The Two Channel Advice Thread

thanks, this photo is several months old, I have them in the corners now firing 45 degrees into the room

for me, there is nothing on God's green earth like horn-loaded bass. they have more immediacy and tactility than any direct radiating bass solution I've heard. the only thing I've heard better are even bigger horns, like the Jubilee clones I posted in the BWC thread, same sound with even more effortlessness and scale.

yesterday I was playing live rock concert recordings like the Slowdive below at live SPLs, if I closed my eyes there was the same sensation one gets when standing near the stage and having a wall of sound wash over you, pressure in your chest from the LF and ringing in your ears from the HF, with no sense of compression no matter how loud. I love that shit. it's the complete opposite of the 80% cerebral listening experience one gets with that small dick speaker sound, music comes over you, fills the room and causes involuntary physical reactions.



some space is required of course. folded horns and making use of corners is the best thing to do for domesticating such a sound. the thing that is special about Klipsch is the ingenious cabinet design. their drivers were made by Electrovoice and never as good as Altec or JBL but a lot of JBL cabs are a complete joke and there are people who torture themselves trying to get Altec VOTT cabinets and multi-cell horns to sound good at home. and for people who dismiss Klipsch as rock speakers, I played all four movements of Bruch's Scottish Fantasy (Oistrakh/LSO) after the rock orgy was over.

 

Ayre V-5XE power amp any good? There's one sale for a lucrative price (just over 2k€) and I'm really contemplating on trying something different with my Raal SR1a's.

 

Soliciting some advice/comments on experience from other AVR users here that listen in 2 channel mode.

I've got a Denon AVRX-3300W that I'm using to drive 89 dBW/m 8Ohm speakers. Plenty of power for these.

The amplifier stage here is supposedly class AB. When using the "pure direct" mode with any source, be it a good DAC+PRE system, or a solid entry-level turntable setup, the thing sounds like dirt. Flat, hollow, anemic, etc. I've heard this across two rather nice sets of speakers. The unit has pre-outs, and the AVR as a pre (in pure direct) into a Crown CDi1000 provides similar disappointment, though more of the Crown's character comes through for obvious reasons. Still nowhere near what I'd call "good".

However, when I engage the room correction and the volume-dependent EQ bells-and-whistles, the output absolutely comes to life. Fantastic mid clarity and articulation, strong textured bass, excellent macrodynamics. Plays up everything my transducers are supposed to be good at.

I've heard for *years* that "pure direct" was the only way to listen to these things, that DSP was to be avoided at all costs, and that these volume-dependent compensation curves are bullshit for the deaf.

I'm not a basshead nor unaware of what a good system should sound like, though. This AVR with the DSP engaged is the closest thing I get to the tactility/clarity/speed of my Elex with a well-matched amp and good NOS DAC.

Why is this a problem?
I've been curious to explore a dedicated 2 channel separates system. When I think "my shit sounds THIS good with a lowly AVR+DSP", I begin to second-guess. Do I like DSP? Am I deaf? Will I spend considerable money on something that sounds flat and sterile without these AVR-type hooks?

Has anyone heard what I'm describing with an AVR stereo setup that has moved on to a dedicated system? I'm happy to stay where I am if this transition is full of pitfalls.

Longshot, long post, but thanks for any advice/experience here.

 

The biggest potential impact on 2-channel sound is the room. Sometimes it’s not that big a factor or you can work around it in simple ways (speaker placement, seating position, simple room treatments like carpets, curtains, etc or simple EQ adjustments) but sometimes those aren’t practical or possible. Having a giant flat object between your speakers (your tv) also doesn’t help and can’t be avoided. I see no issue with room correction if it does what it’s intended to do - screw the transparency/pure direct BS. I’ve actually heard some “pure direct” modes that I liked less than the regular stereo modes. Do whatever sounds good.

 

Thanks. And yes, absolutely, the above is what I'll generally do. I guess I still wonder about where a setup like this would fall compared to a mid level separates system, presumably where I had to consider the speaker placement more carefully, for example. I'll leave it open if there's any AVR > separates users out there, but I might just have to assemble a test system and find out "the hard way", I suppose.

 

My only suggestion is that simpler is usually better, when you're looking for "ultimate fidelity" to the source. And I'd agree that a cheap, but hard-way test system might be enlightening. I only recommend this 'cause I kinda came from the same space: big Marantz based HT setup with a bypass to a simple 2-channel rig, then eventually sold off all the HT gear in favor of a pure 2-channel rig. At this point it's about relative difference, imho.

 

Same boat with a Denon X3400W and some mainstream Energy RC speakers. Main use is surround sound for movies and games, and using Audyssey, everything sounds fantastic, including 2 channel music (though I still get better absolute fidelity via my headphones). Swapping to Direct or Pure Direct, I definitely lose alot. Maybe I am just hearing how bad my room is (definitely not good), or maybe something is gimped. If I get some time, I might take my Adcom 5200 that powers my desk speakers out to the main area and see if that makes a difference. I'd love to upgrade my 2 channel experience, but with my living space, I worry that money spent won't get me back the returns to justify it. Plus, any 2 channel upgrade kind of has to be at least a 3 channel upgrade as I really would like my center channel speaker to match my fronts. Movies and games are still the primary use in the living room.

 

All problems I've run into with my space. My wife can take or leave the TV downstairs so I've been thinking of making a move similar to @yotacowboy. The 3-channel issue is also something I've not seen a great solution for, either.

I'm happy to know I'm not the only one hearing a huge gulf between the un/corrected states with a similar system. I'd be interested if you ever get around to the ADCOM test. Hearing this, and the fact that results are poor even when I use a decent outboard amp, makes me think the room is truly decimating the SQ. If that's so, I'm astonished how awful the space can make a system sound, and surprised more systems don't include room correction of some sort!

 

Think about it this way - what is the DSP likely compensating for? Shitty electronics or shitty room (assuming speakers stay the same)?

Answer: likely almost entirely the room (And correcting for speakers to some degree as well). So why would getting better electronics (that don’t have DSP) help things? No doubt it would improve some aspects, but nothing that’s likely to reach where you want. Yes I’ve had the same question about why there isn’t more room correction DSP built into 2-channel systems - I remember asking Schiit about whether they would consider this a couple years back. Nothing affects the sound more than the room (assuming your speakers and electronics aren’t total garbage of course).

Actually it was a post by @yotacowboy about using a Umik, REW and Roon to do some targeted parametric equalization that got me motivated to try doing this myself (which is a bit of a long manual process) but the difference was significant. Much more significant than any amplifier change I’ve made over the last few years.

 

Dirac has been night and day for me. I had fears of digititus messing up the sound but those turned out to be unfounded as long as you limit how much it corrects. I can detect some if i allow it to correct more than 1khz. If your room is damped enough i don’t see the reason to go higher anyway. But try for yourself ofc...

 

I got to digging on this and tried to find out what kind of response my room imparts from the target curve the AVR uses. Here's how the system is correcting my space:

(Edit: this is an Audessey XT32 correction scheme)



I'm surprised to see the upsloping HF behavior compensation up to 10 dB on the left channel (!). The right speaker (bottom) has a first-reflection point on a pane of glass, so perhaps this is why the HF compensation is up to 3 dB lower than the left. I have a surprisingly "live" basement room with plenty of slap-echo, lots of glass and not much by way of absorption/diffusion aside from carpet. I doubt I'd be able to obtain a similar EQ without enormous effort and alterations to my room, and I don't hear any digital nasties with even this aggressive correction, thankfully.

I'd be interested to see results like this from others' rooms, but if veering off-topic, thanks again to all above for the input.

 

The boost on the highs is also odd to me. Measurement error? But if it's not too bright then idk.
Either way doing as much as you can acoustically and then applying correction is ime the way to go. Slap echo is something I'd look into fixing first, hate that shit. Talking and sounding like a robot.

 

I have a Denon x3400w and pure direct doesn't sound that much worse to me - the main thing the Audyssey corrects for me is the bass, so really the only difference between the corrected/uncorrected sound is boomy bass. In fact, I think the treble is _worse_ to my ears (i use the Audyssey app to cut correction at low-mids). I've played with Dirac, and I liked that more.

I spent some time this weekend blind A/Bing the Denon and an Emotiva XSP-1, and while I liked the Emotiva more, the Denon hung in there pretty well - it's not a bad preamp. So, another vote for room correction from me!

 

I'm going to be able to take over a little room that I can fully dedicate to listening/working in 3 weeks, and I was wondering what kinds of ideas you all might have for speaker placement in a room like this.

I currently have bookshelves on speaker stands and a 15" sealed sub to position in this space.

FYI, there's a window on the 9' wall, but I have no problem putting up a thick curtain in front of it.



Thanks!

 

I have recently been setting up new speakers in a new space, so naturally thinking about similar issues. Here is a little doodle I put together of the first thing I would try (with curtains in front of the window). This is just one option, and you could play with a different orientation with the speakers on the 12.5' wall too. I find that even monopole speakers (irrespective of ports) like to be a good way out into the room. The main advantages to my ear are improved bass performance, soundstage, and more precise imaging. So the distance from the back wall I chose here is based on the 1/3--1/5th rule (roughly 2.5'--4' in your room with this orientation). The corner is probably a decent place to start with the sub, but as always you'd need to fine-tune. Best of luck with your new setup!

 

Sorry, I couldn't resist...

 

Needs to be in the one-channel advice thread

 

Ok this wins Post of the Week. Hilarious because it’s true!!

On a serious note, I agree with @monacelli recommendation to start off with - you want symmetry beside (and behind) the speakers and between them and you. What’s behind you doesn’t matter as much, and is probably better being asymmetrical to reduce room modes/reflections. Depending what’s on the walls, and assuming no treatments initially, you may need some toe-in to avoid too much reflections since the side wallls are fairly close to the speakers (assuming the speakers have a wide horizontal dispersion tweeter - if it’s horn loaded or has a waveguide, you could have less/none.)

Aside from the symmetry issues, setting up along the long wall I don’t think would work as well. You or the speakers would be to close to the walls behind and you would sacrifice soundstage in this setup (not to mention get more reflections from behind, although you would reduce sidewall reflection) and you’d have to sit pretty close to them. Possibly too much bass as well if the speakers were too close to the wall, or you were.

 

Stereo wizards:

I'm passively bi-amping my speakers at home with an AVR. It sounds a tiny bit cleaner to me, and it frees up the potential to slightly alter the balance of the speaker.

Without going on a tangent, and after some serious pain-in-the-ass-and-back speaker placement experimenting, I'm extremely happy with the sound, but mostly when played somewhat louder than is comfortable for the rest of my family elsewhere in the house. I'd like to rebalance the speaker somewhat so that the mids/highs either project - or I perceive - a similar frequency balance relative to the woofer, when played at lower volume.

I cannot independently set the levels on the biamping setup I have, so I wanted to ask about speaker-level attenuation. Does a product like an L-pad work for an application like this? Are there passive pre-amps that will attenuate a speaker-level signal? I'm really only looking for 3 dB insertion loss.

The impedance curve of the speaker is well behaved above the mid/high crossover point at ~8 Ohm, and should be essentially resistive. Will a simple resistor matching circuit work here, or is there a more straightforward (by which I mean off-the-shelf) option?

Thanks guys.

 

I would also start with monacelli's layout. Maybe consider also the "listening position at 38% of the 12' room length" rule of thumb, either from the front or from the back wall. Usually recommendation is to put the listening position in the front half of the room, but in this size room may not be the feasible.

I think speakers close to the 12.5 wall might work also if you can shelve down with EQ the bass gain from the wall reflection. But would probably need to treat the wall behind the listening position as it would be pretty close.

Not sure how much you want to fine tune the acoustics and what is your aspiration level for the room with respect to acoustical treatments. Below some thoughts on those.

Usually good to have some furniture to break the reflections and absorb the sound a bit. A couch or chair with thick pillows/stuffng, bookshelves with books, paintings, carpets or similar. Empty, flat walls and floor would probably not sound nice due to flutter(?) echoes.

What kind of material are the walls? You may get quite a bumby bass-lower mid range response from the side wall reflections if they are stone, concrete, brick etc. hard/dense materials as the speakers would be pretty close to the walls. Unless you go for near-field type set-up with only ~3' between the speakers. (I might actually go for that, but I tend to prioritize the acoustics over general usability of the room.) I would personally consider robust (more than just an inch) absorbing panels at the side wall 1st reflection points to even the response a bit.

Not sure how to deal with the window reflections, assuming the speakers are higher than the lowest part of the window glass pane... Thick curtain will help, but not sure how much. I have seen several layers of specific acoustic treatment types of curtains in some houses....

Modeled quickly a rectangular room with similar dimensions and 7.5' height in REW for fun (attached). REW has a nice, simple but usable modeling tool for rooms acoustics below 200Hz (which is where most (but not all) of the challenges lie).

Not sure how the diagonal wall will impact, probably beneficially, but there still might be room modes at 45Hz, 90Hz, 135Hz, ... and 64Hz, 128Hz, ... If you want to tame those, bass traps (absorbers) in the corners might do the trick. Or resonators. But modes below 100Hz would probably be pretty much untameable (well, you can EQ the peaks down, room mode dips (nulls) you cannot fix with EQ and maybe get a biggish resonator for those) as absorbing traps for those would pretty much fill the room

The simulation is only a simulation and I set the surfaces to be very much reflective to show the possibly extreme case. Reality will be different esp. because of the diagonal wall. If you have furniture etc. in the room, it will probably be better.

Edit: spelling....