Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners 2 channel or multichannel which you prefer?

Mojo,

Many years ago I was reading one of those now defunct hifi mags and they had a tech article on room treatment explaining live end-dead end (lede). Understand - this was before such things were generally known and I and many others were very intrigued.

Since I had a fairly new audio/video room downstairs I had to try it. I treated my room, a fairly large basement rectangle, with a compressed fiberglass matting (can't remember what it was called) between 2X6 framing I installed, just like a standard home fiberglass job. I found some black and dark maroon fabrics (thin and open like speaker fabric) to cover the entire area and installed that in sections over the whole deal. The treatment did a great job of deadening the forward, speaker end of the room.

The idea was to completely deaden eveything but the ceiling back to just short of the listening position and to leave everything beside and behind the listener hard drywall. The floor was, of course, well-carpeted.

The treatment, in addition to deadening any reverberation forward of the listener allowed for reverb beside and behind the listener. Without understanding the physics involved everyone who used LEDE was amazed at the open, airy sound. As I recall it had little affect on bass but that wasn't a consideration at the time. The mids and highs were open and gloriously clear.

This was viable, by the way, because the room was out of the way and because my wife (not an audiophile) rarely came down to listen so there were no decor objections. It was very plain and all business.

Hope that answers your question. I'm sure there are far better solutions today but none this inexpensive.

By the way, back then I was using Adcom amps and the first Lexicon surround processor with a Pioneer Elite pre-amp. Now I use an old Sony Es receiver. My Onkyo 805 is on the way right now so I'll finally get to play with the newer surround sound processing you fellows all talk about. Can't wait. Still, I'll be listening to those records in two-channel until I can't hear any more (maybe, and sadly, sooner than I think).

See ya, arkiedan