Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Room acoustic question

How about the walls? Do they have any sort of covering? If you're loading the room, reverberations from the walls will be a big contributing factor.

Bruno, I just did a quick search for lab test results on the 890 and didn't find any, but I did find these on the Denon 2309(889), which should be close enough. Generally on music distortion has to be above about 1% to be audible, and the Denon unit is capable of driving both 8 ohm and 4 ohm loads cleanly to beyond safe listening levels. It appears that what you describe is unlikely to be related to amplification.

It's good to have an SPL meter for determining the sound levels that are actually present during listening even if(as I do)the calibration of levels is done by the receiver auto-calibration system. We should always be cautious about sound levels which cause hearing loss. This also allows more accurately judging actual power requirements at various moments.

Your situation may be due at least in part to room effects, so experiment. It may be difficult for you(and impossible for us, of course)to come up with the best solution.

Nothing on the walls as well and this will be harder to experiment, at least for now. I'll try covering the floor and let you know.

A different scenario all together, I know. However, I'll add that with my Denon, a small room, and M60s, I don't have to go anywhere zero or sub zero to hear 105db peaks in some material. In louder material, I've experimented and roughly "maintained" 100db with much higher peaks at only about -7.

All scenarios differ but my point is that unless you have a db meter, you might not realize just how loud or, to be fair, not loud it really is.

I'll add a similar data point. With Sony mains (which are probably less efficient than the M60s), and Pioneer receiver at -6 I was maintaining a 100 dB level playing Bjork's Vespertine DVD-A.

Murph is right about the meter. I bought one a few days ago and it is very interesting to find out how how loud something really is.

If you have an iPhone or an Android phone, you can get a free app that will measure SPL. It might not be quite as accurate as a dedicated RS meter, but it's "something".

Bruno, you have a lot more area on the walls than on the floor, so you might want to consider a temporary experiment, even if it is only tacking a sheet on the back wall or something. The floor represents a relatively small percentage of the surface area of your room, and the furniture is going to diffuse the sound a lot there anyway.

OK, maybe the amplifier has something to do with it but the room has definitely something to do with what I am experiencing. First I tried covering the rest of the hardwood, it sounded a bit better. Then I tried hanging some bedsheets and piling up all the pillows that I could find and it also improved a bit, the highs were still a bit high but they didn't seem to mix both channels has much. Finally, I turned Audyssey ON (it was OFF) and even though it didn't sound as natural to me, the highs were tamed down a bit, so less blurriness. Well, unlike some people, I have the WAF factor and I don't think she will enjoy all the drapes in the living room and all the pillows on the floor , so I guess I'll just keep it down for now (it was too loud anyway) and one of these days I'll get at least some curtains which will help a bit. One day I'll also get a SPL meter as I am curious now to how loud it was playing. Thanks all for your input.

Bruno

You can get panel treatments (which tame treble, not so much bass), with photos printed on them. Designed specifically for the WAF.

I once dragged my queen size mattress into my living room. It worked wonders. Do you think your wife will let you do that?