I have included this page in the hopes of inspiring my fellow audiophile to take a hands on approach to this inherently passive hobby. I have always been fascinated with the system/room interface. Actually, because of financial constraints, I have been forced to make the best of the equipment at hand. And that, my friends, involves room tuning and set-up. I wouldn't trade the knowledge gained through years of tuning experience for anything. (OK, maybe some Wilson Watt/Puppy/Whows! But I wouldn't know how to tune them in!). Experimentation is the lesson I want to drive home here. While I have made several mistakes along the way, I have certainly learned most from them. This is a slow and time-consuming process. Involving late nights reading dry acoustic journals, bending manufacturers ears and a few scraped knuckles! But the satisfaction of walking into a new room and, within an hour or two, have the owner exclaiming "NO WAY I thought this possible!", is very gratifying. The last couple of years I have had the opportunity to work with some serious big guns. (Infinity Betas, Gen. 200's, Von Schweikert VR6-8, Magnapan MG 20's, and Genesis APM 1's). In each and every case, using my "backlog" of intuitive sense, we were able to transform the sound in these rooms. As a recent example, I received a call from a local dealer who had just obtained the new Genesis APM-1's, (something very special indeed!). Could I come over? You bet! As I had already installed acoustical treatment in the room, ( tuning around the VR-6),most of the work was already done. At first listen this was not very promising. A severe midrange "cupped hands" sound and a distinct lack of bass impact. With just the changing of position of speakers and listening chair, he now has huge bass impact, ( the same man who, upon hearing the Patriot Games soundtrack on my system, declared that he never heard the bass like that before. And he didn’t mean that kindly. Now he says, "Hey, it does sound like that!). From this speaker/room we are now getting one of the most transparent and uncolored midranges I've ever heard. Total time? About 45 min., a buddy and myself workin' it! The following photos and captions hopefully will be the impetus some of you will need to get more involved with this shared passion of ours. Also see DIY Projects

This is the system that started it all.I finally decided to go with a dedicated room. This is the upper bedroom of a small bungalow. It also was the first time experimenting with absorbent panels. These were ceiling tiles purchased just to fool around with. Boy I thought I was BAD!

Now I've gone and moved into the basement. Right about this time I started getting a little nutty. I had been reading on the Live End Dead End (LEDE) concept and decided to try it, affordably. The walls are covered with fiberglass insulation framed in 2x4's and wrapped in fabric.While the sound was to dead for even my tastes, and I like a rather dead room, the sense of listening back through the recording chain was unbelievable! I really started learning at this point. With the room removed from the equation this much, I found that you could readily hear even minute differences in speaker positioning etc. I had by this time added another subwoofer to the system, and instantly became a convert to using stereo subs. Room loading becomes both less critical and more flexible.

Here we have the original Martin Logan CLS.How I wish I had kept them! Alas, as I listen to such a wide range of music, it took a loooong time to find a speaker that was "accurate" enough to perform all the audiophile tricks while still being forgiving enough to present poor recordings in at least a tolerable manner. At this time, coupled with mid-fi electronics, the CLS's were a bit bright. Lets face it, fully 90% of modern pop recordings are sonic sludge. Over processed and Eq'd resulting in a tonal balance one could usually drill teeth with. Is this the home equipment's fault? Certainly not. But life is to short to have a system that one can only play their 10-15 or so "perfect discs". I consider myself to have one foot in the "accuracy" camp, the other in the musicality camp. I need a system that can walk that very fine line. As a music lover first, I just want to come home after work, pour a drink and get lost in some music. I don't want every flaw thrown at me as a reminder of an imperfect world. Our weakest link in the recording chain is not the equipment, as it should be. (Recording practices and pick-up capabilities should always be ahead of home playback). In my opinion the weakest links are the engineers, producers and PR people who insist on the louder! brighter! whiter! sound. Most people don't even know what is "good" sound anymore. Think about it, chances are you just fell into this high performance audio hobby by accident. Quality is not prized anymore I'm afraid.

Now it starts to get a bit interesting. I built six diffusers to experiment with.(See DIY Projects) This is a totally different but equally viable way of controlling reflections in a room. Rather than brute force absorption, diffusion allows you to redirect the sound wave while still retaining the energy of the wave. Picture a billiard ball striking the cushion of a pool table. In absorption, the ball would come off the cushion a fraction of its original size. (Loss of energy). In diffusion, the ball would be broken up into hundreds of balls all delayed in time from each other, but the total energy would still be in the room. As to much damping can render a room rather lifeless, I have found in practice, that neither one approach to be all encompassing. The artful balance of these two technologies will be the preferable way to go. Pictured here are the Eminent Technology ET VIII speaker.

The beauty of making these products is their affordability, obviously. The hidden benefit is the learning experience you will undergo. Spending a few months moving things around and listening for the change will be far more enlightening than cold textbooks. In racing they have a saying, "ain't no substitute for horsepower". I like to say there ain't no substitute for elbow grease in this hobby. One just can not expect to flop down expensive gear haphazardly in a room and expect high performance. But I see it all the time, nobody seems to want to expend the energy.

For REALLY cheap experiments, purchase two foam mattress pads sold at department stores.Try doing the first reflection points with these. Yes, they are ugly, but you have already done the first step and made a dedicated room right? Just as a musician needs a practice area, so does a serious audiophile. Audiophiles are not born. You don't have a "good" or "bad" ear. You simply must train yourself through trial and error to recognize subtle sonic attributes. You will make improvements in your sound. As you do so, your confidence will increase, hopefully to the point that you won't rely on the all mighty review to tell you if you like a product or not

I figured as long as it is a dedicated music room, might as well keep the theme going. Arranged around the room are percussion instruments collected in our travels. Along with my cherished autographed lithograph of Eddie Lawson. No.1 plate, Formula 1 500cc Motorcycle Champion. SIX times. He ruled. Interestingly, this room does not seem to require any diffusion. It is the largest I've had to date. Every room you encounter will have its drawbacks. My room has the stairway coming down the right rear of the room. This forces me to sit up into the center of the room on its long axis. Right in the middle of a peak. As you will see in the coming photos, the listening position has since been moved back to the front of the carpet. With the speakers pulled out correspondingly.

More Odyssey