The Two Channel Advice Thread

Also a good point, @haywood.

And I hate to say it but it could also be bad power / lack of power conditioning, but I wouldn't open up that can of worms yet if you can avoid it. How old is the wiring in the house? Is the circuit in the listening room shared with anything else or on the same phase as heavy appliances? Do you live in a big city or close to a commercial area?

I would also just say it's the speakers, but you're noticing it on two different speakers. However, both of those speakers are known to be a little harsh/bright. I've certainly never jelled with B&W during demos at dealers, and I feel the same way about the smaller Klipsch I've heard as well. Have a buddy that has a pair of speakers with a midrange made of natural materials like paper and a soft-dome tweeter you could try?

 

It's a good point, and I did consider it. The Yamaha is the one most likely to be suffering from component failure though, having lived it's second life in my garages for the last 20 yrs. While the B&Ws are also sort of sus in the age department the Klipsch have renewed xovers and exhibit the same behavior. Amp is newest and the pre/DAC is only really "vintage" in DAC years not to mention being pro/studio gear engineered for robustness and long life. I've kind of discarded this for the time being.

Power is a good suggestion and worth reviewing- 1989 vintage and not exactly proven quality. I'll review what else is on the circuit; could be chest freezer, probably some LEDs but no dimmer (though I'd usually listen in the dark). Far from city/commerce. Is there a way to test? I have a Fluke but not a scope.

I have a set of NHT Super One 2.1 I could try; they have a soft dome.

gsanger said I could try the Superscope, and the NHTs would probably be great with that, so another good idea, ty.

What are you listening to that Forte IIs are small, lol?

 

Have you tried experimenting with the toe-in of the speakers? Some speakers are too "shrill" if they are pointed right at you. Having "the sonic beams" cross either a few feet in front of you or behind might tame that.

You can use a laser pointer to determine where that beam is going. I set one on top of my speaker then turn the speaker to get the little dot to be where I think it should be on the wall behind my listening position.

Room treatment always helps and working with Gik is a good idea.

Ditto'ing what @haywood said. There are components in those B&W that are hitting their lifetime limits (30 years).

A big rabbit hole to get into is to use Room Eq Wizard software, a laptop and a calibrated USB microphone to find the problem with measurements. REW is free, you probably already have a laptop, and a calibrated mic can be had for less than $100. That rabbit hole is worth it if you have the time.

 

Yes i'd measure first with rew before doing random guesses with gear or setup. Maybe something shows up that's easily traced back to it's source.
Another thing is since it wasn't a problem at first maybe have your ears checked. Ear wax or sinus issues can have a huge effect obviously.
Get some baselines and take away some low hanging fruit.

 

Now that I've been living with a sub for a week, had a friend bring a measurement mic and we've got the room "flat" now. Something I've noticed is kinda this odd feeling pressure, but only during tv shows or movies, not so much watching anything live/sports or music. At first I was wondering if I had the sub turned up, or maybe something was out of phase... but then I thought, maybe the bass is just bad? I noticed there's just so much ridiculous bass permeating in the background music, the sound effects, etc. Is this a thing? is general tv and movies just cranked to oblivion on the low end to make up for the fact that most people probably don't have super deep subwoofers?

 

Generally, TV bass is fucked up - the guiding principle of its producers apparently being, the more and the lower the better. Either turn it down/off and/or use a system with a different sub. I have 2 subs, not for stereo - 1 for music, one for TV.

 

I have to use a high pass at 20hz or i get some weird sensations. Like a secondary very low bass note or some weird doubling resonance. Hard to describe.

 

My experience is TV shows generally have very little bass, but that might be due to what I watch. Seems very odd you don't notice it with music.

 

Maybe because the music is "natural" and the tv stuff is all artificially added/boosted?

 

Standardization for TV programming is all over the place, even with streaming services there are different protocol used and different channels handle things differently. Advertisements are even worse with that volume and lack of quality standards. And I feel that cable services are worse than free OTA channels! I know that OTA has at least a Dolby standard, not sure for cable and satellite!

 

TV sound is messed up for sure. One of the reasons I preferred Netflix disks to any form of streaming (btw, dvdinbox.com is as Netflix-disky as one could imagine, damn Netflix for not selling their disc business).

I get that pressure-on-the-eardrums thing whenever the bass is too much/bad. It's what got me started on REW and multi-subs because it's really unpleasant to me.

 

I guess I really am not a basshead! Can't say I ever setup a sub and it causes ear pressure! We do 15" in-wall monsters all the time and I wonder if my clients are all bummed because the bass quantity is too low!!!

 

1000% this. Sudden sub bloat and pressure got me into tweaking frequency and timing of multi subs via REW and MiniDSP. I got into isolation/decoupling because I’m sensitive to room excitation and its resulting distortions. This was one area that, from the outside, looked like nervousa, but was all about achieving extension while maintaining quality of life.

 

Music is 'natural' if you're listening to pretty old stuff. The 90's were the transition. @Psalmanazar has written some great stuff here, although very depressing.

 

I'm not sure if this needs/warrants its own thread but I'd love to know how folks have moved their expensive stereo gear overseas. We're planning on New Zealand in November. I'm especially concerned about my Cornwall IVs. We're getting a shipping container and I'm just not sure what to expect re: safety and whether I need to be making specific alternative arrangements assuming it's not utterly cost prohibitive (i.e. the cost of the gear itself).

Any perspective would be greatly appreciated! And feel free to PM if that's more appropriate.

 

Do you have the original crates? If not, I'd consider getting a pair made or perhaps the factory could even send you one. Pool noodles from the dollar store may also be a cheaper alternative to trying to get custom foam. Or... wrap everything in garbage bags with something solid in front of the woofer, and go nuts with a couple cans of spray foam.


Or... sell it all and start over with a new adventure! You gotta get stuff to handle the different voltages anyways.

 

So, I guess I'll find out how they did when my stuff finally joins me from storage, but... an international mover, I believe, will insist on doing the packing themselves. You can, of course, prepare by doing the valuable stuff yourself. But they'll then put everything in their own boxes and/or wrap it. I had all my original boxes, so touch wood it all survives the trans-Atlantic crossing. It shouldn't be substantively different than going cross-country by truck. You also pretty much have to get insurance, so there's that, too. I've got some pricy stuff and a hell of a lot of records. Hopefully, yeah, it makes it.

I scaled down, but I didn't sell my best stuff, even the 120V-only pieces. I figure I can either get them converted internally or just run them from transformers. There seems to be all sorts of Opinions as to whether that degrades the sound, but the best I can tell, from reading up on it quite a lot, is that if your transformers are double the power rating of your equipment, you should be okay.

I hired a reputable mover, but I can't say the actual guys who showed up were amazing. Definite ex-con vibe, but what can you do? I was on a budget myself, and I guess you roll the dice whichever way. Your container could always fall off the ship, etc. A friend used this service, found them fine for a move to Berlin, and that was enough for me. But, again, we'll see when I actually get my stuff.

 

Thanks. Those are some good DIY ideas I hadn't thought of. I do have the original boxes and packaging for the Cornwalls ... they're just so damn big. But I can't part with them. Fortunately, I'm working exclusively with universal voltage components thanks in no small part to the good folks here buying some of my stuff and allowing me to fund what I needed. So it's really just the speakers. I know how to pack everything else bulletproof.

 

Ah, interesting. I'd love to do a little post-mortem with you to see how it all went, what survived, what didn't etc. I have a substantial amount of records and CDs, too, but I've moved enough that I sprung for some good shipping crates some years ago from Bags Unlimited. They've taken a ton of abuse and are still going strong. Fingers crossed that your stuff arrives intact and functional.

 

Thanks. Sometimes I think about how I'll feel if my immaculately curated record collection and hifi arsenal shows up trashed, and I get... stressed the hell out. But mostly it all sits in a climate-controlled warehouse and I don't think about it all.