Everything is just so boring

[molee]

Are you more conscious of neighbours in the bad room?

 

[Cyreg]

I put the set up in another room and it all has the emotion back.. it makes no difference which way the plugs are in the sockets at all.. the frequency responses sounds identical..just no emotion in the main room.. it sound superficially the same ..just no emotive response.. like "uh ok here's your music dude.. whatever"..

You are underestimating the influence on musicpresentation (not only highs and lows) when not all appliances are connected in the right phase/neutral on a good powerblock and with OK powercords (but I have only experience with this in the Netherlands for about 20 years, so...)

 

[Rockmeister]

I suffered a poor room for over 15 years in my last house, so I can empathise.


In my experience a room robs "emotion" by causing the loss of coherence. I suspect you have spurious reflections going on that are smearing notes and corrupting temporal integrity. You say your room is sparsely furnished. That could be the underlying cause. Clap your hands in your main room, and then in your preferred room. The difference should be stark, and I would start there.

It is this no doubts or something in that general subject area. So, it's reflections and exactly where in the frequency range these are happening that is what you are not enjoying. Forget the word 'emotion' for a second, and get the 'nice' room measured at the listening position. Now what you must do is to tune the 'bad' room to get it as close to the good room response as you can. This means damping, shifting furniture, adding panels and etc, but with some good guidance, you could get close with home furnishings maybe. Hope that's possible in your home, because nothing else is going to do it UNLESS you hapen upon a pair of speakers whose response exactly fits with what the bad room is doing but, looks like you've given that a good try already!

Editted to add, that one solution would be to abandon the 'make my room hideous' approach and invest in some top notch headphones. If a lot of your listening is a personal thing, the best headphones do, without much doubt, easily equal £10,000 loudspeakers in a dodgy domestic space (or, IME, wipe the floor with same) and all for under 1500 squid (+ a suitable headphone amp).

 

[darrenyeats]

What is the speaker positioning in these two rooms, especially distances to side walls? And how much space behind the listening position in each room?

Do the rooms have the same wallpaper?

Some systems aren't sensitive to mains issues, so I don't have a problem with your reply.

 

[packtech]

I'm really starting to worry about you!
Music triggers an emotional response in the listener, so the performance of the reproduction equipment has a significant part to play.

Agreed, I love the music when played in my car(s), on a system in some Cafes for instance, practically anywhere but my main room. I even gave my Brother one set of Celestion speakers to have in his small flat and was so pleased with the result I practically moved in.. and maybe, yes, I need to move .. but my G/Friend isn't too happy abt the prospect of moving just for Music.. I, on the other hand..

 

[packtech]

Are the rooms on the same mains ring?

We don't have ring mains systems here, it is Radial.. They don't do Ring Mains in Europe I think, certainly not in Luxembourg..

 

[packtech]

Do the rooms have the same wallpaper?

Oh man, you could be onto something here, 'cept that we changed the Wallpaper already.. different Colour but tonally the Music is the same..

 

[Julf]

We don't have ring mains systems here, it is Radial.. They don't do Ring Mains in Europe I think, certainly not in Luxembourg..

Indeed. Ring Mains is a UK thing, motivated by cost concerns during WWII.

 

[Romulus]

Could you confirm what does your system or systems contain to date?

 

[Arkless Electronics]

Room acoustics can be a killer of good sound... I well recall that many years ago a mate had a decent mid price system that sounded really nice but when he moved house and set up the system in his new living room it sounded bloody awful!! Much experimenting with speaker positioning etc gave some improvement but it never sounded anywhere near as good as it used to.... You could have been forgiven if listening blind for thinking it was a £2K system in the first room but a decent ghetto blaster in the second!

 

[Hipper]

Can anyone explain this one to me? I have a system, well actually a few systems, which had vibrancy, and above all emotion and foot tappin and all that stuff. Not the deepest Bass or the finest top end, just EMOTION. I moved all of the stuff into my home here in Luxembourg years ago and in our Living Room never could get anything to sound anything other than just 'flat and Boring'.. I have tried numerous speakers ranging from Magneplanerr 3.3 Rs, Kilpsch KG3 and Hersey, Tannoy Dimension 8, Tannoy DC 10T, KEF C series (C 80s I think) NVA Cubes, Celestion something or others and very expensive French things. It doesn't matter which Deck I use ( I have many ranging from Michell Reference, Gyro, Garrard 401, Thorens TD 147 etc etc and NVA A 80 Amps, TVA 1X power amp etc ) this list goes on. I do know that a room can affect the sound but how the hell can it just rob the music of all emotion?? If I move all the stuff upstairs onto another room ( which I can't use as a permanent system room), it all comes back, regardless of which set-up I use.. maybe one system has less Bass, or harsher top end etc, but all the EMOTION is all back again.. What is happening here? My room downstairs is not over furnished at all.. and is quite large but not huge, how can all the emotion just disappear?

You don't talk about room size (or shape) or how you position your speakers and your listening chair in the room. These two things have a major bearing on how a set up sounds. If for example you use the same dimension equilateral triangle in two different sized rooms you will get a different sound. It's a combination of how the lower frequencies pass you ears - some will be louder and others quieter then before - and how the higher frequencies reflect off the walls, floor and ceiling.

It might be worth trying to calculate the best position in your new room based on the proportions of the old. So for example, if your speaker was out from the side wall 10% of the width of the old room, do the same in your new room. Same with front wall and listening chair dimensions. Toe in if you had it would be directed the same - to ears or centre of back wall or whatever you used previously. I don't know if this would work - just a guess.

The other positioning you could try is 'The Thirds'. I use this method and it works for me (along with copious room treatment and EQ use):

http://www.barrydiamentaudio.com/monitoring.htm

 

[S-Man]

Can anyone explain this one to me?

Brexit. Juncker.

Seriously though, I think James is right.
The emotion comes from the timing and temporal relationships.