I have Adapted

richidoo · « **on:** 12 Mar 2007, 05:02 pm »

Below is a letter I sent to Nathan this morning. Before I bought the Adapts I sent him pictures of the room for his recommendation, he suggested 15 pieces of Adapt, and I installed them over a weeks' time. Finished this past weekend, now enjoying a very different sounding listening room. My room is very big and has lots of corner due to tray ceiling, so this was not a trivial job. FR measurement before Adapts showed pretty good response except for a severe null around 80-90Hz. I haven't checked that again since installing Adapts but I will soon. I had a good experience dealing with Nathan, and the Adapt stuff does what he and everybody else that has written here says. They are not miracle workers though, they don't fix everything wrong with your system in one swoop, but they will help me get there by allowing me to here what really needs attention instead of just guessing. They are not cheap, but I think they are a good value for the money, and will save me money in the future, for example by not wasting it on cables when I really need a better source, etc. Changes I make are easier to hear due to the increase in detail.

Hi Nathan,
I completed the installation over the weekend, and listened to it several times since then. It sounds extremely good. I put on a wide spectrum of music, and was very impressed with the overall improvement. All kinds of music sound better. Rock and string quartets equally benefitted, although getting used to new sound of favorite tracks is an adjustment because the sound is changed a lot in some cases. Madonna's dance hall synth bass is not resonating twice as loud as it was before, but I can now here the actual tone of the bass. If I want more I can just turn it up. The room is still lively and natural sounding, which is what I like. There is no "sound of absorption" at all. Control of the reverb in the large, mostly hard surfaced room is excellent. It no longer sounds like it's ringing, like I am in a big sheetrock room. But it doesn't sound like I'm in a different shaped, artificial place like the Tact creates. It is very natural feeling and exciting to listen to music in there.

I have not measured the room yet, but a quick listen to 1 second bass sine waves at every frequency 20-300 revealed much less lumpy volume levels than prior to Adapt. Moving my head around during this revealed modes still exist so measurement will be interesting.

Bass, mid and treble are cleaner, more precise. The extreme details in music are now easily heard, and music with passages of beautiful tonality sound truly beautiful now. I never knew what I was missing! Clarity is so enhanced that I can hear the limits of my source and amp. The room is no longer the limiting factor. I can hear the grit in the stock SB analog output, and I can hear the source of the shouting horny sound I orginally complained to you about. It is the amplifier, working too hard to power the large Legacy speakers. I am playing it into the 75% power range, especially now with the treatment calling for more power without the corner horns amplifying the sound. I had heard the amp sounding shouty like that before even without room treatment when I used junky 6L6 tubes, but replacing those with excellent Svet6550C tubes seemed to make it go away. It is still there, but was smeared by room distortion so I could not identify what that annoying character of the sound was. With corners "Adapted" so as not to amplify and distort the shouting sound, I can now here that it is coming from the speakers during loud passages in certain frequency range, all the signs of tube amplifier push/pull crossover distortion, and an overstressed amp. 70wpc just don't cut it on 400watt speakers with 2 ohm dips. But it did remarkably well considering the task!! I may try some different tubes.

When I move out of the treated space, I can hear quite a difference, boomy bass, smearing, just bad. But moving back to the listening area sounds good. Might be good to treat some of the other areas that have a lot of bass boom, but the treatments have to stop somewhere. I can see the advantage of a dedicated and sealed off listening room. Save that for the next house.

It will take some time to get used to this but it won't be too hard

Now my room is ready for some serious tube amplification like ARC or VTL. I was hesitant to even bother auditioning something like that because I knew I would not be able to accurately judge the performance with the room sounding so bad and I would just waste the dealer's time. Indeed, until today, I thought the little Cary amp was more than adequate for my needs and something else must be wrong. I look forward to trying some more advanced electronics now to take me up to the next level. I am glad the room is fixed before wasting money on components or tweeks that would not address the problem.

So yeah, I like the Adapts. I'm sure you hear this often but, it was well worth the money. This is an incredible product! Looking forward to talking to you more.
Rich

richidoo · « **Reply #1 on:** 12 Mar 2007, 05:15 pm »

My wife informs me that I will be painting these, very soon. My neighbor looked in through the front door and dropped her jaw, "Oh, My God! What are those things?" I should have said, "just a little padding for when the kids are dancing." Instead I said they're for my stereo! She gave me the look, "Your poor wife..."

richidoo · « **Reply #2 on:** 13 Mar 2007, 12:14 pm »

I intend to brush on latex acrylic interior paint with a brush. If there are wrinkles I will just flatten them out by stretching while wet. Once it dries the paint will glue the fabric down. The fabric will not shrink when wet, it shrinks when drying, but paint solids will prevent much of that. The covering job is very good, I don't see an opportunity for wrinkles to appear. It will be a few weeks for Adapts to rise to the top of my painting job list.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #3 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 07:04 am »

What color are you painting them? Black or off-white will work in 90% of rooms...do you require a different color?

8thnerve · « **Reply #4 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 03:56 pm »

I recommend using a spray starch like Magic Sizing (available at the grocery store) to tighten the fabric and make it a bit harder to prevent wrinkling.

nathanm · « **Reply #5 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 04:50 pm »

You might be dancing a little too hard if you hit your head on the ceiling!

PhilNYC · « **Reply #6 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 06:26 pm »

Quote from: nathanm on 14 Mar 2007, 04:50 pm

You might be dancing a little too hard if you hit your head on the ceiling!

Either that, or those are some big kids...

PhilNYC · « **Reply #7 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 06:28 pm »

btw - I'm surprised that, given how many Adapt Rectangles are being used, that you didn't put more along the top intersection along the front soffit and ceiling...

mcrespo71 · « **Reply #8 on:** 14 Mar 2007, 07:18 pm »

Quote from: PhilNYC on 14 Mar 2007, 06:28 pm

btw - I'm surprised that, given how many Adapt Rectangles are being used, that you didn't put more along the top intersection along the front soffit and ceiling...

I guess someone is going to have to buy some more!

richidoo · « **Reply #9 on:** 15 Mar 2007, 07:18 pm »

Phil, I thought the same thing, but 15 pieces was enough for me, this first round. And Nathan didn't recommend the top level too. Maybe add more later, there are some other corners not yet treated. You can see it is a slight change in the appearance of the room.

I guess I should have winked about the padding joke too, huh? I thought that one was kinda obvious!!! I have Irish sense of humor, so every other thing I say is usually a joke. Thankfully my kids are not 10 feet tall, yet!

Rob, I will paint them the same wall colors. I guess I'll try the sizing on one to see what happens. Makes sense. The sizing will still allow the acrylic adhesive in the paint to soak in and stick to fabric and wood. Its just starch. I might try doing one by putting a little more tension on the fabric by stretching it and tack down around edges with med viscosity crazy glue through to the wood below. Might be easier to paint too if stretched tighter.

Still sounding good. I can hear the subtlest changes to the system and room. So far Nathan's original recommendation (and nothing else) is best.
Rich

8thnerve · « **Reply #10 on:** 15 Mar 2007, 07:20 pm »

I recommended that he start at the bottom corner first. The next step would be that corner of course as you are right to point out.

GregC · « **Reply #11 on:** 25 Mar 2007, 09:44 pm »

I have also Adapted and I wanted to post my comments on this thread. For 2-channel listening the music resolves better, the soundstage has increased in height, depth, and width (without sounding artificial or hyper-detailed), and the music has a natural and balanced flow. For multi-channel listening the images seem to float and have no boundaries, and the vocals are much more clear. I can say that I am very happy with the results of the treatments and my wife even accepts the looks because she is so impressed with the sonic benefits. Here is a picture of the room with the treatments.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=gallery;area=browse;album=1014&pos=4

richidoo · « **Reply #12 on:** 27 Mar 2007, 10:30 pm »

Greg
Looks like a swell pad you got there! Nice installation. I had the same experience with the soundstage and clarity. Amazing change.
Rich

GregC · « **Reply #13 on:** 28 Mar 2007, 02:38 am »

Rich,

Thanks, I am pleased with how my listening room turned out. The basement was not finished when I moved in so I had a chance to build my room the way I wanted. The room has sound board, then Green Glue acoustic caulk, and sheet rock that forms a sandwich with the Green Glue. The room was acoustically neutral before I applied the Eighth Nerve treatments, and now it has hit sonic nirvana.

richidoo · « **Reply #14 on:** 23 May 2007, 09:50 pm »

Last month I tried moving my system upstairs to a smaller room that I thought would be more symmetrical and easier to treat. I moved the Adapts up there, installed 4 rects and 4 triangles. Heard a nice improvement in detail and leveling of bass issues. But I did not like the sound of the smaller room, it just sounded small and required bass trapping which dulled it down a little. My speakers like space and to be widely separated, so I am back downstairs, but have not reinstalled the Adapts yet. Uh-Oh! Sounds pretty bad. I had grown accustomed to their sound, and had forgetten what the room sounds like without Adapt in there. Before I hang them up again I want to do some testing with my R+D acoustic analysis software to see how it changes with Adapts added. I will probably try some different positions too, to find the best spots.
Rich

8thnerve · « **Reply #15 on:** 8 Jun 2007, 03:04 pm »

Quote from: richidoo on 23 May 2007, 09:50 pm

Last month I tried moving my system upstairs to a smaller room that I thought would be more symmetrical and easier to treat. I moved the Adapts up there, installed 4 rects and 4 triangles. Heard a nice improvement in detail and leveling of bass issues. But I did not like the sound of the smaller room, it just sounded small and required bass trapping which dulled it down a little. My speakers like space and to be widely separated, so I am back downstairs, but have not reinstalled the Adapts yet. Uh-Oh! Sounds pretty bad. I had grown accustomed to their sound, and had forgetten what the room sounds like without Adapt in there. Before I hang them up again I want to do some testing with my R+D acoustic analysis software to see how it changes with Adapts added. I will probably try some different positions too, to find the best spots.
Rich

That's the real test. Can you live without them when they are gone? We can really hear what happening once we've heard what it sounds like without all that distortion.

Rob Babcock · « **Reply #16 on:** 8 Jun 2007, 09:23 pm »

When I first moved into this house last month I was shocked to crank up a tune before hanging the Adapts!

I'd forgotten just how much crap most rooms create in the sound.

gooberdude · « **Reply #17 on:** 8 Jun 2007, 09:48 pm »

I recently went through 3 weeks without room treatments. Its not fun, at all, after living with a treated room for a long time.

never again!!

peter59 · « **Reply #18 on:** 8 Jun 2007, 10:48 pm »

It always amazes me when some of you true audiophiles would rather spend large amounts of money on upgrading components to achieve better sound. When all along for about the same price of an upgraded component you can focus on the room and treatments.
For years I was led to believe that the room is not important, then I went to a recording engineer's house and noticed he had acoustic room treatments all over. I asked him what is that for and he said it will help the room sound more real take away the unwanted outside sounds that will contribute to altering the sound.
After that I was convinced that if I purchased some of these room treatments it could make a better improvement. After months of searching and reading I contacted Nathan and purchased the ADAPTS. I did not know what to expect I thought at least it could make the room sound 50% better. After installing I was then convinced that instead of upgrading correct the room problem. I took the plunge and I cannot be more happier...
MORE PEOPLE NEED TO DO THIS, YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOUR MISSING UNTIL you take care of the room issues... Once you have these treatments up you will not want to live without them....

1000a · « **Reply #19 on:** 9 Jun 2007, 04:53 am »

room=50% entire stereo=50%

why have so many us put 20,000% effort into componets and wire and 0% into the room, not shure but the louder these proclamations become the more we will pay attention.

the TVC passive thread is 200+ pages, Room 101 for everybody should be 200 pages

also, the more I study it and start down the room treatment road

the simpler my understanding of it gets, it is simply not the rocket science I think many people think it is. That possibly intimidates people from diving in.

A Room 101 thread basics thread, which has simple directions like (if your skeptical do the simple stuff first):

1- get or make bass traps (insulation bags or complex you chose-just get em)
2- get or make (4-5) 1st reflection point absorption panels
3-place these objects here and here

4-report back to Room 101 next week.

Then I will tell you why it helps if you wanna know or just your next moves, this sort of thing, cause I think people are intimidated and even most importantly have no clue it will easily improve their stereo sound by 50% minimum w little effort.

I think the KISS principal would get more people involved quickly and they can improve sound wise and astectics as they are able or chose.

shattering some of the mystic behind the products would help but that's not my call. nor my business. even without such, ROOM 101 could help, should probably be at the top of the main page under (AUDIO BASICS) daily too many are missing out terribly

then when people want to dig deep they will realise they have entirely overlooked a paramount section of Audio Circle, the room and Nathan's and Ethan's stuff and what ever else is related. just my thoughts.