Surprised when listening to my system

[spkrdctr]

I listened to my system yesterday with some very well recorded material. I was just blown away at how amazing it sounded. I have a small to medium room with a surround system. I use the ESL L/R with an inexpensive center and two inexpensive surrounds. After tuning in my system a month ago, I'm just amazed at how well it sounds. The music from my MLs is downright amazing. Then I turn it on surround music and OMG, it goes to the next level. I am surprised at how awesome it sounds for how little I have in the system. All this to say, is anyone else surprised when they sit down to actually listen to well recorded music at how awesome it sounds? It would be interesting to hear from others if they are amazed, satisfied or unsatisfied with their system. If they are amazed, what did they do to make it sound so good? If unhappy, what are you planning to fix it? I'm thinking this may generate some interesting conversation on this thread. Especially if anyone finds one thing they did to get to awesome. Unconventional toe in or out? Unconventional anything? Thinking out of the box usually pays off quite well. I know some on here are great out of the box thinkers. Let's hear about i!

 

[twich54]

While I totally get and understand the point of well recorded/mastered music and I too thoroughly enjoy it as well as anybody else don't let yourself get caught in the trap of 'that's all I'll listen to'. When one does that the focus shifts from the music to the 'gear' ...

 

[ttocs]

In May of 2019 I finished building my Bob Latino M-125 tube amps. A few minutes into the first listen I was amazed at the sound! During the following 100 hours it just got better, and all thoughts of needing to look for other speakers or amps ceased and have not returned.

Soon after that is when I watched a video about how to setup stereo speakers, so I tried the method that was explained and the speakers have remained where they ended up ever since. This is when I used extreme toe-in to achieve the result I continue to enjoy. I did that all by ear, no tech device used.

I recently tried something to improve a null that I discovered happens but only when both L&R are playing the same mono signal. I moved the speakers which helped with the null, but made everything else worse, so I moved them back. I didn't realize I had it so good! I'm currently in the process of doing something that looks very promising for fixing that null entirely.

The only other stuff on the list for me is room treatment. I've tried with and without, and with, and without, and keep going back to what I have which is minimal. I will continue to experiment, but it's more for when I use Dirac for the multichannel movie stuff. For two channel I'm still DSP free, except for ARC which is enabled in the Expressions.

When I want to reach out and touch the musicians, some of my go-to tracks are several live recordings of Black Napkins. So many nights have been spent listening to music when I began by thinking "I'll just listen to these two", and then notice that 5 hours have passed.

 

[Robert D]

When listening to music, do most of you just do it in stereo or do you do some kind of surround mix? Lately ive just been using stereo to try and keep the sound as close to the original recording as possible, but I have used surround like the OP is and it does sound good.

Wondering what most of the members on here do. Ive got a decent Atmos setup now with ML speakers in the ceiling and can use those.

 

[twich54]

Robert, as you can tell by my signature, I'm old school two channel !

 

[Nuri58]

As close to the way it should sound. But how do anyone know the way it should sound? I had a session with one mastering films, and he really did not enjoy most cinemas as it never sounder close to what he mixed, mainly because the signatures of the speakers. So I guess the same issue with 2ch applies. Long time ago I always used stereo direct. Later I realised the impact of rooms on the sound and tried to work on the room. Later came Dirac and that improved things (read got rid off some of the bass issues). And I'd never know how it should sound so I decide to give it my flavor of sound. Well many artists are reinterpreting other artist's music meaning adding their flavour to it. So shouldn't you?

 

[BDH55]

When listening to music, do most of you just do it in stereo or do you do some kind of surround mix? Lately ive just been using stereo to try and keep the sound as close to the original recording as possible, but I have used surround like the OP is and it does sound good.

Wondering what most of the members on here do. Ive got a decent Atmos setup now with ML speakers in the ceiling and can use those.

I'm a two channel guy...

 

[spkrdctr]

My room and equipment is pretty special compared (very different) to 95% of everyone here. With my Yamaha receiver playing Amazon Music over a Bluetooth connection, the switch from 2 channel to surround is HUGE. I think it might be because the Bluetooth/Amazon Music setup is not the best at all. But my surround seems to really make up for the lossy signal and really fill it all in. If I had much more money in my system, I think it would perk up my two channel quite a bit. I don't do any non-lossy music, so I don't know what I'm missing, if anything. I'd like to go with FLAC but I would have to get a streaming service with high res audio files (Tidal?). So I would need a DAC that can receive the stream somehow (I guess from my computer?) and then hook it into the receiver (easy) but I haven't really looked into it yet. I am into simple to operate equipment. That's why I have never gotten REW. Thats a lot of fooling around so I'd rather just listen to the music.