rower30
Active member
I had an interesting experience the other day at the local hi-fi shop. Two men were there, with one picking up some new leads. I idely chatted with the other and the discussion came to electrostatic verses dynamic driver speakers. One like them the other didn't. Fair enough. I mentionred I was a newer used of the CLX, and he mentioned that he used continuously upgraded Acoustats.
I offered that my C4's and CLX are sure different in how they couple energy intoa room and where the optimum listening position end up being, and that the CLX aren't good for near field listening. Near field listening being the point at which the "room" effects fall away and the speaker takes on another dimenison of perfection. "Oh I listen at 1.7" he responded. Thinking he still meant near-field I suggest my CLX would not sound good 1.7 meters from my speakers spaced eight feet apart. His response was, "I thought you said you had been at this a long time, 1.7 is the optimum ratio for listening (the old formula of your seating distance divided by the speaker's spacing)". My response was no, I don't use the formula, I listen to what sounds best in my room. At which his response was, "Go away from me" (I'm not worthy because I don't use the right formula).
What is more interesting, is that he said "his" data could be backed-up because it was someone else's! My feelings were not made at this point as bad hair day people SHOULD be left alone. He'll likely be more accepeting of his hobby on another day.
My feeling were that using pure data collected up from someone else isn't really "using" data at all, as far as sound quality goes. Blindly using a "formula" that can be proven through simple knowledge of the formula, is flat wrong. Using a formula, without listening, is a crutch supplied by others that prevent you from learning on your own. Learning is making your system fit your room, not using a formula.
To denigrate someone because they don't use "your" math is a dangerous way to enjoy this hobby. The classic seating position formula is not effective in real rooms that are not anochoic, or symmetrical in shape and acoustic decore. My room is L-shaped, for instance.
I prefer to seek methods that force you to LISTEN to your stereo. Formula's are great, but most things are already built and the last set-up tasks are (should be) driven by matching your system to your EARS, not a formula. Too many of us are afraid to listen, and gather vast amounts of data as though the exact size, weight, model number and transistor count of an amplifier makes it sound good. No, it sounds good, or not, when it is played, nothing more need be known. Adjust the tube bias till it sounds right, nothing more need be known. True, some settings are "here", period, but those are again set and FORGET. If it's set right do you always need to know what it is? That doesn't magically change the sound.
How to learn on your own? There are ways to learn on your own if you want to listen, and not compare formulas and obscure "theory" that is not YOUR room, phono cartridge ETC. When your VTA angle is set to where it "sounds" the best, do you really care that it is 90-93 degrees (heaven help me if that's the wrong "formula of ranges!)? Are you afraid to say it's at a value above or below that? Why? Do you need to know your stylus shape, the name of the man who invented it or the actula angles to set the VTA till it sound good? I would rather not know ANY of that but be able to independantly set-it to sound good.
For the set-up of my new CLX, I LEARNED what they do by using a room corrected set-up procedure we all can use. Formula's aren't needed at all.
-My room is 14 feet across and 39 feet long, so the side wall spacing to get a reasonably open sound has to be at least 27" from the closed end (the wall) of the "L" shaped room. I keep the speaker as far away from the rear wall as is livable, especially with di-pole designs, which is about five feet in my room. This set the CLX about 8 feet center to center apart (depends on where you measure from). You can go back and reset the CLX spacing to a few starting points and keep the best one.
- Here is the LISTENING part. I set the CLX (or any speaker) exactly parallel to each other, no toe-in and all at this point. Why? Becaus this makes a good central image HARD to achieve, and that is what I want. I want the central image to be terrible, and then become more solid at a specific location. The parallel speaker placement makes the easier to HEAR.
- Get in a chair with casters. and get right between the speakers, like they were headphones. SLOWLY move away from the speakers into the room until you all of a sudden get a strong vocal image (don't worry about the centering of the image just yet and don't peak, as you'll bias where this actually happens). Listen to the sound field to the left and right. Get both the image and soundstage to an asymptotic maximum. I usually go back intil the best spot is broken, and then creep up again ---don't peek!
- Mark THAT spot. In my experience, you don't want to go CLOSER than this to the speakers to get a good sound field. Now you can peak...I look at the room and see where I am at that point and if the location seem livable. And, I set the seating positon a few feet farther from the speaker than the "image seems stable" minimum distance to avoid an unstable sound field.
- Once you have that seating position determined, now you can do the toe-in. Here is where I like to make sure I don't design-in a head in a vice seat, and allow the speakers to intersect in a line from the left and right channel that intersects a few feet BEHIND my head. This form a wider sweet spot that doesn't disrupt the image if you simply slouch over a few inches in your chair. But, if you must, you can design-in a SMALL listening location, which can be the best of the best, if you can hold your head there for fourty-five minutes. Some, the CLX, will sound brighter with varying toe-in so it's a iterative process to balance the sound and image stability.
- Last is to get something that is MONO as you know, and establish the central image location. You room interaction will skew just about any system on way or the other from center. Almost all rooms have a soft side and a hard side, or in my case a speaker by a wall and one in the open. Adjust the balance for a MONO source till it is centered. If you need to go more than a few click (less than 3 dB or so based on your volume knob detents) you likely need room treatment on the aggressive side. To my ear, too much balance adjustment thins out the image resolution and richness. You CANNOT fight the room with too much balance adjust so indirectly CHANGE the room with treatments if necessary.
What this excercise showed, was that the CLX is NOT a good near field speaker as it is a design that losses energy and blending as you get too close, where the C4's could almost be headphones if you wanted them to be (restricted left to right sound field, though). Dynamic drivers get louder as you get near them, not softer, and couple energy to the sides of the room much sooner than the CLX, or a di-pole radiator. You don't need math to hear this.
This is just one example of how to listen to your stereo, and throw away the darn formulas. If they exist, you'll integrate them into your listening experience. If not, would you use them for a poorer listening experience in your unique room? Yes, I know a few formulas, but I seldom USE them. I would rather force my room and ears to arrive at the formula in my room through derivation of a process than to simply assume all the approximations are correct and simply plop down at a 1.7 ratio and proclaim, "all experts know this formula, so it's what I use".
When my ears are happy, I'm happy. No, I'm not the best man at the party to spout off all sorts of inane names and bias levels, tube numbers and such. THAT isn't a sound, it's a crutch to avoid actually listening. Those you denigrate for not using your "formula" or simply knowing names as though a name change improves the sound, are likely better listeners and probably have a system matched to their room in a more than satisfactory fashion without the need for a formula, or the name of the man who threw it out. I prefere to walk on my own if possible.
I'm still perpelxed how blind adherence to formulas translates into a proper listening experience. I will always look for "information" that allows me to " derive" the formula indirectly through my own ears. If I end up at a 1.7 raio for seating, so be it, if the VTA is actually 94 degrees, so be it. But, I know that that spot SOUNDS good, and isn't done to feel, "worthy" to someone who happens to know a number.
Truly creative people don’t use abstractions of procedure and formula defined by other people, but incorporate their own methods, which may ulimately agree with some abstractions, but often uncover territory that is seldom and some times never, considered by the crowd. View your stereo the same way, in the end it is how it SOUNDS, and not all the settings and names.
I offered that my C4's and CLX are sure different in how they couple energy intoa room and where the optimum listening position end up being, and that the CLX aren't good for near field listening. Near field listening being the point at which the "room" effects fall away and the speaker takes on another dimenison of perfection. "Oh I listen at 1.7" he responded. Thinking he still meant near-field I suggest my CLX would not sound good 1.7 meters from my speakers spaced eight feet apart. His response was, "I thought you said you had been at this a long time, 1.7 is the optimum ratio for listening (the old formula of your seating distance divided by the speaker's spacing)". My response was no, I don't use the formula, I listen to what sounds best in my room. At which his response was, "Go away from me" (I'm not worthy because I don't use the right formula).
What is more interesting, is that he said "his" data could be backed-up because it was someone else's! My feelings were not made at this point as bad hair day people SHOULD be left alone. He'll likely be more accepeting of his hobby on another day.
My feeling were that using pure data collected up from someone else isn't really "using" data at all, as far as sound quality goes. Blindly using a "formula" that can be proven through simple knowledge of the formula, is flat wrong. Using a formula, without listening, is a crutch supplied by others that prevent you from learning on your own. Learning is making your system fit your room, not using a formula.
To denigrate someone because they don't use "your" math is a dangerous way to enjoy this hobby. The classic seating position formula is not effective in real rooms that are not anochoic, or symmetrical in shape and acoustic decore. My room is L-shaped, for instance.
I prefer to seek methods that force you to LISTEN to your stereo. Formula's are great, but most things are already built and the last set-up tasks are (should be) driven by matching your system to your EARS, not a formula. Too many of us are afraid to listen, and gather vast amounts of data as though the exact size, weight, model number and transistor count of an amplifier makes it sound good. No, it sounds good, or not, when it is played, nothing more need be known. Adjust the tube bias till it sounds right, nothing more need be known. True, some settings are "here", period, but those are again set and FORGET. If it's set right do you always need to know what it is? That doesn't magically change the sound.
How to learn on your own? There are ways to learn on your own if you want to listen, and not compare formulas and obscure "theory" that is not YOUR room, phono cartridge ETC. When your VTA angle is set to where it "sounds" the best, do you really care that it is 90-93 degrees (heaven help me if that's the wrong "formula of ranges!)? Are you afraid to say it's at a value above or below that? Why? Do you need to know your stylus shape, the name of the man who invented it or the actula angles to set the VTA till it sound good? I would rather not know ANY of that but be able to independantly set-it to sound good.
For the set-up of my new CLX, I LEARNED what they do by using a room corrected set-up procedure we all can use. Formula's aren't needed at all.
-My room is 14 feet across and 39 feet long, so the side wall spacing to get a reasonably open sound has to be at least 27" from the closed end (the wall) of the "L" shaped room. I keep the speaker as far away from the rear wall as is livable, especially with di-pole designs, which is about five feet in my room. This set the CLX about 8 feet center to center apart (depends on where you measure from). You can go back and reset the CLX spacing to a few starting points and keep the best one.
- Here is the LISTENING part. I set the CLX (or any speaker) exactly parallel to each other, no toe-in and all at this point. Why? Becaus this makes a good central image HARD to achieve, and that is what I want. I want the central image to be terrible, and then become more solid at a specific location. The parallel speaker placement makes the easier to HEAR.
- Get in a chair with casters. and get right between the speakers, like they were headphones. SLOWLY move away from the speakers into the room until you all of a sudden get a strong vocal image (don't worry about the centering of the image just yet and don't peak, as you'll bias where this actually happens). Listen to the sound field to the left and right. Get both the image and soundstage to an asymptotic maximum. I usually go back intil the best spot is broken, and then creep up again ---don't peek!
- Mark THAT spot. In my experience, you don't want to go CLOSER than this to the speakers to get a good sound field. Now you can peak...I look at the room and see where I am at that point and if the location seem livable. And, I set the seating positon a few feet farther from the speaker than the "image seems stable" minimum distance to avoid an unstable sound field.
- Once you have that seating position determined, now you can do the toe-in. Here is where I like to make sure I don't design-in a head in a vice seat, and allow the speakers to intersect in a line from the left and right channel that intersects a few feet BEHIND my head. This form a wider sweet spot that doesn't disrupt the image if you simply slouch over a few inches in your chair. But, if you must, you can design-in a SMALL listening location, which can be the best of the best, if you can hold your head there for fourty-five minutes. Some, the CLX, will sound brighter with varying toe-in so it's a iterative process to balance the sound and image stability.
- Last is to get something that is MONO as you know, and establish the central image location. You room interaction will skew just about any system on way or the other from center. Almost all rooms have a soft side and a hard side, or in my case a speaker by a wall and one in the open. Adjust the balance for a MONO source till it is centered. If you need to go more than a few click (less than 3 dB or so based on your volume knob detents) you likely need room treatment on the aggressive side. To my ear, too much balance adjustment thins out the image resolution and richness. You CANNOT fight the room with too much balance adjust so indirectly CHANGE the room with treatments if necessary.
What this excercise showed, was that the CLX is NOT a good near field speaker as it is a design that losses energy and blending as you get too close, where the C4's could almost be headphones if you wanted them to be (restricted left to right sound field, though). Dynamic drivers get louder as you get near them, not softer, and couple energy to the sides of the room much sooner than the CLX, or a di-pole radiator. You don't need math to hear this.
This is just one example of how to listen to your stereo, and throw away the darn formulas. If they exist, you'll integrate them into your listening experience. If not, would you use them for a poorer listening experience in your unique room? Yes, I know a few formulas, but I seldom USE them. I would rather force my room and ears to arrive at the formula in my room through derivation of a process than to simply assume all the approximations are correct and simply plop down at a 1.7 ratio and proclaim, "all experts know this formula, so it's what I use".
When my ears are happy, I'm happy. No, I'm not the best man at the party to spout off all sorts of inane names and bias levels, tube numbers and such. THAT isn't a sound, it's a crutch to avoid actually listening. Those you denigrate for not using your "formula" or simply knowing names as though a name change improves the sound, are likely better listeners and probably have a system matched to their room in a more than satisfactory fashion without the need for a formula, or the name of the man who threw it out. I prefere to walk on my own if possible.
I'm still perpelxed how blind adherence to formulas translates into a proper listening experience. I will always look for "information" that allows me to " derive" the formula indirectly through my own ears. If I end up at a 1.7 raio for seating, so be it, if the VTA is actually 94 degrees, so be it. But, I know that that spot SOUNDS good, and isn't done to feel, "worthy" to someone who happens to know a number.
Truly creative people don’t use abstractions of procedure and formula defined by other people, but incorporate their own methods, which may ulimately agree with some abstractions, but often uncover territory that is seldom and some times never, considered by the crowd. View your stereo the same way, in the end it is how it SOUNDS, and not all the settings and names.
