Mike,

from your room photos it appears that the two middle soffits with the hanging diffusors are actually longer than the front two and two rear? Is that correct? Your thoughts above make sense; I don't want to design the soffit size and spacing such that the Magnepans end up firing directly into the leading edge of the front of the partition. I'm thinking that the speakers should sit just about flush to the ends of the first soffits on the speaker end. The middle soffit section would be around 1.3 - 1.5 times as long as the front. The back two soffits would be the same length as the front two.

Did you ever consider using hardwood on the entire floor?

thx

stickman451 August 07, 2015 00:09

Yes, yes Charles. You are right. I read this crap late at night. Mike, have you heard Ma's room?

agear August 05, 2015 18:13

Actually it is Stickman451 building the custom home/dedicated room in Colorado.

charles1dad August 05, 2015 18:01

Mike, what will you do differently in your CO home? Who is going to run point on the design?

Have you ever heard Winston Ma's room. That is a fairly serious affair as well....

agear August 04, 2015 15:22

hello Stickman,

thank you for the kind words.

congrats on you and your wife retiring (i'm 2 or 3 years away myself), and then building a custom home in Colorado. and.....the new room project. if you have already had 2 dedicated rooms then you already have a pretty good idea on where you are going. your room dimensions are quite similar to mine, which I can tell you, it is nice to have a little elbow room.....it does allow the music to breathe.

personally I do like the ceiling soffit approach and the angled hanging diffusers. they retain energy but eliminate slap echo. and the soffits break up pressure points along the ceiling. I would only caution you to be careful not to allow a drop soffit between the listening position and the anticipated speaker location. until I recognized cause and effect and treated it with fabric the reflection from that soffit created a 'bright hash' which masked lots of detail.

OTOH your Maggie 20.7's are dipoles and project sound forward and back and not much to sides and up or down. so your room treatments need to deal with that reality, of which I have zero experience. I would recommend that whatever you end up doing to optimize those particular speakers that it be a 'fluid' solution so if you ever end up going to a dynamic cone speaker system that you can easily adjust the treatments.

I am absolutely thrilled with the hardwood floors on the speaker end of my room and think it's the right way to go with a larger room size we both have. you want to retain energy (like those angled diffusors on the ceiling). you can always play around with a small throw rug to experiment with some absorption on that hardwood....in my case whenever I have it deadened the sound and I removed it. smaller rooms need absorption to deal with high SPL's.....different rules apply to different size rooms.

those 20.7's are world class speakers and in a room that size are going to really sing. best wishes with your project and let me know if you have any other questions.

best regards,

mikelavigne August 03, 2015 22:29

Mike,

I have read about and studied your room design for many years. Now I am finally in a position to build my next (third and final) dedicated room in a new home that will be started early next year! Your room looks phenomenal !!! My wife and I are retiring and moving to a custom built home in Castle Rock, CO.

The new room dimensions will be, 18'-10" w x 29' L x 11'-2". I will use a soffit system very similar to your build. The soffit will be at 10' high and the six trays will go on up to 11'-2". Initially I will install the 22.5 degree hanging diffusors above the listening seat in the center two trays. I haven't worked-out the width of the soffit grid but I will use it to hold my lighting and the HVAC.

I have two questions that I am hoping you can comment on. (1) Have you been happy with the hardwood floor in the speaker end and carpet in the other two thirds of the room? (2) I assume that you are happy using the soffit system. Would you do them exactly the same way again? In your opinion, how wide do they need to be and should all the soffit be the same width (soffit around the room perimeter the same as the cross members)?

My speakers are the new Magnepan 20.7's. I am using the Carver 305 Black Beauty mono-blocks to Great effect on the Maggies! The Black Beauty's use six KT-120's per side and put out a strong 350 Watts into the 4-ohm 20.7's.

Any advice that you could give to me would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

stickman451 August 02, 2015 20:16

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the link and response in detail. I imagine your listening space and hardware changes result in greater enjoyment. I'm contemplating a Pass XVR-1 as a xover for our Dali.

Our noble pursuit and journey continue!

Sonny and I are enjoying our summer. Got one of our A820's back from Charlie Bolois and found some tubes we like for our Atma-Sphere gear. Good thing we have central AC. :-)

c1ferrari August 01, 2015 07:01

hi Sam,

all is well, and I hope You and Sunny are having a great summer.

Evolution Acoustics Loudspeaker specs

here is my understanding of how this crossover relates to the two different model speakers.

the crossovers in the MM7's is essentially identical to the ones in the 'Exact' column upgrade for the MM2/MM3. however; since the driver compliment is quite different in the MM7's the implementation and values are different.

the MM2/MM3 has a mid range that extends down to approximately 80-120 hz depending on the adjustable setting on the subwoofer, whereas on the MM7's the mid range only goes to 250hz to 300hz range and the -4- 11" woofers per side then do the 30hz to 250hz range. so the components of the crossover are the same, but it has another step. of course, the MM7 then has a whole additional tower for the below 40hz range.

the Exact upgrade does take the MM2/MM3 to another level in terms of detail and transparency and is a desirable and worthwhile upgrade. the MM7's are a whole different thing.

mikelavigne August 01, 2015 02:19

Hi Mike!

Are the xovers on your MM7's like the xovers on the EA loudspeakers we heard at Newport?

Hope all is well with you and family. :-)

-Sam

c1ferrari August 01, 2015 00:34

ok then. I guess that is settled.

mikelavigne July 31, 2015 22:43

yes you are.....:)

agear July 31, 2015 17:33

honestly I don't know. I've not spoken to or had contact with Miguel for 6 months and never posted about it anywhere.

I've never heard any Tripoint product but certainly respect it and am curious about what it does like many others.

you apparently know more about it than I do....am I getting a Tripoint Troy?

mikelavigne July 30, 2015 03:35

Miguel mentioned it....are you not?

agear July 30, 2015 03:10

Agear,

congrats on the Troy.

what makes you think I'm getting one or intended to do that?

mikelavigne July 30, 2015 02:06

Mike, are you still getting a Tripoint Troy? I am going to get one soon....:)

agear July 29, 2015 18:24

update; another step forward.

read this post for context for what I'm describing below.

there are 4 different dials to adjust on each of the 4 separate bass adjustment panels (2 per side) on the bass towers. the OP describes what happened when I adjusted 2 of them for each section; the 'bass level' and the 'bass quality'. I set those to what the designer called 'flat' positions which were quite different (about 40-50% around the adjustment scale) than where they had been in the 'compensated' positions.

we had left the other 2 adjustments (bass filter and bass extension) in the 'compensated' position in case we found that the changes I made did not work, so we did not need to find those positions again.

yesterday I had left a message for the speaker designer asking him if I could also move the other 2 adjustments to the spots he had designated as 'flat' since we did know that we had a positive result from moving the other 2. early last night I had not yet heard back from him and decided 'what the heck' I want to know what that will do, so I did make those adjustments. in this case; both the 'bass filter', which is a variable crossover, and 'bass extension' the 'compensated' positions were much closer to the 'flat' positions. in one of the 4 was already in the 'flat' position.

WHOA! more meat on the bones, more heft in the bass, but it was the fire and sparkle of the mid range that took a significant improvement. vocals were quite a bit better. I had thought I was all the way there on perfect balance of voice and string tone but I was wrong. richer, more harmonic shading, more tube like breath of life.

every reference I have was improved in subtle ways. delicate little things in the soundstage are all more real and filled out and complete. magical.

these were tiny adjustments on 2 innocent dials on the back of some active bass towers that crossover at around 35hz with the main towers. how can this do that? don't know, but they did.

mikelavigne July 18, 2015 14:29

Agear,

thanks.

and yes, I did notice a few months back that Rives is no longer a company.

mikelavigne July 18, 2015 13:44

Congrats Mike. Audio is a humbling hobby indeed.

Did u know Rives went out of business fairly recently?

agear July 18, 2015 02:54

Dennis, many thanks for your comments.

mikelavigne July 18, 2015 02:04

Larry, thanks for the kind comments.

mikelavigne July 18, 2015 01:59

awesome thread! love the experiene. cannot thank you enough for letting us in your room with those awesome photos.

cerrot July 17, 2015 12:53

Great update with the enlarged pictures.
Extremely nice.
Thanks!

lak July 17, 2015 11:53

suck out fixed. i think.

my room designer designed a whole ceiling bass trap into my room. it was 15" deep and covered the whole 21' x 29' ceiling. except for -6- inset 6' x 8' chambers. these chambers had fabric covered vertical openings with Corning 709 fiberglass in the openings. you can see the chambers in the ceiling of my room pictures. the idea was that this bass trap would control the bass; but clearly in retrospect it was a huge mistake. now 11 years later that mistake has been rectified.....finally.

4 years ago I did have a contractor remove the fabric panels from 4 of the 6 chambers and glue and screw 3/4" finished maple plywood over these openings; which did improve the bass response. I thought that fixed my issue. I was wrong.

last May, 14 months ago, my speaker designer was here for 2 days to do the final tweaking to my Evolution Acoustics MM7's. when he measured the room he found a fairly wide -12db suck out at 30hz, one that the room dimensions did not logically predict. he strongly suspected that the remaining openings in those center chambers were the likely cause. since the MM7's are so powerful and adjustable, he was able to minimize the effect of the suck out with adjustments, but at the cost of ultimate performance. he did strongly suggest I get those openings covered. he even gave me two sets of settings sheets for the 4 sets of adjustments (2 sets on each bass tower).......one for the 'compensated' adjustments he made, and another for 'flat' adjustments anticipating my getting those openings sealed up.

since last May I have given a good amount of effort into finding a contractor to do that work, but was not successful.

then this spring I went thru the experience with the fabric treatments that really took things up a few notches. I had quite a few people thru the room and the feedback was very positive. I knew that somehow I needed to do this final thing and hopefully that would allow the bass performance that was already amazing to go to the optimal level. I was fully motivated to get this done with my excitement from the big step forward from the fabric treatments.

I realized if I wanted to get this done i had to do this myself.

finally I was able to convince my son (I bribed him by giving him one of my bicycles) to help me do this nasty job. I spent last week buying -3- 4' x 8' sheets of finished 3/4" maple plywood, another 8 foot step ladder (we would be working at 10'-11'), a good quality circular saw, saw horses, and all the other bits and pieces we would need. my son had a 208 mile one-day STP (Seattle to Portland) bike ride on Saturday and did not get home till late, so Sunday morning a spent 2 hours clearing out the room.....everything to the sides....racks moved, tape decks moved. big job. tarp laid. ladders set up. neither of us are carpenters; could we rip the panels without chipping? could we even cut a straight line?

would it actually make a positive difference?

we did not know exactly how we would remove the fabric panels or how they were attached. would we be able to get them out without removing the trim pieces? we did not posses the skills to properly replace the trim.

he showed up around 10:30am and we first removed the 8 deflector panels with in the chambers and then got to work pulling off the fabric panels, 4 per chamber, 8 total. we were able to get them out with considerable caution and effort without disturbing the trim. then we measured and started ripping the sheets and cutting to size. I had a work commitment mid afternoon for 2 hours, and returned. finally about 9 that night we screwed and glued the final plywood sheet. then he left and I spent 2 hours reassembling the room. I'd had a listening visitor from California the previous day and then the previous night I'd had a work dinner till midnight. I'm not a young guy. I was gassed. I tried to listen. was it boomy sounding? if that 30hz -12db suck out was solved to a significant degree that old set-up would cause the lower bass to be boomy. I thought it was boomy but fell asleep right away. the next morning before work I was not yet recovered enough to listen.

finally after work that night I had recovered enough to listen and went thru my digital listening references and the lower bass was clearly boomy, if not quite a bit more energetic sounding. I had spoken to my speaker designer earlier and he said I should shut off the amps in the bass towers and see if it sounded clean. if it did that indicated that the closing of the openings had not likely caused other issues. I did that, went thru my references again, no problem, sounded very clean. so then I turned the bass towers back on and adjusted both the 'bass level' and the 'bass quality' (Q) halfway to the 'flat' positions and listened to the references again. better, less boomy. much more energy. some magical things happening. then I went 3/4 to the flat positions and again listened. now it was a big WOW! everything was now at a whole new reference level. all up and down the frequency range. a whole new level of coherence and naturalness. vocals were superb sounding. much more holographic. bass impact a couple orders of magnitude better. so I just listened late until early morning Tuesday and again after not much sleep in the morning. I was stoked.

that night I first listened as it was; then found a good cut and moved the 'bass quality' the last little bit to the flat position. clearly better. then I moved the 'bass level' the last little bit to the flat position and it was super clean and right. it sounds perfect to me now; I've been listening for 2 days now to it and I'm just beside myself. as good as it had been; it's not only much better but much different than even Saturday night. what is so crazy to my mind is how much different vocals and the mid range is simply by eliminating a 30hz suck out. it was very interesting hearing how much detail had been covered by those adjustments which were pegged to cover the suck out when taken to flat all that detail jumped out.

the MM7's are now fully unleashed and are something to behold!

how close to absolutely flat is it? don't know. I hope it can get better from here.....but maybe not. is the suck out all the way gone? how flat is my room? don't know yet. and once I measure it I may or may not post it. we all know how much I love graphs.

I suppose I have a persecution complex posting about discovering my personal mistakes. I know from time to time that comes back to haunt me when ner-do-wells want to give me some crap. but so what. I feel that these sort of experiences contribute to the collective knowledge. and one has to be open to learning and going farther down the road.

my goal 11 years ago with my efforts was to get the room and system out of the way of the music; I think I've essentially done that finally.

oh and btw, this job cost me about $250 in materials and I did acquire approx. $450 worth of tools and a ladder. I was going to give the bike to my son anyway but he did not know that. so between the fabric and this job about $500-$600 and the effect is off the charts.

mikelavigne July 17, 2015 06:25