Conference hips::uk_audioo

    
    I'd try turning the room round 180' - ie sofa in the bay, speakers
    the other end, 3' out from the wall to start with - then play with
    it.
    
    Dave

    re .0....
    
    You're right in assuming that bass is normally reinforced by close
    wall placement, but your problem would be complicated by the bay
    window giving all sorts of cancelling waves - which are probably
    screwing up your imaging as well. Are the speakers "firing" down
    the room (they should be..) or "across" the bay?
    
    Moving the speakers out of the bay, so that they back onto the small
    walls adjacent to the bay, might help the bass, but if it means
    putting them within about 2ft. of the corner you may introduce a
    whole new set of problems. If you can move them out into the room
    so that the reflections from the bay have less influence you may
    get a more "open" sound but you may lose on the bass; the only way
    out is to try it; a foot or so should be enough. Were they "backs
    to the wall" in your other house? 
    
    What about floor construction, ie suspended floor vs solid floor,
    is that different?

    If the room size, construction, furnishings, etc. have changed much
    from the previous house that could also be a factor. You could try
    rearranging the room as .1 says; or try just a 90 degree swap, with
    the speakers firing across the short dimension but this means listening
    in the "near field" which creates other problems....
    
    You may also have a system matching problem which room clourations
    in the other house obscured.
        
    Is there anything else different about your installation in this
    house from the other house, other than speaker placement?
    
    Personally I avoid changing the room around to suit the system;
    if you're comfortable with a given layout you'll enjoy listening more,
    and the hifi should fit in with you, not the other way round.
    
    Ultimately you may have to replace a part of your system, but I
    hope it won't come to that.
    
    Dave

    
    They're firing down the room. I agree with you about re-arranging the
    room - the furniture wouldn't really fit properly in any other
    configuration, so things will basically have to stay where they are. 
    
    The speakers were almost free standing in the previous house, so I
    assume they work better with that sort of placement. In the instruction
    leaflet that came with them, there are no recommendations about the
    best sort of placement, which I found surprising. It basically says
    "errrr, siting speakers is pretty complex, so you'd better just try a
    few different positions until it sounds right". I would have thought
    that they must have designed the things with some particular placement
    strategy in mind. 
    
    I don't find the problem in .0 unliveable with, so I think what
    I'll do is make some minor changes to make it as good as possible,
    and leave it at that. I was also suspicious that the bay may be
    setting up some kind of interference pattern at the particular
    frequency range in question. Maybe I have to drill a reflex port
    in the wall !
    
    Trevor           
    
    

After two years, I finally decided to address the problem I described in
the base note.    I  started  by going to the Penta show a couple of weeks
ago,  and  talking  to a few speaker manufacturers.    Three  of them
claimed that one or other of  their  products would be suitable for siting
in a bay window (however, the people  I  spoke to were  salesmen...).  One
(a technical person from B&W, actually) reckoned that no speaker could ever
work well in that environment.

So, I  went  down  to Reading Hi-Fi, and talked to one of the guys there about
the problem.  He wasn't sure if he could solve it, but said that they're quite
happy to  lend out their demo.  equipment overnight or over a weekend, so that
I could try some  out  at  home.   I fixed up a demonstration for later in the
week, and arranged to bring  my  Cyrus  I  in,  as  they are no longer Mission
dealers.

My proposed budget was between 250-300 pounds, and I listened to the following
speakers.  The  main idea was to look at small, well constructed, devices that
wouldn't be prone to booming.

        - Rogers LS/2a -  189 pounds
        - Royd Eden    -  235 pounds
        - ProAc Tablette -330 pounds (I think)

The Rogers are intended to be used well  away  from  a wall, so I didn't think
they  would  help solve the problem anyway.  I  must  admit  to  being  rather
unimpressed with these speakers.  I found them very uninvolving, with no  bass
to  speak of at all.  I didn't even like them with classical  music,  which  I
believe they're  really  designed  for.   

The Edens were up next. These are about the same size as Linn Kans, and indeed
they were auditioned on Kan stands.  They are designed  to  be used with their
backs right against a wall, and are the top of Royd's  small  box range, which
all  use  the  same  size cabinets.  They sounded completely different to  the
Rogers - much more dynamic and involving.  They are a bit bass-light, but this
is more noticeable on pop/rock music.  I found the mid-band particularly good;
brass in particular was presented very well.  If you have  the  patience  to
read  on,  there's  more  about  these  later.    

Finally the ProAcs.   I'd not heard of ProAc before, and was told that they're
an American company, who are very well regarded in the US, but that their
equipment  never  gets  reviewed in the UK press.  These  boxes  are  actually
narrower and shorter than the Edens, but almost twice as deep -  an  odd shape.
These were placed on Foundation stands, about 2 foot from the wall.   I  found
them pretty similar to the Edens - a bit more bass, but generally similar   in
character.

The upshot of  all  this  was  that  I  arranged  to borrow the Edens over the
weekend (Sunday and Monday,  when  they're  closed).   I also borrowed the Kan
stands.

As I had the  house  to  myself  over the weekend, I decided it would be worth
trying to rearrange the furniture to allow the speakers to be placed in a more
sensible place, as I wanted  to  see  how good they  *really*  were  before  I
subjected them to the bay window test.  So, I put the sofa in the bay, and put
the  B&Ws about a foot in from the  opposite  wall.    I  spent  a  few  hours
listening to this configuration before going to pick up  the Edens.  It really
made  an  amazing difference - all the boom disappeared, and  a  stereo  image
re-appeared.

One particular album  really  showed  up  the  difference.   There are several
tracks on Elvis Costello's "Spike" where a Sousaphone is used to play the bass
line.  With the previous  speaker  positioning, it was impossible to tell that
it wasn't just an electric bass  (and indeed, having not read the sleeve notes
too carefully, I hadn't realised !).

Thus encouraged, I removed the  B&Ws,  and  installed the Edens about 2 inches
from  the  back  wall.  Without  even  turning  the  amp  on,  there  was  one
noticeable improvement:  a visual one.   The  Edens look really neat and quite
unobtrusive.  I then relistened to a lot of  the  stuff  that  I'd listened to
earlier.  It was immediately obvious that there was rather less bass than with
the B&Ws;  rather  more  hiss;    and  that  the  speakers  were  rather  less
efficient.  However, the overall  quality  of  the sound was much higher.  The
B&Ws were made to seem a  bit lazy by comparison.  As I mentioned earlier, the
midband was particularly good.  The overall  tighter  presentation allowed one
to hear the separate instruments better.  They  also  coped  well with complex
and noisy passages, without sounding muddled.  The imaging was better too.

I  did  try putting the room back as it was before, and  using  the  Edens  in
various  positions in the bay window.  They didn't boom like the B&Ws  did  in
that position,  but  sounded  much worse than before.  I decided straight away
that it wasn't  worth  spending any money on speakers if the room was going to
be that way round, so I  reversed the room again,  and  with  a sigh of relief
put some  more  music  on !  When my wife returned and listened to some of her
favourites, she was also impressed with  how they sounded.

So, after living with the Edens for a day  or  two,  I  ended up liking them a
lot.  We're now going to try living with the room in its reversed state (which
has its advantages and disadvantages).  If we like it, we'll  probably try out
some more small speakers (hence the enquiry about MF Reference 2s).   I  would
certainly  recommend listening to the Edens if you're looking for something of
good quality and small size, which isn't too expensive.

    I've just realised that I forgot to post the note below, which I wrote
    just after finally buying some new speakers, a couple of months ago. I
    thought I might as well post it now for completeness' sake, anyway.
    
    As you may have noticed from notes I've written in the last few weeks,
    I've also been experimenting with other different components (CD
    players, amps etc) to see what difference they make to the system. I
    don't have a burning desire to change the current system, but if the
    right component presented itself, I would probably buy it. I can always
    justify it as a present to myself for being promoted !
    
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
A couple of weeks ago, I returned to Reading Hi-Fi to listen to some more
speakers.  I had decided that I could spend a bit more money than I originally
thought, to avoid ending up with speakers that would need to be upgraded again
if/when the CD player or amplifier was upgraded.

I listened to Musical Fidelity Reference 4s, the Royd Edens again (for
comparison), and Royd Sintras. I took my Cyrus I in to get a better idea of
what they would be like at home. I did think about listening to Kans, but
they're rather more expensive, and the RH-F salesman reckoned that they really
need a better source and amp. than I have at the moment. "You can't get a good
enough amp. for Kans" was his view.

I was quite surprised by the Reference 4s. I had expected them to sound rather
hard, but they didn't. They were quite detailed, but didn't seem terrifically
involving. There also seemed to be some quite noticeable holes in the bass
response. I think that they would sound much better being driven  with some
more serious amplification. I don't think the Cyrus I could really do them
justice. Pity really, because on a couple of tracks they sounded excellent.

After a brief spell to refresh my memory of the Edens, we tried the Royd
Sintras, which are a new model in Royd's small speaker range. In fact, they
had only arrived in the shop the day before.  They are the same size as the
Edens (and A7s, Conistons), but have different drivers and even more solid
construction. I was immediately taken by these speakers. They had everything I
liked about the Edens (see previous note), without being obviously bass-light.
The only thing I didn't like was the fact that they cost 90 quid more...

So, I arranged to borrow the Sintras over the weekend.  Further experience
with them confirmed my initial reaction.  They have the mid-range
transparency, and general speed and tightness of the Edens, plus reasonable
bass which is tight, rather than flabby. Clearly they're not disco speakers,
but in our living room, they produced enough bass for me. The only complaint
about them is that they sounded a little bright on a couple of CDs we have.

I called Royd up, to see whether they normally expect the sound to change much
as they're run in. Apparently, the answer is no, not much. I did end up
talking to the person who named them though. They're called "Sintra" as a
(very small) joke. Sintra is the name of a place in Portugal that Byron once
described as "This glorious Eden".

So, anyway, I liked them enough to buy them.

In the previous reply, I mentioned that I'd been looking around for
something that would alleviate the excess brightness and fatiguing sound,
that the Royd Sintras sometimes exhibited in my system.

In doing this over a period of a few months, on and off, I listened to
several different amps, and CD options, but none of them did the trick.

Finally, I decided it wasn't the system that was at fault, and therefore
with some regret that the Sintras were going to have to go. They had a
number of strengths, which were the reasons I originally bought them, but
in the end, I found that the weaknesses outweighed those strengths.  They
do sound quite different to most other speakers - they are amazingly
"fast", incredibly detailed, and on some material they work very well
indeed. The downside is that on other material (perhaps poorly
recorded...) they can sound harsh, and are especially bad on harsh vocal
sounds such as sibilants. 

So, the Kan stands went to a reader of this conference, and I traded the
Sintras in against a pair of Epos ES11s from the Sound Gallery in High
Wycombe.  

The ES11s are rather different, being much better balanced in general.
The Sintras often sounded like they were trying to stuff the music down
your throat (ears ?), whereas the ES11s will let you sit back and be
persuaded.  I believe that they have been generally well reviewed,
certainly the review in HFN/RR was good, and I haven't found much to
argue with in it. They are a bit bigger than the Sintras, at about 10
litres as opposed to 7, and they have to live a bit further from the
wall, but at least they don't completely dominate the room.

I also ended up buying an Arcam Alpha CD at the same time, as I was very
impressed when I heard a direct demonstration of it against my old
Philips player.

Life hasn't been completely simple of course. The first pair of ES11s I had
were duff - one of the bass drivers rattled alarmingly when driven hard,
and the bass was generally a bit flabby. I could almost suspect that
someone had overdriven them and damaged them, but they did look pristine
when I took them out of the box. The second pair sounded great, but had a
minor cabinet blemish, which I was fortunately able to make invisible
myself. Perhaps Epos's quality control can't quite keep up with their
success. The new pair has a serial number of around 3800, which is pretty
good going for less than a year's production from such a small company. 

Also, this weekend the Alpha blew its internal mains fuse (luckily they
ship a spare inside the case - is this tempting fate or what ?).

It must be a new amp next, 'cos my poor old Cyrus I gets really hot
driving the ES11s. I have heard them with a Nait 2, which sounded good
(hence my question the other day about Naim), but I'll probably wait
until I can afford something a bit more serious. 


Trevor