Hello Community,
This is my first post…
I have read quite a lot on this forum before venturing out to join and post…
Meaning of joining the forum is to seek advice on tuning my room, which now contains a new sound system.
I have put an Atom HE, NAP 250 (current gen) and a pair of B&W 703 S3’s in a Georgian lounge in my flat. The room is relatively square and I am running into standing wave issues with the low end…
The listening centre is pretty much in the centre of this (relatively close to) square and cubic room. The frequency response is quite interesting in the low end. It came over as confusing on tracks with a spectrum of bass from 30Hz to 100Hz. (Anything with a more advanced or complex bass line).
I have played individual sine waves from 20Hz to 100Hz to see what is actually going on with the response at the listening position and it looks subjectively absurd. Admittedly we are talking about my ears and subjective response, but there is a pattern. Although B&W do not publish frequency response curves, it is very clear what I am getting below is not what’s coming out of the speaker. Indeed, out of the listening position, standing either between the speakers or in the room corners the bass profile changes and what seems quiet in the centre seems loud in these positions.
rolloff from silence enters at about 25 Hz with soft and sweetly audible bass at 30Hz
30Hz to 40Hz → Response increases in shallow linear louder manner up to 40Hz
41Hz to 48Hz → Response decreases to very low response at 47 - 48Hz
49Hz to 52Hz → Response increases to medium/mellow response at 55Hz
53Hz to 60Hz → Response decreases rapidly and is low/flat/mellow to 60Hz
61Hz to 78Hz → Response increases again to 78Hz (at 78Hz, the volume is back up to as loud as at 40Hz)
79Hz to 88Hz → Response mellows off again to low but present levels
89Hz to 99Hz → Response increases to be at about 80% of subjective volume of the peaks at 40Hz and 78Hz
You may assume at this point that I am a bass heavy listener and wonder why I have the above set of kit at all and not a huge sub. This is not the case at all. I am a cross-genre music junkie and am very happy so far with the rest of the frequency spectrum of this setup. My focus is on the bass because this is where the only problem seems to lie and needs to be improved. It upsets the overall balance of music in a seemingly random and confusing way, depending on where the bass of any particular music matches the ability of this setup to reproduce it in my room…
For example: Bass heavy reggae with lots going on at 40Hz but not much else may sound sweet and great, but the bottom end of rock may sound wrong. Some hip-hop with bass variants in 50Hz range may sound wrong. Complex spectrum wide bass lines will just sound absurd. Dance/House is very hit and miss.
At first I had B&W 704 S3’s in this room, and thought there may just not be enough extension with the 5" woofers, so I listened to both the 703’s and 702’s in the studio and they both had much more bass extension but a very similar sound signature to each other. So I chose the 703’s and returned my 704’s, because the 702’s are down-firing (and also physically massive), and more expensive. I figured the rear-firing 703’s would allow more adjustment with positioning from the wall to get the bass response right.
Has anyone got experience with sound absorption panels and room tuning? I have been told by one company to send dimensions of my room and speaker locations and they will tell me what I need to buy and where to place it.
…I’ve been told by another company not to spend a penny on panelling until the room has been evaluated by someone with microphones and measurements, because I may be sold loads of panelling that does not do the right job first time…
All in all I’m a bit gutted my sound quality is at this sort of level with the sort of kit I’ve gone for.
I’m not exchanging any kit or spending any more on equipment until I have a more educated way forward…
I’m not buying a subwoofer. I’d only go down that road if I was also swapping the 703’s for standmounts like 705’s. I also have every reason to believe a subwoofer setup would have the same problems as the setup I have now…
Anyone faced a similar situation or able to recommend an approach or appropriate services to get this forward…