ALFs OBs (BD-Design)

by ALF, Sunday, August 20, 2006, 10:02 (6465 days ago) @ PeterSt.
edited by ALF, Sunday, August 20, 2006, 10:16

Thanks Peter for your reply.

I have always purposely approached this hifi (sometimes "hifi", if you get what I mean) hobby in a kind of luddite fashion - I have avoided too many measurements and theories, slavishly hanging on to the old-fashioned idea that my ears will tell me all I really want to know ... perhaps in my mind I see myself as a reincarnation of a mastor violin maker or some-such :wink: - in reality, nothing could be further from the truth ... I have reached the age where my ear hairs are sprouting and, co-incident with that, my personal frequency response is falling away.

I have been very restless with all my playing systems over the past few decades (except for a lull in listening activity when the children were very small) - I am a serial tweaker ... I can leave nothing alone ... I always end up fixing things - usually fixing things that are not broken - an usually against my own good advice.
I really enjoy moving my speakers around trying to get them to sound as I think they should ... always a very subjective target, pursued in a very haphazard fashion.
When I got into OBs, I discovered a whole new world of pleasurable frustration.

I have often raved on that OBs are friendlier when it comes to speaker placement (and as you can see from this post I do rave on quite a lot ... I'm a clergyman - we're like that y'know:wink: ) ... The truth is, according to my observations, that open baffle speakers are the most affected by positioning unless they have a lotof space around them - they are able to be tuned like musical instruments using walls and corners to advantage (or vice-versa.
I have my speakers placed at different distances from their respective surrounds ... I have taken pains to make sure the placement of everything in my room is assymetrical ... this really does seem to be quite important ...
Just a short while ago I tried them out placed parallel to the back wall, and equidistant to the side walls - the bass was not very nice ... a wee bit of toe-in, and moving one away from the side wall by about 10cm tidied the bottom end up very nicely.

BTW the Behringer crossover rolls the bass in at about 80 - 90Hz ... I tried it at 200, and it sounded awful...

Rooms I think tend to be the most ignored piece of audio equipment ... if we were really smart, we'd start treating our rooms from day one, rather than spending up big on equipment and sticking it in a location where it can never work well.

I hate to say this, but you are right - I should measure my room and my gear ... but I'm reluctant to do so ... ... besides, my friend with the measuring gear is now 800km away in my home state - I don't know anyone here that I wouldn't have to pay (I'm a tight wad).

I agree about the audiophiles and the HT sub idiots - they are of different species ... most of the real audio nerds I know love a few standing waves and try to exploit them if they can... I have met a few systems that would have no appreciable bass at all if not for room interaction...

Thanks for the link ... I am familiar with that site, and have mulled over a print out of it a couple times. I have used it while thinking about OBs in the past ...

I'm sorry for rambling on so long about not too much ... it's Sunday afternoon, and I have preached a couple of times already today, and I tend to get a wee bit irrational (or so my wife tells me ) on Sunday afternoons... besides, if you can't ramble on among friends, where can you ramble on?
The rest of the day is my own ... I intend to use it in the company of some South Australian wine and a piece of salmon ... I know that people say "white wine with fish", but that is another theory I have little respect for ... I think a red - perhaps a Pinot Noir this evening (I have asked the fish, and the fish doesn't seem to mind )

Have a happy day
AnthonyLF

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