linear response. If you consider the fourier series of a close but not perfect sine wave it has that main input sine wave at that same frequency, but it will also have a bunch of other really low sine waves at higher frequencies added on top of it.

So for example if you output a 100 Hz signal, an nonlinear speaker will output a 100Hz signal at 100dB, and a 324Hz signal at 67dB, and a 499Hz signal at 50dB and a 2955 Hz signal at 30 dB. All of those extra frequencies are generated by the non linearity and create distortion.

On a simple level a voice coil or piezo driven speaker is linear as current is proportional to acceleration which drives the kinematics. But mechanical membranes are required the return the driver to center and near the ends of their strokes they are non linear springs. The electromagnetic forces are also not constant within the driver based on the position. There is a bunch of other shit too, but a better speaker is more linear.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

It helps to understand the fourier series and think of things in the frequency domain. The fourier series is an idea (fact) that any waveform can be generated by adding up a series of pure sine waves with an appropriate phase shift. The frequency domain is basically the way of looking at each one of those sine waves individually vs a waveform which is an sound pressure amplitude over time. A lot of old graphic equalizers would have a string of LEDs that indicated the magnitude of the current frequencies being played. That is actually displaying the music in the frequency domain over a little nugget of time. There are phone apps you can install to visualize this for any sound the microphone can pick up.

Ok, right... but how does that translate to the perseption of different depth/width/height from the same source?

What part of the setup does what to amplify/attenuate certain waveslenghts within the "main" wave in order to create the ilussion of depth?

I understand there is some volume/wave amplitude trickery built-in in some forms of 3d/surround sound.... but the ones I have perceived from the "impresive" systems exist on a different level, from what appears to be a non manipulated source.
Does the design of the cabinet/horn changes the mechanics of the waves? does the pre-amp play some certain-amplitude trickery on specific wavelenghts?

Its very hard to put into words the experience of a proper ($$) setup with clear sounds and defined spaces/depth/width.
It sounds like specific and discrete sounds come from different places in space.. when in reality everything is coming from the same speakers.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

The second concept to understand is linearity. Linearity can be summed up by saying how closely a speaker can duplicate a pure tone, a pure sine wave. If you input a pure sine wave at a specific frequency a linear speaker will generate a perfect sine wave at that same frequency. the Fourier series of a perfect sine wave, is just that sine wave at that same frequency.

A non linear speaker will output a non perfect sine wave, it may be close but if the waveform isn't exact it generates a non linear response. If you consider the fourier series of a close but not perfect sine wave it has that main input sine wave at that same frequency, but it will also have a bunch of other really low sine waves at higher frequencies added on top of it.

So for example if you output a 100 Hz signal, an nonlinear speaker will output a 100Hz signal at 100dB, and a 324Hz signal at 67dB, and a 499Hz signal at 50dB and a 2955 Hz signal at 30 dB. All of those extra frequencies are generated by the non linearity and create distortion.

On a simple level a voice coil or piezo driven speaker is linear as current is proportional to acceleration which drives the kinematics. But mechanical membranes are required the return the driver to center and near the ends of their strokes they are non linear springs. The electromagnetic forces are also not constant within the driver based on the position. There is a bunch of other shit too, but a better speaker is more linear.

Ok, I missed this.

 

[Westy]

Ok, right... but how does that translate to the perseption of different depth/width/height from the same source?

What part of the setup does what to amplify/attenuate certain waveslenghts within the "main" wave in order to create the ilussion of depth?

I understand there is some volume/wave amplitude trickery built-in in some forms of 3d/surround sound.... but the ones I have perceived from the "impresive" systems exist on a different level, from what appears to be a non manipulated source.
Does the design of the cabinet/horn changes the mechanics of the waves? does the pre-amp play some certain-amplitude trickery on specific wavelenghts?

Its very hard to put into words the experience of a proper ($$) setup with clear sounds and defined spaces/depth/width.
It sounds like specific and discrete sounds come from different places in space.. when in reality everything is coming from the same speakers.

I am not super confident in my understanding in this aspect but I will skip some of the more basic explanation of phase shift. But think of a speaker in the terms of a head lamp, it has a beam pattern. For good stereo sound a speaker has to have the right beam pattern reaching each ear. But their is also the ideal of wave cancelation when sound has two sources. Same idea as the famous double slit wave experiment in physics. You get areas of high amplitude and areas of low amplitude. And that pattern changes for each frequency. So ideally you want to be location somewhere in that projection where there is neither no cancellation or amplification. Proper projection from a speaker optimizes positions at a wide range of frequencies where that doesn't happen.

Speakers also use reflection from surrounding areas like backwalls to help with this process and why some speakers may sound great in one room and crap in another.

This is one of the reasons I think stereo type music sounds better, with different tones coming from each speaker there is less interaction that can muddy up the results. Also why I think surround sound with multiple sources kills detail.

 

[rideit]

I am sure many of the outlined principles still stand, but how do you get ‘soundstage’, like when you are listening to really good headphones, and you sound like you are ‘in’ the music? Basically ‘3d’ sound from two or four drivers?

(I hope that made sense)

 

[Westy]

I am sure many of the outlined principles still stand, but how do you get ‘soundstage’, like when you are listening to really good headphones, and you sound like you are ‘in’ the music? Basically ‘3d’ sound from two or four drivers?

(I hope that made sense)

Not really sure, perhaps the perfect setup in the perfect room. Headphones have the advantage of being able to control a shit ton of variables impossible in a set of speakers in a room. They isolate interactions between multiple sources and outside sound.

But there are some significant challenges with headphones.
-they are small, it is hard to make good low frequency sound with a small device
-Typically a single driver. Any driver is pretty much going to have a single resonant frequency, making it really good at outputting high volumes at that frequency and lower at the others. This is the problem with frequency response.
-The single driver also creates a large phase shift between frequencies below the resonant frequencies, and those above. This phase shift will fail to reproduce that ideal waveform as higher frequencies are essentially being generated with a delay. This creates distortion. A two or three way speaker uses multiple drivers for specific frequency ranges with less phase shift.

 

[Westy]

Ok, I missed this.

I was going to go on about phase shift and frequency response which I touched below. But I am tired.

I think one of the reasons why klipsch speakers sound so good is that a horn makes a driver very efficient, it can output higher amplitudes while operating within the more linear range of the driver. The harder you push a driver the less linear it will be.

But designing a horn is hard because the projection it produces can cause problems if not done right. So a lot of engineering has to go into to designing a good horn that doesn't cause distortion so the driver can operate in the linear zone so it doesn't create distortion.

A lot easier to design a driver without a horn that needs to be driven harder into the non linear range.

 

[Westy]

You can improve the frequency response curve and phase shift of a speaker/driver by adding damping to the system. It will lower and widen the peak amplitude and widen the good phase shift range. But that makes the system less efficient, requiring more power. I would assume that a lot of the really high end speakers take this approach as they require shit tons of power to drive.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

Thank Westy. Very informative.
I didnt know about the effects of linearity on distortion and woofer damping. Instintinvely I´ve felt horns were better value for the money. I now kinda understand why.

On my anecdotal evidence... I noticed you have to go really high end to approach the tonal quality of a fine horn speaker.
$1500 klipschs dont get notoriously overshadowed until you hit the 4k barrier with non-horn speakers, like the Focal Arias which are my "affordable" reference.

And even then, a high end horn speaker like the scalas or the klipshorn blows basically anything I´ve heard in my life, (granted, I dont have experience listening to 20k+ setups). I have read about "better" non-horns speakers... but I have actually never seen/heard one in real life.

 

[Westy]

Thank Westy. Very informative.
I didnt know about the effects of linearity on distortion and woofer damping. Instintinvely I´ve felt horns were better value for the money. I now kinda understand why.

On my anecdotal evidence... I noticed you have to go really high end to approach the tonal quality of a fine horn speaker.
$1500 klipschs dont get notoriously overshadowed until you hit the 4k barrier with non-horn speakers, like the Focal Arias which are my "affordable" reference.

And even then, a high end horn speaker like the scalas or the klipshorn blows basically anything I´ve heard in my life, (granted, I dont have experience listening to 20k+ setups). I have read about "better" non-horns speakers... but I have actually never seen/heard one in real life.

I've never really bothered listening to speakers at a high end store, they rig the situation with a room build I could never produce. Perhaps I should.

When I worked in the vibration testing gig we drove our shakers with audio amps. Quality of the output was extremely important to us and instead of going with high end audio amplifiers we just grossly oversized pro level amps. Doing some dicking around in the lab it seemed they performed in a very linear fashion when driven well below their limits. I only have a single sample size but a big underdriven cheap amp performed as well as calibrated high end audio stuff did. Not exactly an audio application but pretty close.

Also, all those dumb expensive cables and such are complete bullshit.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

I've never really bothered listening to speakers at a high end store, they rig the situation with a room build I could never produce. Perhaps I should.

I did some minor improvements over the suggestions of my local store, and it was notorious.
Thick foam mats under the floorstanding speakers and sonitus acoustics panels behind the speakers.

I have ceramic floors and single pane floor to ceiling windows which dont help... but it was still an good improvement for little effort.

I have found my appartment has a resonance somewhere between 90-100hz (which unfortunately overlaps the root note of the fartcan exhaust on the boxer engine of my neighbor, at the rpm he uses to enter the garage). I dont know if I get standing waves or what. Any ideas on what can be done about that?

 

[Westy]

I did some minor improvements over the suggestions of my local store, and it was notorious.
Thick foam mats under the floorstanding speakers and sonitus acoustics panels behind the speakers.

I have ceramic floors and single pane floor to ceiling windows which dont help... but it was still an good improvement for little effort.

I have found my appartment has a resonance somewhere between 90-100hz (which unfortunately overlaps the root note of the fartcan exhaust on the boxer engine of my neighbor, at the rpm he uses to enter the garage). I dont know if I get standing waves or what. Any ideas on what can be done about that?

Any main resonance is probably just from the size of the room. You can tell if you have a standing wave as it will be silent in a slightly different position. Either way adding acoustic damping to the room will help. Rugs would probably make a big difference on tile as will curtains over the windows. A canvas on an open wall will also help, stuff some insulation behind it and it will be even better.

In my experience doing something in the middle of a large flat surface gets you the biggest bang for the buck. If you have a standing wave issue corners are more likely to be your problem. The reflections from a 90 degree wall can generate the same interference pattern as in the double slit test.

I feel like my house has good acoustics. I have rugs on all the floors, high ceilings and drywall over 100 year old plaster for the walls.

 

[CBJ]

I have a Denon S10 integrated amp I bought in 1999 and then I purchased some used Jamo Power Concert 10 speakers last year. The room as the same time has the best sound in the house. Weakness is placement of speakers and I get the sound from an Amazon Alexa Dot. Speaker are standing too close and inside a big built-in bookcase. I actually have a fancy streaming box too but the Alexa is just so convenient to use that it helps me find more music which makes me then listen to more music. I really should do something even more serious as I listen to music all the time.

I could move the one speaker to the other side of the bookcase that spans the width of the room but it would require some drilling in the bookcase but I would want to test it before I do more. Besides the new speakers the room really makes a big difference. You notice it too when talking to each other plus my ears with age has gotten more sensitive.

 

[Pesqueeb]

Other than the record player all my source material is digitally encoded from the receiver. Let me see what it would take to connect something like that in a loop. I am not sure what it would do for me but I do like fiddling. I may also see if I can get the tube amp to get driven from a receiver output. I enjoy having a fire/shock hazard sitting around the house.View attachment 153651

I've always wanted to build one of these, but good lord are the kits expensive, especially for someone who understands what makes "good audio" as little as I do. I've always figured this will be a good "post mortgage" sort of project.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

I've always wanted to build one of these, but good lord are the kits expensive, especially for someone who understands what makes "good audio" as little as I do. I've always figured this will be a good "post mortgage" sort of project.

I like his reviews. He is very down to earth, and those small klipsch speakers he talks about punch way above their weight.

 

[mandown]

This is a pretty nerdy thread.
I’ve got a hi-fi System with an NAD amp and B&W towers. I also have some Adam A7X studio monitors placed near them. My room isn’t optimal for many reasons, but I’ve at least set the speakers on the narrow wall of the rectangular room shape. Unfortunately, one side has to be closer to the adjacent long-wall than the opposite speaker and this creates a big old bass trap. If we call the bass trap corner the north east corner (which it actually is), then being the south west portion of the room will be extra boomy, even though it’s not boomy a few feet over.

I’ve avoided a sub for a few reasons. My towers are decently responsive in the lows. The monitors wouldn’t benefit from a sub because they just become too hard to manage in the room, for mixing purposes (no treatment on the walks).

First reflection surfaces, and phase cancelling can be real issues to contend with. Room characteristics are tricky to manage without a good treatment, but the cost of a good treatment can get pretty high.

 

[jimmydean]

I have to say I have always dug your tube amp @Westy I recall you sharing that a while back.

 

[Westy]

I've always wanted to build one of these, but good lord are the kits expensive, especially for someone who understands what makes "good audio" as little as I do. I've always figured this will be a good "post mortgage" sort of project.

So I was trying to see if I could get the tube amp running on a component level output from my receiver, and like a dumbass I only had one speaker connected and burned up the output side of one of the channels. A tube amp needs a load connected, I am guessing unloaded the impedence of the output transformer drops overloading the output circuit. Just from visual inspection it looks like a power resistor fried and a few traces on the PCB cooked, but of course the battery is dead in my multimeter. I really have no room to actually use this thing anymore and it is probably easily fixed, the PCB is only two layered all with large traces, so if a trace is burnt a jumper wire can easily repair it. I have 3 spare tubes with it. I can do more of a post-mortem when I get a new battery for the meter.

If you are willing to take on the challenge to repair it, happy to re-home it.

Temporarily Disabled

www.s5electronics.com

 

[Sandwich]

You guys are fancy. I scooped up a pair of vandersteens many years ago and they sound great no matter what I connect them to. Right now they're on a Sonos amp because I'm too lazy to connect them to anything real. Looks like I have a bluetooth connection so I can finally use the surround system in the family room.

Would love to get into real audio but it's such a challenge to do it right that sometimes it's just easier to listen to streaming music on shitty headphones vs. having the perfect sound coming out of a crystal clear CD Player...

 

[StiHacka]

Hear hear!

 

[Westy]

 

[Westy]

Which Klipsch speakers are you using? I'm still rocking some original 1985 Forte's. Wife hates them, but still a great sounding, very efficient speaker.

RP-260

 

[rideit]

My buddy in college had a set of these bad boys.
He was a drug dealer.
go figger

 

[Brian HCM#1]

RP-260

Those are fairly efficient speakers, with the smaller 6.5" drivers positioning plays a big part along with having the sub set right with its frequency drop off (crossover point set up) and proper set volume of the sub. Sometimes chasing too much bass makes it sound too muddy, and loss of warmth one is looking for. Tube amps do tend bring more warmth over solid state with less power which is were speaker efficiency comes in. I sold home audio back in the late 80's with the newer rise of CD players. Always had my "go to" CD's when demoing speakers to show off their potential. Of course once you unbox them at home they never seem to sound the same than at the store. I still love hearing an old analog (like a turntable)/tube amp system with some great speakers. IMO, you just can't beat the sound.

 

[Brian HCM#1]

My buddy in college had a set of these bad boys.
He was a drug dealer.
go figger

View attachment 153777

I had a few friends with those, some of the best party speakers ever!

 

[Westy]

RP-260

The older Fortes were known for being harsh at the high end. You probably have some high frequency hearing loss and your wife does not.

I have found that music engineered to be on vinyl can sound better on vinyl. New music engineered for digital usually sounds shitty. See the "Loudness War"