Do you consider yourself an audiophile?

[BigTom]

18mm OSB and Evo-stik Gripfill with a few screws...is this why my soundscape sounds like it is made up of lots of compressed fragments? The mid-bass sounds flaky and the upper treble somewhat gluey. I also feel that the grain of the imaging is randomy orientated. I wish I had had your advice earlier

I'm a little concerned that the wires from the cones to the terminals are in blue and brown, because I pulled them from some mains flex. All other speakers I've seen have red and black instead; can you advise on whether this may have a detrimental effect?

Yeah, glue definitely distorts treble, which gets stuck in it in someway and I've definitely heard speakers sound gluey to find they've glued em together. If the grain of the imaging is sounding randomly oriented then I'm guessing you didn't make sure the grain on the wood was all aligned the right way when you put it together?
All of these little things add up, I'm sure your speakers will sound great and no doubt better than comparatively priced speakers you could go out and buy, cos they've been built exactly for you and your room, but they could be just that little bit better.
I offer audiophile speaker building courses at the low, low rate of £100k for a weeks residential or £50k for distance learning package. Residential package includes everything you need to build a speaker the BigTom way, tailored to your needs of course. Perhaps once you've decided you want to upgrade these speakers you could consider coming on a course.

As to the wires, my esteemed fellows have already answered the question I feel. I would add that I know people who swap around their wires depending on the music they are playing and whether they are looking for a warmer/cooler sound or something more specific, so the green cables are great when you are playing hippy music like Enya and whale noises cos it's more connected to mother earth, red for warm, blue for cool as stated. Black is for anything that needs real depth to it, white is like your middle of the road all round performer and what you should have if you don't want to swap cables around and don't have a strong preference for a particular type of soundscape.

 

[Nylock]

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Red wire makes things sound warmer. Colour of fire, innit.

You are thinking of red wine I think. And it just makes you feel warmer.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Your ears don't deceive you, but your brain does.

 

[lefteri]

have we had this yet?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Furutech-...ion_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item35d0ed80ea

 

[lefteri]

audiophile cable & cartridge maker van den hul also makes these: http://www.vandenhul.com/products/accessories/health-ring

It is meant to either be worn as a wrist bracelet or to be used as a room acoustic conditioner and aids in neutralizing negative disturbances by means of its highly structured molecular composition.

Room acoustic conditioning applications
The Health Ring forms a different approach to neutralize soundstaging problems.
When applied on critical spots the rings always produce a better soundstage.
The rings are to be positioned at specific places in the room and on the equipment and the results are almost immediately audible.

and

More information
A paper on the use and application of this product will follow a.s.a.p.

which should make for interesting reading

I'm tempted to think it's a send up

 

[Garek]

Is TV calibration worth it? Or does it come under the category of expensive speaker cable?

 

[eskdave]

with digital tech as it is now they can fire anything at your lugs through standard coax/RF (or eyes)

 

[BigTom]

Is TV calibration worth it? Or does it come under the category of expensive speaker cable?

What do you mean by TV calibration? It's worth adjusting the brightness and contrast and maybe the colours on a TV but I doubt anything else would have any value.

 

[Garek]

What do you mean by TV calibration? It's worth adjusting the brightness and contrast and maybe the colours on a TV but I doubt anything else would have any value.

Sorry I meant professional TV calibration.

 

[Crispy]

Getting your colour/contrast/brightness settings right is a good idea. If you have a computer plugged in via HDMI, there are some websites that can step you through a callibration process that, while not professional, will result in an optimum picture. What is definitely worth doing is turning off all the image processing. All the "vivid color" "smooth motion" "cinema saturation" bollocks. Overscan too. Can't believe TVs still do that. Naming your main input "PC" works on many models to completely strip out the processing and just display the clean signal straight to the screen.

 

[Garek]

Getting your colour/contrast/brightness settings right is a good idea. If you have a computer plugged in via HDMI, there are some websites that can step you through a callibration process that, while not professional, will result in an optimum picture. What is definitely worth doing is turning off all the image processing. All the "vivid color" "smooth motion" "cinema saturation" bollocks. Overscan too. Can't believe TVs still do that. Naming your main input "PC" works on many models to completely strip out the processing and just display the clean signal straight to the screen.

First thing I did with my new tele was turn off the frame filler thingy. I was watching a DVD at my parents house a few months ago and I just could not work out what the fuck was wrong with playback. It seemed really weird and over smooth. Like someone had dialled up the speed by just a tiny click. Not so fast as to in any way count as fast forward, but just fast enough for it to bug the hell out of me. Only leanrt in the last couple of week what it was.

Cheers, will turn off the rest to.

 

[BigTom]

Have had a quick look at professional calibration, which I didn't know existed and I doubt it'd do anything more than you could with a test card or a website like crispy has suggested.
I don't think it's quite in the league of expensive cables though, more like paying someone to adjust your eq - will make a difference when put through an oscilloscope/spectrometer but nothing you couldn't do yourself.

Overscan used to be vital of playing video off a computer, at least with projectors, or you'd get a black border on the output. Maybe it's not needed anymore.

 

[Crispy]

Overscan used to be vital of playing video off a computer, at least with projectors, or you'd get a black border on the output. Maybe it's not needed anymore.

No maybe about it

 

[friedaweed]

Yeah, glue definitely distorts treble, which gets stuck in it in someway and I've definitely heard speakers sound gluey to find they've glued em together. If the grain of the imaging is sounding randomly oriented then I'm guessing you didn't make sure the grain on the wood was all aligned the right way when you put it together?
All of these little things add up, I'm sure your speakers will sound great and no doubt better than comparatively priced speakers you could go out and buy, cos they've been built exactly for you and your room, but they could be just that little bit better.
I offer audiophile speaker building courses at the low, low rate of £100k for a weeks residential or £50k for distance learning package. Residential package includes everything you need to build a speaker the BigTom way, tailored to your needs of course. Perhaps once you've decided you want to upgrade these speakers you could consider coming on a course.

As to the wires, my esteemed fellows have already answered the question I feel. I would add that I know people who swap around their wires depending on the music they are playing and whether they are looking for a warmer/cooler sound or something more specific, so the green cables are great when you are playing hippy music like Enya and whale noises cos it's more connected to mother earth, red for warm, blue for cool as stated. Black is for anything that needs real depth to it, white is like your middle of the road all round performer and what you should have if you don't want to swap cables around and don't have a strong preference for a particular type of soundscape.

Class

 

[tbtommyb]

First thing I did with my new tele was turn off the frame filler thingy. I was watching a DVD at my parents house a few months ago and I just could not work out what the fuck was wrong with playback. It seemed really weird and over smooth. Like someone had dialled up the speed by just a tiny click. Not so fast as to in any way count as fast forward, but just fast enough for it to bug the hell out of me. Only leanrt in the last couple of week what it was.

Cheers, will turn off the rest to.

oh, is that that thing where you watch a film that looks cinematic in the cinema (obviously) but when you watch it on a TV you can see more clearly that it's a soundstage, how the camera is panning, etc? I have tried to explain this many times but always without luck.

 

[Fez909]

oh, is that that thing where you watch a film that looks cinematic in the cinema (obviously) but when you watch it on a TV you can see more clearly that it's a soundstage, how the camera is panning, etc? I have tried to explain this many times but always without luck.

I always thought that was to do with filters. It's the difference between EastEnders and Hollyoaks/Neighbours. But even EastEnders has filters. It's when the filters are missing that things look more like a home video.

 

[Garek]

oh, is that that thing where you watch a film that looks cinematic in the cinema (obviously) but when you watch it on a TV you can see more clearly that it's a soundstage, how the camera is panning, etc? I have tried to explain this many times but always without luck.

Nope, it's this http://m.cnet.com/news/what-is-the-soap-opera-effect/57569102

 

[pesh]

Nope, it's this http://m.cnet.com/news/what-is-the-soap-opera-effect/57569102

yeah, takes a bit of tweaking to stop it all looking really weird.

 

[teuchter]

What drives me crazy is people who seem completey unaware that the aspect ratio is set all wrong on their TV and they just sit there watching stretched or squashed people on the screen

 

[tbtommyb]

Nope, it's this http://m.cnet.com/news/what-is-the-soap-opera-effect/57569102

that might be what i was talking about, actually. good to have a name for it

 

[ViolentPanda]

What drives me crazy is people who seem completey unaware that the aspect ratio is set all wrong on their TV and they just sit there watching stretched or squashed people on the screen

Unless they were brought up in a Hall of Mirrors, how on earth could they be unaware, unless they were hopelessly dim?

 

[moody]

If I had the cash I would defo invest in kit.

Just before I left home my dad splashed out and got the latest arcam separates including pre and control amps with bi wired kef speakers.

CDs sounded crystal and vinyl played on his rega deck was so rich and textured, truely an experience.

Good kit just takes music to the next level

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Good speakers certainly do. The bi wiring makes no difference though.

 

[moody]

Good speakers certainly do. The bi wiring makes no difference though.

It certainly does if you have a pre and control amp set up. With pre amp powering the bass driver and the other mids and tops.

The sound separation is pretty good

 

[moody]

Far better than a single amp set up

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

You are thinking of red wine I think. And it just makes you feel warmer.

This is a red wire song, straight up, even though the video is b&w.




p.s. I'm not fond of the British ampersand.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

It certainly does if you have a pre and control amp set up. With pre amp powering the bass driver and the other mids and tops.

You're confusing a few terms there.

A preamp cannot drive anything, that what sorts out the initial signals from your various sources. If you have separate power amps for different drivers then you'll also need a crossover to split out the signal into the appropriate signal ranges, otherwise you're wasting your time as each driver is still receiving a full range signal to be sorted by the speakers internal crossover. This is what is commonly know as "bi-amping"

"Bi-wiring", so beloved of hifi idiots, is simply running two runs of speaker cable to the cab, supposedly giving each driver it's own signal. Some basic electrical knowledge will tell you this is pointless.

 

[moody]

Both amps were needed, for example, if you had forgotten to switch on the power amp , you would only hear top end coming from the speakers if you played something

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Well, yeah. This doesn't mean anything though. If you're still only using the speakers internal crossover adding more amps makes fuck all difference. The whole point is that by putting a crossover before the power amp stage for a driver, rather than after it, you can have an amp running at the optimum range for the specific driver it's feeding, rather than having to amplify a full range signal that then get's filtered down by the speakers crossover.