Cheap tweaks

[django1]

I read somewhere ( I think it was Danny Ritchie) that closing of the space below bookshelf speakers is really important. I tried it and it makes a very noticeable difference. "thumbsup:. I should have done this a while ago.

You guys have any other tricks?

[Mep]

Not sure what you mean by this, please explain?

[django1]

I tried to find where I read this, I can't. Maybe it was not Danny. The idea was to not have an empty space below your bookshelf speaker so that it had the physical configuration of a floor stander. This is suppose to improve sound ( I couldn't tell you why). I read this a while ago and tried it today. I can hear a difference. No it was not a double blind test;) but I am a bit dumb so maybe that counts for something;);).

edit: I can't find anything about this anywhere. Maybe I dreamed this...

[tesseract]

Do you mean bookshelf or stand mounted speakers?

[corndog71]

I think Mapleshade recommends bringing bookshelf speakers closer to the ground. Of course they also recommend putting the speakers on their maple blocks and cones.

[django1]

Stand mounted. I've been looking for where I read this. I had the gf listen. She thinks I'm nuts... She might be right...

[lennon_68]

Here's what I *think* the magic is here (I'm still rather new to this... I don't generally reply when I don't 100% know what I'm talking about but I think I can shed some light even though I don't have all the technical details :)). By filling the empty space below the speaker you're essentially expanding the baffle (front of the speaker) down further than the original design. Every speaker suffers from something called "Baffle Step" - below a certain frequency, which is determined by the size of the baffle, the speaker will drop off at 6dB/octave (I think that's the correct rolloff). I think this is because those frequencies are long enough to bend around the sides of the baffle... Generally this is "fixed" up by boosting (or rather cutting the high end) in the crossover - called BSC (or Baffle Step Compensation). Also this can be "fixed" by placing the speaker in a corner where even though the sound waves can bend around the baffle they'll still be sent right back into the room by the reflections off of the adjoining walls. By extending the size of the baffle you may be adding a big of output on the low end. Whether that will make the FR flatter or not depends on whether the speaker designer designed the speaker to be placed in the room or in the corner (or compromised and added some BSC but not the full BSC). Whether this is a "good" think or not depends on whether you like it or not :)

Hopefully that makes sense and is helpful :)

[Mep]

I was thinking some kind of baffle diffraction problem too. Though a bookshelf should be optimized to itself and not some space that may or may not be below it. It may indeed sound a little different depending on what is close by to deflect sound though I never hear anyone saying near field first deflections are a good thing.

[corndog71]

If you're going to tweak anything the first thing should be your room. ATS acoustics makes really nice panels at very reasonable prices that really work.

I covered the first reflection points and my gf noticed immediately.

[tomtuttle]

I don't think fixing your room is going to be much help if your speakers are poorly positioned.