Harsh sounding mini statements or more likely my room!

[neilmaui]

Hi gents, well I finally built a house big enough for my mini statements ( John said my old room was too small ; ) trouble is now they are out in the wide open and at slightly higher volumes the sound is harsh at the mid and top end...not sure if its now the room? My equipment is a mac mini with digital 192khz/24 tracks mainly, playing through an Emotiva DAC and pre amp, then onto an Emotiva xpa2 , blue jeans cable and a couple of Dayton Audio 18" subs. The room is huge and modern so not much in the way of furnishings, leather sofa's and wood floors which I know don't help..the room is 24ft x 45ft with 18ft vaulted ceilings. the speakers are at about 20ft apart..not ideal but the only place for them...and about 15ft from the listener ( the room is huge but open plan, the listening area/lounge is approx. 24ft x 25ft, they stand approx. 4ft from the back wall..at low volumes they are fine but then when I want to rock out the sound is almost hard to listen to...would the change in mid do anything? I have the Tang Band mid...just trying to get them dialed in..

thanks
Neil

[Evil Twin]

Take a look at the voicing filter discussion thread. That could help or solve your problem...

[Jim Holtz]

Hi gents, well I finally built a house big enough for my mini statements ( John said my old room was too small ; ) trouble is now they are out in the wide open and at slightly higher volumes the sound is harsh at the mid and top end...not sure if its now the room? My equipment is a mac mini with digital 192khz/24 tracks mainly, playing through an Emotiva DAC and pre amp, then onto an Emotiva xpa2 , blue jeans cable and a couple of Dayton Audio 18" subs. The room is huge and modern so not much in the way of furnishings, leather sofa's and wood floors which I know don't help..the room is 24ft x 45ft with 18ft vaulted ceilings. the speakers are at about 20ft apart..not ideal but the only place for them...and about 15ft from the listener ( the room is huge but open plan, the listening area/lounge is approx. 24ft x 25ft, they stand approx. 4ft from the back wall..at low volumes they are fine but then when I want to rock out the sound is almost hard to listen to...would the change in mid do anything? I have the Tang Band mid...just trying to get them dialed in..

thanks
Neil

Hi Neil,

How loud do they have to get before they become harsh sounding and what specific music are you listening to?

Your front end equipment should sound great so that won't be an issue. Based on your description, the room sounds like it will be very reflective and can be a big part of the problem.

One final thought, have you ever experienced the harshness before moving into the new house?

They will sound better positioned no more than 3 feet from the walls behind the Mini's.

Jim

[neilmaui]

Take a look at the voicing filter discussion thread. That could help or solve your problem...

Thanks will check it out

[Matt M]

Hi Neil,

If it is not a big deal to do, try listening using the midranges only. If you can still identify what you described as "harsh", you might have trouble with the W4s.

I tried the W4-1337 in two different builds, and I am not a fan. It measured great, but for some reason I wasn't comfortable listening to it. Tried lots of things, to no avail. And I wish I could tell why.

That said, the fact that the W4-1337 was replaced by the ne123 in the Statements II seems to be a really good idea to me.

- Matt

[JonMarsh]

I don't want to "step on" Matt's comments, but let me offer another way of looking at this-

There are two ways of describing a speaker as "flat" -

• One is the on axis measured amplitude response - this is literally just what it sounds like- how does the SPL measure at a point directly on axis of the speaker
• The second is the overall power repsonse of the speaker- which is the sum of both the on axis repsonse and the polar response both horizontally and vertically. By polar response, we just mean the measured freuqency respone (anehoic) of the speaker at various angles from on axis.

The human ear is sensitive to both- and if there's a big discrepancy between the two, things sound unnatural. But we're also fairly used to hearing speaker that have a considerable downslope off axis, and often recordings are prepared in a way that compensates for that.

Now, what happens if you have drivers that have very good off axis presence range and high frequency response? And what happens if you combine that with a room which isn't the somewhat average mixture of live and sound absorbing surface, but predominantly live? Imagine this for a very wide dispersion dipole speaker, such as the 3rd generation Orion, and that's another example of why some people have done a lot of research into this.

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?43337-Report-back-on-stereo-speaker-voicing-investigation

So have I, mainly because of how the Isiris and Ardent sound with a lot of conventional program material, even with very high grade front ends.

Now, I've never built a system with the 1337 but I have bought and tested them; it's a little weak in the bottom end, but has a very good top end as midrange drivers go, and off axis dispersion is one of it's strengths.

Another driver I've worked with which many people on the PE Tech forum don't like which measures very well but they didn't like how systems sounded with it, is the RS52 dome midrange. It's an excellent driver, probably best in it's class, and I intend to do another three way design with it sometime soon. But I think the issue comes down to the fact that it has fabulous off axis response, whereas the off axis of many of the midrange drivers or mid woofers used by many DIY guys imparts a roll off, which acoustically does something like the filter concept described in the thread linked above.

My opinion is that it's better to build the filter into something easily swapped in and out or modified, and shoot for the widest range performance in the speaker, because then it will sound better in more places in the room and be more consistent. Just my experience so far...

[neilmaui]

thanks Jon, I really appreciate all the guys input. Just a little disheartening finally having a room big enough for these speakers to really breathe and the sound just was a little disappointing...I was expecting an open airy sound with great soundstage. But yes the room is very live, minimal furnishings, lots of glass not even any curtains and tall ceilings. The speakers are toe'd into the listening spot, 2ft from the wall but as mentioned because of the room they are 20ft apart and approx. 15-20ft from the listening spot...think swapping out the W4 to the Vifa would help? its difficult to describe the sound but it just seems disjointed, like bass, mid and treble are competing against eachother rather than just blending effortlessly and disappearing. rather than an easy to listen to sound its not that comfortable ( not terrible but just not what you think these would be capable of) Before the vocals and instruments could be clearly pinpointed, now they are just spread, maybe because of the distance between the speakers? Maybe I'll try and add some speaker cable ( I had the cable wired when the house was built to only allow approx. 4ft from the wall.....so to get to a reasonable distance between them I need to add to cable...easy enough to try and see what difference it makes.

[Jim Holtz]

thanks Jon, I really appreciate all the guys input. Just a little disheartening finally having a room big enough for these speakers to really breathe and the sound just was a little disappointing...I was expecting an open airy sound with great soundstage. But yes the room is very live, minimal furnishings, lots of glass not even any curtains and tall ceilings. The speakers are toe'd into the listening spot, 2ft from the wall but as mentioned because of the room they are 20ft apart and approx. 15-20ft from the listening spot...think swapping out the W4 to the Vifa would help? its difficult to describe the sound but it just seems disjointed, like bass, mid and treble are competing against eachother rather than just blending effortlessly and disappearing. rather than an easy to listen to sound its not that comfortable ( not terrible but just not what you think these would be capable of) Before the vocals and instruments could be clearly pinpointed, now they are just spread, maybe because of the distance between the speakers? Maybe I'll try and add some speaker cable ( I had the cable wired when the house was built to only allow approx. 4ft from the wall.....so to get to a reasonable distance between them I need to add to cable...easy enough to try and see what difference it makes.

Neil,

Definitely try 10-12' apart before swapping drivers (no NE123 crossover for the Mini's) or changing the crossover. If they didn't sound this way before the new room, it seems logical that its a positioning or room issue. Live rooms will make a speaker sound "hard".

HTH

Jim

[neilmaui]

another thing I forgot to mention is that I'm playing the music through Audirvana via a mac mini, now I know there have been many suggestions of tweeks to the parameters within Audirvana so maybe that is something I need to experiment with too?

[neilmaui]

thanks Jim, just trying to figure out how to soften the sound without having to go out and buy a bunch or rugs and I don't think my wife would approve of covering all the walls with old egg boxes....; )

[Matt M]

I don't want to "step on" Matt's comments, but let me offer another way of looking at this- ...

I don't mind getting ideas what made me dislike the W4. I tried to rule out off-axis behaviour as a source for the problem as much as possible. The faceted baffle seemed to work fine with the W4. If I can find some time, I will try to upload the measurements I did.
Btw.: I read a report that the RS52AN doesn't do well in narrow baffles (8" and less) - flat on axis response leading to nasty off-axis peaks right where it hurts. "Just don't use it with narrow baffles" was the take-away.

But I am getting the impression now too, that Neil's trouble has more to do with room acoustics.

- Matt

[Steve Manning]

Neil ..... +1 one what Jim said about "if they sounded good before" ...... Room setup, positioning, room treatments etc., can make a big difference. I played around with the same equipment, in the same room, just changing furniture and positioning and it made some very noticeable changes. I have wanted to add room treatments, but that's on hold for now, but expect that would improve things even more. If you look here you can see the changes I made. By the way if they are tastefully done and get her involved, you might be able to convince your wife to let you make some changes in the room.