[DSK]

So, I guess it's ok if you're giving the cleaning lady one then 

[stvnharr]

HI Mark,

Got no say what gets shoved around let alone by how much!

The "cleaner lady" is the missus. Lucky she doesn't get to look at this site or I would be shot with a reference like that I would be shot. It was suggested that I do the cleaning if I don't anything moved. As for a speaker locating texta mark on the floor, I don't think it would be a good idea here for health reasons.

Interestingly, while re-establishing the placement for the speakers using the bass to locate "the spot" I noticed that the voice coming from the R/H speaker was suddenly harsh. The L/H speaker sounded sweet. I swapped the speakers over and the harshness from the R/H position still persisted.  I noticed that a lounge chair in the corner adjacent to the R/H speaker had been moved some 18" from the wall closer to the speaker. Shoved it back to its original position and the harshness has vanished. I have taken a few measurements of the positioning of the speakers for future reference.

Cheers,


Laurie

Laurie,
Sounds like you have to make a drawing of both the speaker(s) and chair.

I drew up a drawing for Hugh with all kinds of fancy measurements before I left Friday. OF course that works until the drawing gets lost or moved or something.....

Steve

[DSK]

Steve,

You're right .. I need to hear it and/or play with it for myself as I'm not quite "getting" it on paper. Ignoring reflections, rooms only effect frequencies below 200Hz. So, I can understand the equalisation of pressure under 200Hz, by making speaker positions asymmetrical, could offset room effects and equalise pressure at the listener. But this will only be at various points of the wavelength of various frequencies. As each frequency has a different wavelength, the equalisation for each occurs at different distances from the front wall. The ideal result is to find a speaker position where there are no significant peaks or nulls ...perhaps this is what provides the "smooth" response you are hearing? I think this is what I have achieved in the past via extensive measurement, using third octave pink noise (closer to how we hear than single frequency tones). I must admit that I did keep the speakers symmetrical but I did achieve very flat results.  

But, the frequencies above 200Hz are not effected by the room and if they are not equidistant from the listener, then ... surely ...  the difference in amplitude must pull them toward the nearest speaker.  

Oi ... my brain hurts  

[stvnharr]

Steve,

You're right .. I need to hear it and/or play with it for myself as I'm not quite "getting" it on paper. Ignoring reflections, rooms only effect frequencies below 200Hz. So, I can understand the equalisation of pressure under 200Hz, by making speaker positions asymmetrical, could offset room effects and equalise pressure at the listener. But this will only be at various points of the wavelength of various frequencies. As each frequency has a different wavelength, the equalisation for each occurs at different distances from the front wall. The ideal result is to find a speaker position where there are no significant peaks or nulls ...perhaps this is what provides the "smooth" response you are hearing? I think this is what I have achieved in the past via extensive measurement, using third octave pink noise (closer to how we hear than single frequency tones). I must admit that I did keep the speakers symmetrical but I did achieve very flat results.  

But, the frequencies above 200Hz are not effected by the room and if they are not equidistant from the listener, then ... surely ...  the difference in amplitude must pull them toward the nearest speaker.  

Oi ... my brain hurts  

Darren,
Ya, you need to have a listen. I can tell that you are not quite getting it on paper. Listening is a lot easier on the brain.
I need to go have a listen too, so as to rest my brain.

Steve

[AKSA]

Darren,

Steve has done a LOT of writing and is now all Master Set'd out.....   You need to hear my system, which you know pretty well.

Steve,

I STILL HAVE THE PIECE OF PAPER.  I TREASURE IT!!         

Hugh

[jhm731]

But, the frequencies above 200Hz are not effected by the room and if they are not equidistant from the listener, then ... surely ...  the difference in amplitude must pull them toward the nearest speaker.  

I agree. Plus, there's a difference in delays.

Take a look at the on and off axis response of the tweeters in Hugh's speakers:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/PDF/peerless/810921.pdf

[stvnharr]

Steve,

I STILL HAVE THE PIECE OF PAPER.  I TREASURE IT!!         

Hugh

Hugh,
Never has a piece of paper been so valuable in your house!!
I'll have some writing in the making that will be posted a bit later.

Steve

[Tliner]

Hey, Hugh, You had better get that treasured bit of paper laminated and nailed to the rear of one of the speakers. That would save paper chases lasting for hours, eh?

Laurie

[AKSA]

Steve,

In the annals of high end, extending through the centuries, never has a sheaf of paper assumed such hallowed status, nay, not even the Magna Carta......
You will appreciate, after what seemed a lifetime in the military, I NEVER want to see another file again, unless, of course, my memory fails completely.  I must remember to do something about that, blueberries anyone?

Laurie,

It's sitting just under the amp, I think.  Must check......

[Tliner]

I bet Hugh hasn't checked to see if the resident army of silver fish had a party under the amp last night.

Laurie

[stvnharr]

Steve,

I STILL HAVE THE PIECE OF PAPER.  I TREASURE IT!!         

Hugh

Hugh,
Never has a piece of paper been so valuable in your house!!
I'll have some writing in the making that will be posted a bit later.

Steve

Well, after spending a fair bit of time trying to come up with something new to write, I've given up. I think I would only muddy things further. Listening is the only way to clarify things.


And Laurie, Marty and I cleaned them out last Friday with the Hoover.

[dcstep]

It's nice to see this in depth discussion of the Sumiko Master Set and several people actually trying it. Steve has done a great job of fielding questions.

I'd only emphasize that in most rooms the difference in distance of the right vs. left speaker from the back wall and listener is very small. Once you've anchored the left speaker then you're moving the right speaker in relation to the anchor, the side wall and back wall and any other physical features of the room. In the several Master Sets I've seen, the distance from the listener is within a very few inches. Also, keep in mind that one fine tuning step after bass energy is equalized is minute movements forward and back to synchronize pulse arrival. The rake of the speakers is the final step, after toe has been set, which brings out the air openness with some speakers. After this is completed, there's no sense of imbalance side to side.

About Maggies, remember that the front plain of the speakers is NOT really that far into the room. When you compare say 1.5 meters to the distance of the front plain of my floor standing Vienna Acoustics Beethoven Baby Grands, it's not that different. So, if you're interested and willing, try doing the Master Set with your Maggies, but don't assume a certain minimum distance, rather discover that through the process. It's not going to be 6-inches, but it might not be 1.5 meters either.

Some of this is a bit hard to believe, so I'd join Steve in encouraging music lovers to have a little faith and give it a try.

Oh, BTW, make very precise measurements when you've found "the spots" for your speakers. I use a laser and measurements down to 1/16" to assure that I can get mine back in place. One other "trick" that I learned from watching the Sumiko guys is to lift the right speaker slightly off the floor once you've got it almost in place. With the test music playing and in one of its strong bass areas, slower lower the speaker  and it will "set" itself. It's truly amazing how much difference truly tiny movements can make.

I was going to stop, but that brought one more thing to mind. At the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest I was helping my friend Guido Corona around the site. Guido writes for The Absolute Sound and he's completely blind (he prefers that term, so don't lecture me about some PC term to use). Anyway, we're watching (as Guido would say) Sumiko set up the Vienna Acoustic Die Muzik speakers in Soundings' room at RMAF. They spent two hours, including a false where the preamp had be set at mono!! (They were going crazy). Anyway, once they got the set about 99% right, they tipped the speakers vertically a degree or two at a time. Of course, Guido couldn't see what they were doing and didn't realize how tiny the movements were, but he'd say "there, that's it" and I'd hear the same large changes in focus based on very small movements. Once they got that, two of them lifted the right speaker an inch or so off the floor and let it "set" itself.

So, if you work hours and get it sounding really sweet, then take careful measurements. Also, use a level to make certain that you're consistant in a vertical plain also. (I keep the front edge of my Baby Grands level and have a certain degree of rake based on how far the spikes screw in).

Dave

[richidoo]

Thanks Dave, nice info. I also enjoyed reading your Agon review. I met Guido at RMAF 07, nice guy and a very serious audiophile.

The lifting step is for adjusting the vertical position minutely, correct? How does it "set itself?" That's what I don't get. Thanks

I got my anchor speaker up on sliders and the bass treatments cleared out almost ready to start. I'm gonna take my time and try to learn something along the way. 
Rich

[dcstep]

Thanks Dave, nice info. I also enjoyed reading your Agon review. I met Guido at RMAF 07, nice guy, very serious audiophile.

The lifting step is for adjusting the vertical position minutely, correct? How does it "set itself?" That's what I don't get. Thanks

Thanks for you kind words Rich.

No, the lifting step fine tunes the front/back/sideways placement. It'll only move a fraction of an inch, like between a 32d and a quarter. If you were sitting out front when it's done you'd hear it. You feel it when your the one doing it.

Dave

[stvnharr]

Thanks Dave, nice info. I also enjoyed reading your Agon review. I met Guido at RMAF 07, nice guy, very serious audiophile.

The lifting step is for adjusting the vertical position minutely, correct? How does it "set itself?" That's what I don't get. Thanks

Thanks for you kind words Rich.

No, the lifting step fine tunes the front/back/sideways placement. It'll only move a fraction of an inch, like between a 32d and a quarter. If you were sitting out front when it's done you'd hear it. You feel it when your the one doing it.

Dave

Oh, now I know who Guido is.  I've seen him at RMAF every year.
BTW, my Master Set procedures are just basic ones, and that will get you 99% of everything.  It took me a long time to get there. Once I get this down well, I can move on to the fine tuning steps.  It's often a real mistake to try and go for the advanced stuff first in most anything I have found in my experiences with a lot of things.

Steve

[dcstep]

Oh, now I know who Guido is.  I've seen him at RMAF every year.

You probably saw me also this year, since I was escorting Guido. Introduce yourself next year as a Master Set aficionado. Guido will love that.

Dave

[LM]

I now think I understand this concept a bit more.  I had heard Hugh’s new speaker positioning the other day and was impressed and so when he popped in for a bit last night, it ended up as something of a listening session as I ‘played around a bit’ with my own speaker positioning.  The existing positions were of course carefully marked so I could return to them as they have taken quite a while to ‘get right’.  Notwithstanding this last statement, I was still not 100% happy, so quite prepared to fiddle.

Anyway, the bottom line is that whilst I did not do anything like a complete ground up master set ‘procedure’, I did leave one speaker at its existing position and moved the other as discussed here and heard all the effects that Steve has described.  Bear in mind that I have always (in the past) moved speakers as a pair and generally symmetrically so this was a bit novel for me.  In the end, the single ‘moving’ speaker ended up less than 50mm away from where it started and both ended up with a far greater toe in than before but what was profound was how big a difference a final few mm could make.  These are now my new marked positions by the way.

Even after Hugh left, I made one more arbitrarily large change (about 10cm) to see if there was any effect on sound stage width.  There was, sort of, and it sounded OK from a central seat but an immediate move to my left or right had the female vocal moving from central to the left or right speaker accordingly.  10cm back and the vocalist was again in a locked and steady almost 3D central position regardless of where in the room I moved to.  So, this thread has helped me overcome my previous mindset and allowed me to embrace the concept of moving of one speaker independently of the other - and accepting where it ended up.  So thanks Steve.

[dcstep]

Lynn, that's great. Experienced audiophiles quite often end up not real far from their setting developed over a long period of time. My moves were larger than yours because I'd been sacrificing bass in order to get smooth mids and highs, my highest priority. Move in increments and maybe do a one-session every week or so to see if you can improve where you now are, since as a DIYer you don't have an experienced hand to vault you to the end result. I'd suggest starting from scratch now that you've seen part of the potential. See if you can find a more ideal spot for that left anchor speaker and then build the set around that. I sounds like you've already gained a lot.

Dave

[Tliner]

Hi All,

I heard the "set up" VSonic speakers at Hugh's today. My first impression was a conciderable increase in the width and depth of the sound stage and imaging virtually from one wall to the other of the room. In summary, there is an overall improvement in presentation. But Hugh & I noticed that the bass was much more powerfull and had a fuller sound within "the triangle" than any other listening position in the room.

When I returned home I turned on my VSonics without the woofer. I listened for a while while slowly moving the right speaker by very small increments along with the toe in of both speakers. Now I feel the resultant sound is possibly as good as it gets from the now much wider listening area. However, I have noticed that the bass is diminished within the triangle and conversely to Hugh's set up the bass is better outside the triangle. I don't know what is exactly going on here but obviously the room and content placement has a large influence.

I later turned on the woofer (which is balanced to suit the VSonics) and of course introduced extra punch and slam to the music to about live performance levels. I noticed that although the wooferr is positioned to the left of centre between the main speakers there was a decided improvement in imaging of the bass. Now with a good recording of a double bass playing the imaging is such that you can actually place the string that had been plucked not only the impact of a note but the decay too.

I have been playing around with speakers longer than I can remember but the Master Set procedure of speaker alignment is a revelation.

Yep, I'm glad that this thread is going Steve.

Laurie

[stvnharr]

Hi All,

I heard the "set up" VSonic speakers at Hugh's today. My first impression was a conciderable increase in the width and depth of the sound stage and imaging virtually from one wall to the other of the room. In summary, there is an overall improvement in presentation. But Hugh & I noticed that the bass was much more powerfull and had a fuller sound within "the triangle" than any other listening position in the room.

When I returned home I turned on my VSonics without the woofer. I listened for a while while slowly moving the right speaker by very small increments along with the toe in of both speakers. Now I feel the resultant sound is possibly as good as it gets from the now much wider listening area. However, I have noticed that the bass is diminished within the triangle and conversely to Hugh's set up the bass is better outside the triangle. I don't know what is exactly going on here but obviously the room and content placement has a large influence.

I later turned on the woofer (which is balanced to suit the VSonics) and of course introduced extra punch and slam to the music to about live performance levels. I noticed that although the wooferr is positioned to the left of centre between the main speakers there was a decided improvement in imaging of the bass. Now with a good recording of a double bass playing the imaging is such that you can actually place the string that had been plucked not only the impact of a note but the decay too.

I have been playing around with speakers longer than I can remember but the Master Set procedure of speaker alignment is a revelation.

Yep, I'm glad that this thread is going Steve.

Laurie

Hi Laurie,
Nice to read your post.  Your observations tell me that Hugh's set needs some tweaking.  My experience with doing this is that close is pretty good, but
when you get everything right, it is much better.

Steve