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Setting up speakers

davidjt,
Thanks for the very generous offer but as you say Kent and Midlands are far apart.
Found a copy of the above on CD via discogs so will get this thanks. What are your 'usual suspects' if you don't mind me asking as I would like to build a good library of tracks which might help with setting up and voicing speakers? I know this is a difficult subject and personal taste (rather than measurement) rules especially as the room has such a marked effect on sonics.
 
I've never bought anything purely for test purposes (unless you count a free cd with a magazine) but several albums crop up over and over again in equipment reviews, such as 'Famous Blue Raincoat' by Jennifer Warnes (superb studio sound), Kind of Blue, Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, etc. I have personal favourites like Jo Harman's 'Dirt on My Tongue', but somewhat perversely usually prefer live sessions which might be technically inferior to studio takes, so will play The Dave Brubeck Quartet's 'The Great Concerts' in preference to 'Take Five', John Mayall's 'Jazz Blues Fusion', Arne Domnerus 'Jazz at the Pawnshop', Leonard Cohen 'Live in London', Eva Cassidy 'Live at Blues Alley', Melody Gardot 'My One And Only Thrill' (disc2), Brendel's 'Farewell Concert' and so on. (I could give you a completely different list tomorrow....)
The difficulty arises in 'critical listening' (for me, anyway.) One glass of wine and you're lost in the music if it's a favourite album. Strictly speaking I should choose something I don't particularly like. My first ever 78 record was Side Saddle by Russ Conway :oops: followed by Michael Holliday 'The Story of my Life'. :oops::oops::oops: Both seem to have got lost along the way, fortunately.
 
Mainly like rock but have bought some jazz on others recommendations and really enjoyed it. Have FBR J Warnes (not really my thing but superb recording and some good songs) and DB Take 5. Also like large-scale organ music (mainly Bach at the mo). Can't get on with Jazz at the Pawnshop as the piano in particular sounds unrealistically spread / massive. I also find Road to Hell is a pretty decent recording which is one of my refs, along with Division Bell.
Getting lost in the music is what we all want I suppose and it is difficult at times to relax and do this as I tend to fall into the trap of critical listening rather than enjoying but that is because I am trying to get the voicing correct (for me anyway). Almost need a "sound-effects" type recording that has a range of 'individual' sounds to assess varying parts of the spectrum. Simple stuff seems to come across well but the imaging tends to fall apart with more complex stuff (particularly the middle of the image), so I figured if I can 'tighten' the image with simple stuff (which is easier to discern changes with), more complex stuff should also improve.
 
Chris Rea's music works well. Also, as it's mainly rock you're after, just about anything involving Felix Pappalardi - a great musician and producer.
 
Bugger, missed a copy of Alan Parsons Sound Check 2 (not the gold one) that I meant to bid on (on ebay) that went for under a fiver including post.
Got a copy of The Exciting Battle on CD coming from discogs later this week. Didn't realise Felix Pappalardi was the producer on Disraeli Gears amongst others. I like well recorded and produced stuff rather than raw / live recordings so WRT Felix Pappalardi, which Mountain album would you suggest please?
 
Only one of the albums I have is available on Amazon - that is a 'greatest hits' which is only great in parts, and the other a live one which is, frankly awful.
Restraining Corky Laing (or was it Leslie West?) on stage seems to have been the main problem, and even Felix couldn't manage two things at once.

I'd go for this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0001XLXWK/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21
and accept that you'll like some of the 20 tracks more than others. (The one missing take worth hearing despite the poor recording quality is possibly the best ever live version of 'Roll Over Beethoven'. Played at maximum volume the distortion barely registers.:D)
 
This site contains affiliate links for which pink fish media may be compensated.
Having tried the REL sub with the LX-minis (it was sitting there, so why not?) I needed to tweak it back to work with the Quads yesterday. I used 'Jazz Blues Fusion', half of which was recorded reasonably well in Boston and half later on the tour (NY?) distinctly better and at greater volume. The latter is almost a jam session and featuring Voice/harmonica/bass and lead guitars/trumpet/sax/percussion, the right blend just jumps out at me when I hit the sweet spot. It's a set-up short cut.
(Available on Spotify?)
(FWIW my original dissatisfaction with 'ordinary' sq as a boy stemmed from the fact that on JBJ or TotP you could never hear bass or rhythm guitars in the mix. That's when I decided there had to be something better.)
 
Only had a quick listen to JATP on headphones. Not the best recording but there is some enthusiasm and energy about it which I like. Couldn't find a ref on the CD but is this mono as there isn't much of a stereo separation?
Like the best of Mountain, good honest rock with hints of Cream / Hendrix / (old) ZZ Top in there. Again, not the best recording, particularly the heavily processed vocal but the albums got some balls about it and after 1 listen I don't think there is a bad track on it.
I have gone back to using Jantzen Silver Z-Caps on the tweeters which I'd run for a while but during experiments found I preferred a mix of polyester (2µ2) and polyprop (1µ0 and 0µ1) to give 3µ3 total. However I eventually found the mixed caps seemed muddled in the upper mids as though the integration was wrong. Going back to the Silver Z-Caps and moving my seating position forwards about 0.1m has restored the upper mid detail and removed most of a slight 'quackyness' / 'plasticyness' that was particularly present with Jennifer Warnes vocal. Imaging is now much better, but there are still some oddities, particularly with Cohen's vocal (track 4, Joan of Arc) and Jennifers vocal (track 9, Came so far for beauty) where particular vocal sounds jump forwards and to the right. These I think are room modes because if I sit slightly to the left, they are gone, but the centre image is also pushed slightly leftward in doing this. Further small adjustments necessary.
Will look into 'Mayalls' Jazz Blues Fusion'
Cheers,
AP
 
I'll research the JAPT question - using the Quads in my environment stereo separation has never been their strongest point.

Vocals jumping about is something I've never come across - it must be very disturbing. There are several videos on Youtube explaining comb effects, one of which starts by insisting that 'speakers should never be placed either side of the equipment rack (at the same distance from a wall) which makes perfect sense but is probably ignored by 99% of the population, fishies excepted of course. Just how cramped is your listening space?
 
JAPT: no need to research, that confirms what I hear thanks.
My room is 3.6m (12ft) square by 2.3m (7'-6") high, speakers firing diagonally. Not ideal I know but door and window placement pretty much dictates this and it gets away from early side-wall reflections. Large, wide equipment rack bridging across corner between speakers (oh dear!) and with the diagonal opposite corner behind me there is a window to the right and a wall to the left. Window is curtained and an extra curtain draped over the top directly to the side so very non-symmetrical. Lots of "stuff" (much to the dismay of er'indoors) to absorb / diffuse. The only symmetrical arrangement firing square would require the speakers be placed either side of the window and I didn't try that because the gear would then be in-front of the radiator and the small size would likely give bad, early side-wall reflections.
Cheers,
AP
 
Zippy,
Wasn't sure about your comment re garage door, but don't like 'garage' anyway other than 'garage days revisited' by Metallica :)
Anybody any suggestions on good solo recordings?
Cheers,
AP
'garage Door' is one of the test tracks on the CD - a guy talks into the mike, then pulls down the garage door from the inside and says a few words. All is quiet for a while and you think the track has finished but then he suddenly bangs REALLY LOUDLY on the door.
Still scares the life out of me..
 
I don't want to drag this out - really belongs in the music section, but if you like Mountain and don't already know them, Savoy Brown are worth a listen.
 
Thanks for the recommendation, will look into them.
WRT comb filtering and certain parts of vocal "jumping right and outward" I did wonder if it might be sound radiated around the rear of the speakers, reflected across the two walls behind the speakers, but the frequency content (there's quite a bit of mid detail) suggests this is not likely. Could easily try something absorptive in there to see though.
As I am firing diagonally, its not inconceivable that it could be due to sound interactions of the left speaker from the right wall behind me (with the large but curtained window) with the right speaker from the left wall behind me, especially as moving seating position leftward by only about 2.5cm changes this. Might try pulling the RH speaker out just a mm or two to see if this moves the central image (leftward) into a position with less standing wave problems. I know the room is bad because moving around whilst playing test tones causes all sorts of nulls and peaks.
Cheers,
AP
 
Got a S/H copy of Stereophile Test CD STPH-002-2 and had a listen through headphones. In the blurb it talks about the image jumping forwards being due to early sidewall reflections causing reinforcement; and wandering middle image coming from gear placed between the speakers. Will play this over the w/end and try a heavy / thick blanket over the gear and see what I find. Hope I don't need to carpet the walls! (Padded cell might com in useful tho' :eek:)
 
Well beggar me. RH tweeter connection back to x-over was dodgy but sorted now. Thankfully the L-pad on the tweeter kept some load on the 2nd order x-over or I could have been looking at a blown amp!
The "hole" right of centre is now gone. Perhaps I can get back to "voicing" now.:rolleyes:
 
Put the main rig on on Friday (had the day off as we are not busy after Xmas) and left if for an hour to warm up, just playing a CD at nominal volume whist fiddling with JLH headphone amp. Listened to main rig for about 1 hour and turned it off, disappointed. Turned it on again Sat at about 10:30, again warming up for about an hour. Sounded better than the day before, and as the day wore on it seemed to get better and better, playing a mix of rock, solo piano and even Yello (don't like electro but this is an exception). Was playing Camel: The Snow Goose about 5pm and it was the best i've ever heard it! I then put on one of my personal references: https://www.discogs.com/Various-High-Tech-Piano/release/13707912 High-Tech Piano, on Philips. Track 11, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 In C Sharp Minor by Franz Liszt. This is a stunning track, loud, soft, fast, slow, the whole gammut played with guts and panache. This track literally had me in tears about 4 times (normally gets me just the once, as it had earlier in the same day). I couldn't believe how good it sounded.
I couldn't even hazard a guess as to the reason for this 'coming on song'. Have had this before but not to this extent. By about 6pm when the wife came home (when it has to go off unfortunately!) it sounded like a different system. Nothing special about the system, just a lightly modded Philips CD160, homebrew pre-amp based on the Rod Elliot pre, NCC200 amp and my homebrew speakers. Thoughts please?
 
JPW AP2 on bass duties (M21WG-09-08 in a 20l box) which has impedance flattening, 1st order xover to Seas MCA11FC (Mid from HB3) which has a notch filter for the resonance hump and impedance flattening, 2nd order xover to 1" metal dome (D25AG-05-06), padded down. Mid above tweeter on a small baffle sitting atop the bass unit.
Only thing I could think of was all the electronics gradually warming up as the house is quite cold; and possibly the electricity supply "cleaning up" as I have had a similar effect as you get into Sat afternoons, but this is doesn't always happen. It is probably noticeable about 1 in 3.
 


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