Pictures of your speaker system

Discussion in 'Speakers' started by Cspirou, Nov 6, 2015.

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  1. ufospls2

    ufospls2 Friend

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    Due to Dennis being unwell, supposedly Jim Salk is now going to be building the BMR's.....for $3000USD. I read this on Reddit so I have no idea if it is indeed true, however, if it is? Thats a bummer. These speakers are amazing me, especially for how much they cost. I thought I would buy speakers around this price so I could listen to tunes, and then buy something more expensive to build a system around at a later date. Honestly, I don't think I will buy speakers for a good long while now. I think these are perfect for building a system around and learning more about speaker listening vs. headphones. So stoked.
     
  2. Victor

    Victor New

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    Very valid arguments. I would not spend a crazy amount on hifi if I knew the room had major issues, but we all have different priorities. It just seems like some people buy a ferrari and are driving offroad with it. And if they don’t like the way it handles and accelerates, they go blame the tires and petrol, or buy a lamborghini :).

    I would love a general recommendation list of gear, besides the already very helpful golden schlong awards. There are so many audio websites and magazines, and I honestly feel SBAF is the only source of information I know without a ‘hidden’ agenda.
     
  3. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Dennis is ill and isn’t taking any new orders.

    I actually really need a center which is unfortunate. I’ll reach out to Jim Salk to see if he’ll do them, but I suspect I’m looking at $2000+ if he will.
     
  4. enginerd

    enginerd New

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    to continue the car analogy, I'd say it's more like who buys a supercar or even a sports car and doesn't take it to the track? You can't possibly experience the limits of what it can do (at least safely or legally) unless you go to the track. My guess most BMW, Porsche, etc. owners don't do that to maximize what their cars can do, but, hey, different strokes...
     
  5. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    There are a lot of audiophiles who focus and concentrate on the things that really matter or seek value where it is possible. Found a great sounding $6000 speaker cable, but $20 of plenum rated CAT6 sounds 99.2% as good. Use the $20 stuff. Heck, I have both, but I still use the cheaper CAT6 because it's easier to handle and doesn't weigh 25lbs with a tendency to fall off or rip out the speaker terminals. The thing is, these sensible audiophiles don't seem to exist because they aren't the type to talk about their stuff, with the exception of people like who me who proudly admit that they use $8 shit because listening tests actually demonstrated that the $8 shit sounded better, no worse, or simply different than the $389 shit, or that the $79 15" woofer sounded better than x4 $389 6.5" exotic composite material woofers.

    Sadly, sometimes it's no life, the wife left, and the kids are no longer in the house. Getting old, out-of-shape, etc. I don't think it's bling. I guess some people might do that. Basically, nothing else better to do. These lonely dudes start getting deeper and deeper into it - in a very unhealthy way. There are a lot of women around Calabasas and Beverly Hills who get plastic surgery. I mean the really bad Joan Rivers kind. What these audiophile dudes do is no different from the plastic surgery women. It's gross.

    I've stopped buying this lame excuse. Does anyone think the wife would be happy with $20k cables when $2k of cables, rugs, shelves, panels, and nice furniture would do? There are inventive ways to compromise. Or just marry someone who understands you. Or marry someone who has some common sense and knows that all shit in the "Living Room" magazines is utter bullshit. Want to know something about the 2MM-3MM houses in the gated communities around my neighborhood? Many of them are barren inside with barely any furniture or window treatments.

    This is one of my listening rooms. You guys ever wonder why my listening rooms always look like shit with crap all over the place, on the floors, and without any obvious signs of room treatments (they are there if you look and think carefully - I also prefer lively rooms since I am not exact mixing audio for the latest Marvel film). I am using patch cables I bought from Guitar Center too. I take pride in these things - showing y'all that speakers ain't as difficult as some audiophiles make it out to be - keeping it real.

    upload_2019-4-6_21-0-56.png

    It's not room treatments, it's mental treatments that are needed first.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2019
  6. spwath

    spwath Hijinks master cum laudle

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    I still get enjoyment out of shit listening setups, existing in the real world. Probably more enjoyment than taking the time to go to a special room that is impractical for anything other than speaker listening. Like when a party ends on a Friday night, and everyone leaves, I can just put some of the Doors on this not good setup and have a great listening experience. Bad setups and untreated rooms exist because there is something better than audio: life.
    IMG_20190404_234215513.jpg
     
  7. Victor

    Victor New

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    @purr1n But thats why I really enjoy this place. I have given up the idea of owning the ultimate audio set-up. My goal these days is to get a 90% set-up. As a figure of speech, since we don’t know what 100% is, or 0%. I sometimes see ‘recommended components’ or ‘systems per price-point’ lists in magazines, which seem helpful. However as soon as I see Grado 325i’s recommended (what HiFi), or all things Chord (Stereophile), I know I can’t rely on it.

    Would there be enough consensus to make a basic recommendation list here. Gear like the HD650/600, Schiit Jotunheim/Modi Multi, Campfire Andromeda seem steady contenders. The Golden Schlong awards from the last couple of years would be a great place to start.

    The efficient audiophile, a new or silent breed
     
  8. Xecuter

    Xecuter Brush and floss your amp twice a day

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    IMG_20190407_215522.jpg

    Aircon!! And some panels and stuff
     
  9. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    20190407_185540.jpg
    I always repeat that without the subs she wouldn't be able to have that many plants.
     
  10. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    All those low frequencies will help promote soil aeration and thus provide for healthier plants. That was your plan all along!
     
  11. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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  12. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    I'm not going to comment on what wives care about home decor wise. I accept that is obviously an issue for some (many, most?). My GF does not give a shit what I put on my walls so I guess I am lucky.

    Still, you have a website dedicated to measuring the performance of audio equipment, and I can easily show you with REW graphs that a few hundred bucks worth of optimizing your room makes way more difference than those $6000 speaker cables ever will. Or probably even the $100 ones.

    I know it's not your thing, but you should not just discount that optimizing the acoustics of your listening space make a substantial difference. Probably the biggest price/benefit money I have ever spent in this audio hobby.
     
  13. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    I think there was talk about making a thread for room measurements. Would appreciate if the mods start one if it is not yet a thing.

    $300 is the difference between these waterfall graphs. The audible difference is huge. The wife acceptability factor is probably very low to be sure.

    [​IMG]


    [​IMG]

    Also, note I'm a bass head so the boost below 70 is completely intentional. YMMV
     
  14. Victor

    Victor New

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    Very nice setups! Adam A77X’s and Neumann K310’s, have worked on both of those with great results, and they are also enjoyable!

    @the graphs above, this has been my experience as well. In a average untreated room, 1000usd/€ of room treatment will have a more significant impact on the sound than a new dac/amp/cable/power supply. There must be a balance between measuring and hearing.
     
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Y-axis is different on the two plots. Without apples-apples measurement visualizations, we cannot say much about the effects of these unspecified $300 room treatments. At a glance, comparing available data, they don't seem to do anything. And if they did, room treatments tend to be ineffective below a few hundred cycles. Any differences in the bass meaasurements more likely due to other factors such as ambient and environmental noise. In other words, bass traps don't do shit unless they are couch or mattress sized, or actually couches or mattresses.

    P.S. I never made an argument against room treatments. I simply was against the notion of formal room treatments being a necessity for speaker use, which for some reason never existed decades ago among audiophiles.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2019
  16. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    5 points for anyone who can call out the hidden room treatments (or other gear factors) in the photo I posted above.
     
  17. ufospls2

    ufospls2 Friend

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    The Millennium Falcon diffusor pro will obviously help. As will all the furniture and random shit. This is why I like bathmats from Ikea on the walls. My old studio was full of them. I don't know if they were in the right position, I just did what looked right (ish) but the room sure sounded great. The old studio still has them all actually, I should go take a photo. Shame is, they smell really bad because a tree went through the roof (long story) and they got all mouldy :(

    I think I've been getting caught up in bullshit audiophile nervosa as I'm new and just getting into"HIFI" speakers rather than always listening to headphones. Listen more, worry less, I suppose.
     
  18. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

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    True the plots were taken months apart and the calibration is very marginally different.. The treatments were the only change though. I would be fine with redoing them for science's sake.

    And yes, I've heard the argument that traps are not very efficient a low frequencies, but I'll add a quote from Ethan Winer, from whom I have learned a lot about this....

    https://www.gearslutz.com/board/bas...olution-acoustics-20hz-bass-traps-anyone.html


    I would not say you have argued against them, but you are certainly consistently dismissive. I don't consider them a necessity either but they still really do provide a lot of bang for the buck.
     
  19. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Haha exactly.

    Listen more and worry less. Most rooms of normal people are not a problem. The only room I've seen which requires a heavier hand in room treatments is @brencho's. He lives in an older El Lay area house with the plaster walls and very inopportune location of a fireplace and door at the first side reflection points.

    As far as room treatments:
    1. Millennium Falcon in glass table, as you mentioned. Not sure if this is necessary since the top of the table is roughly parallel to the plane between the mids / tweeters and the listener's head. But why not? It's a glass top table.
    2. Fluffy seat to the right edge of the photo to address the first reflection.
    3. Not pictured: open song books on the piano and random crap in top of the piano to address the first reflection on the left side.
    4. Blinds in the center behind the speaker to act as a primitive diffuser. Varying the blinds will change the effect. I've stopped caring and don't bother with tweaking this anymore.
    5. Controlled dispersion of buttcheek horns means I have to worry less about the side walls.
     
  20. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Ethan Weiner has a general point which has absolutely nothing to do with this specific situation. Using him as an appeal to authority is lame. This is SBAF, you should know better than to do this.

    Either way, unless this Weiner dude can demonstrate that a 24" x 36" x 2" panel can reduce a 9db peak at 27/55Hz or fill in a 12db null at 68Hz in a 11' x 17' room by even a small 2-3db, then he's just full of shit about his "30% reductions". Honestly, I expect more from "Mr. Science."

    Did you save the impulse response files? Simply run them again with the same visualization parameters. You don't need to redo the measurements.

    Although this can be inferred, you've been oddly vague on the room treatments that you use and the purpose of these room treatments - what you are trying to address?

    For bass below 120-150Hz, we are talking about room modes. A simple frequency response is an effective primary tool to identify the peaks and nulls. Use CSDs to augment if necessary, but CSDs are better for use higher up in the frequency range

    If you know what you are doing, there is no need to feel threatened by my "dismissive" attitude. I've been talking with @brencho about ideas for treating his room without it looking like shit and pissing off his wife.

    I am dismissive at the notion that room treatments are necessary for speaker use. This is generally not true and prevents people who can be getting into speakers from doing so. Too many PMs from people asking me about getting into speakers and not having the proper room. My intention to is absolutely KILL this room treatment "requirement", and then build it back up again, but with the right approach.

    I am also dismissive at people who go for room treatments without first identifying issues. What are we trying to address? Room bass modes? Too lively and echoey? Poor or unstable center or fuzzy imaging? Are we actually address the problem or just buying shit because someone said it was necessary for speakers.

    I am also dismissive of small woofers, headphones, and planar tech (especially e-stats) too even though I use them all. So what else is new?
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2019

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