Enter to Win: Rives Audio Test CD 2

[Tom Andry]

Rives is giving away three (3) Rives Audio Test CD 2 this month in our dedicated forum contest.

To be eligible to win, you must: 1) Be a registered Audioholics forum member, 2) Have USA or Canadian Residence 3) Answer the poll above and the question below in this contest thread:

Contest Question: What has been the most cost effective upgrade or change to your listening environment (acoustical treatments, speakers, specific component, etc.)? Please describe the change as you experienced it.

Note this contest ends on March 31st 2006. Winners will be drawn shortly thereafter

Have fun and good luck!

 

[John D]

I would say that the most cost effective upgrade for me was the upgrade to the Velodyne DPS-12 from the Polk Audio PSW 10 subwoofer. The Polk subwoofer was originally part of the RM6005 satellite/sub set I picked up at Future Shop (boxing day sale) for $299 (CDN +tax). I immediatley replaced the satellite speakers with bookshelf speakers, but couldn't replace the sub because a better one had too much of a price difference for me to afford. That was until the DPS-12 went on sale at Future Shop for $429 ($170 off). Future Shop took the RM6005 set back (even though it was past the 30 days and I couldn't find my receipt), and I paid the $130 difference for the Velodyne.

I am very happy with this upgrade. The Polk sub was decent for movies (did rumble a bit during explosions and such), but didn't seem to be very good for music. The Velodyne is much better at both. I can feel the low frequences of the explosions and other effects during movies, and can also feel (as well as hear the clarity of) the low frequencies of music (bass guitar, drums, etc). I feel this was the best $130 (plus tax) I've spent on my system.

 

[Kilwox]

Aesthetics or acoustical treatment?

The cheapest (and only acoustical upgrade) I've made to my listening room was adding a carpet! My landlord started insisting that people use area rugs to cut down on the noise for people who live below. We ended up getting something fairly neutral from Ikea, and what a difference it made to my home theater sound.
Any echo from the hard wood floors dissapeared, I had to adjust the location and toe-in of my mains and all for the better. Sound stage seems more focused on the listening positions, and there is more mid-range reinforcement. Vocals really sound like they're in my living room. Amazing! I think I have a fairly good mix of hard and soft surfaces in the room now.
To think, at first I wasn't even concerned about the sound in the room.

 

[steinoch]

controlling sound

Without a doubt it has been floor treatment. I admit that an 11'*17' Persian rug may not come cheap but I feel any flooring, other than a hard reflective surface, would have had a beneficial effect. The improvement in sound clarity in the room following the rug placement(over tile) was even noticeable by my wife. For me, it was difficult to believe that high quality speakers could sound so painful.

 

[JohnA]

What has been the most cost effective upgrade or change to your listening environment (acoustical treatments, speakers, specific component, etc.)?

Speaker placement

Please describe the change as you experienced it.

Spending time to properly place my speakers opened up the soundstage, almost becoming transparent and allowed better listening positions for most locations.

 

[STRONGBADF1]

Contest Question: What has been the most cost effective upgrade or change to your listening environment (acoustical treatments, speakers, specific component, etc.)? Please describe the change as you experienced it.

So far The best upgrade has been the big furniture that we bought. We paid about $1500 but we would have bought it whether the room had audio in it or not so I think of it as a no cost improvement!

The highs are now less harsh at loud volumes.


SBF1

 

[sy527x]

Since I live in an apartment, I haven't done much in terms of accoustical treatment. But the biggest change I've experienced was the addition of furniture and bookshelves. The difference between a bare room and a room with furniture was fairly significant. It now doesn't sound like a hollow cave.

 

[Khorn]

My listening room has hard plaster wall surfaces and a hardwood floor. The room is 14’ x 11.5’ with two openings to other spaces on each end of the longer dimension “seating wall”.

Like others here I have put down an area rug that stretches between and in front of my speakers which are horn loaded and designed for corner placement…..Klipschorns.

My listening position which is about 10’ from the front of each speaker places me in a “semi-nearfield” listening environment taking into account the size of the speakers and the distance from them.

As speaker placement is mandated by the design and seating by the size and layout of the room I have at present no real active control over sonic nulls and such. It’s a “take what presents itself” situation unless I want to plug in something like a parametric EQ for help in “room correction” at certain frequencies but at the probable cost of sonic transparency.

 

[tomd51]

Having a dedicated HT room that works fairly well and is mostly neutral from a sonic characteristic standpoint (not too bright, not a fully sound dampened recording studio), I 've been able to integrate changes and upgrades over the last few years that have made some significant improvements. Some acoustic treatments were applied to the room, but as mentioned, the environment itself was fairly neutral with thick carpeting and wall treatments and as such, did not require many changes from this aspect. The most impactful (no pun intended) change was upgrading from using dual subs in a pair of Infinity IL50 towers to my current SVS 20-39 PCi.

The added extension and tight punch of the SVS took music listening and movies to another level. Though other changes (separate amps, source devices, receivers, etc.) were made and had impact on the listening environment, the SVS was by far the most substancial of these changes. -TD

 

[Mr. Lamb Fries]

Rearanging furnature and changing the listening position is all I have done to work with the room accoustics. The most cost effective way to add room treatments are throw rugs and wall hangings.

 

[Reorx]

Contest Question: What has been the most cost effective upgrade or change to your listening environment (acoustical treatments, speakers, specific component, etc.)? Please describe the change as you experienced it.

Re-arranging the furnature.
Installing 2 amps in bi-amp cfg. for my center channel.

Reorx

 

[Taifun]

The most significant upgrade to my HT was the receiver (so far) I purchased a Pioneer Elite VSX-56TXi. I ran the MCACC and then sat down to watcha few movies and played a few DVD-As. I'm convinced that the added power really opened up the sound on my speakers (found in sig) and that the MCACC was the icing on the cake that really made everything shine. There is probably some tweaking that would help... in fact my next step is a test CD and a RS SPL meter. Will end up being invaluable as I am in the process of looking for speakers and and room treatments in the next 6 months.

 

[Hanse18]

Finally getting rid of BOSE haha. I'm not kidding either. Seriously. The transition from bose to some old floorstanding speakers (advent) and some rediculously cheap surrounds made a huge difference. Apparently there are actually lows and highs in music and movies! And I can finally understand dialogue coming from the center channel. After the switch everyone started to question bose's "amazing" sound.

As a side note, room placement was also very effective, I was originally losing too much sound into other rooms.

 

[Davidt1]

It's the speakers

I upgraded the Athena bookshelf speakers to Polk Audio RM7600 bookshelf speakers. The difference was significant, from the tiny, bright sound of the Athena speakers to the natural, room-filling sound of the Polk Audio speakers that approaches that of floorstanding speakers.

 

[blownrx7]

Most cost effective was the ridiculous Aura Pro Bass Shakers.
For 50 bucks I got kids giggling with laughter during the Polar Express
and adults gripping their seats during BlackHawk Down and U571.
No other change to my system ever got near that response!

 

[expose11]

I would say the biggest change was the addition of a Yamaha rx-v2600 replacing my Sony. I think that the power and clearer sound are the bigest improvements. Much much less distortion at higher listening levels.

 

[jcPanny]

Upgrades

In the current building stage of my HT, the speaker and receiver upgrades made the most improvement. While acoustic pannels are not an option for my current family room HT, it does have carpet, drapes, bookcases, and wall hangings that help "treat" the room. For a dedicated HT room, pannels and bass traps would be a consideration.

 

[Pyrrho]

The most cost effective change was to readjust the positioning of my speakers. All it cost was my time and a bit of trouble. I have been concerned about the room acoustics for years, but there has been little that I can do in an apartment. However, I am careful about making sure that wall decorations and furniture is appropriately situated (which, by they way, is typically visually pleasing as well), and that the system is as well situated as possible (my wife thought it odd at first that my ideas for arranging the living room were completely based upon what was best for our system, but when I explained why everything should be where it should be, she was fine with it; she likes good sound, too). I have heard good systems sound dreadful in other people's places, where they have not bothered to put anything in the room to absorb the sound, and they get a horrible echo. They might as well listen to something cheap, because their system isn't going to sound any good unless they fix their room problems. I also use a test disc and sound level meter to balance the channels, but that made very little difference, as my adjustments by ear were very close to what I ended up with. As an aside, the test disc for my picture adjustments made little difference, too, because they were very close to what I did before (I have always liked natural looking colors and such). But they both improved things, and were inexpensive. Buying Aurum Cantus Leisure 2SE speakers made a big difference, but they cost a bit of money.

 

[Bodymechanic]

The single, most cost-effective change for me has been speakers. I upgraded to axioms and the change was tremendous.

 

[howie85]

Im currently in a complete revamp. I sold everything and started over completely from scratch. I have room treatments but the room is still under construction so I can not comment on them. I did fire up the new speakers and av briefly and can say they made a difference but I would hope so since I went from bookshelf to floorstanders. I can barely contain myself but it will probably be another few weeks before I get everything in the room and working.