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Presentation is Too Forward, where to start?

Newbie looking for tweaks or equipment suggestions to resolve a too-forward presentation. Strong vocals (female and male), horns, guitar solo tracks, all have me wanting to move up against the far wall at low to moderate listening levels. Tonal balance, treble, mid, and bass are all OK and overall soundstaging is well-developed. I enjoy all types of music from traditional country blues, electric blues, jazz, Allman Brothers, Stones, Who, singer / songwriters, country, classical.

My room is 180 square feet, given the furnishings and thick pile carpet I would say it is pretty dead. My listening position is about 6 - 8 feet from the speaker plane. My speakers are 6 feet apart and 18 inches from the rear wall. Equipment:

Turntable: Music Hall MMF 5.1 with Grado Reference Platinum 1 (wall mounted on 2 inch Maple Platform.)

Phono Preamp: JoLida JD9

CD: Rega Apollo with NXG (cheapo) digital interconnect.
DAC: Music Hall 25.3 using Speltz interconnect.

Integrated Amp: Musical Fidelity A5

Speakers: Monitor Audio Silver RS6 with Signal Cable bi-wires. Sensitivity is at 90db, nominal impedence is 6 ohms.

Old Velodyne sub VA68XII connected to the Speaker Posts.

Computer Audio: iMac, running out of iTunes with an AudioEngine D2 wireless, outputted via optical connection into the Music Hall DAC.

Stand: Lovan Sovereign

Power Cords: Sound String.

Forward presentation exists through all input sources.
jwhiii56
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
I believe the 50" refers to the distance from the speaker with the measurement taken at the height of the tweeter. From the measurements it would appear that playing with toe-in should reduce the treble balance.
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,957 posts
 
you're right Onhwy61 - I read it wrong! I went back & re-read it & it says "step response on tweeter axis at 50". My bad!
jwhiii56 OP
12 posts
 
Bombaywalla, Thanks for the input. My listening position starts at 6 feet (triangle theory, I'm 6 feet from the speakers' plane and I then find myself moving back trying to find the sweet spot. I sit in an office chair at the lowest setting and I'm 6'5" so my ears are 47" above the floor or a foot above the top of the speaker cabinets. Looks like I need a bean bag chair. I'll try a listening session on the floor tonight. jwhiii56
drew_eckhardt
394 posts
 
It's the speakers.

You are receiving excess high-frequency energy from the side-wall and ceiling reflections due to the broadening polar response above the cross-over and have a few high frequency resonances that will color the sound including the metal mid-range driver breakup which isn't corrected sufficiently and a big 10dB peak at 15KHz which will be quite noticeable if you're young and did not destroy your hearing with ear buds cranked up too loud.

A parametric equalizer could be used to eliminate the resonance's effect on speaker response.

Treating the first reflection points with rigid fiberglass panels might help with the excess energy.
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,957 posts
 
I sit in an office chair at the lowest setting and I'm 6'5" so my ears are 47" above the floor or a foot above the top of the speaker cabinets.
OMG, that's most likely your problem. You are hearing nothing but high freq.
Just the way drivers are constructed, the acoustical center of a tweeter is more in front of the driver than the acoustical center of a woofer. Hence the sound from the tweeter comes 1st to your ears. That's also one reason you find time-aligned speakers (like Thiel, Meadowlark, Green Mtn Audio) slope their baffles such that the tweeter is physically behind the woofer plane. With your sitting a foot above the height of the speaker the drivers have no chance of integrating.
You need to move much lower so that your ears are about 1" BELOW the midrange woofer. This way the tweeter sound will have the longest path to your ears & the woofers the shortest. It will compensate for the tweeter's acoustical center.
besides a beanbag you might also try those canvas lawn chairs (the ones you take for 'music-in-the-park'). The canvas seat sags once you sit & drops you lower. I've used these canvas lawn chairs successfully.
Since you're so tall, your solution might be 2-fold: seat lower + raise speaker.
Let us know how you fare.....
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