Resonance control I

Alright, alright, you might have learned that some speakers are made like musical instrument craftmanship. Noble idea, doesn't it sound delicious? Bosendorfer speakers are made like a piano, Ocellia speakers, Tonian speakers and Kiso speakers like guitar and violin, even Triangle Electroacoustique, a long shot, incorporates the cello endpin to their speakers. A noble approach to speaker making.

Two things in common with these speakers, first, they favoured thin wall and "breathable" speaker enclosure and second, they do not favour damping materials. They make the resonance works for them instead of eliminating it. Fascinating?

In order to achieve the desired results, these speakers require intensive painstaking skill to make them. Rather artisan than utilitarian in approach and high labour cost, hence, they aren't actually economies of scale. They hardly cheap. Cost performance is very subjective.

Bosendorfer VC7

Ocellia with PHY-PH driver

Kiso HB1

Triangle Electroacoustique

Of all these offerings, I have had only a brief listen to Kiso acoustics and the brief listening is not solid to pen my listening impression.

Antonio Stradivarius

The traditional musical instrument voicing is a good old time proven technique. No one makes violin sounds like Strad, no one learns the secret of Strad, the lacquer is largely the main ingredient to the Strad. Antonio buried the mythical lacquer properties with him to his grave. We may never make a violin like Strad, not even close.

Hi tech costs $$$

Hi end speaker makers rely on modern technologies for voicing, using exotic materials, boutique parts, new metallurgy wiring, high tech measurements etc. The development costs and premium parts drive the prices to the sky and they do enjoy economies of scale. What this mean, exorbitance profit. Self esteem costs, owning these is a realization of self esteem. Your wallet and willingness to pay are the gauge of your self esteem.

And for most of us, Average Joe, will have sit back and accept the compromises and imperfections. And wait for the economies of scale that the price will eventually be more friendly. God has given us the best tool, our hearing. Aunties and uncles can tell good sound too. So, beware of those expensive speakers that measure good but does not sound good.

One thing that do concern me, these tuning and resonance controls are only effective on limited frequency range.

O yes! Resonance control it is. The ancient maestro voice their musical instrument by playing around with resonances. They curb them with shape, size and the choice of enclosure construction. Resonance is like cholesterol, there are good ones and bad ones. Instead of total elimination, they voice with resonance. And so, a bold idea popped up in my head, to assume my room as the body of a musical instrument and work with the resonance.

Room will add gain to any speaker loudness. You will never get a linear response across the whole frequency response. An in room peak at 40-60Hz is inevitable. You can use electronic room EQ like XTZ room analyzer, Roomperfect, Tact room correction or DEQX to ameliorate the room response. I got nothing to report because I'm not Mr Tell It All.

Look, the cones at work

Admittedly, I'm a cheap bastard. The story begins with Dr Mimosa telling me that applying brass cones will do wonder to the bass. Skeptical I may be, I jumped on it because the cones do not cost me a lot of money, furthermore, I do have some cones readily for my disposal.

The great thing about this tweak is the versatility, that accords flexibility. It boils down to your sensitivity to tone, details and phase. Don't blame me if you can not hear the effects. It is fairly easy to depict the effects. Place the two inch cones two to three inch from the front wall, the bass character per distance is personal preference. If you find too boomy at one side, place additional cones around will help, you may also want to try stick the cone on the wall too. The later proved to be difficult due to the mass of the cone. I doubt that any commercial available adhesives can do the job. It is not a good idea to apply permanent bonding and you might want to experiment more.

Is your bass like a punctured ball?

Pay attention to the bass characteristics. Chances are your bass got cleaner, leaner and better defined. Imagine this, your bass akin to punctured ball with loads of char transformed to a fully inflated ball. The bounce is consistent.

A perfect dive, minimal splashes

With the cones, you get diving bass. Yes, I really mean the bass dives. I tried this on my friends, they were in awe. How could it be? Don't ask me. Helped by my Schumann harmoniser, my bass gained a bouncing sphere dimensionality. Incredible? Said the banker, I got the stunned face again.

Placing the cones at outward of the speakers determines the soundstage. Move the cones along outer side the speakers and hear the difference. I will not feed you findings, you ought to explore and enjoy the fun of exploration. This is part of the audio fun.

Steel cone is most lively, brass is lesser. 

The versatility of the spikes/cones is much appreciated because you could place them where you find necessary, where you need to add liveliness to the sound. I suggest you place really sharp spikes in the middle and observe the results. For best results, place various sizes and shades of the spikes in a triangle formation. The key to the effectiveness is loose spikes that vibrate. You'll get a sharper image with some degree of liveliness. There are also other places you might find effective too. On top of the CD player, corners of the rack and speaker top etc.

In principal, spikes/cones with the greater in height will have an effect on the higher frequency ranges and more livelier.

Crystal ball

There is also a suggestion to add crystal to enhance the ambiance, particularly if your room is dead.

You will very happy with the results and thank me for sharing.