Paul S wrote:

Funny that people think that phase issues just go away with so-called "FR" drivers, which have their own electrical and mechanical phase problems.  Of course it doesn't get any "better" with multi-way, multi-amped mega systems... I have wondered for a long time if the real problem is the "magnification" of phase issues, which simply become more and more apparent according to where they are on the "Problem Totem Pole".  Once we get to a certain point, phase issues can really become quite maddening.  I think of the Wilson installation experts patiently pushing those behemoths around and tweeking X/Os and driver levels, and I imagine that at a certain point they are just watching the clients, waiting for the "OK". Sure, we want to take phase "seriously".  But past a certain point, what the Hell can you do?  Like any hi-fi connundrum, it pays to keep your wits about you and remember what it is you're really after. Paul S

el`Ol wrote:

I stopped believing in phase as the most important cause of coherence when I listened to the Lithophon Miracle and believed to hear exactly the opposite of what I am used to with cone/dome speakers: woofers that dynamically don't keep up with the tweeter. Bought a pair of tweeters, crossed with 12 dB at 5 kHz and realized that's still fullrange enough for me.

AOK_Farmer wrote:

Romy, I don't see a wine rack in the view of the speakers. I believe that the wine needs music to age properly, just as we do. A dark cellar is said to have advantages but the fish down there are albinos. Perhaps some research into how the music of Schnittke affects the flavour of an aging Cote Rotie is in order. Or the long term influence of the 45 Hz horn on the development of bouquet of a Chenin Blanc. You really should set up that experiment.

A site reader sent me email informing that he has a similar situation with large glass surface in his room and that was successfully dealing with it using Acoustic Revive resonators:

http://www.acoustic-revive.com/english/qr8/qr8_01.html 
 
From the email:

“I pasted 5 pieces on each glass panel and this improved my dynamics/liveliness while reducing 'fuzziness' in my mids and highs, and helping bring back my bass. It takes abit of experimentation of where is the best spot to put them on the glass if planning to use less pieces, but I gave up and that's why I put 5. I was skeptical at beginning and only bought 1 box at first, but have since bought 3. I also tried the ASI resonators which cost a lot more, and they do work more effectively but I did not like the change in tone which they brought as well.”

This is very interesting, I never looks into this and probably I will.

zako wrote:

Ive placed the sonic revive resonaters in every concert hall in europe and the US, for better acoustic sound,,except Boston,, i want Boston to suffer.

Romy the Cat wrote:

zako wrote: Ive placed the sonic revive resonaters in every concert hall in europe and the US, for better acoustic sound,,except Boston,, i want Boston to suffer.   Maron, if you worked with them so much then would you estimate if they would be effective in my case? I am trying to offset the impact of glass doors on the back on my speakers. I have to admit that since I did the rest of the room treatment then the glass from behind the speakers become much less influential and I do not mind to listen with half of the glass covered with binds. Still if I could use the resonators and to keep the glass from binds then it might be very interesting. From the position I shoot the image below it is not visible but from the listening chair the view behind the glass is very “useful”. When I say useful I mean that at nigh it is very cool to have widows free from binds and transparent, to shut down lights in the listening room and then turn the lights in the forest behind.  This makes my black and wildly positioned speakers not even visible and creates a very cool effect of the broken Stanislavsky’s Fourth Wall. I am not always enjoying it but I would like to have those options available. So, if you have any successful experience dealing with the resonators for glass then I would appreciate if you share it. Rgs, the Cat

AOK_Farmer wrote:

Romy if you invite me to your house for a poetry slam I must warn you that I will steal this Guarwineus from you while you are in the attic checking the 42 Hz horn drivers for the relative humidity of their cones. I will be singing as my tires squeal on your driveway! This is simply an item that I must have. Fair warning!

zako wrote:

Mass dampeners have to be very large to work properly,,,Laws of physics says so,,,I have never seen any thing that small work on glass that large,,Units that small and smaller work on Tone arms,,A good example LEAD works better than ceramic of a givin size,,     Maron

Well if the idea is to be able to look out of the window while listening to music, I think these could work.





They are called "Magiscopios" and were made by an Artist called Feliciano Bejar,  they are of course made out of crystal and with sort of magnifying glasses all around.  I am sure they will be great difussers and you still could look out of the window if placed properly and get the outside: inside feeling.

They could be hard to get since the artist died a few years back, but the idea could work for something similar in front of your window.

Or maybe just hang empty Glaciovinum bottles,  you can send them to me to get "emptied" and I will send the bottles back!

Cheers

We have a nice storm in New England, in Boston we call it Nor'easter.  The snow is falling ~ 2 inches per hour and they promise 2 feet before the end of the show.  My town is under snow emergency, the wind up to 50m/h – the whole shabam!

I am feeding my fireplace with logs and play some music, watching how the world descending to hell – my semi-favorite time spending. The playback is up for days, I sometime do not shut it down at night or where I am gone out. The amps are just sitting in end of the room and what I feel it I just push play button and the system plays. This is a type of relationship between playback and leaving environment that I was targeted and now I have built it.

The playback generally sounds fine, whatever problem it has I know about them and I know how to address them. I do not do anything with playback – juts play it and it is OK as is. I play nowadays just CDs and FM…

Interesting that since I treated my back wall with fiberglass tubes I much less bothered with glass behind the speakers. I am under a big suspicion that the problems I attributed to glass were in fact the back walls problems. I do not know the right answer and I don’t care now. The blinds on the windows are wide open the 1kW pool house projector is on and I am listening for the third time the second movement of Bruckner 8th by BSO and BSO under Steinberg from 1972. The second rate composer and 2” of snow per hour works very nice tonight…

Since Sound in new home is mostly set I kind lost interest to do anything “project-wise”. I play my music and I gradually tune ingredients to get the sonic mixture that I accustom to. Last two week I was slowly playing with my analog setup. Since it will be more or less permanent setup, well as permanent as anything else in our life, I would like to do it once and never do it again.

The phonostage is incontestably my “End of the Life Phonostage” but I had some difficulty to position its power supply. It sits on the top of the rack, under PC monitor. The control RIAA unit is where it was designed to be - behind the TT on the left, where all 4 phono-cables can reach it. I would like to constrict a small harness the would host all 4 cables and hang them over 2 phonostage RCA jacks.

I deseed to stay with one deck version, 4 arms is plenty, in fact even 3 would be enough for me. My stereo arm is the same as was before 3012 with Ortofon Jubilee. My mono arms are 3009 with Ortofon Mono but I might change this cartridge. I love Ortofon Mono but I loved my old Ortofon Mono that I accidently killed. This one, the identical replacement does not sound as good in my view.  I might also  replace the  3009 arm with second 3012, but it is not too high in my priority – I has been sinking about it for years and if a chip 3012 will come to my end then I would do it. The dally arm is Micro 282. I have many fast-replaceable wands for it and many cartridges. The last arm is SME 2-12, I do not know if I will connect it, I am still contemplating…

The TT is very much the same and the rest as it use to be. I run the TT motor from PP2000 via motion switch. The change is because I very frequently forgot to shut down the TT motor and it with air pump were running for days. Now, when the TT is very far from my listening sit I feel that I need some kind of automatic shot down. So, I use one output from house security system and added a dedicated motion detector over TT. In 45 minutes of no action the switch shuts down air pump and TT motor.

Everything looks and feel very good with an exception that the TT is too far from the location what are my records are store.  The ceremony is go to one side of room/house to get a record and then to do another side to play it. This approach has own cons and pros and I am not sure if I like it.  I do have space to keep records near TT but the problem is that at the location what it might be there are a lot of baseboard heaters – not good to keep records in there. I might call to my plumber and bypass the heaters at this location but I would need to have a strong will to do so. I still did not decide.

Interesting. Living in city I did not truly experience rain, snow, wind and any other weather elements as all of it was out there, out of the walls of our city-barricaded live.   City life is made to discard the influence of snow. Even if had 2 feet snow or 10” of rain then the city infrastructure took care about it and we were very little affected.  Moving in suburb has own cons and pros. One of the discoveries I made in new place was is whether.

The house I got was in poor weather-resistance shape and I spend a lot of efforts to convert it to the house I feel comfortable.  I made 200 feet of French drain, Hydro-isolated walls in basement, number of pumps, my own 9 feet deep pitched drain pipe that dump the underground water under the house to the nearby river, connection the out of house drains into my own centralized monitorable draining system, loading attic with huge amount of insulation, introduction of 5 heating zones and connection of everything in centralized web enable alarming systems, and many other things… It was a lot of work but what the famous New England weather hit its “best” and some many of my friends are bitching about all imaginable aggravations I am sitting in my chair, smoking my Cohibas and truly enjoy to see how the systems of my house are fighting with nature. So, far they do spectacular, send the Noah's Flood now!

The  big window in my new listening room are made my listing experiences very much connected with weather outside.  Today we have a very nice and friendly light snow with no wind and I am listening my Bach.

The entire last week I was spinning Bach’s Harpsichord concertos. I am a huge fun of them and I feel that Bach First Piano Concerto in D minor is one of the greatest pieces of music even was composed.  The only problem is that it short. If it was up to me then I would made first movement last for 4 hours – it literally painful when this music stops. Bach music is what that I most frequently play on Sundays. In fact most of my listening lately is a redirection between Bruckner and Bach. This weekend was no exception.  Yesterday was WCRB’s live-to-tape broadcast of Bruckner 8 by Zander and Boston Philharmonic and the rest of the weekend I was records of Travor Pinnock Bach’s harpsichord concertos.

To play Bach on weekends I open all windows blinds and have the full room exposed to nature.  Eight years ago I wrote that sound of rain drops is very much associates for me with Bach

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=37

but in this new room the visual impact behind the window  adds lot of sensations to it. What I discover about myself however, was that in order to fully enjoy nature I need to be “saved”. I mean I need to be comfortable about my state, I need to be wormed, I need to have a confidence that why I am enjoy rain I will not be flooded, I need to know that heavy snow blizzard will not make my driveway unusable, collapse my roof or deck, that very low temperature will not froze my pipes, that heavy wind will not know out my antenna or will not bring that huge over 100 feet pine tree right next to my listening room on my head. Sure they are not real “fears” but this since of security and confidence I find is very useful to have that “open to nature” listening style.  Perhaps it is the voice of newbie home owner talk in me but it is what it is. In spirit I am an urban man and I like to enjoy nature but to have a full control over it. Otherwise the  Bach’s harpsichords do not sound peaceful  but nerves….

Rgs, Romy the Cat