Stereo/ room makes female jazz vocals and piano sound fatiguing.

RRW · « **on:** 4 Jan 2021, 07:12 pm »

Hi guys.
I am having an issue with the way female jazz vocals and piano sound in my room.
The vocals are harsh and ringing while piano sounds like a wood block with no air surrounding the notes.
Cd quality or hi Rez gives the same presentation.
The the lower frequencies sound great, acoustic guitar drums male vocals are very nice.
Any guidance out there?

thorman · « **Reply #1 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 07:35 pm »

Why not show some pictures of your set up ( and more than likely it is a Room Issue ) and you should be able to get some help from fellow Audiophiles.....Worth a shot.......

Big Red Machine · « **Reply #2 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 07:39 pm »

Guitars okay?

Tubes in the loop?

Cables you are using?

Room dimensions?

Jazzman53 · « **Reply #3 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 08:09 pm »

I suspect it's less the room and more a frequency balance issue with your speakers. My guess is that you have a nasty peak somewhere between 2kHz-3kHz. If you EQ'ing capability in your system; try pulling down the response in that band and see how it sounds.

To aid tuning out the harshness; I suggest playing a tune by Erin Bode entitled "Holiday". Her voice will cut diamonds-- if you can take the edge of that, nothing else will sound harsh.

Doublej · « **Reply #4 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 08:17 pm »

Only the basics from me. Have you confirmed that all components, cabling, etc. are working properly and that everything is wired in phase?

Possibly one of the tweeters is misbehaving.

Let us know if you want detailed instructions for confirming things are behaving.

mick wolfe · « **Reply #5 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 08:22 pm »

Once again, without knowing the system components and perhaps room set-up, no way to advise. Room treatments and cables also play a part.

Stercom · « **Reply #6 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 08:31 pm »

I know exactly the type of sound you are talking about. It's zippy and almost toy like. Very fatiguing sound. Try some heavy gauge copper cables, use some type of vibration controlling material under your equipment and decouple your speakers from the floor.

rollo · « **Reply #7 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 09:00 pm »

Look at your digital set up. Source usually the issue.

charles

RRW · « **Reply #8 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 09:14 pm »

I should have added that female opera voices and pop female voices are really harsh.
My room is 11x9x8’ high.
Ps Audio direct stream dac
Primaluna Evo400 tube preamp
Odyssey Kismit mono blocks with upgrades
Martin Logan 11A electrostats
Wolf Luna music server.
Various cabling, audioquest, cardas,synergistic research and Cullen.
There are Isoacoustic giai 1’s under speakers,
Symposium Rolker blocks under dac and Wolf music server.
I have added diy tube traps in front wall corners which really made the lower frequencies sound great.
I have 2, 1’x4’x2” melamine cloud panels hanging from ceiling.
A 5’x6’x1” panel on the front wall in between the tube traps.
4 Stillpoint Aperture panels.2 behind me at back wall and 2 close to woofers on floor.

richidoo · « **Reply #9 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 09:31 pm »

Dipole speakers lighting up the brick wall front corners is your problem.

Room corners cause a double reflection which causes midrange harshness. Hang thick comforters over the corner area a foot to each side of the corner to see that helps.

If that doesn't help then I would recommend you measure your room response to see what's actually going on.
Room EQ Wizard
OmniMic

Bob2 · « **Reply #10 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 10:08 pm »

twitch54 · « **Reply #11 on:** 4 Jan 2021, 10:11 pm »

agree, rear wave is probably an issue. IMO, pretty small room for that size di-pole (stat)

RRW · « **Reply #12 on:** 5 Jan 2021, 12:26 am »

Sorry no pix of the diy tube traps. There is a stack of 2 in each front wall corner behind the Martin Logan’s. Each column is 6 ft tall and 13” round. They really helped tame roon modes. I have the absorbing side facing outward.

RRW · « **Reply #13 on:** 5 Jan 2021, 12:31 am »

Yes tubes are in the preamp. Guitars sound very nice. The digital front end is non fatiguing. Is that the frequency range on average female vocal including opera, jazz and pop? 2000-3000khz?

Big Red Machine · « **Reply #14 on:** 5 Jan 2021, 01:35 pm »

for shits and giggles you could rotate those tube traps 180 degrees to see if they help with reflections in the corner building up.

mresseguie · « **Reply #15 on:** 5 Jan 2021, 02:24 pm »

I don't know if my suggestion will help, but a couple very experienced audiophiles with really good ears visited me today. One of them brought his prototype speakers to test on my system. Female vocals and violins had an unpleasant sibilance that cable changes and repositioning just couldn't get rid of. Just for the heck of it (since everything else had failed), I turned the gain dials in my preamp from the 11:30 position to the 9 position and 90% of the sibilance evaporated.

If you cannot adjust the gain, my suggestion will be of no help to you. Keep plodding away at it. You'll eventually figure it out.

9' x 11' is practically identical to my home office. As twitch54 mentioned above, that seems like a pretty tight fit for your speakers. Do you experience the same issue regardless of the volume?

Michael

lokie · « **Reply #16 on:** 5 Jan 2021, 02:49 pm »

Use couch pillows, lawn furniture pillows and other cushy things to experiment with... first reflections and corners etc..
If it's turned down low then you shouldn't get the nasty sound, that is if it's the room.

Try swapping out each component one by one and see if there is an offending component.
I would start with the source/ dac. A decent phone/ tablet will even sound good if everything else is in order.

Is the offending sound coming out of both channels equally? Maybe swap tubes from one channel to the other.

Not familiar with your speakers but upgrading stock xover caps and resisters is cheap and easy and always has good results.
Anyway... food for thought.

JLM · « **Reply #17 on:** 5 Jan 2021, 03:05 pm »

What was the point of the melamine cloud?

Don't know what the front wall panel is made of but seriously doubt it does much acoustically.

Agree that the room is very small for dipole speakers.

Is this a new problem? Try back tracking by retracing your system setup steps.

mick wolfe · « **Reply #18 on:** 5 Jan 2021, 04:53 pm »

As already noted....that's a small room for that particular speaker. You must to be sitting fairly close to the speakers as well. You might try much deeper diffusion panels (various depths from 1"-6")directly behind the speakers. As already mentioned, with problems of this nature, I would take a look at your source first. Then work your way back thru amplification and cabling. In the end, you may just have a situation where the speaker and room are not a good match unless listening at lower volume levels. I have a room about that exact size and the only speaker that has truly worked is an Ohm 1000.

Letitroll98 · « **Reply #19 on:** 5 Jan 2021, 06:46 pm »

Put the speakers laterally between the 1/5th and 1/4th dimension of the room, centered at 24" in your room if they're on the 9' wall as it appears in your pic. Pull the speakers out into the room along that same line until they're next to your listening position facing directly forward. Yes, on either side of your listening chair. Then move them back in 6" increments until the sound locks in, you'll know it immediately, the speakers disappear. Adjust backwards or forwards in smaller and smaller increments. Then try toe in adjustment.
(In larger rooms use the 1/3rd and 1/4th dimension)