My thoughts are increasingly turning towards room treatments. It is something I know I should pay more attention to, but the simple fact is that I always seem to be more interested in electronics (and many other things), so thoughts of doing something with the room get pushed backwards. That said, I have now reached the point where I am really happy with both my digital and vinyl set ups, so doing something with the room is the one place left I can potentially achieve some worthwhile gains.
My room is already pretty good acoustically. I am lucky in that I have listened to a system absolutely identical to mine at Oxford Audio Consultants, and in two different demo rooms at various different times. In one OAC demo room, the Pro + Blades sound rather different to my set up at home, whereas in another demo room they sound very similar. The similar sounding room is exactly the same width as my room at home (I have measured it to within 10mm), it has less junk and furniture in it and it is a little shorter than my room. The Oxford Audio room is better treated than mine though, with other differences, such as a suspended wooden floor versus my carpet covered solid concrete. At Oxford Audio the bass is definitely a bit more even than I have at home, the system sounds a little darker, but perhaps does lose out on punch and dynamics. My aim with room treatments would be to try and get some of that Oxford Audio goodness at home, without losing too much of the good stuff I already have. I can see there are compromises here. Indeed, I have listened to the Blades at two other hifi dealers (with different amplification, only OAC also have Devialet), as well as at a couple of shows. This is useful data in terms of gauging your own room and set up at home. Interestingly, I would not swap the sound achieved at one dealers reasonably well treated room with that I achieve at home. I suspect this is due to this particular dealer having a slightly narrower room, which I think does not suit the Blades.
One thing I can see regarding room treatments is that it is something that will take a lot of time and effort to get right. Time that I just do not have at the moment, so a lot of my future efforts will probably develop very slowly. Having said that, I do have some ideas regarding things I can experiment with, and I can highlight some likely problem areas in my room. I quite like the idea of getting some cheap foam type products, just to experiment with. OK, I know these are not optimum products, but I can see some benefit from experimenting with something cheap and simple before going for the more serious (and expensive) products. As an example, I have measured my room response with REW, I have a bass null, I have checked the wavelength of this bass frequency and it is exactly the distance between one speaker and my worst treated wall. (the equivalent wall opposite has a window, but covered with floor to ceiling curtains) Yes, I know the room interaction is more complex that this, taking into account all walls, floor and the ceiling, but things like this give me ideas as to where to experiment. I also have one fairly obvious "first reflection point" that could do with sorting out.
I am also interested in trying GIK's advice service:
https://gikacoustics.co.uk/acoustic-advice-form/
https://gikacoustics.co.uk/room-acoustics-visualizer/
I visited the "Hifi London Indulgence show" in 2017, a terrible name for a show, but they did have some good seminars running throughout the day. One seminar I attended was run by a guy from GIK UK, he was talking about room treatment in general, explaining their advice service, and taking general questions. It was a great talk. Someone mentioned in an earlier post that companies that produce room treatment products are likely to push to sell you as much product as possible. The GIK guy certainly did not give this impression. He explained that when you use their advice service they tend to respond by highlighting the things that are likely to yield the biggest improvement for the least effort, the things you should try first. They then move onto things that might be more difficult, but still yield positive results, all the way to things that are really hard to do and will only give a small benefit. It is then up to the customer to decide how far they want to go. OK - I know GIK were at the show to persuade people to buy GIK products, but I did leave the seminar with a very positive impression of what GIK can offer.
If anyone has tried the GIK advice service, I would be very interested in hearing your experiences of this.
EDIT: I have just voted in Pim's poll "I listen in the living room but it's well treated", I should have picked the option below, although if I get my act together and do some of the stuff described in this post, my selection will then become correct. Maybe this is the motivation I have needed all along!
My room is already pretty good acoustically. I am lucky in that I have listened to a system absolutely identical to mine at Oxford Audio Consultants, and in two different demo rooms at various different times. In one OAC demo room, the Pro + Blades sound rather different to my set up at home, whereas in another demo room they sound very similar. The similar sounding room is exactly the same width as my room at home (I have measured it to within 10mm), it has less junk and furniture in it and it is a little shorter than my room. The Oxford Audio room is better treated than mine though, with other differences, such as a suspended wooden floor versus my carpet covered solid concrete. At Oxford Audio the bass is definitely a bit more even than I have at home, the system sounds a little darker, but perhaps does lose out on punch and dynamics. My aim with room treatments would be to try and get some of that Oxford Audio goodness at home, without losing too much of the good stuff I already have. I can see there are compromises here. Indeed, I have listened to the Blades at two other hifi dealers (with different amplification, only OAC also have Devialet), as well as at a couple of shows. This is useful data in terms of gauging your own room and set up at home. Interestingly, I would not swap the sound achieved at one dealers reasonably well treated room with that I achieve at home. I suspect this is due to this particular dealer having a slightly narrower room, which I think does not suit the Blades.
One thing I can see regarding room treatments is that it is something that will take a lot of time and effort to get right. Time that I just do not have at the moment, so a lot of my future efforts will probably develop very slowly. Having said that, I do have some ideas regarding things I can experiment with, and I can highlight some likely problem areas in my room. I quite like the idea of getting some cheap foam type products, just to experiment with. OK, I know these are not optimum products, but I can see some benefit from experimenting with something cheap and simple before going for the more serious (and expensive) products. As an example, I have measured my room response with REW, I have a bass null, I have checked the wavelength of this bass frequency and it is exactly the distance between one speaker and my worst treated wall. (the equivalent wall opposite has a window, but covered with floor to ceiling curtains) Yes, I know the room interaction is more complex that this, taking into account all walls, floor and the ceiling, but things like this give me ideas as to where to experiment. I also have one fairly obvious "first reflection point" that could do with sorting out.
I am also interested in trying GIK's advice service:
https://gikacoustics.co.uk/acoustic-advice-form/
https://gikacoustics.co.uk/room-acoustics-visualizer/
I visited the "Hifi London Indulgence show" in 2017, a terrible name for a show, but they did have some good seminars running throughout the day. One seminar I attended was run by a guy from GIK UK, he was talking about room treatment in general, explaining their advice service, and taking general questions. It was a great talk. Someone mentioned in an earlier post that companies that produce room treatment products are likely to push to sell you as much product as possible. The GIK guy certainly did not give this impression. He explained that when you use their advice service they tend to respond by highlighting the things that are likely to yield the biggest improvement for the least effort, the things you should try first. They then move onto things that might be more difficult, but still yield positive results, all the way to things that are really hard to do and will only give a small benefit. It is then up to the customer to decide how far they want to go. OK - I know GIK were at the show to persuade people to buy GIK products, but I did leave the seminar with a very positive impression of what GIK can offer.
If anyone has tried the GIK advice service, I would be very interested in hearing your experiences of this.
EDIT: I have just voted in Pim's poll "I listen in the living room but it's well treated", I should have picked the option below, although if I get my act together and do some of the stuff described in this post, my selection will then become correct. Maybe this is the motivation I have needed all along!
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
