That’s a nice-looking cabinet. It also looks to be 20cm or less from the sides of the speakers and is probably behaving like the least-well-designed-ever passive speaker. If that is right, I suggest that you first try bringing the speakers forward so that their sides don’t beam sound straight to the sides of the cabinet. Try corner-to-corner with the cabinet perhaps?
On the other hand, that cloth on the book case and closing the curtains look like good ideas if you are getting problems.
I can’t guess which of the other items near the speakers buzz/ shake/ reflect/ re-emit bass when you turn the music up, but investigating that would be worthwhile and free. Is the box on the left the sub? If yes, you may find it helpful to to move it, perhaps 2 feet further left? if it were me, I’d also ry turning the music up LOUD and asking someone to stand near the sub with a hand or two on that vase - is it vibrating in an obvious way?
If none of that works at all, or the results are domestically/ aesthetically unacceptable, then the we may have to accept that the price of that cabinet is changing to stand-mount speakers.
a) tried removing the sub and vases completely from the room;
b) tried a bit more toe-in (I note you played around a bit with this already);
c) changed the floor in the refurb;
d) changed the ceiling in the refurb; and
e) changed anything behind your listening space in the refurb, since the longer sound waves could be being affected?
Some low cost/ no cost experiments that may make some difference. A silicone kitchen pad under the amplifier ? Also try draping a towel or heavy blanket off the sides of the cabinet, just to see if some sort of sound absorption makes a difference. Home - brew solutions can at least point you in the right direction before making changes If absorption does help ,perhaps some sort of fabric ,on the sides can be made to look like it belongs and would help the acoustics. Short of a dedicated room (usually not an option) then compromises and often unorthodox remedies are called for.
floor changed but still a laminate floor with rugs. Now more floor covered. Seating is pretty much the same give or take 20cm or so. No change to walls or ceiling. I’m getting the isolation feet for the weekend so will try with speaker placement. Fabric on the sides of the cabinet is an option. My wife likes to add softer touches (there is an Obi across the top currently but it doesn’t extend down the sides). That’s an easy one to try out though. Lots of good suggestions again. I’ll have a play later this week. Cheers all
I added Gaias to my PMC Twenty5 23’s with good results, as others have mentioned I would pull the speakers out from the cabinet and see if this improves things.
I plumped for some Soundcard Superspikes from BK Electronics. They aren’t actually spikes but feet produced by a Norwegian company now owned by Seas. The subwoofer I have, had them fitted and I’ve never had bloated bass from the sub so I decided to stick with them. They were also a lot cheaper than Isoacoutics which had to be a factor as well.
Firstly, they are great for protecting your flooring and make it easy to move around the speakers to find the best placement. The first thing that struck me without moving the speaker position at all was how the music seemed more in focus. I had known the sound was bass heavy but hadn’t realised that had put a veil over the mid and upper reaches. I had thought the vocals seemed somewhat recessed but not now. I smiled a lot yesterday afternoon. I’ve tweaked the speaker placement today and they are now 5cm further from the cabinet each side with a bit more toe in. Things are much better.
I still feel some low frequencies could be tighter but that could just be more about my kit. I know the Supernait could do with a service. Also, I realised I’ve connected the amp to a surge protected block whereas previously it was connected to a silver wired block. No idea if it matters but I’ll change it over and see.
The good thing is the music is better and I’m going to take some time to just enjoy it and not over think. I’ve got chance going forward to easily play with placement, fabrics etc just the hell of it.
Thanks for all the great advice on here. If anyone is after some isolation feet check out the Soundcard Superspikes. There are reviews out there. I haven’t compared them with anything to be fair but they have certainly helped my situation. Cheers everyone.
Please try having that surge protected block completely detached from your house mains…
BTW, did you try pulling the speakers further away from the back wall? Even if they don’t look good 1 meter (3 feet) from back wall, it’s just good to know how much that distance affects the amount & quality of bass… and everything else.
Hi, how do you detach from the mains? Have it’s own spur? Or don’t use at all? I’ll continue to play around with placement now I’ve got the feet on the speakers, sooo much easier. Cheers
I got an electrician to put in a dedicated radial mains line from my meter to new dedicated sockets for hi-fi. It involves a new Consumer Unit and a Henley box and fairly chunky shielded wiring. A big help for less than the cost of (say) one Powerline. Others have done similar things - it can make quite a difference.
Hi, sorry to hear about your problems. Just wondering, is the laminate flooring floating or glued, has that changed since your previous flooring? That could make a big difference. You mentioned that your sitting position has ”only” changed 20 cms, in my personal experience that can be quite huge as far as reinforcement/troughs are concerned. I would certainly be looking at moving sitting position back and forth and also playing with speaker distance from backwall. In these cases REW and a mike are your friend. Have you changed your sofa too by the way. I did a couple of weeks ago and that made a very big difference also.
Good luck
Spud
Hi @samwise, pleased to read that you are making progress at solving the bass heavy sound. Were these Soundcare Superspikes? I googled for the name you gave but the “soundcare” name came up instead on the big south American river site.
I have tried more than one surge protection mains block in my system and my experience was these drained the life from the sound. High frequencies were much quieter than with a normal mains block. I spent more to get an Isotek mains block and this is better than the Tacima or computer user targeted main blocks. It could be worthwhile swapping back to your previous mains block as a test. But that’s just my findings, and I accept you might find differently with your setup.
it’s only a suggestion from the recently-converted, but getting an actual electrician to put in a dedicated radial mains supply from your meter may well achieve more for a few hundred quid.
Doing this had a smaller effect for me than swapping olive 250 for 300DR or 82 for 52, but probably a bigger effect than putting an XPSDR on my NDX2 or all my Morgana cables. Listening again to the previous sockets took less time to confirm it was worse than it took to get everyone out of the room and swap the plugs over.
https://www.soundcare.no/ you can get them on the bk site but this is the link to the actual manufacturer. I will definitely try the mains block change. Unfortunately I’ve just missed the boat on a new spur. All redecorating now done including cables in walls. So don’t want to start again at this point. I did think about it but overall costs were escalating so I didn’t pursue it. Cheers
