mep
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2013
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- #1
I'm a little remiss for not having written this sooner. Andre paid a visit to my house on a Saturday in the middle of June and Andre didn't arrive alone. Andre had two bags with him; one was full of LPs and one was full of audio tools. You can always tell a true audiophile friend, because they do show up at your house with a bag of LPs. I fired up a pot of coffee made from fresh ground beans in a burr grinder of course, and we headed downstairs to my listening room. I tried to keep Andre in the sweet spot all day, but as I will explain later, sometimes we just had to swap places.
We spent about an hour or so listening to the system the way I had set it up with a variety of music and sources. I had previously told Andre that I wasn't getting the quantity of bass that I thought I should be given the fact that I have two subs with 14" woofers powered by 1800 watt amps. So after Andre had some time to acclimate to the sound of my room/system, he reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out a spectrum analyzer. Andre handed me a test CD which I loaded into JRiver and put it on repeat on the pink noise track. Andre took a host of measurements around the room. Andre determined that my listening chair was in the right position relative to the speakers. From there, Andre started taking a hard look at my bass response with and without the subs turned on. Andre then made a series of adjustments to the subs (phase, crossover point, and level) and we went back to listening.
We were both satisfied with the improvements that Andre had made to the subs and then Andre suggested it was time for another change. I had my Nola KOs setup close to the Pearson rule of thirds (Harry Pearson, not this Pearson) which meant the KOs were well away from the side walls and rear wall. Andre wanted to start moving the speakers further apart from each other and we started by moving them over the width of the speaker. After moving them, we sat and listened long enough each time to verify the center fill was still correct. And then we moved them again, and again until we finally settled on their current location. The Nola KOs are now about 10.5' apart from center to center and a little over 2' from each side wall. The distance to the rear wall remains the same.
Wow! To say that the soundstage took on much bigger proportions would be an understatement. Not only was the width of the soundstage much bigger, the depth increased also even though we hadn't changed the position of the speakers relative to the rear wall. And this was when Andre would get up out of the sweet spot and tell me I had to sit and listen so I could hear what he was hearing and we continued playing musical chairs (pun intended) for the rest of Andre's visit. We put on record after record, and lots of times Andre would look over with a grin on his face because of what we were hearing. I almost felt embarrassed for sticking to my dogma of wanting the speakers to be further away from the sidewalls in order to avoid early reflections and not having done this sooner myself. All I can say is that as good as I thought my system sounded before Andre arrived, it was in another league after Andre finished making the changes I described.
We broke for a late lunch which my wife had prepared. She barbecued chicken on the Weber grill, made homemade German potato salad, and fresh corn on the cob. After lunch we went back downstairs and did some more listening and grinning. Since Andre is known for his cartridge setup skills, I was afraid he was going to look/listen to my cartridge alignment and tonearm setup and tell me I wasn't within a row of assholes of having it setup correctly. Instead, Andre told me that I was within the performance envelope of the XV-1S cartridge. I think this was a polite way of telling me that it wasn't totally optimized, but it was good enough that he didn't feel compelled to reach further into his bag of tools and change anything. Besides, I know from what Andre tells me that when he sets up a cartridge, it's about a 3 hour process from beginning to end.
The bottom line is that I had a great time hanging with Andre again. It's always fun when we get together. Our tastes in music are very similar and it's fun to listen with an audiophile music loving friend who 'gets' what it means to just sit and listen to music. It's also really cool when said friend leaves your system sounding better than how he found it!
We spent about an hour or so listening to the system the way I had set it up with a variety of music and sources. I had previously told Andre that I wasn't getting the quantity of bass that I thought I should be given the fact that I have two subs with 14" woofers powered by 1800 watt amps. So after Andre had some time to acclimate to the sound of my room/system, he reached into his bag of tricks and pulled out a spectrum analyzer. Andre handed me a test CD which I loaded into JRiver and put it on repeat on the pink noise track. Andre took a host of measurements around the room. Andre determined that my listening chair was in the right position relative to the speakers. From there, Andre started taking a hard look at my bass response with and without the subs turned on. Andre then made a series of adjustments to the subs (phase, crossover point, and level) and we went back to listening.
We were both satisfied with the improvements that Andre had made to the subs and then Andre suggested it was time for another change. I had my Nola KOs setup close to the Pearson rule of thirds (Harry Pearson, not this Pearson) which meant the KOs were well away from the side walls and rear wall. Andre wanted to start moving the speakers further apart from each other and we started by moving them over the width of the speaker. After moving them, we sat and listened long enough each time to verify the center fill was still correct. And then we moved them again, and again until we finally settled on their current location. The Nola KOs are now about 10.5' apart from center to center and a little over 2' from each side wall. The distance to the rear wall remains the same.
Wow! To say that the soundstage took on much bigger proportions would be an understatement. Not only was the width of the soundstage much bigger, the depth increased also even though we hadn't changed the position of the speakers relative to the rear wall. And this was when Andre would get up out of the sweet spot and tell me I had to sit and listen so I could hear what he was hearing and we continued playing musical chairs (pun intended) for the rest of Andre's visit. We put on record after record, and lots of times Andre would look over with a grin on his face because of what we were hearing. I almost felt embarrassed for sticking to my dogma of wanting the speakers to be further away from the sidewalls in order to avoid early reflections and not having done this sooner myself. All I can say is that as good as I thought my system sounded before Andre arrived, it was in another league after Andre finished making the changes I described.
We broke for a late lunch which my wife had prepared. She barbecued chicken on the Weber grill, made homemade German potato salad, and fresh corn on the cob. After lunch we went back downstairs and did some more listening and grinning. Since Andre is known for his cartridge setup skills, I was afraid he was going to look/listen to my cartridge alignment and tonearm setup and tell me I wasn't within a row of assholes of having it setup correctly. Instead, Andre told me that I was within the performance envelope of the XV-1S cartridge. I think this was a polite way of telling me that it wasn't totally optimized, but it was good enough that he didn't feel compelled to reach further into his bag of tools and change anything. Besides, I know from what Andre tells me that when he sets up a cartridge, it's about a 3 hour process from beginning to end.
The bottom line is that I had a great time hanging with Andre again. It's always fun when we get together. Our tastes in music are very similar and it's fun to listen with an audiophile music loving friend who 'gets' what it means to just sit and listen to music. It's also really cool when said friend leaves your system sounding better than how he found it!
