Whilst I agree that, for me a system simply isn’t worth it is the bass is missing or significantly curtailed - no proper bass in music that should have it takes the illusion of reality and sometimes the emotion out of the music. Of course some music doesn’t have low bas, or much bass at all, so if I were to only listen to that, small speakers might sound good, but that is only a small proportion of the music to which I listen.
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if it dont sound right
its usually the speakers
dealers know this
so demo till you get it right
rather than trying to make speakers work
by adding panels and foam
aint no fool like a hifi fool
Sadly I think the room is the elephant in the room, as it were, in terms of achieving best possible sound quality from a system, and that is not just bass by any means - yet is seems largely neglected.
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its not complicated I had Art speakers so big you could bury me in one of the boxes
but they sounded bad
plugged in my Ls 3 s wonderful again
any system is a compromise
but if it sounds good its good
I fully agree the speakers have to be good. But to me speakers without bass, or with significantly curtailed bass, simply can’t sound good because they remove an often key part of the music. Of course to others the bass is not important, and it even seems that some people positively dislike hearing it, in which case their quest for speakers is much simplified (and cheaper). But as I intimated, bass absolutely is not the only part of the spectrum where the room can have an adverse effect on sound quality.
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Looks like a great solution. I’m keen to try new cable but it’s very difficult to get a demo with my system. I’d need 3 pairs of 4.5m length - eyewatering cost in relation to your Chord Music cables 
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Indeed. You could give Acoustica a call and see what deal they are willing to do for you 
. The cables that I can’t mention seem to provide the biggest uplift with the ICs next and then speaker cable. But all significant!
Hi again.
So I have opted for the roon free trial with the software running on my Mac and playing from my iPad which is all working okay on today’s latest update.
Have started with the parametric EQ and set one low shelf at 55hz -10db which makes a small improvement.
I can’t see anything on the Roon site about the use of additional low shelves And whento use them and the high pass filter, and in particular how they interact. I’d like to understand a bit more before I use too many filters.
Just wondered if you knew where any useful information and guide to users might be found. Thanks in advance.
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Check the Roon forum.
search for :
" A guide how to do room correction and use it in Roon "
Unfortunately I don’t know as I don’t use DSP, but the thread mention by Thomas is a good one. And for documentation see here:
If you search “Roon DSP”, there are three threads on the forum about it.
Whatever you DON’T boost missing bass frequencies - first of all cancellations will still cancel regardless of power level, and secondly remember that every 3dB increase in power is a doubling of amp power - trying to level out a 12dB dip means 16x the power - it is a quick route to amp overload causing clipping and consequential speaker driver destruction!
And DSP, whether using Roon or other tool, can’t remove early reflections (or any reflections!).
However within its limitations DSP can smooth things out or correct room skewing of frequency response, and done appropriately the result can sound better than without.
Thanks indeed for the warning. I’m really only intending to reduce some of the apparent excessive bass and not boost anything. I’m assuming that -dB adjustment do not contribute to headroom issue. This is really seen as an 80/20 solution (i.e. 80% of the benefit from 20% of the effort) so I’m not looking for perfection, and so far I’m doing it by ear without a mic. Once I’ve treated The bass upon which I am currently fixated I can look at some more absorption to reduce reflection.
Yes, no issues cutting peaks (aside from the fact that using DSP potentially adversely affects sound quality - but then so does a very uneven response - it’s a matter of which is least worst, and in my view that is usually dsp. Whilst it can’t cure all ills, it can fix or improve some, so likely better than doing nothing. (Yet the latter is surprisingly common, ignoring the room and spending ever more on gear and tweaks etc!) ideally do as much as you can with the room, then use dsp to finish off of try to improve whatever you can’t with room treatment (but wary of the aforementioned risks).
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