Thank you for sharing this excellent guide Paul. I am relatively new to SO and still have a lot to learn. I have Kudos Super 20A speakers and see that they do not appear in your list relating to custom filter no 1 (not surprising considering the number of different speakers around!). I wondered if you have any advice on the values I should use please? Many thanks. David.
Hi David, I've been following Pauls guides for some time and I have Kudos Super20A speakers. My custom filter 1 is shown below. It may not be the same for you but it works for me. Enjoy your S20A's :rockin:
John
John
Thank you very much John - that's very kind of you. I am away from home at the moment but looking forward to trying your settings next week when I get back.
David
David
Thank you very much John for your quick response.Hi David, I've been following Pauls guides for some time and I have Kudos Super20A speakers. My custom filter 1 is shown below. It may not be the same for you but it works for me. Enjoy your S20A's :rockin:
John
I have been under the weather the last couple of days, with the flu
I have not worked with Kudos Super 20’s , only Kudos Titan 808’s in Sheffield.
Looking at the design of the speakers on the Kudos website, I would have guessed that the frequency of custom filter 1 would have been between 22.5-24 Hz
Take care
Hope you get rid of the flu bugs soon. I'll revisit the first custom filter to see if your suggestion works.
Thanks John, I feel great today.
I usually only get into the 18 Hz range when I am working on 350’s.
For example, my Akubariks have an isobarik bass, and they are currently set at 22.3Hz
Fortunately, it is so easy to create a new profile and try new frequencies and see if you like it.
If you have Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier, and Lou Reed’s Walk On the Wild Side, they can be very helpful in getting the detail and musical bass fine tuned.
Thank you John and Paul. Glad you are feeling better today Paul. I have re-read your guides and I am sure they will help me to experiment along the lines you have suggested when I return home next week.
I have a very reflective room with few absorbent items. The ceiling is sloping and has two gradients! Due to a large patio door sized opening between my listening room and dining room, my listening room is effectively L-shaped. The floor is finished with ceramic tiles and no carpet. When I use SO (V1) and accept the suggested adjustments, the sound is worse than when all values are set to zero. My main 2 problems seem to be: I almost lose the bass; and the treble is extremely bright and uncomfortable - especially in orchestral music. Vocals and small groups sound great though. I am hoping that, with your guide process, I will be able to improve things.
Thanks again.
David
I have a very reflective room with few absorbent items. The ceiling is sloping and has two gradients! Due to a large patio door sized opening between my listening room and dining room, my listening room is effectively L-shaped. The floor is finished with ceramic tiles and no carpet. When I use SO (V1) and accept the suggested adjustments, the sound is worse than when all values are set to zero. My main 2 problems seem to be: I almost lose the bass; and the treble is extremely bright and uncomfortable - especially in orchestral music. Vocals and small groups sound great though. I am hoping that, with your guide process, I will be able to improve things.
Thanks again.
David
Thanks Paul. I have both the tracks thanks to youThanks John, I feel great today.
I usually only get into the 18 Hz range when I am working on 350’s.
For example, my Akubariks have an isobarik bass, and they are currently set at 22.3Hz
Fortunately, it is so easy to create a new profile and try new frequencies and see if you like it.
If you have Bob Marley’s Buffalo Soldier, and Lou Reed’s Walk On the Wild Side, they can be very helpful in getting the detail and musical bass fine tuned.
Hi Paul, I’m planning on using your guide to do an optimal SO setup. I have Dali Mentor 5 speakers, given the spec below do you have any suggested starting point for the custom filter 1 settings? Many thanks.
Specifications:
Product Series
MENTOR
Speaker Type
Front
Frequency Range (+/-3 dB) [Hz]
43 - 34,000
Sensitivity (2,83 V/1 m) [dB]
88
Nominal Impedance [Ω]
6
Maximum SPL [dB]
109
Recommended Amplifier Power [W]
40 - 180
Crossover Frequency [Hz]
3,000 / 12,000
High Frequency Drivers
1 x 17 x 45 mm Ribbon
1 x 28 mm Soft Textile Dome
Low Frequency Driver
2 x 5" Wood Fibre Cone
Enclosure Type
Bass Reflex
Bass Reflex Tuning Frequency [Hz]
46.0
Magnetic Shielding
No
Recommended Placement
Floor
Recommended Distance From Wall [cm]
10 - 80
Dimensions With Base (HxWxD) [mm]
880 x 160 x 250
Weight [kg]
14.0
Accessories Included
Manual
Rubber Bumpers
Spikes M10
Finish
Black Satin
Black Satin
Cherry Veneer
White Satin
Specifications:
Product Series
MENTOR
Speaker Type
Front
Frequency Range (+/-3 dB) [Hz]
43 - 34,000
Sensitivity (2,83 V/1 m) [dB]
88
Nominal Impedance [Ω]
6
Maximum SPL [dB]
109
Recommended Amplifier Power [W]
40 - 180
Crossover Frequency [Hz]
3,000 / 12,000
High Frequency Drivers
1 x 17 x 45 mm Ribbon
1 x 28 mm Soft Textile Dome
Low Frequency Driver
2 x 5" Wood Fibre Cone
Enclosure Type
Bass Reflex
Bass Reflex Tuning Frequency [Hz]
46.0
Magnetic Shielding
No
Recommended Placement
Floor
Recommended Distance From Wall [cm]
10 - 80
Dimensions With Base (HxWxD) [mm]
880 x 160 x 250
Weight [kg]
14.0
Accessories Included
Manual
Rubber Bumpers
Spikes M10
Finish
Black Satin
Black Satin
Cherry Veneer
White Satin
I went on-line to look more closely at the manufacturer’s details on these speakers, as I am not familiar with them.
It would just be a guess, so the best thing is to listen to the reference tunes and see what sounds best.
With the manufacturer stating the lower end of the frequency range starts at 43 Hz, I can only guess that you may want to start your search for the right frequency for custom filter 1, in the 24-28 Hz range.
Hopefully that helps narrow the search.
Hi Harry,
I hope I understand your question correctly, so here goes.
Room Compensation
When I do Space Optimisation, I first make sure the speakers are positioned in the ideal position to get the best sound quality, if possible.
If there are domestic considerations which do not allow you to put the speakers in the best sounding position, then Space Optimisation will help compensate, and I will enter the dimensions at the practical position.
Once that is decided, I measure the room dimensions, speaker positions, and listener position, the doors and windows, and enter the construction materials.
This will generate the calculated room modes, which is the basis for everything else I do in SO.
It is these generated room modes which will give me the starting point for adjusting frequency, gain and bandwidth.
It is at this point that I work methodically from calculated room mode1, to 2, to 3 and so on.
In general, I adjust the first 2 room modes and may keep, reduce or eliminate the other calculated room modes, unless they are close in frequency to my usual custom filters at 63.5, 74.3 and 82.48 Hz.
Speakers
Then I must consider the speakers the owner is using, and decide which custom filter frequency I will enter into custom filter 1.
If they are Linn speakers, I may have a particular frequency range as a starting point which has worked previously in another person's system. This will help zone in on the starting point for SO adjustments to the Custom filters. If I have had previous experience with the same type of non-Linn speaker before, that will guide me to the best frequency range for custom filter 1. But if it is a new speaker model I have never tried before, then I have to work towards discovering which frequency works best for that speaker model in that person's room.
Then I play my reference music to see if my adjustments at each custom filter are improving sound quality or not.
Hopefully I can dial in the best sounding frequency, then the gain and finally adjust bandwidth.
Then I move onto the next custom filter, 2, 3 and 4.
I hope that helps?
Thank you Paul. Yes that describes your approach very well.
I'm rather new to Linn electronics and bought a Akurate System Hub and Exaktbox-10 to test FIR filters. I'm a longtime LP12 owner though.
I'm a bit curious about your experiences of how well the SO calculated room modes actually show the actual room modes. Most likely square and rectangular rooms are not so difficult but a L-shaped room and more open area flats must be extremely troublesome to predict. Do you never make any basic acoustics measurement to get a better starting point or at least a better confidence in the calculated starting point?
Cheers
Harry
I'm rather new to Linn electronics and bought a Akurate System Hub and Exaktbox-10 to test FIR filters. I'm a longtime LP12 owner though.
I'm a bit curious about your experiences of how well the SO calculated room modes actually show the actual room modes. Most likely square and rectangular rooms are not so difficult but a L-shaped room and more open area flats must be extremely troublesome to predict. Do you never make any basic acoustics measurement to get a better starting point or at least a better confidence in the calculated starting point?
Cheers
Harry
Thanks Harry,
I hope you are enjoying your new Linn.
In my experience, SO does a reasonably good job of predicting calculated room modes, but it is an algorithm that must make certain assumptions.
The calculations don't take into account the effect of furniture, carpets, acoustic panelling and curtains, for example. That is why I believe I have to adjust each calculated room mode frequency, gain and narrow the bandwidth to compensate and fine tune those parameters.
The building materials of the room could be more finely tuned as well, as the generic partition, concrete and unknown is not fine tuned enough, so it would be nice if there was a slider bar for the absorption properties of the room like in SOv2.
I find L-shaped rooms are not a problem. I just enter the wall that incorporates the L-shaped part of the room by creating a virtual wall, as if the listening room part of the room was entered into Konfig, as a rectangle.
As DavidHB points out , SOv1 is a heuristic approach. It seems complicated, but in practical terms is pretty straight forward, and it allows a large amount of flexibility to get potentially great results.
The ideal SO for me would be a hybrid version of SOv1 and SOv2. This would incorporate the SOv1 ability to fine tune each calculated room mode, use custom filters, with the better room modelling for odd shaped rooms, fine tune the absorption properties of the building materials and other parameters.
That is why I believe SOv2 should allow advanced users the ability to see the calculated room modes and adjust them individually.
I do use basic acoustic measurements sometimes, using Space Tones.
I will manually play individual frequencies from 30 Hz-100 Hz through my speakers, and plot out on a graph, the rise and fall in volume at each frequency to get a better picture of the room modes. I can then compare those to the calculated room modes.
I have also used the waterfall graph generated with REW to good effect. But most of the time, I tune each calculated room mode by ear, as I do for the custom filters.
I hope that helps
Thank you very much Paul,
very nice to get a better insight in your experience with the SO. I will use the Exaktbox-10 together with my horn system so I will dig into the Exakt filter design as well. And yes, I enjoy the Linn electronics. Haven't tried the power amps yet though.
Harry
very nice to get a better insight in your experience with the SO. I will use the Exaktbox-10 together with my horn system so I will dig into the Exakt filter design as well. And yes, I enjoy the Linn electronics. Haven't tried the power amps yet though.
Harry
I started to dabble with SOv2 at a friend’s with passive 242’s and Solos, but didn’t spend enough time with it yet.
Well I am now a week down the road since my dealer perfomed a tune dem and then optimisation of my Akubariks. The initial impressions were that the bass node that had been excited previously has been tamed. They suggested that I live with the result for a while - they have to come back anyway in a few weeks to install a Rega Wallshelf.
Since then I have played a variety of music and whilst the midrange is very good, I think the bass is a bit recessed and lost in the mix. The one irritation is that with some music I get a low frequency drum thump reflection from the back wall behind me. I am hopeful that SO can dial this out, and I would have a go to address it myself, but the dealer used their own laptop and didn't transfer the optimisation file to my mac. I think the optimisation is getting there, but needs some work. The treble and midrange are good, but the bass is a tad recessed for my tastes - ironic I know when I am complaining about a basso thump!
When they come back, I am going to discuss custom filters with them; I missed most of the optimisation so ended up with what they thought worked and I think they only dealt with the system generated results.
If every you return to Northern Ireland Paul, you would be more than welcome to work your magic on my system!
Since then I have played a variety of music and whilst the midrange is very good, I think the bass is a bit recessed and lost in the mix. The one irritation is that with some music I get a low frequency drum thump reflection from the back wall behind me. I am hopeful that SO can dial this out, and I would have a go to address it myself, but the dealer used their own laptop and didn't transfer the optimisation file to my mac. I think the optimisation is getting there, but needs some work. The treble and midrange are good, but the bass is a tad recessed for my tastes - ironic I know when I am complaining about a basso thump!
When they come back, I am going to discuss custom filters with them; I missed most of the optimisation so ended up with what they thought worked and I think they only dealt with the system generated results.
If every you return to Northern Ireland Paul, you would be more than welcome to work your magic on my system!
You can copy the file of optimization from the Linn with Konfig
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