Get Better Sound (Without Spending A Fortune)

Do you have a cat that is intrigued by a red laser dot it can never quite seem to catch?

I got the book. I am reading it. <br />

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In doing so, it has caused me to place an immediate personal moratorium on all equipment changes until I fiddle around a bit with my room. I get to buy a laser???!!!!??? ... I haven't found that tip yet. (Oh boy oh boy oh boy!)<br />

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I am even going to live with my “Monster Cable High Resolution Precision Stranded 'Time Correct' Speaker Cable with Magnetic Flux Tube and LPE Dielectric” speaker cables for a while despite their uncool name.

Now if it had a Flux Capacitor and a warning to never get them going 88mph, they would instantly be elevated to Awesome!<br />

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God, I hope you get that joke...

Kinda to the same effect, I've used string tied on one end in a secure but loose loop to a very heavy cast iron floor standing candleholder we have. I simply placed the candleholder at my listening position (moved the furniture), raised the loop to the predetermined ear level, and swung the string around in an arc to ensure all speakers were precisely distanced. I even considered making an angle template out of a paper plate to attach to the candleholder but didn't since I figured its precision would be highly suspect. Worked well.

The time saved resolving smaller distances by ear can be saved with the $99 Bosch.<br />

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Well nobody mentioned that the Bosch had ears!<br />

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-Chris

Actually the reason I mentioned saving on the Laser Doohickey is because the guy from Canada was talking nearly $200 and this is a thread about not spending a fortune on upgrading. Even though $200 can't buy you a good cable it can buy you an excellent pair of speakers according to Stereophile ($150 actually). So it ain't chump change as long as you're not listening to cables.<br />

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So unless you can have as much fun as @Wgscott with it (take off your clothes for even more fun, but use the ultrasonic version). I'd go with the string or the tape measure. Of course if you've got the stash go for it, but I have one and their really not that much fun once you've used them. You just end up with another gadget hanging around the house.<br />

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-Chris<br />

Chris said:<br />

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"Well nobody mentioned that the Bosch had ears!"<br />

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Sorry, that's the special <i>audiophile version</i>. <br />

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You have to belong to the <b>Get Better Sound Club</b> ($500 annually for the rest of your life) to get that one.<br />

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So someone from Canadia can't order it for US$89 from Amazon.com? <br />

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I've ordered stuff from Amazon.co.uk, so I find this somewhat hard to believe, but maybe it is true, and we tossed out our entire manufacturing base in this country with NAFTA and we can't even order stuff from the same interwebs?

"So someone from Canadia can't order it for US$89 from Amazon.com?" <br />

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No, Canadians cannot order many items from amazon.com. If you put stuff like this in a shopping cart and enter your address you get a message that "this item cannot be shipped to Canada." If you go to amazon.ca the items are not even listed. Free trade really doesn't seem to apply to the little guy, and there's still a lot of market protection going on here.

as to what I needed.<br />

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I believe I read something about the walls in the typical rectangular listening room not being parallel and square and possible the floor and ceiling having similar problems.<br />

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Then I considered L&R speaker toe-in not being equal and read something further about the desire for tilting some speakers forward or back.<br />

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At the end of the day I realized that there are several more important issues (like clearing out all the junk from my listening room) for me to address before buying the right, and hopefully not the wrong, laser measuring device.<br />

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With a precision laser measuring device what is the pecking order of critical linear and angular measurements for getting better sound?

I *think* - at least you can <i>here</i>. Might be different in different parts of the country. <br />

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-Paul<br />

I spent a pleasant morning today moving my audio equipment around without regard for living room furniture aesthetics. Basically, I followed Tips # 71 through #77. The tips helped me make huge improvements in pretty much everything: tonal balance, sound stage, imaging etc. Although I am going to have to back-off of this ideal configuration, I know now what my system is capable of. Thank you Jim Smith!<br />

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My big ah-ha moments:<br />

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- I was shocked to measure how asymmetrically I was sitting relative to the speakers; visually they looked fine.<br />

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- I had the speakers canted too far inward; the soundstage solidified when I pointed them slightly more outward.<br />

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- My listening room is our living room. My listening chair is a folding director’s chair which I fold and put away when not listening critically. Speakers are separated from each other by a large overstuffed couch. I pulled the speakers way far away from the wall and THAT caused a big change in bass (a favorable reduction) and the soundstage moved way far behind the speakers. It is awesome.<br />

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- A very difficult piece of music for my system to reproduce well is “My Dear Companion” from the “Trio” album. Emmylou Harris can sound like she is sitting in the left speaker and the location of Linda Ronstadt’s voice is indistinct (Dolly Parton warbles away cheerfully right in the center). With the changes, they all became clear.<br />

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- It turns out the standard place I put my listening chair is the exact right spot in the room for bass response. Likewise, my speakers were spaced correctly (82% of distance to chair). I felt proud of my intuition.<br />

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- Unfortunately, my speakers are now in front of the couch. This does not seem acceptable since guest would not be able to see from behind the speakers. I’ve marked the ideal spot with (more) painter’s tape and pushed them back to a spouse-tolerant spot 36 inches from the wall. The bass is exaggerated and the sound stage isn’t as good, but not too bad. I now know where to move them when I have the house alone.<br />

From which highway overpass do you plan on disposing of your couch?

We dumped two leather couches to accomodate the Maggies here. <br />

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-Paul<br />

Jim suggests turning off wireless routers because of the "grunge" they generate. I imagine that wireless phones also generate the same grunge. What about cell phones?

would ask my neighbors to turn off their wireless routers. If you have ever connected to a wireless network you know that you can connect to several other wireless networks that are not internal to your home.<br />

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I would only worry about turning off my phone, if I hear a voice on the other end asking "E.T. is that you?".

Since I have this same setup, I would comment that I recently heard it sound much better when a Mac Mini and Core Audio Power Supply were substituted for my MacBook. It's an experience I did not expect. The person who had the Mac Mini and Core Audio supply (~$2200) told me his system sounded much the same as my MacBook, until he added the Core Audio Power Supply to the Mac Mini. The MacBook made the front end sound anemic. After this experience, I'm not sure how anyone can judge any DAC, without good power to the computer.

<em>"would ask my neighbors to turn off their wireless routers. If you have ever connected to a wireless network you know that you can connect to several other wireless networks that are not internal to your home."</em><br />

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I live in an apartment building, and there currently 10 wifi networks showing up on my computer. So if this is a big problem, then I'm screwed. I'm ready to get out the tin foil hat.

I could be wrong, but I interpreted this to mean I should turn off the wireless card (airport card) in my Mac Mini and hook it up the the router with an cat5 cable. (I did this mainly for the speed benefits rather than the sonic benefits, but since it is a cheap and easy "fix", why not?). I can't claim to hear any difference, but others have suggested it can be an improvement not having the wireless card in the music server computer itself turned on.<br />

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<img src="http://berkeley.intel-research.net/arahimi/helmet/ali2.jpg" />

I turn off the internal router in my MBP when playing music - never bothered to listen closely to hear whether there's any discernible difference, since it's just a couple of clicks to do that or to turn it on again afterward.

<em>"I could be wrong, but I interpreted this to mean I should turn off the wireless card (airport card)"</em><br />

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I thought the same thing, but just double checked the book and on pg. 125 he says "Kill those routers... they're broadcasting unrelated and unwanted digital signals right into your sensitive stereo systems. When you're listening critically, if you can, turn off any wireless routers in the home."<br />

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Oh.<br />

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I'd go so far as to suggest that if a gigahertz broadcast signal is messing with your audio equipment, there is something wrong with that equipment, or was built to a very low standard.<br />

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I think the wall wart powering the wireless router is more likely to cause problems.

I received my set of this today. Have not gone through it all yet, and am not making any changes to my system until I have.<br />

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But I am truly impressed.

Winter deal!<br />

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I just ordered the book and DVD at 60% of the regular cost.<br />

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Looking forward to get my hands on the material.

Book and the DVDs. Thoroughly recommended.<br />

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Just a thouht. On more than one occasion I have been about to make a 'useful' comment on here. Then I remembered that I got it from his book, so did not say anything.