19-Jun-2022, 20:56
Derek,
The bass and treble controls have an operating range, bass from a set frequency on down and treble from a set frequency on up. The sliders in the screen you showed allow you to set the frequency from which each slider starts to operate so the settings shown have the bass control operative from 100 Hx on down and the treble control operative from 2000 Hz on up. When you increase of decrease bass or treble, the increase or decrease will start from around the frequency you set and will increase or decrease graduaally for a bit before reaching maximum effect at a frequency somewhat lower than the bass frequency you set and somewhere higher than the treble frequency you set.
The voice range extends from around 110 Hz (bottom of the baritone range) to around 1050 Hz (top of the soprano range) for the fundamentals, the notes the singer actually sings but there are overtones produced which extend many octaves above the note being sung, and the human voice can also produce lower pitches. Tibetan monks can get down to around 50 Hz and some baritones sometimes get down lower than 100 Hz in some music but in general we can say that the voice range lies between 110 and 1050 Hz. which means that if falls between the settings for the tone controls on the screen you show. That's probably a very good thing because we're extremely sensitive to the sound of voices, we hear voices every day and for a large part of the day if we work. We're a lot better at telling whether voices sound natural than we are at telling whether the sound of any musical instrument sounds natural.
So to your observation that voices are sounding recessed. Voices lie in the low mid-range which is the area between bass and treble. The mid range can sound recessed it bass and/or treble are elevated and, given the frequency range of voices, it's probably a boosted bass that contributes to the feeling of recessed voices. You didn't mention using the bass or treble controls when you described your setup but you did mention SAM at about 40%. Sam operates up to around 150 Hz and affects both the phase and amount of bass you hear, increasingly so as you boost the SAM level to increase the amount of bass extension.
I think your problem with voices sounding recessed may be due to your SAM level setting. What I would suggest doing is switching SAM off and seeing whether that affects your perception of voices sounding recessed. If voices no longer sound recessed with SAM off, then turn SAM back on but turn the level down to 0% and then start bringing it up again until you can just start to hear the effect on voices and then turn it down 1 or 2% so you no longer hear the recession. You may find after listening at that SAM level for some days that you start to notice a slight level of recession in the voices as you become accustomed to the change in sound and you may have to turn SAM down again a bit.
If it is SAM as I suspect because I no longer use SAM with my speakers because of it's effect on the low end of female vocals in my room, you may also notice a reduction in the low bass. You can try correcting that by adjusting your sub settings which will also be affecting your perception of the vocal range. In fact it's possible that the problem is excessive sub boost rather than the SAM setting so if lowering the SAM setting doesn't solve the problem, try reducing the gain setting on the sub instead. You may need to adjust both SAM and the sub slightly to solve the problem.
In the end, however, you may need to accept slightly less bass in your overall sound in order to avoid voices sounding recessed. Increasing the setting frequency for the bass control above 100 Hz towards the maximum of 500Hz won't solve the problem, it will just shift the point at which voices sound recessed, and while you could shift the treble frequency down to 1000 Hz as well that will really only affect vocal overtones rather than the sound of the actual sung notes.
I think your best options are playing with the SAM setting and your sub's gain setting. The other sub setting available to you, the crossover frequency setting, should be set as KEF recommend for the LS50 if they have a recommendation otherwise I'd set it to something like 80 Hz or lower to get the upper end of the sub's range a bit further away from the bottom of the voice range.
I hope this helps.
The bass and treble controls have an operating range, bass from a set frequency on down and treble from a set frequency on up. The sliders in the screen you showed allow you to set the frequency from which each slider starts to operate so the settings shown have the bass control operative from 100 Hx on down and the treble control operative from 2000 Hz on up. When you increase of decrease bass or treble, the increase or decrease will start from around the frequency you set and will increase or decrease graduaally for a bit before reaching maximum effect at a frequency somewhat lower than the bass frequency you set and somewhere higher than the treble frequency you set.
The voice range extends from around 110 Hz (bottom of the baritone range) to around 1050 Hz (top of the soprano range) for the fundamentals, the notes the singer actually sings but there are overtones produced which extend many octaves above the note being sung, and the human voice can also produce lower pitches. Tibetan monks can get down to around 50 Hz and some baritones sometimes get down lower than 100 Hz in some music but in general we can say that the voice range lies between 110 and 1050 Hz. which means that if falls between the settings for the tone controls on the screen you show. That's probably a very good thing because we're extremely sensitive to the sound of voices, we hear voices every day and for a large part of the day if we work. We're a lot better at telling whether voices sound natural than we are at telling whether the sound of any musical instrument sounds natural.
So to your observation that voices are sounding recessed. Voices lie in the low mid-range which is the area between bass and treble. The mid range can sound recessed it bass and/or treble are elevated and, given the frequency range of voices, it's probably a boosted bass that contributes to the feeling of recessed voices. You didn't mention using the bass or treble controls when you described your setup but you did mention SAM at about 40%. Sam operates up to around 150 Hz and affects both the phase and amount of bass you hear, increasingly so as you boost the SAM level to increase the amount of bass extension.
I think your problem with voices sounding recessed may be due to your SAM level setting. What I would suggest doing is switching SAM off and seeing whether that affects your perception of voices sounding recessed. If voices no longer sound recessed with SAM off, then turn SAM back on but turn the level down to 0% and then start bringing it up again until you can just start to hear the effect on voices and then turn it down 1 or 2% so you no longer hear the recession. You may find after listening at that SAM level for some days that you start to notice a slight level of recession in the voices as you become accustomed to the change in sound and you may have to turn SAM down again a bit.
If it is SAM as I suspect because I no longer use SAM with my speakers because of it's effect on the low end of female vocals in my room, you may also notice a reduction in the low bass. You can try correcting that by adjusting your sub settings which will also be affecting your perception of the vocal range. In fact it's possible that the problem is excessive sub boost rather than the SAM setting so if lowering the SAM setting doesn't solve the problem, try reducing the gain setting on the sub instead. You may need to adjust both SAM and the sub slightly to solve the problem.
In the end, however, you may need to accept slightly less bass in your overall sound in order to avoid voices sounding recessed. Increasing the setting frequency for the bass control above 100 Hz towards the maximum of 500Hz won't solve the problem, it will just shift the point at which voices sound recessed, and while you could shift the treble frequency down to 1000 Hz as well that will really only affect vocal overtones rather than the sound of the actual sung notes.
I think your best options are playing with the SAM setting and your sub's gain setting. The other sub setting available to you, the crossover frequency setting, should be set as KEF recommend for the LS50 if they have a recommendation otherwise I'd set it to something like 80 Hz or lower to get the upper end of the sub's range a bit further away from the bottom of the voice range.
I hope this helps.
Roon Nucleus+, Devialet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.
Brisbane, Qld, Australia
