Some tips to improve my HIFI setup?

3 hours ago, DuckToller said:

@Nicoalix Wonderful environment and excellent advice of Team Audiophile Style !

Would you consider to sacrifice the view for better sound ?
You could arrange your couch/sitting arrangement int the open space and to the left wall (seen from the open) and have your system with the TV at the opposite wall (would there be reflections on the TV ?). There may be security concerns to be adressed.
The advanatage would be no reflections from the wall behind your ears and you may get some proper sound as well at the dining table.. You may still have the need to compensate for the missing wall at the right from your sitting position.
There might be a couple of valid reasons not even to try it, but I love to offer different views at times ... ;-)
cheers, Tom

 

I totally agree that other layouts could be a game changer, luckily I have other spaces to create a much more optimized room (I'm truly realizing just how much, right now, after setting up the improvised bass trap), but right now I prefer this layout. I don't rule out creating a dedicated space in the future. Thanks for your point of view!

7 hours ago, Nicoalix said:

The bass trap has worked really well. Every little change is very significant. I've been listening to a lot of mp3 music on 200€ studio monitors all my life, this is all really new to me! I really appreciate the advice.

 

By the way, the trap is full of grandma's blankets.

 

Grandma would be proud ! We could talk about some of the technical aspects of building a bass trap later.

Just for fun temporarily place your improvised bass trap in the corner of the room (to the right of where you sit. Shove the couch down a bit to make room). Tell us what you think.

On 9/7/2024 at 12:47 AM, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

Grandma would be proud ! We could talk about some of the technical aspects of building a bass trap later.

 

Just for fun temporarily place your improvised bass trap in the corner of the room (to the right of where you sit. Shove the couch down a bit to make room). Tell us what you think.

Thank you! 🙏

I am looking forward to taking some time out to apply your advice further. I am now really realising what the sound stage is all about.

I'm back with the idea of making some panels this time for real. It occurred to me that a panel in this position could help to balance the sound and I have the impression that it does. I am wondering about the optimum properties of this panel, if it should have more diffusive, absorptive or what kind of properties. Any ideas?

3 hours ago, Nicoalix said:

I'm back with the idea of making some panels this time for real. It occurred to me that a panel in this position could help to balance the sound and I have the impression that it does. I am wondering about the optimum properties of this panel, if it should have more diffusive, absorptive or what kind of properties. Any ideas?

 

 

 

 

Afaik and recall your set up, you may suffer from having unbalanced first reflections when sitting on the main listening position.
Did you measure how much you loose compared to the right side ? I think you could do that with your phone for each channel.
In order to achieve a rather symmetrical environment, the first step imho would be to absorb / diffuse your reflections on the wall to the right and to reflect/diffuse more on the left (non existing wall), for example with a wooden diffusor (to be tested).
Perhaps have some diffusion behind the listening position, as well.
And yes, the measurement will help you to believe what you hear  ;-)

1 hour ago, DuckToller said:

Afaik and recall your set up, you may suffer from having unbalanced first reflections when sitting on the main listening position.
Did you measure how much you loose compared to the right side ? I think you could do that with your phone for each channel.
In order to achieve a rather symmetrical environment, the first step imho would be to absorb / diffuse your reflections on the wall to the right and to reflect/diffuse more on the left (non existing wall), for example with a wooden diffusor (to be tested).
Perhaps have some diffusion behind the listening position, as well.
And yes, the measurement will help you to believe what you hear  ;-)

I was just thinking that, that panel improves "now", at this moment when I have not controlled the first reflections of the right wall, which is the first step. My approach now is to add 1 panel on the right, 135x60, 4cm thick, 70kg/m3, another one behind me, in the listening position, two on the ceiling (first reflections) and one more on the left. Plus 4 bass traps, two on the right and two on the second level of the room, in front of me, left and right.

The blue block is a woodshed that will go in the future in that position, it is vertical, high enough, I hope it will make a bass trap.

Any suggestions on this idea?

1 hour ago, Nicoalix said:

 

I was just thinking that, that panel improves "now", at this moment when I have not controlled the first reflections of the right wall, which is the first step. My approach now is to add 1 panel on the right, 135x60, 4cm thick, 70kg/m3, another one behind me, in the listening position, two on the ceiling (first reflections) and one more on the left. Plus 4 bass traps, two on the right and two on the second level of the room, in front of me, left and right.

 

The blue block is a woodshed that will go in the future in that position, it is vertical, high enough, I hope it will make a bass trap.

 

Any suggestions on this idea?

To me it looks a lot like you are fighting room nodes that enhance the bass, is that a correct observation ? I am asking because, many people have nodes that are rather nullifying the bass resonse at specific frequences
I would think that for your LP, you should toe in the spekaers between 10 and 30 degree - as a starter
And don't forget to measure the differences, for which you feel the need to compensate.

- Test your levels close to the speaker (same difference should have the same result, for a testtone) and then on your listening position.
- You may get a deviation which will define your task / strategy

- there are a couple of free online tools available but you could ask as well, usually for free, a professional company and see which solution their AI machine would propse to your specific problem (like: https://www.gikacoustics.com/room-acoustics-visualizer/)
- when you have at most octaves close levels at left and right, you may get the desired result.

- Please have in mind, if your left channel has some deviation already when you measure it closely, you need to work first that route to level match your speaker - making sure that you are not chasing a technical problem with room treatment.
- Next step will be the room measurments (I would think mainly listening position) and than define a strategy against the felt/measured deviation from optimum.
- Even then, i may assume, it seems possible that your biological / cerebral state may make you feel that it still sounds different, because you anyway might have a visual difference to maintain. With measurements you may have at least a peace of mind ;-)
 

Thank you very much @DuckToller, your ideas are very helpful. The diagram represents more than enough all the hypothetical positions that could be solved, but the idea is to start with the most obvious and move forward through trial and error.

This week I will try to take some measurements, I plan to buy a BEHRINGER ECM8000, do you think it is enough for my current needs? I am open to ideas about the measurement.

Yesterday I made some panels and I am testing them, I have found that this wooden frame helps to compensate for the lack of bright in the right area.

41 minutes ago, Nicoalix said:

This week I will try to take some measurements, I plan to buy a BEHRINGER ECM8000, do you think it is enough for my current needs?

I have a Behringer ECM8000 bought a few years ago with similar ideas in mind… never used it. Let me know by message if you’re interested to buy it ?

4 hours ago, Nicoalix said:

Thank you very much @DuckToller, your ideas are very helpful. The diagram represents more than enough all the hypothetical positions that could be solved, but the idea is to start with the most obvious and move forward through trial and error.

 

This week I will try to take some measurements, I plan to buy a BEHRINGER ECM8000, do you think it is enough for my current needs? I am open to ideas about the measurement.

 

Yesterday I made some panels and I am testing them, I have found that this wooden frame helps to compensate for the lack of bright in the right area.

 

 

I use the minDSP Umik Usb, no idea about the Behringer. But sure @Krass will give you a good offer 😉

4 hours ago, Nicoalix said:

Thank you very much @DuckToller, your ideas are very helpful. The diagram represents more than enough all the hypothetical positions that could be solved, but the idea is to start with the most obvious and move forward through trial and error.

 

This week I will try to take some measurements, I plan to buy a BEHRINGER ECM8000, do you think it is enough for my current needs? I am open to ideas about the measurement.

 

Yesterday I made some panels and I am testing them, I have found that this wooden frame helps to compensate for the lack of bright in the right area.

 

 

Just try to verify your impressions with a mobil phone app, for a starter.

2 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Just try to verify your impressions with a mobil phone app, for a starter.

Can you recommend me any app?

47 minutes ago, Nicoalix said:

Can you recommend me any app?

But I am using Umik and Audiolense on Windows for RC

Housecurve for IOS

i just learned today,  that you could use the UMIK (I think its the one with USB-C) with your android phone (perhaps also with adapter on the Apple-sided world of phones) and the WIIM software with their rudimental room correction 10 band PEQ for each channale, afaik, the software is availble for WIIM devices starting with the WIIM Pro (WIIM Pro Plus, WIIM Ultra, WIIM AMP). Not sure if even the WIIM mini would do that.

I may test that later this week ...
Thus, there are affordable way doing measured measures that could be executed either manually or automated with some modern tech. Grandma may agree  (or not .... ) ;-)

19 hours ago, DuckToller said:

i just learned today,  that you could use the UMIK (I think its the one with USB-C) with your android phone (perhaps also with adapter on the Apple-sided world of phones) and the WIIM software with their rudimental room correction 10 band PEQ for each channale, afaik, the software is availble for WIIM devices starting with the WIIM Pro (WIIM Pro Plus, WIIM Ultra, WIIM AMP). Not sure if even the WIIM mini would do that.

I may test that later this week ...
Thus, there are affordable way doing measured measures that could be executed either manually or automated with some modern tech. Grandma may agree  (or not .... ) ;-)

Tested , UMIK1 - does work with my WIIM Pro , app vers 2.117.240926, Android 14, Xiaomi 13 T pro, as such the WIIM pro does offer 10 PEQ per channel for the audio signal path, attached to both the Line out an the digital outs. The wiim pro is a digital streaming device that can be had around 150 USD/Euro during Black Friday sales. MSRP 179 Euro

37 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

Tested , UMIK1 - does work with my WIIM Pro , app vers 2.117.240926, Android 14, Xiaomi 13 T pro, as such the WIIM pro does offer 10 PEQ per channel for the audio signal path, attached to both the Line out an the digital outs. The wiim pro is a digital streaming device that can be had around 150 USD/Euro during Black Friday sales. MSRP 179 Euro

 If you are on Apple, the Housecurve IOS app would accept the UMIK with calibration files, only an adapter from Lightning to USB-C would be needed..

This weekend I hope to be able to make some measurements with an ECM8000 microphone, I will come back with them.

I'll leave you two measurements here, they are quite different so I'll have to try more. Maybe you'll see some sense in it.

Today I was able to make a couple more measurements, this time I calibrated before the sound card (Steinberg UR22). Everything seems coherent except the waterfall graph, is it possible that it is that bad? or is it a measurement problem? I have not been able to do an SPL calibration.

After doing an SPL measurement with the mobile phone, these are the results.