Audio passion is measured by the time spent on this crazy hobby and sonic pickiness. Missing either one will not get you far. Passion motivates you to acquire knowledge, to get better sound. Thank goodness we are presently in K-nomic. Never before the world experiences information outburst as we are right now. Information is as easy at your fingertips. People share stories in the cyber world. Audioing is made much easier than in the 80s where the net was still in its infancy, access to information was poor.
Small room, anything 1600 volumetric cubic feet and below, I can't help feeling apologetic. It is my belief, 2.1 system is the ideal solution in small room. However, 2.1 system has their own set of problems mainly the integration of the mains and the sub. No matter how well you integrate, you stand a chance of misconstrue the mid bass. You know, some call it grey area? Furthermore, this integration requires good technique to align the phase and timing and make them sing in unison. A godly effort.
Migrating from 2.1 system to floorstanding speakers, I eliminate the phase and timing constant. I let the engineers take care of these shitty phase and timing. They can use whatever computer assisted speaker stimulation crosssover. No guesswork for me.
From Revel Performa F32s to Pioneer S1 EXs, I'm without regrets. The idea is to sound pressurize the room to stimulate a believable event. Undeniably, the atmospheric of big speakers is unrivalled. You feel the musical nuances biting every inch of your flesh, so close to the real thing but yet so far. If you have been to live music, you'll know what I mean. However small room is not without problems, booming is always there to harass.
Small room is a perfect breeding place for booming, this is true if all your room boundaries are of concrete. Bass trap is one key solution, a pressure release valve. My wooden ceiling is my release valve, booming is kept to a minimum. The truth is you can't eliminate booming entirely. I just take care of four corners. If the bass still fall apart, I might want to make two small openings on your ceiling to release the bass energy or figure out an alternative to trap more bass.
Another less preferred solution is to use cable to deliberately suppress bass energy, trading sonic balance for less boominess. As such, highs naturally will become extra zealous. Strings and brass will be more emphasized while drums will be more abatable. Vocals will lose their guttural qualities and "uplifted" considerably.
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| KL SMART tunnel, seems like an endless tunnel. |
If all above still fails to curb booming which I don't see it will, turn down the volume.
Take a break. Audio gossip is fun when no hold barred, question is can you take it? We were talking about those systems that you won't visit even if money is offered? It was so laughable, of course, this is as close as it gets. My mouth is zipped, classified information.
Back to story, admittedly, I'm ambitious and greedy. My leg rest cum storage is a wonderful bass trap. As where I have left, I've detected a weird soundstage anomaly, the soundstage was constricted within the speakers and the depth was shallow, only ten or fifteen feet. Holy cow, there was bass suck out. This is contrary to S1 EXs heard in a showroom, painting a wall of sound and exhibiting non of those attributes. Puzzled!
Things did not go well with my resident Marantz CD94 either. CD94 did not read right, I had to call up my crappy DVD player to serve. In an attempt to achieve good sound, I was experimenting power cords. And why they don't make universal polarity. The plug polarity own its share of guilt for messing up the sound as well. So, the double teaming had compounded the complication. It was a slapstick, nevertheless. After making right the wrongs, I was racing toward the checkered flag. The sound was acceptable, somehow the bass linearity remained my system's Achilles heel. I blamed the newness of the drivers, patiently playing them and keep my fingers cross.
As where I was now, I got a real nice pinpoint imaging, rivaling monitor speakers. The quality of highs is marvelous. The highs was pristine and the extension was effortless. Fine as hair. Some tweeters roll off at certain points and rounded off things a bit. Some sounded veiled outright. I could not come back to dome tweeters no more. As such, strings and piano sounded glorious. This was the quality that prompted me to break my piggy bank.
Anything above midbass, it sounded flawless to me. Although, they do not paint a rich tonal balance which I hope not, they sounded real to me. The vocal mass is healthy without too much fat to the bone. Too much mass will hurt the strings because warm midrange will leads to thick strings and could never be more exemplary on violin. Ladiodental consonant and throatiness were apparent, excessive upper bass will eat up these virtues. I love S1 EXs pace and punchiness, heart stopping! Neodymium magnet is at work.
It is not exactly bass shy at my place, bass shy is bass deficiencies. Empty the room will do the trick, but holy shit, how do you deal with bass suck out?
to be continued
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