I'm not sure where to answer this question because it is not specifically linked to speakers, amp or source, in fact it is part of my question.
Some classical cd's I have are recorded with huge dynamics, with a very big contrast between quiet and 'hell breaks loose' and in order to play the quiet passages at a reasonable and enjoyable level one has to crank up the volume quite a bit - with the logical consequence that a loud crescendo will shock the daylight out of you.
Well I don't mind really, I find it enjoyable, but in such a loud crescendo things can distort quite a bit, mostly in choir passages where the higher pitched soprano's really start to 'quack'
It is not a sharp or harsh sound per se, it hasn't got anything to do with brightness or digital hardness. It doesn't distort in a cracking noise, but the resonance is so strong that it penetrates your ear rather unpleasantly and kinda 'whistles' - though it happens only occasionally and isn't something I worry about or makes me think of upgrading my system.
Still I have a question. What may be the main cause of this distortion?
Is it the recording itself? Too dynamic for its own good, no matter what system you have it will distort when played at a certain level (I don't mean playing very very loud, but loud enough to hear the quiet passages at an acceptable level)
Is it the source? Some cd players are more capable of controlling the dynamics - maybe at the expense of this same dynamics?
Is it the amp? Same as with the source, better control would prevent such distortions?
Speakers perhaps? I do notice the distortion is much more noticeable through my (closed-back) headphones though, where the resonance isn't able to escape, there it seems trapped between the headphones and my ears.
Or are my ears the problem? Perhaps they just cannot take the amount of energy behind the resonance? If someone's shouting nearby me it defintely can sound distorted in a comparable way.
All of your assumptions could be true and could be contributing to the problem. You might also benefit from some set up tweaks. Ask MW about how his system has changed with the addition and slow progression of inexpensive add ons that he has tried. I'm afraid, not being there, your problem will be very difficult for us to solve. You'll have to play with a few of the variables and track things down logically before we can do much on our end.
For one thing, were are the headphones connected? If you're hearing this right out of the source player, then you have a problem there that isn't related to the amp or speakers. That doesn't mean the amp and speakers aren't going to benefit from tweaking but you must rectify the situation at the source before you can solve the problems downstream.
Yes Jan is correct about there being several things one can do. Often the room itself is the bad guy here. I have added ASC and Auralex panels to my room to quiet it (including corner bass traps). If you can anywhere in your listening room clap your hands and hear any resonance then the room needs help.
You profile does not list your gear and if you posted what you are running I do not remember, but there are a lot of things you can do to "quiet" your components. A solid rack often is not enough in of itself. The funny thing is you may think what you have is logical and fine until you make a modification and "Oh my!" happens.
We can take you down this path if you are interested otherwise I will just be double posting to all other forum members about the tweaks I employed. Well, except for the one I did today.
Jan wrote: All of your assumptions could be true and could be contributing to the problem.
Yes I am well aware of that, though it isn't a problem really, I was just curious. These distortions only occur occasionally, like I said with some extreme dynamic recorded cd's
Nuck actually made a good point: "Head out to a live concert or 3 asap" which puts things a bit in perspective.
Jan wrote: For one thing, were are the headphones connected? If you're hearing this right out of the source player, then you have a problem there that isn't related to the amp or speakers.
Not much difference in sound between the phones out of the player and the amp's Actually I prefer the phones out of the cd player which is really very good (Marantz CD6000 KI).
And when I think about it: if the sound would be worse through the cd player's phones output it doesn't really say much does it? Most phones outputs of cd players and amps are crap anyway.
I had a Sony once which sounded ok when played through speakers and through headphones connected to the amp, but the sound through the cd players phones-out was simply awfull, it distorted as hell.
I think it's a combination of things:
My cd player probably lacks a bit control in the high frequencies, its treble isn't rounded either like many cd players.
Some headphones simply can play louder. Mine (ATH A500) aren't studio monitors with a flat response. Neither are they that laid-back as many Sennheiser models, which can go very loud without distortion.
My AE Evo 3 speakers are a bit forward in the upper-mids and highs, but this works for which they were designed: to play in a large room. The overall balance is pretty rich, with low mids a bit colored to the warm side of neutral and a full-bodied bass, that I like very much. When my listening position is a bit further away the balance is simply excellent. My room unfortunately is just a tiny bit too small for them (just as Frank Abela warned me about), but nothing serious really.
Michael Wodek wrote: If you can anywhere in your listening room clap your hands and hear any resonance then the room needs help. Nothing.
The room is fine, but too small for the speakers, though I don't want to ge rid of the speakers that I'm pretty certain of, they are mostly excellent.
You profile does not list your gear and if you posted what you are running I do not remember, but there are a lot of things you can do to "quiet" your components. A solid rack often is not enough in of itself. The funny thing is you may think what you have is logical and fine until you make a modification and "Oh my!" happens.
We can take you down this path if you are interested otherwise I will just be double posting to all other forum members about the tweaks I employed. Well, except for the one I did today
Amp: Marantz PM7200 CD player: Marantz CD 6000KI Speakers: Acoustic Energy Aegis Evo 3 Interconnect: Wireworld Oasis 5 Speaker cables: Monitor Audio??
My rack is made of wood, but I don't think a new rack will improve things, as I said earlier, these distortions do not occur frequently, just with a couple of cd's.
We can take you down this path if you are interested
Thanks for the offer I really appreciate this. It would be great if I could make a temporary improvement/tweak (eventually I will move to another house) to the speakers high mids and highs if this would be possible? I placed them already as far as possible from the seat I listen. The speakers grills are on, not that it affects the sound in a negative or positive way. Thanks in advance
Nout, the cheapers dramatic step now(beyond going out on the town) might be the JanMike interconnects and speaker runs. And a bottle of Scotch. And recordings that don't do that.
If you play the speakers without the grilles I think you'll find that the climaxes sound that bit sharper and louder in the treble, but it also improves detail lower down in the range and gives better dynamic contrast (quiet bits come through better). This could have a beneficial effect by causing you to lower the volume and avoid the distortion you're hearing. It's a simple free test.
Also, how much have you toed in the speakers? If you have toed them in heavily (e.g. the speakers are pointing directly at you), you could again avoid the worst of the distortion by toe-ing them in less than that so they shoot past your shoulders or even less than that. Since treble frequencies tend to beam down a narrower path, the worst offenders will pass you by. However, toeing in less also has an effect on two other things, overall soundstaging becomes a touch more vague but gives better spread, and bass resolution can loosen up a bit givinga more natural balance but also sounding a tad more vague. So this is something that requires some experimentation.
Another suggestion I have heard of is to take two plastic cups, cut the top rim off each and use some double-sided tape to stick them (yes, just the rims)on the treble unit's plate, making a new circle around the drive unit. This has the effect of coupling the treble unit more closely to the air column in front of it (a bit like horn loading only it's not a horn). Again, it improves detail slightly and should help the quiet bits, allowing you to lower the overall volume and not suffer the distortion again.
The distortion may be caused by anything in the chain. It's unlikely to be on the disc itself (although this is possible) and Acoustic Energy speakers are usually quiet warm and deep soduning and if anything a bit shy on the treble side. So I suspect the electronics, most likely the amplifier. The type of distortion you describe sounds a lot to me like one of two things:
1) Ringing, where the components in the amplifier become very stressed electrically causing them to vibrate physically. When this happens that vibrational energy is transferred back into the electric signal causing a mechanical ringing from the speakers.
2) Dynamic distortion. The amplifier cannot reproduce the full signal and chops it at its maximum output level. This is called clipping, and causes a speaker's drive unit to act in a most unnatural fashion. If the clipped signal is in the treble then a nasty high pitched sound that cuts through like a knife is made - most unnatural.
So why point the finger at the amplifier when your headphones still exhibit some of the problem via the CD player's headphone stage? Well, the headphone stage in a CD player is an amplifier too. As you said, these things aren't that brilliant typically, but yours is a KI CD player so it'll be a bit better in quality, one hopes. You'll still get some ringing which is what you're picking up on, but it's not going to be as bad, in part because of the close coupling of the headphones to the air column causing you not to stress the amplifier in the headphone circuit as much as the main amp.
The cd player, recording AND my ears are to blame.
I went to my neighbor - after chit chatting 'bout the weather and so on I miraculously found the courage to ask him if I could listen to some of my cd's at his home. "Err...could I ask you a favor?...well the thing is...this may sound kinda weird, but..."
Took my headphones with me and, pretty uncomfortable at first, sat down to listen to some of the tracks that were likely to distort.
"Is there something wrong with your cd player?" he asked suspiciously, but in a good manner. "Well not really, just checking out..." "What a goofy headphones you have there Nout ha ha ha!"
It didn't take me long to find out that the tracks distorted on his cd player as well (Technics SLP7 or something), but not that much. My neighbor's cd player has much better control in the highs but played almost without any dynamics, the sound was flat with rounded highs. Still the distortion was obvious, the 'whistling' or 'ringing' as Frank describes it.
My neighbor got curious and impatiently wanted to hear what the big fuzz was all about. "So? What am I suppose to hear?" "Um...those soprano parts in the choir at 2:25, 2:26...oh well, let's start the track again" "Ringing noise? I don't hear any distortion??...what's this music? Classical ain't it" His wife was summoned to have a listen. "Oh no Peter, it's not that important..." I tried.
"Do you listen to this kinda music Nout? a level of sophistication Peter unfortunately never will reach..." A big wink and laughter.
She didn't hear a thing and basically I made a big fool out of myself. (What's with this guy? What's he doing with those big headphones, listening to noises that aren't there? Is he psychic?)
Frank, I really appreciate the time and effort you took, some suggestions are spot-on, but first I must set something straight. The distortions are way more obvious through headphones, which I had written earlier - but obviously got lost in the large bulk of text I wrote. And my amp is most certainly not clipping, I never play THAT loud.
What started as a question out of curiosity has turned into a problem, which isn't a problem really, but I am happy with the suggestions anyway. So thanks again.
My speakers actually were toed-in a bit, I un-toed (de-toed? toed-out?) them a bit and the improvements are there! Yes the bass is less defined now, but I can live with that.
I think the biggest 'problem' is that I am listening too close to the speakers. These AE's are made to play loud(er) in a larger room. And the highs actually aren't that shy as you say, which is funny because in an earlier post (a year ago?) you mention the bright treble yourself. (You recommended the JMLab Chorus 714S over the AE's and not just because of the better bass performance)
For now I am pretty satisfied with the outcome. In the future I can think of upgrading my cd player to one that is just as dynamic, but better behaved in the highs. But most importantly, when I'm moving out to make sure the room will suit the speakers...err the speakers will suit the room.
Nout, you need to see if you can obtain one of Larry's Insanity Mats.
There is also the tweak called pledge. Yes the furniture polish. Spray, wipe, and dry your CD with a can of pledge (aersol).
Another thing we would like for you to try is isolating your CD player a little better. If you have any wooden tiles from a game such as Jenga or some building blocks, placing one under each of the feet of your CD player is a cheap start.
You did not list a power line conditioner, this is a little trickier, it could help or hurt but worth the experiment. Not with your amp though.
Adding some solid lead weights to the top or bottom of you player also aids in isolation.
There's more we could suggest, but then again you could simply just purchase a Rega Apollo and follow Nuck's advice above.
The basic AE presentation is fairly rich. When the speakers are overdriven or the amplifier has difficulty driving the speakers the treble spikes. I assumed this was what was happening in your system.
Mike's suggestion of isolating the CD player with wooden blocks makes a lot of sense to me too, especially if your shelf is glass. Another isolation suggestion is to take two squash balls, slice them in half and sit the player or amplifier on the halves.
Nout, you need to see if you can obtain one of Larry's Insanity Mats
You mean a similar product like Art Speaks "the mat"? Which is a plateau, the size of a cd that you put on top of a cd in the cd players drawer, which supposedly improves imaging and weight. With all respect, but I'm not that keen on using it, because it has a reputation of getting swallowed by the cd player and get stuck there.
There is also the tweak called pledge. Yes the furniture polish. Spray, wipe, and dry your CD with a can of pledge (aersol).
Yes I read the thread a while ago, unfortunately I can only get the floor polish - is it the same?
Another thing we would like for you to try is isolating your CD player a little better. If you have any wooden tiles from a game such as Jenga or some building blocks, placing one under each of the feet of your CD player is a cheap start.
I use a wooden rack, as I said earlier so I don't think there's much to improve there.
You did not list a power line conditioner, this is a little trickier, it could help or hurt but worth the experiment. Not with your amp though.
Well yes, this may be something to look for. I think a net filter could be useful as well, I live in an old house, with many crappy leads and my set is connected to the same power block (how do you put it in English?) as my noisy old computer (1997's iMac), some noise and grain is definitely noticable because of this.
Adding some solid lead weights to the top or bottom of you player also aids in isolation.
I will have a look at this.
There's more we could suggest, but then again you could simply just purchase a Rega Apollo and follow Nuck's advice above.
Yes, a nice player indeed, though the distortions of my cd6000Ki aren't that bad actually and I like the sound balance very much.
The basic AE presentation is fairly rich. When the speakers are overdriven or the amplifier has difficulty driving the speakers the treble spikes. I assumed this was what was happening in your system.
And I appreciate your thoughts, I certainly do not want to get rid of those AE's.
Mike's suggestion of isolating the CD player with wooden blocks makes a lot of sense to me too, especially if your shelf is glass. Another isolation suggestion is to take two squash balls, slice them in half and sit the player or amplifier on the halves.
Regards, Frank.
Well my rack is made of wood, but the squash balls advice is still a good one. Thanks.
Computers use switched mode power supplies which can dump a fair amount of noise on the mains. I've even found that this can be the case if the coimputer is switched off but still attached to the mains!
Try playing a track and then replay it with the iMac unplugged from the mains. It may not be obvious at first but if it's affecting the system, you'll know by the end of the track.
Also, you've probably noted by now that I am not a fan of mains filters. I find they have a deadening effect on systems. If you get a filtered mains conditioner, try putting everything else like TV, iMac etc on that.
It is certainly something you perceive over a longer period. With the iMac connected the sound is a tad harder.
Plugging the speaker's bass-port at the back, behind the tweeter (so I wonder why this is called a bass port anyway?) with some cloth does actually tame the highs quite a bit, the 'high(s) energy' is reduced a bit, without removing warmth of vocals. Imaging is a bit affected by it, but not that much.
