My new settee

The madness continues. I've had a strong intuition that something is amiss with my sound despite the improvement over the past. Something was terribly right the past sound that I can't unnoticed. It was the low frequency energy. Hard to get it out of the mind once you've tasted the forbidden fruit, a common chronic sickness every audio enthusiast suffers. We, audio enthusiasts have low resistance to good sound, they will pay up like a good boy provided or drool till no more saliva.

My unsettling issue prompts me to put on my thinking cap, what-can-I-do-to improve. Leave no stone unturned, I turned my gaze to the settee. My system has been thoroughly worked. Incidentally, my listening height is slightly above the tweeter, only by a whisker. Deeds, not words. A thought began to take form, a new settee is what I need right now. One that levels to the listening height.

Before I forget, three-seating settee is an acoustic mayhem. Wasting no time, I got the settee assembled and moved right it into my listening room. My dear wife came home from work and nagged. Women.... nagging is their nature. "No woman, no cry", Bob Marley knew it too well.

Break a leg, my new settee is the solution. Am I'm on or a row or what, my sound is going strength to strength. Taken together, lost and found, my bass returns with aplomb. Rolls like a train. Unflappable and with profound tenacity. My 12-inch driver's sense of ease and drama is such a treat. By the same token, my tonal balance shifted toward the bass, my headroom grew. The beefen up images accord remarkable palpability and in no way get in the way of vividness. Nope, my sound never about microscopic detail the modern crops of loudspeakers put forward. 

Music time, the finest hours with the recording excellence of Patricia Barber's Cafe Blue, the evocative sense of a pub ambiance, Jazz At The Pawnshop is another good example if you don't already know. The drum at some point masks the sound, this is realistic and true. But most recordings prefer to articulate the drum to lose its realism. The drum should never be undermined, and the guitar should never be too profound. Good job, shout-out to the people who involved in those recordings to get thing right.

Leonard Cohen's Ten New Songs shakes my room alright. His voice is huskier than ever, undermining some resolution. Learn how to surrender to music instead focusing on the resolution. Get your analytical listening to backseat, follow his flow. A word of caution, my sonic preference may not accord with you. Don't shoot me dead, take it with a pinch of salt. I sell musicality, not resolution.

Listening to Celine Dion, she is a living diva. Voice control, technical mastery and powerful delivery, put many to shame. Another great diva Aretha Franklin. OMG, I went off topic. 

The swear of soundstage

Stereo is an ingenious innovation in sound technology. With stereo, comes soundstage, a proprietary of two channel system never found in others. Sworn by soundstage, there're a group of audio enthusiasts live and die by it, for the immersive and surreal experience. That said, people have different perspective on sound, with a varying emphasis on sonic priorities. In turn, tonality takes a backseat because you can't have both at the top. Outrightly appealing when soundstage get to be holographic.

My maiden encounter with soundstage was through the diminutive shoebox size Pro Ac Tablette 2. Driven by tube amp, these little boxes were magical. They threw a palpable and enormous soundstage that big speakers can only drool at the articulation. Spica TC-50 and Acoustic Research HI took an aim at holographic imaging along with Dahlquist, Magnepan, Apogee, Martin Logan and Quad in planar speaker form factor and the current makes, King Sound and AlsyVox were all amazing in their own right. Alas, planar speakers have obvious output limitation, they're comfortable at a certain volume, beyond that, haywire.

Soundstage is greatly influenced by room boundaries, the shape, size and construction material, not to mention your furniture and racks and even your equipment arrangement if you have ears for them. Building on this, speaker placement has a direct impact on soundstage, zero toe in and toe in particular. Sketch your in-room direct and indirect sound pathway, you will get a clearer picture. 

Zero toe in offers a rectangular soundstage, conversely, toe in, drastically alters the course of direct and indirect sound. Notably, the shortest reflected sound of first reflected sound moves closer to you. Hence, explains the concave soundstage. And the longest reflected sound got even longer that depict greater depth. This is not tall tales. Moreover, with the speaker further away from the front wall that many do, the center image will recess into the wall. The sound loses its meatiness, leading to a less than fuller sound. This relates only to box speakers. I don't have horn speakers, Horn, Avantgarde, Cessaro, Acapella and alike, to say about their behavior relating to toe in, don't stick a gun at my head. I say what I know. Audio simply has too many branches that require a life-long to master. On the contrary, Naim DBL specifically wanted to be leaned on the front wall to produce the visceral punch to die for. Serving rock music with aplomb, like a duck to water. Conversely, Audio Note's preferential extreme toe in, where both axes meet one meter in front of the listener makes the sound bewildered. The best I could describe is sound in a lounge.

In my case, fifteen-degree toe in resulted an apparent lackluster sound and concaved soundstage. I preferred a convex soundstage that sounds more natural to my ears. The risen problems require solution. Apart from the welcomed risen upper midrange energy and lesser harmonic intermodulation, I worked on the reflection points. My sound harnesses room gain to great effect. First thing is to reposition my AGS to nurses the somewhat astringent and lifelessness. To address the recessed center imaging, I have innovated a tweak to bring the center image to the fore. This is my IP, I have not seen anything similar. Besides, the center images breathe more effortlessly. Last but not least, the lackluster is resolved by turning up the volume, at about 3-4% increase. At last, my sound, a gain in clarity and articulation in an old sonic mold. 

What's next? I have a single settee coming in that will place my listening height 3cm lower. Lower to the ground will get perceive more bass. Tweeter above listening level introduce better ambiance, but not too much to lose the upper midrange intensity. My three months old settee's lumber support is not good even after an aftermarket lumber support. Better ergonomic, better music enjoyment. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my fruit of labor.