Yeah the room has a massive influence on the overall sound. I’d like to do some acoustic treatment eventually, but it would have to be all hidden behind paintings hanging in various places on the walls.
id love to have it in a different room but im stuck with this one for now!! seems a few people have some nice stuff other than lights
IMHO spending megabucks on cables isn’t going to improve your system noticeable, using reasonable quality cables in blind tests compared with ridiculously overpriced cables, the difference has always proved undetectable.
I realy doubt placing speakers on bare timber floors is going to do to much for the performance of your speakers just as the timber floor will make for an overly bright sound, I personaly think carpet is far better in your listening room.
ATC are a pro audio company. Since owning ATC’s I’ve moved from hifi make cables(with often high price tags), to pro audio cables. A good quality pro cable is far better than a cheap no brand cable, but mega $ cables aren’t worth it, even if they do perform well.
I have found that a good quality power cord helps though.
Putting speakers onto a wooden floor isn’t good. I have a concrete paving slab under each of mine. It helps tighten the bass up and stops some of your sound transmitting into the floor.
If you do have a wooden floor, a big rug between the speakers and listening position works wonders.
Here is one i read on one of the other forums
I would have never thought this could happen to me, it always happens to the other guy. I was alone, sitting in my local tavern, and there she was. Just sitting there at the bar, very attractive. She was a 9/10, excellent, perfect condition, no scratches, nicks, or blemishes, and enough inputs to satisfy any man. After many drinks, I decided to get enough courage to speak to her. I approached her, and she was willing to talk! Better yet, she talked audio. I asked her about her system and her music, and boy was she willing! She whispered in my ear that she wanted to sample my equipment! At that point, I realized that she was a 7/10, one or two minor scratches, looked a little used, but well maintained. Perhaps it was the alcohol wearing off, but my desire to tweak her system became overwhelming. I told her that I was a two-channel kind of guy and asked her if she liked anal log. . I was surprised that she didn’t walk away. She responded by telling me she liked two channel but wanted to experiment with 5.1!!!, Then she asked me if she could sample my power cord! Without much thinking, and just emotionally reacting, I agreed to audition it! We took the transport over to her place. I had my electoglide fat man ready. It was only broken in my system and I wondered if this was going to work out, be moment of nirvana that I was waiting for. I’ve wang chunged too much lately, and had a bad case of DSD, sick of looking at tube traps in magazines, and my cable cooker was broken. It was late, and her place was brightly lit. Upon further inspection, I realized that she was now a 3/10, rather beat up, but all functions work, maybe a knob missing. Still, she had a serious bottom end, great midrange, and not too bright. I walked in the room and saw her system in the good light. I said, “nice rack’! I noticed she had large cones, and those aurios, properly positioned, … well, I better not touch them yet. I was ready to rock her world. She opened up to me, mentioned that she had sampled other men’s cords, something that I didn’t want to hear. Her experience with the power snakes especially the black mamba and the whale elite really shock me up. The sidewinder with venom upgrade, well, that’s gotta be long and hard to maneuver. She claimed good results with the eel and power oval. Boy, I was hoping that her receptacle was clean, I mean, the last thing that I wanted was the “grundge”, or a bad case of EMI. It was too late to get out the Audioprism sniffer. I got over that quickly. She was too much! I started to get my cord ready for installation, the need to elevate the cord, and to prevent any kind of RFI leakage was important. . I know factually that Electraglide tend to be better as length progresses. No break in needed. Didn’t want it to under perform… Plug in time… Well… what an upgrade path!!! What slam, nirvana! Extremely detailed. What started out as hard and edgy changed to being very liquid. Afterward, She proceeded to give my cord five stars for performance and five stars for value.
You sound like your into it fartybum if your on dedicated forums, post up your set-up
stopped with stereo madness a few years ago. its limitless.
back in the day i bought a CAR (beautifully kept Dodge Dart) and a TURNTABLE (Townshend Rock) within the space of a week.
i spent more for the turntable.
then woodworking equipment. which makes my bicycle habit (eight) look tame.
I am budget in everything I do, or should I say most bang for the buck. Here is a picture of my left front speaker. The box also contains 2 - 12 inch subs that are in their own separate sealed enclosure. So the system contains a total of 4 –12” subs. Acoustic suspension boxes require more power for a given output, so the subs are driven by a Crown CE 2000. Next to the enclosure is a DVD case of Joe Bonamassa, The great Blues guitarist. Above the subs is the mid range, also in its own sealed enclosure. I like guitar music, so why not use a guitar amp speaker for the mids? In addition there is a 1 inch titanium tweeter. The enclosure is made of 1 1/4 Inch MDF and painted with many coats of sandable primer and finished with black lacquer. All of the speakers are brought out of the box with their own binding posts. The crossover is surface mounted on the back so that I can fuss with it.
Here is a image of my center channel speaker, it consists of 2 - KLH 6” speakers mounted to a 4” ABS pipe. I used and old cast iron table base from a restaurant and used about 5 feet of thread rod to make the speaker stand.
The rear speakers are 4 - 5 1/4” Advent Calypso’s mounted on a metal bar, then mounted on the wall. I got those at an Ocean State Job Lot store here in Connecticut. Ocean State deals with odd lot stuff and had a super special on these at $10 each! As soon as I saw them I Knew what to do with them. I ran around that day buying all I could find at other OSJL stores in the area. I ended up with about 30 ($300) what a deal!
One of the easiest system upgrades is a glass or two of wine (or alcohol of your choice).
Dont buy new speakers whilst ‘high as a kite’ on morphine after a visit to the hospital……
Woody
Nice job on the speakers dchomak
BTW, I found a custom counter top company for the MDF and the cuts. They provided the MDF and made the cuts for the boxes. The bed for their table saw is about 16 foot square. I didn’t have to handle the raw materials and the boxes went together like a kit. Perfect fits, no fuss, no muss! Nice way to go, in the past I always tried to do the cuts myself, but it does’t come out as well. Cost me about $100 for the material and the cuts, not bad!
Here is a pic of an uncompleted first version of my speakers. On paper it seemed awesome, 15” sub, 12’ mid etc, but when I assembled the first box I realized that the box was just too big for the room. It would have sounded great, but it just didn’t look right. (I am sooooo proud of myself for being so reasonable! )
In the background you can see extra 12” subs on hand, at the time I was sure I would have blown some by now, oh well, guess I,m getting old. To the right is my toolbox, HOMAK brand, my namesake!