What to understand before floorstanding speakers purchase?

[Jasonovich]

A big thank you to each and every one of you here for your time, advice, patience, and expertise. Your generosity is truly touching. Once again, if any of you ever feel like crossing the Channel and making your way down to Toulouse, there will be a fine beer or a good glass of wine waiting to accompany a listening session!
By the way, not so far from Stade Toulousain arena. ;-)

Regarding the bungs, I am surprised to see how common this solution seems to be. I was not familiar with it and must admit it makes me question the designer's work a bit.

The positioning shown in the photo offers the best compromise at this point. Not all music styles fare equally. Classical, Baroque, and Romantic music with not too much bass and at a fairly high volume sound magnificent. Jazz in a trio setting remains superb. However, anything in the pop-rock and metal genres quickly becomes tiring, oppressive, muddy, and unclear.

Do try filling the port holes with spongy foam. My Focal subwoofers had crazy thumbing bass, I managed to resolve it, using my wife's spare palette yoga mat! I have it spread up against the wall.

This obviously would be an eye sore in your room, so try using the sponge, simple ideas are sometimes the best.

If the bass can't be resolved, perhaps you're able to exchange these floor standers with smaller stand mounts?

 

[BenWatts]

@BenWatts , very kind offer thanks. 😀

You’re right that classical etc. doesn’t have large amounts of bass which is why you’re happy with that type of music. But with rock the bass is problematic. Bungs were shipped with my B&W CM4s back in 2000 but I didn’t need to use them. They’ll temper the bottom end. Bit like reducing bass on an amp with tone controls. 😉

If you really feel you can’t temper the bass here’s a radical solution. Buy a Bluesound Node Icon streamer and subscribe to TIDAL. For £11 a month you can have access to millions of tunes. The Icon is compatible with DIRAC LIVE so it can correct the excess bass you’re hearing. Around £1100 all in but it means going digital. Food for thought.

I currently use Tidal on my Waversa minihpa DAC/streamer

 

[RayP]

I currently use Tidal on my Waversa minihpa DAC/streamer

And does music via that system exhibit the same problems as analogue?

 

[Revolutions]

FYI 🙂

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Makes me so glad I learnt my 2.54 times table at school.

 

[Al ears]

And does music via that system exhibit the same problems as analogue?

And why shouldn't it???
The speakers don't know what the source is.

 

[BenWatts]

And does music via that system exhibit the same problems as analogue?

I have to check it with the same music.
Some LPs are poor quality (modern fancy vinyl totally awful).

 

[RayP]

And why shouldn't it???
The speakers don't know what the source is.

Just trying to clarify the situation. One is analogue, the other digital.

 

[BenWatts]

Just trying to clarify the situation. One is analogue, the other digital.

And you are right.
The Waversa minihpa mkII is a quite good streamer, the TT has no other phono stage than the heed board integrated into the amp. The cartridge is 1 yo.

If you want to learn more about:

Waversa WMiniHPA MK2

Waversa WMiniHPA MK2 ROON Ready Waversa Mini HPA MK2 Streaming Headphone Amplifier is a multi purpose ROON enabled headphone amplifier capable of driving some of the most demanding headphones. The truly amazing Mini HPA MK2 provides the user with the ability of having just the one device sitting...

audioconnection.com.au

 

[Rodolfo]

3 more considerations/biases:

A. Looks matter (speaking of Sensibility)
B. Distinctive tweeters are under-appreciated/considered
C. Power is over-appreciated/considered

 

[BenWatts]

3 more considerations/biases:

A. Looks matter (speaking of Sensibility)
B. Distinctive tweeters are under-appreciated/considered
C. Power is over-appreciated/considered

I don’t get it.
What do you mean?

 

[RayP]

And you are right.
The Waversa minihpa mkII is a quite good streamer, the TT has no other phono stage than the heed board integrated into the amp. The cartridge is 1 yo.

If you want to learn more about:

Waversa WMiniHPA MK2

Waversa WMiniHPA MK2 ROON Ready Waversa Mini HPA MK2 Streaming Headphone Amplifier is a multi purpose ROON enabled headphone amplifier capable of driving some of the most demanding headphones. The truly amazing Mini HPA MK2 provides the user with the ability of having just the one device sitting...

audioconnection.com.au

Okay, it’s obviously a decent bit of kit but very different to the streamers I’ve used. I can’t see an option for room correction unless I’ve missed something.

Compare with tracks you’re very familiar with via analogue. If you hear the same problems we can discount the source as being the problem. I don’t think it is.

I do find it odd the makers don’t specify recommended positioning as large enclosures act very differently to bookshelf speakers. Far more bass but it needs careful speaker positioning to get the optimal bass without the room influencing the sound in a negative way.

I’m hearing some upper false bass on an album by Anita Baker and a few other tracks by different artists. I originally put it down to a poor recording and perhaps my old CM4s being a problem. But when I heard it again with expensive Spendors I knew it had to be the room. That was confirmed by looking at the graph generated by DIRAC.

Listening to the same track on YouTube via my Arcam AVR21 confirmed it was the room. Listening via the ARCAM that has a DIRAC licence I could toggle it on / off. With it off the problem was evident. With it on that troublesome upper bass disappeared but deep bass remained.

You can spend a fortune on expensive speakers but unless you have a perfect room these problems will exist. Hence why DIRAC and floorstanders are a great combo.

 

[BenWatts]

Thank you Ray,
I have to listen and listen again before swap to the old ones and find out if there are some adding or missing point.
From the app of the streamer many settings can be done but not dealing with room features.

Let the music play and see next Saturday when I will have time.