Studio style flush (soffit) speaker mounting - speakers are mounted into a wall with drivers flush with wall surface. Note that this is not simply an HT cabinet - all of this was custom built with extra thick MDF and heavily braced to eliminate vibration. Speaker is decoupled from framing with rubber pads and surrounded with 8 inches of pink acoustic fibreglass on all sides.
The bookshelves above are intended to absorb some lower frequencies, as is the log fire place which is 8 feet behind the listening position. More acoustic absorption is achieved by four massive GIK Tri-Traps. The audio signal that goes to the subwoofer is treated separately by a PEQ with specific notch filters to eliminate LF room modes.
The down firing ATC 15" subwoofer is driven by its on board 1000 Watt amp (positioned to the left of the main speakers). Active ATC main speakers have three separate (Class A to two thirds power) amps each for each driver: 200 Watts amp to each 12" woofer, separate 100 Watts amp to each mid range and separate 50 Watts amp to each tweeter.
Five giant Sony Megachangers are controlled at the touch of the keyboard trackball, all from the listening chair (software controlled from the Mac Mini). Each of these five Megachangers TOSLINK output is connected to a Benchmark DAC1. The DAC1 corrects for the jittery TOSLINK outputs and produces a sound quality way beyond the modest price of the combination.
All in all I try to combine convenience with a pretty high end sound.
Doug Sax of Sheffield Labs fame uses soffit mounted active ATC speakers driven by Benchmark DAC1's in his studio. I figure what is good enough for Doug Sax's "golden ears" is certainly good enough for my "tin ears"! Besides, as so much music is mastered by Doug it is nice to hear it as close as possible to the way he does when mastering.
Flat response, no significant resonance and smooth even decay down to 20 Hz.
In room Frequency Response Bass Plot
Blue plot is before EQ correction to the sub. Red is the corrected in room response. Speakers are run full range flat with no EQ or tone control.
T30 Room Reverb RT60 Decay Time
This shows the reverb decay time it takes for sound to decay to -60 db. A value of 0.4 is considered ideal for my large 7000 cu feet room. It is acceptable for reverb decay time to rise in the extreme LF provided it stays below 1.1 (for this size room). It is important that the room is balanced with no spikes in reverb time. Room reverb is much more important than a perfectly flat frequency response.
ATC SCM-100A
Active Speakers 12" Woofer, 3" dome mid,1" tweet, separate 275W,100W, 50W amps
ATC SCM-0.1/15
Active sub 15" Woofer driven by 1000W amp
ATC SCM-20SL
Surrounds - Passive ATC 75mm dome mid range grafted on ATC 150mm woofer with 1 inch dome tweeter(vifa). You can see them on top of fireplace, which is on rear wall (facing front speakers)
Benchmark DAC1
Each of my five CDP Megachangers TOSLINK is fed to a Benchmark DAC1 which does the D to A conversion after eliminating the TOSLINK Jitter
Sony CDP-CX350 (Five of them)
CD Mega Changer 300 dics - controlled by Sony A1 through Slink-e and Apple Mac Mini
Anthem AVM-20
Surround Processor
Bryston 4B-ST
Drives L and R surrounds
GIK Acoustics (Four of them) Tri-Trap
Triangular Bass Trap, 4 foot, 17x17x24 inch crossection, 3 Units on back wall and one unit is on the front wall.
Fireplace but actually stealthy Bass Trap & RPG Skyline diffuser
18" Logs stacked perpendicular to the rear wall in random fashion. Bark is left on the logs to help sound absorbing surfaces between logs. Logs vary in length to give a skyline diffuser surface.
Beringer DSP1124P
Parametric EQ used on Sub Woofer for Room Modal Response control.
Macintosh G4 Mini Titletrack Jukebox
I am not generally a tweaker. EQ adjustments for room modes on the sub and speaker soffit is all I do. I use my Macintosh G4 and Titletrack Jukebox software to control everything: browse/find music and set playlists, stage CD's to changers for continuous cued music playback from five Sony mega CD Changers, or iTunes. Mac mini also controls all equipment settings (RS232 to infra-red adapters).
I am currently in contact with a local company for optimizing my room for stereo, i.e. adding bass traps and panels to break reflections. But as their prices are relatively high I would prefer to do some so the things myself, e.g. measuring the room or installing the panels myself.
Can you give me some advice on how to properly measure the response of my room. I have a pair of monitors, i.e. Focal Utopia Micro Be, and a Rel Stentor 3 subwoofer. I am not sure how to properly measure the room as the result will depend sensitively on the setting I have choose for the subwoofer. (To get a flat response at my listening position, I suppose, I could in principle measure the monitors and the subwoofer separately then adjust the level of the subwoofer till eventually their sum will be flat. But finding the problematic modes is trickier. All I could do thus far is a theoretical normal mode analysis of the room.) You can find a scheme of my new room on my system page, its dimensions are 4.7 x 3.55 x 2.4 meters (L x W x H).
As mentioned when replying your post on my system page, your room/set-up is one of my favorites here on audiogon.
I want to second Sam's acknowledgement of the expertise and knowledge you bring to the forums in many areas, and to say that I always find your posts to be particularly interesting and informative.
Your system, of course, is beautifully done, and something to be proud of. Enjoy!
Peterayer, Thanks for your comments. The amps are built into the speaker but don't need to be big because there is no passive crossover. The 2/3 power in Class A is what the manufacturer claims. I expect they are biased that way - flipping to Class AB when they hit 2/3 power. They certainly generate lots of heat and just as much heat when idle. There are large heat sink fins on the back of the speaker. ATC also sell modest sized separate amplifiers that operate the same way - like the SIA 150 with 2/3 power in Class A.
C1ferrari, Thanks for your comments. No I have not bothered with Vinyl since the late 80's. I know Vinyl can sound stunning because that is how I started. Especially 12" 45 RPM tracks mastered for clubs and 33 1/3 LP Japanese pressings. I consider digital the future and try to make it work. I know that some original Vinyl pressings are the benchmark for many older recordings but I am willing to accept missing out on a few gems for the sake of convenience.
Shadorne, I love the way your system disappears in the room. I'm curious about what you state in your system description about the amps in the active ATC speakers. I assume by active you mean the amps are integral to the speaker cabinet. You say they are Class A for 2/3 of the power rating. I'm a big fan of Class A amps. So are you saying that the 200 watt amps for the woofer section alone are rated at 133 watts in Class A and then switch into Class A/B for the next 67 watts? If that is the case, they must be very large amps and I guess you have three per speaker channel? How do you cool these amps assuming they are hidden in the speakers or cabinets somewhere? Could you please elaborate?
I have Pass Class A amps and they designed an active speaker called the Rushmore. The tweeter/mid amp was Class A and the woofer amp was A/B I believe and they were large speakers. Your ATC seem much smaller which I why I'm asking the questions.
My system is in my formal living room and I admire how yours is integrated into your decor. It must sound fantastic. Congratulations.
Thanks. That was shot in Hudson Bay - Churchill Manitoba - and that was a real wild animal - no zoo! I used a wide angle lens for the room shots. The 12-24mm f/4G IF-ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor.
Nice pic of the bear there!! What lens was/were used to take the system/room pics? I uses a D200 with the 18-200. You got a very good room and very nice system to go with it.
Thanks - they are indeed very comfortable and seem to hold their shape (so far).
I must update my system - I have Roland PM30 active speaker system for the drum set and a VH-11 hi-hat.
I need a few thousand years more of drumming practice before Dennis Chambers needs to be worried! All the same, I am having fun and that is what matters to me.
I love those lazy boys. I almost bought those for my theater room but went with dedicated seats. In a way i wished i had got the lazy Boys. Soooo comfortable!
Hi Shadorne and Mjcmt, Shadorne thanks for the new freq response graph. I will respond as soon as I can about some thoughts etc. At this point I am working my new job and my old one along with having my semi-annual Italian bike party on Oct 3rd with 100-120 people in attendance at my house...very busy.
System edited: Bob, You asked to see a raw frequency plot with no filtering at all - to be able to see "comb filtering" effects of in room reflections. So I have added a plot showing the RAW response of the left speaker with the subwoofer turned off (it is much worse than the right speaker and therefore serves as a great example of room modes at low frequencies as well as typical high frequency comb filtering where surface reflections cause nulls at specific frequencies) I would add that none of this is at all concerning or unusual. Unfortunately I don;t have a plot prior to placing the speakers into a soffit mount - so I can't show the worst in room comb filter effect from reflections from the wall behind the speakers (as there is essentially NONE or this effect is at least a MINIMUM in my situation - although from system photos you can deduce that the Left speaker must necessarily be the worst due to recess beside it) Is this the kind of example you asked for? Any comments?
Watching Lee Ritenour DVD and notice the drummer bass drum sound demonstrated incredible tight low-end. Now I know why. The drum kit used subkick which is a microphone for bass drum.
6.5" Speaker/Diaphragm Yamaha takes a 6.5" speaker and shock-mounted it into a 10" drum shell and reverse-wired it to an XLR jack to convert the speaker diaphragm into a microphone diaphragm. This allows Subkick to pick up the low-end that a normal microphone can't.
Mounting the speaker into the shell focuses the sound to direct the signal into the diaphragm. Using our shell makes the Subkick as easy to use on the road as it is in the studio.
Hi Shadorne and Mjmct, thanks for the post Shadorne but the waterfall plot that you show will not help Mjmct see the effect of comb filtering. Shadorne did you do the Fuzzmeasure yourself? Or did someone do it for you?
Also I am not really sure that Fuzzmeasure has enough resolution to show these effects. If you are unable to do this I have a few good graphs that I have done using REW that show the effects well. In particular are some graphs with before and after with bass traps added.
Perhaps Shadorne would be so kind to post a graph of his in room freq response with no smoothing supplied
Bob,
Check out the Waterfall Plot (look at Time t = 0 ). I think it was done using only 1/12 octave smoothing. You can see it is a lot more bumpy, just as one would expect.
Metal snare sound seems "in" right now. Have you considered a classic like the Ludwig Black Beauty? What about Sabian ? Canadian made by Zildjian's youngest son (with a chip on his shoulder). Seriously though, I'd recommend going for the sound you like most and one that fits your style. Honestly, I have little experience on acoustic drums and would struggle to even tune 'em.
Hi Mjcmt and Shadorne, Perhaps Shadorne would be so kind to post a graph of his in room freq response with no smoothing supplied. It would help Mjcmt to see the effect of smoothing and also show him what typical comb filtering looks like. Allthough, as Shadornes room has some acoustic treatment, it would not be as dramatic as a more typical untreated room which would exhibit severe comb filtering.
You are quite correct. If you look at my Waterfall Plot it is not smoothed nearly as heavily and you can see a few +/- 5 db peaks and troughs. 1/3 octave is useful and enough resolution for adjusting the bass response but it does not mean the response is exactly flat - just the average response...
I was wondering how Shadorne's listening space freq. graph could look so good for an residental looking space. All I see is bass traps. I would love to have that without all the guady looking stuff hung all over the room.
I would love to own a well designed listening/viewing space, but that is a dream that may never be realized. Especially in out small townhome and my budget. I'll bet Shadorne's space still sound sooooo gooood with his pro stuff, and it looks comfortable too.
Hi Mjcmt, it is not as smooth as it looks. With 1/3rd octave smoothing applied it makes the graph appear much better than it is, as the comb filtering effect is removed in the higher freq and the peaks and nulls are smoothed in the lower freq..
