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Just got my Sierra-LX, but a few rough spots in my setup are apparent.
Hi!
My current source is iphone, android, linux box, windows box. I use the windows box with direct audio to 'audition' stuff. Amplifier is an SMSL SA300. (40x2@8ohm.) It has a pretty crap DAC, but my other DAC is still in a moving box. Soon, I'll have the Sabaj a30a, which is 100watts and reportedly a lot less class-d sounding.
My room is roughly 12x10 and 8 feet tall. I sit in the middle on a very wide desk. There's a 49" monitor on the desk, and to each side is a Sierra-LX speaker. So the speakers form a distance of 62" center to center, and about 44" center of speaker to my head.
There are 3 windows up front, one window to the right, and a double glass sliding door to the left.
Behind me, it's about 6 feet from speakers to wall. The wall is partially treated with foam hex tiles. No other room treatments exist.
Here's a picture from when I was moving into the room:
Attachment 2599
I've got a couple things I'm trying to solve. None of these were an issue on the other speakers, so I'm hesitant to condemn the room, but certainly won't rule it out. (The closest speakers I had in use to compare with is ancient Focal Utopia 165w 6.5" speakers jammed into a radio shack box.)
1. Vocals sound a bit ringy/wrong.
It's hard to describe, but there's definitely a ringing of some sort in middle male vocals or lower female vocals. The vocals also have a boxed-in sound. Like the singer is singing through a shoebox.
Just playing with a 31 band eq, I came up with:
315hz -10 db
400hz -8 db
1khz - 4 db
1.25khz -3 db
It makes the singer-in-a-box problem more evident, but makes it possible to listen to some of the stronger ringing in the vocals.
The song I used to dial it in was O Holy Night by Jewel. With EQ off, it'll run you out of the room with ringing. With EQ, it's tolerable, but far from fixed. I'd rather attack this at the speaker/room level, I only have EQ in Windows.
I do suspect contact with my desk may be partially to blame. I shoved some sorbothane washers under the front to push the fronts up, which helped some with some bad behavior i'm hearing in the audio.
2. Some instruments ring as well - like the first minute of Mexicana by Opal Ocean has a -lot- of resonance/ringing.
3. I need to raise the soundstage. Should I just tilt them up more? I have a new 3D printer and an itch to print so I could make legs of just about any kind at the moment.
-I found that soundstage width is excellent when the speakers are toed about 15 degrees out. They sort of go from calling out their locations to instantly vanishing as I turn them away.
-My ears are about 6" above the tweeters, but as mentioned earlier, this is a very near field situation.
4. Not really a problem but a listening preference. The one thing i really feel like im missing from the old Focal is the ability for songs like Bomobleo to make you absolutely flinch from the top end. Any suggested EQ setting to maybe simulate that a bit?
Re: Just got my Sierra-LX, but a few rough spots in my setup are apparent.
Hi gmetro,
The Sierra-LX speakers do not have any "ringing" in any part of their audible frequency range. The only frequency where the tweeter will ring is at its cone breakup mode, which is up at about 27kHz, well out of the range of human hearing.
From your description of what you are hearing, these are standing waves (frequencies that linger). And in a room of your dimensions, standing waves (room modes) are going to be a huge issue.
You can actually calculate these info here:
https://amcoustics.com/tools/amroc?l...t=true&r60=0.6
You will see many of the strong modes correspond closely with the EQ you are setting.
Have you tried simply plugging the rear ports of the speaker with the port plugs we include?
Re: Just got my Sierra-LX, but a few rough spots in my setup are apparent.
Hello! Thank you for the response. That link is extremely useful
Since I posted this, I upgraded from the SMSL amp to a Sabaj A30a with significantly more power.
The majority of the ringing is simply gone - perhaps this was just bad behavior from the SMSL amp that didn't show up otherwise. -my other 6.5s had 95db sensitivity, and I dont think the little ones (88db) were capable of the volumes I was playing.
I've also put them on foam wedges which has helped as well.
I'll poke around the site you linked and see what I can do with room treatment now
Really enjoying these so far!
Re: Just got my Sierra-LX, but a few rough spots in my setup are apparent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gmetro
My room is roughly 12x10 and 8 feet tall. I sit in the middle on a very wide desk. There's a 49" monitor on the desk, and to each side is a Sierra-LX speaker. So the speakers form a distance of 62" center to center, and about 44" center of speaker to my head.
There are 3 windows up front, one window to the right, and a double glass sliding door to the left.
Behind me, it's about 6 feet from speakers to wall. The wall is partially treated with foam hex tiles. No other room treatments exist.
You are sitting in the worst position in a bad room. You are listening to room mode hell. You've got both peaks and nulls at all kinds of frequencies all around the room. Mostly below 1KHz. But above that, you've got very rapid reflections (first reflections off walls and ceilings that arrive too soon after the direct sound from the speakers). These rapid reflections off the walls and ceiling are what give your room "small room" sound, like you're sitting in a box. Because, well, you *are* sitting in a box. It's called small room sound for a reason.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gmetro
1. Vocals sound a bit ringy/wrong.
It's hard to describe, but there's definitely a ringing of some sort in middle male vocals or lower female vocals. The vocals also have a boxed-in sound. Like the singer is singing through a shoebox.
Yes -- the "ringy" sound is probably what people call "slap echo". Room treatments are your friend.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gmetro
Just playing with a 31 band eq, I came up with:
315hz -10 db
400hz -8 db
1khz - 4 db
1.25khz -3 db
You've probably got a lot more than that, all the way down to 20 Hz and below.
Using a program like REW (https://www.roomeqwizard.com/) can help you visualize what's going on. And perhaps how to treat it. But you'll have to do some research to figure out the right combination of treatments (bass traps, absorption, and diffusion), where to place them, and what frequencies to concentrate on.
The trick here, if there is a trick, is to avoid too much absorption -- you don't want to listen in a nearly anechoic chamber. Diffusion panels are just as important as absorption, as are bass traps.
And don't ignore the ceiling.
Hugh Robjohns of Sound on Sound wrote a nice article on making a small room sound nice just a couple of years ago. You might find it useful:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniq...oom-sound-good
[edit]
You might also want to look up the "Haas Effect" to get a better explanation of some of what I've been talking about above.
[/edit]
Re: Just got my Sierra-LX, but a few rough spots in my setup are apparent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
gmetro
Hello! Thank you for the response. That link is extremely useful
Since I posted this, I upgraded from the SMSL amp to a Sabaj A30a with significantly more power.
The majority of the ringing is simply gone - perhaps this was just bad behavior from the SMSL amp that didn't show up otherwise. -my other 6.5s had 95db sensitivity, and I dont think the little ones (88db) were capable of the volumes I was playing.
I've also put them on foam wedges which has helped as well.
I'll poke around the site you linked and see what I can do with room treatment now
Really enjoying these so far!
Excellent - happy to hear that you are enjoying them and that you are resolving the issues you were having. The LX do like loads of power :)
