Have your say & ask the experts

Hi Tom,

What is seen as an acoustically 'bad' or 'challenging' room then?

Mine is 14' x 12', with laminate floors and leather seats with your standard curtains at the back. It's a newish build, so has the usual refinements on offer, like paper thin walls etc.

I'd imagine wooden flooring is a killer to acoustics?

Prof, its interesting what you say about the 905 mate.  I find that i flick between pure audio and stereo as different cd's sound better with one or the other. But in general i would say that with standard cables (and excuse the following descriptions) that the pure audio sounds smoother and fuller / richer, and stereo has improved detail in the mid range but with a lighter sound especially in the bass, but also sounds a little more "real"??. Would you concur?

I would certainly be interested in trying a cable such as yours to see the difference!

I've just been flicking between 'Pure Audio' and 'Stereo' with a dance music cd (Madonna).

The conclusion I come to is that if you listen to the music at lower/sensible volumes, 'Stereo' is best, but...............

If you listen to higher volumes 'Stereo' is too bright, and 'Pure Audio' actually is improved in detail and less tiring to listen to.

I guess the decision might differ to which is best. Its starting to come down to what music, and volume you listen at.

Pistol Pete1:

Hi Tom,

What is seen as an acoustically 'bad' or 'challenging' room then?

Mine is 14' x 12', with laminate floors and leather seats with your standard curtains at the back. It's a newish build, so has the usual refinements on offer, like paper thin walls etc.

I'd imagine wooden flooring is a killer to acoustics?

Hi Pete,

I don't think I said that your room was "bad" or "challenging", I thought I said that it was interaction with the room so sorry for the offence if it was caused.  It's nearly impossible to create a perfect listening room without going to extraordinary lengths and it can be difficult to ascertain what the interactions between your equipment on the room are producing without having a look at some tones through an RTA.  There are so many different acoustic interactions that affect the resonance of different frequencies in the system.  A lot of us already know about standing waves and bass, but hard surfaces and reflections in the room affect mid and high frequencies as well.  One way to see what's happening in the room is to run Audyssey an then inspect the Room EQ curve that is being applied (I'm not sure if you can look at this on your Onkyo, I just know that you can on a Denon) and obviously any EQ adjustments at particular frequencies are inverse to what is occurring in the room.

For example, my Front L/R and Rear L/R are the same type of rear-ported bookshelves on speaker stands.  The front ones are about 15 inches away from the front wall with plenty of room to breath while the rears have to be backed up right to the wall because of placement of shelves and a doorway.  In the room EQ curve the front channels have an almost straight line close to 0dB up to about 18kHz where there is a slight lift.  The rears however have a drastic dip that reaches down to -8dB centered at 150Hz and a smaller spike of about 4dB somewhere in the midrange (I can't remember the exact freq).  This obviously shows that by placing these speakers close to a wall in my room produces an excess boom at 150 but a loss of sound in the midrange.  

In my old flat (which was much much much smaller) the fronts had to be very close to the wall, and as a result a similar EQ curve (though even more was happening) to what I have now on my rears was being applied to my fronts by Audyssey, and when I switched on Pure Direct that by-passed the Room EQ I got a massive muddy mess that seemed as though someone had taken an icecream scoop and disembowelled the midrange.

Gander:

i would say that with standard cables (and excuse the following descriptions) that the pure audio sounds smoother and fuller / richer, and stereo has improved detail in the mid range but with a lighter sound especially in the bass, but also sounds a little more "real"??. Would you concur?

As I remember, I wouldn't say the Pure Audio mode was smoother, it was quite harsh and clinical, but I'd probably agree with improved detail in the mid range on Stereo though - hard to remember since it was last September! Of course I could swap out the mains cable with the standard one again, but that's too much effort at the moment.

Gander:

I would certainly be interested in trying a cable such as yours to see the difference!

Very simple to do, go to the Clearer Audio site and order a Copper-line Alpha cable. You get 60 days to try it out and if you're not happy send it back for a full refund (including postage). I did this with the Silver-line but didn't think it was worth the money for my setup, so switched it for the Copper-line Alpha.

Hi Tom,

No offence was caused at all - just wondered what was a cause of bad acoustics in a room.

This onkyo will not show the equaliser curves, so I'm stuffed on that one. In fact it will not show any audessey settings, in any form.

Just out of interest, what denon do you use?

This one prof? http://www.cleareraudio.com/products/copper-line_range/copper-line_power/copper-line_power_summary.htm

Not quite, that's the standard Copper-line which is a bit more expensive. This is the one I have i.e. the Copper-line Alpha.

Pistol Pete1:

Hi Tom,

No offence was caused at all - just wondered what was a cause of bad acoustics in a room.

This onkyo will not show the equaliser curves, so I'm stuffed on that one. In fact it will not show any audessey settings, in any form.

Just out of interest, what denon do you use?

Hi Pete,

That's unfortunate.  I have a Denon AVR-3808A, which has the Audyssey MultEQ XT system.  But I just had a looksie at the user manual for the new AVR-1910 which uses the lower spec MultEQ (not as many position measurements and no pro cal.) and also lacks the pretty graphical onscreen display, and that one allows you to check the Room EQ Curves in the Manual Setup Menu as well.  

Pistol Pete1:

Hi Tom,

No offence was caused at all - just wondered what was a cause of bad acoustics in a room.

This onkyo will not show the equaliser curves, so I'm stuffed on that one. In fact it will not show any audessey settings, in any form.

Just out of interest, what denon do you use?

Hi Pete,

do you have Audyssey Dynamic EQ turned on? Off the top of my head i can't remember if the 606 has this function. If it is on, you might want to try listening to music with it turned off and Pure Audio 'on', then perhaps with Audyssey turned off completely (but keeping the distance and level measurements in place.

Hi Andy,

Yes Audyssey Dynamic EQ is switched at all times, whatever the source being used.

With it switched off, and 'Pure Audio' on, it sounds even duller than with dynamic EQ on. I really must have ears that like a bright, open sound with a very detailed treble on top of the soundstage produced.

Either that or 'Pure Audio' function isn't working properly?