Thanks a lot Assad.
On a business trip this week, will do some trials when back home and report the outcome.
Charles1dad, regarding professional consultants, mmmm, if I knew one that wouldn't take me to bankruptcy and for little result (like many times consultants do), I would consider that.
Has anyone had any experience with resonators and their efficiency in untying nods?
Regards. |
Hi there and thanks again for all the inputs.
Duke, I hope it's not over me that you're run into those sleepless nights.
Tommy isn't making many suggestions. He just says it's very uncommon to have such issues with the Eufrodites.
Jefferey of High Water Sound, Horning's importer in the US, recommends using either Eden Sound feet or Symposium bases for the Eufrodites. His recommendation isn't just for solving boominess but is a generic one.
Does anyone have any experience with those products?
Cheers. |
Thanks Charles1dad,
Yap, that possibility of course has crossed my mind.
My room is about 5.5X7.5X3.0 meters.
Speakers are about 3m apart, 60 cms from the back wall and my listening spot is about 3 meters out.
I can also say that in the listening spot the issue is smaller although bass should be tighter. Outside of the spot, the bass is really annoying to my ears and as music is on a lot in the house, it's bothering.
Most of the bass issue is coming from the left side of the room.
The problem with bass traps is that my system is in a family living room and I already hijack a good portion of the room for my musical purposes, adding bass traps can make me even less popular with my dear ones.
Thoughts welcome. |
Hi,
So I've been moving the speakers in, out, more toe, less toe, slanted forward, etc, etc.
But the boominess is there all the time.
Very clearly the issue comes from the left side of the room. I'm not sure why. There's a glass door there leading to a corridor which some experts told me would be where the problems comes from but I've covered the door with 3 types of fabric and carpet and it changes absolutely nothing, nada, gurnisht, niente.
There's also a little wall of about 1 meter that comes into the room on the left side about 3 meters from the back wall which creates some kind of a so called "niche" there on the left and when I stand there the boominess is heavy.
When I stand next to the right speakers, there's no boominess at all.
It is so annoying, I can't even start telling you how much.
I don't even need my system to be the best in the world, all I want is just to listen to music which right now is very challenging.
I'm not into high end hifi for a long time but I have so far maybe 5 pairs of speakers in this room with never even a hint of boominess, and now this.
What can I do?
Help!!!!!! |
Hi,
So further positioning trials have somewhat improved the boominess.
And then, following Duke's post, I stuffed towels into the woofers' ports and I think this is making an important contribution to the battle!
For sure, right now, I can listen to music and enjoy it.
Big step forward. Thanks a lot.
What material would be best to use for an appropriate stuffing?
Other than that, from the positioning trials I came to spread the speakers even further apart from each other which opened up the sound stage and brought in a lot of space between the instruments. So way to go for this collateral benefit.
Tom, how would you reckon the Variovent be installed in my speakers?
It seems that large speakers require a few of those. How would that be done, any idea?
Thanks a lot to all the contributors so far. It's helping a lot.
Regards from Paris. |
Tom, you reckon right, neither Kentucky nor Louisville is where base is.
Can you educate my layman self on what the mechanical grounding elements are?
Regards from the city of lights. |
I've stuffed into the ports a couple of polyester pillows I have here under hand.
So far the impressions are that the more stuffed, the better it is for the bass control.
With this understanding, Duke, would you have any fine tuning to make on your recommendations above regarding the material to be used?
How about using better feet for the speakers? There are a few guys that make sort of dedicated such spikes.
Would that add to the gig?
I highly appreciate everybody's help here with bringing me back to enjoying my system. |
Listening along, I find that the stuffing of the ports also takes some good qualities away.
The music is less dynamic, the loss of bass is also making it be missed across the spectrum, overall the sound is more itchy and less musical.
Of course this is just with the two provisional pillows tucked in the cave.
Will check the recommended materials in different configurations to see how they do.
Cheers. |
Yeah Tom, I figured you had something to offer in this domain.
Where can I see some more details of it?
Thanks. |
BTW, I asked Tommy about the damping materials and shutting the bass ports, he said: "all the things you are thinking of doing is against the whole idea of the Eufrodites way of working". |
Even though Tommy's remark, I agree with your statement, Duke.
I'm continuing the research... |
Good morning from Paris.
I'm still not very clear about the what the "mechanical grounding" tweaks are. Can anyone give product examples for those and to the "absorbing" ones?
I'm also not 100% sure I understand the way the wood boards have to be inserted into the bass port. Can you clarify?
Does it matter which wood to use and what the thickness of the board should be?
Re Tommy, I've been in touch with him now for about 8 months and he usually does not provide many suggestions.
Regards. |
I've been trying some of the suggestions you guys have gathered for me, the stacked wood, some polyester stuffed, some more positioning, a large painting on the corner created by the little wall on the left to break the 90 degrees, etc.
so far, nada.
the boominess is there at all cases, sometimes it's even worse, except for those two pillows that were very strongly pushed into the ports but that have also significantly reduced the dynamics and extensions on both ends of the music.
tonight I have here a Karan KAI180MKII integrated at home to listen to a little but even though I can tell there's more control in the bass department, it's still boomy, and still the left side is the more boomy part of the room.
the best "proof" of the bomminess is my 6 years old daughter who walks in front of the speakers, while playing softly, and says "it breaks my ears".
bottom line, frustrating.
spiritofmusic, yes, this thought has crossed my mind but a) I think these speakers setup right really play lovely music. b) the last thing I feel like doing now is selling/buying etc namely in the current economic mood here in Europe.
so I'd rather try anything possible before giving up on these.
what's next?
thanks again for the help from you all. |
yap, swapped speakers left/right a while ago. today also the thought came to me that maybe the dual mono of the amp is to blame so I swapped the outs from it too... niente.
I thought the painting is probably too light but that's what I had...
irrespective of, this Karan integrated, brand new out of the box, is playing very nicely. |
|
all, as you can see, my system is in the middle of our, a family of six, living room hence I'm trying to avoid adding all types of electronics all around to compensate for acoustic issues.
it's also ideally all day long that music is playing in this room hence it has to sound at least decent, i.e. as in no boomy, all around as opposed to only sound good in the sweet spot.
it's also important to note the fact that it's beyond my capacity to now go argue with a French real estate agency who runs the building we live in, about if I can or can not take down a piece of a wall that did survive two World Wars and other events since its construction in 1895.
the good news are, that being definitely convinced, as some folks have suggested, that the problem comes from the structure of the left side of the room, I started by simply dropping a carpet over the white cupboard under the CDs rack and, without celebrating too much yet, I think it's making a not so marginal difference, to the positive side of things.
so now deep breath, focus, no panic (as other folks have so truly suggested).
I'm going to continue going down that route, treating the "boom boom corner" on the left.
cross fingers, sit still and wait for breaking news.
and if you have more suggestions, please. |
Spiritofmusic, thanks for your advice. As you know, I live in Paris, France and therefore benefiting from the free trial offered by Spatial in the US isn't that musch of a given. As far as I can tell from their web site, they don't have a global distribution network, but I can ask them just to confirm.
Psag, thanks for your comment. Can you tell me what, if any, are the room treatments you have used in your living room? |
While waiting to see what to do with the Eufrodites, I had to listen to music, which with the Eufros wasn't possible.
Called up a local guy here who was selling some 70's stars, the Celestion Ditton 66, which I had already owned in the past.
550 euros, just as a place holder until matters are sorted out with the HH.
They arrived 2 hours later, delivered by the seller, ugly as hell.
Put them just there, where there was space, hooked them up, music on. Halleluiah.
No boom.
Fast bass.
Speakers completely, but completely disappear in the room.
Yes, the highs aren't as refined and maybe even it's time to replace the tweeter but this is 550 euros of pure musical pleasure.
Now we can calmly solve the HH issues. |
Thanks psag.
Interesting, what do you refer to as audiophile speakers? |
I'm indeed not looking to replace them by default. I will probably call for some expert opinion on the room acoustics in the coming days.
Before I had the Alto Utopias here and as Larryi says, they needed high volume playback to really get you into the music while the Eufros play music at any level. What's even more "annoying" is that on the tracks that don't suffer from bass boominess you can hear how nicely these babies play and then another track comes on, the bass gets boomy and you tear your hair.
Sounds_real_audio, I still owe you an answer. I chose these speakers following a recommendation from friend and as I had a really good deal on them. As I believe the only way to know how a component sounds in your room is to try it right there with the rest of your system (and the experience with the Eufros is the best example to that...), my pattern doesn't call for too many store/show listening rather then buying components, trying them here and deciding then.
This is why it's important to buy at a good price so loses are controlled in case of a quick resell.
Overall, I'm really not a picky listener and most of what I had here over the past 3 years, I liked one way or the other.
But the boomy bass is a killer. Just can't listen to music with that sound hence must be resolved.
Thanks for your participation. |
Thanks psag.
Interesting, what do you refer to as audiophile speakers? |
Hi all, So the first expert came along. He wasn't very impressed by my "complaints". He thought I was over reacting. But I think, expert of not, he just doesn't really hear what I hear... We tried some small absorbers made in Japan, triangular shaped that you nail to the corners between the walls and the ceiling. It did clean up the space slightly but the substantial boomy bass wasn't very much affected by it plus it was selling for 1000 euros a pair so forget about it. The guy also brought with him some plastic sheets, again made in Japan, that seat on the speakers and are supposed to absorb resonance etc. This time too they did clean up some noise but at the same time made the music opaque. Not my cup of tea. We also visited the back corners of the room where clearly there's a strong concentration of low waves. He suggested to place bass traps there. I might give it a shot at some point. What more is clear after some trial and error is that distance from the back wall is key in the battle against boomy bass. (Psag, how far are your Eufros from the back walls?). Nevertheless, if I was to follow the Cardas rules of speakers positioning, I would have to place mine 2.4 meters from the back walls... slightly problematic in a leaving room scenario. Other than that, in the meantime, I've done some slight tweaking i.e. hooked up my amp to my Shunyata filter (quiet a big difference it made compared with the straight from the wall Paris parasite feasted juice), put some crystal rocks in the bass ports (as suggested in http://audioexotics.hk/index.php?option=com_simplestforum&view=postlist&forumId=1&parentId=1631), positioned the speakers evenly from the side walls, etc. All the above have helped to improve the situation but not to fully solve it. Will keep updating, any further suggestion are welcome. Regards. |
Hi, I've seen in many pictures of the US distributors of Horning that in shows he usually locates plants behind the Eufrodites.
Before I drag huge plants into my living room, any thoughts about how this treatment can help with the issues caused by lack of distance from the back wall?
Duke, thanks for referencing Hedback Designes for me but as I live in Europe, it's awkward to adhere to such services located in the US. |
