Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Bass reduction when sitting down

When I am standing in front of my 2 seat leather loveseat, pointed directly at my 2 main speakers I hear plenty of really good bass and good over all sound. When I sit down on my loveseat, the perceived bass response is dramatically reduced. And the mid range becomes "nasal". I think the mid range issue is due to the reflective nature of my leather seat, as the effect is not as pronounced when I put a thick blanket over it, but the bass dissapearing is a mystery to me !! I can't figure out why ?? It must be the chair, but how can that be ? when I sit on the very edge of the chair, most , not all, of the bass is heard, but when I sit back in a comfortable fully seated position, the bass is gone ! or very thin compared to standing up or on the edge. I moved my loveseat out of the way and sat on a low back office chair. The sound did thin out a bit at my current listening position, from the room acousics, but I could still hear fairly decent bass. The chair might be the issue but I don't understand how that is and I still need to keep that chair !. Does it make a difference that I have a thin (but good) carpet glued to concrete as my basement floor where everything is setup ? Does the floor come into play here or is it just the stupid chair ? ? I'm exasperated :-(

What happens if you shift your love seat forward or back and sit in it? Do you have the same effect?

It is possible that there is some absorption going on with your love seat, but most likely it is that your seat is located in a room null.

Try moving the subwoofer.

Well I know that there is less bass at my listening position and I have moved the seat forward and backwards to try and fix the problem, but it has minimal impact. I think you have something though when you said the seat itself could be absorbing the bass .. I never though about that !!. When I used the office chair, which obviously did not absorb much if any bass, the bass was closer to when standing. I would not say that I sitting in a null per say, but there is less bass at that position. My point is that when standing at the same position as sitting, the bass is hugely decreased when sitting, from the same spot.

That is the issue with subwoofer frequencies in a room, they will differ in all locations. This is why the subject of multiple subs correctly placed comes up to even out frequencies, peaks, nulls, in all locations.

Your head is higher when you are standing, most likely in a null of certain frequencies.

I am not using a subwoofer in this case. Just 2 channel stereo with speakers that are rated down to 30hz. If I use my subs, I can get the bass back but I am trying to figure out why it is dissapearing in 2 channel stereo mode.

Sounds like you have a low freq. null, right in the worst spot possible, you fav. sofa. Like others have said, try moving your sofa, woofer, speakers, you may only have to move a few inches to get a better experience. You may even try the sub crawl.

I do have 2 subs, which I think I have placed properly, one in the front, one in the back in diagonal oposites. But in this case I am only playing 2 stereo speakers that are rated at 30hz and when standing in front of them, they really have deep bass, I sit down and .. GONE !..

Maybe you should invest in some good head phones, sorry, just kidding.

Boy that can be annoying problem. I would still recommend moving the speakers, play with the toe or space from the back wall, or even raising them a few inches (use books or blocks, temp ofcoarse) to see if that helps.

Hi Paul, I was thinking that maybe I should build a "riser" just to get some kind of air space between my seat and the concrete ?

More questions. What happens if you move side to side or move your head up and down at the love seat location.

Nulls can happen in any of the three directions in your room. That the bass returns with subs suggests its a null of some sort. Have you tried changing the location of your speakers at all?

I have a big la-z-boy, probably with cheap leather, that is beside my SW. It has a high back and lots of padding. When I sit in it, I hear the bass just fine, so I doubt it's your chair.

Mine is also a Lay-Z-Boy loveseat / recliner. Not sure why this is happening..

Hi Fred,

When I am sitting in the left seat, and move my head left, some same height, but basicaly my head is not leaning on the back of the chair, I hear way more bass. My butt is in the chair but my head is left of the seat back and the bass is there !.. it's the weird "chair back effect" LOL

I might switch the entire room around and see what effect that has..my seating position has walls on both sides while the speaker (and tv) side, the right speaker is 30" from the side wall, but the left speaker is 10 feet from the wall because of the room config.

So, if you shift the seat left as well, does that reduce the bass. If it does, that suggests the seat is part of the issue. If not, its a null related to room width.

I will try that tomorrow...as the child is now in bed and I have to be all quiet like :-)

Thanks for all the input everyone.. you made me think of things I had not considered.. that's what I love about this place !!

Cheers
Steph

So, to fix a null you can what ?

1. Alter the room physically ? by adding a wall etc.. ?
2. Try to get the seating position out of the null ? which could be very hard to do, since the "best" spot in my room seems to be 2 feet from the TV !!not the 10.5 feet I am sitting at.

3. Moving the speakers ? but if the speakers are not in a null or a peak and sounds great were they are and it's the listening position that is in the null, how does moving the speakers going to help ?

4. Other sugestions ?

I should also clarify, that when I use the subs, I "feel" more bass but that does not necessarily mean that I hear more bass per say. I just wanted to clarify my earlier statement that with subs I got " the bass back" which is not really accurate. I feel more bass, but it's subwoofer generated bass that does not sound like it's from the main front speakers even if calibrated. I know that I am probably just being too picky..but I just want to understand why it sounds great when standing up and sounds completely different and not in a good way, when I'm sitting down .. it's so frigging weird..

Stay standing while listening in 2ch.

Fred covered why this is happening in an earlier post

"Nulls can happen in any of the three directions in your room."

Nulls are created by the dimensions of the room and the frequency that corresponds to these dimensions are either enhanced or cancelled.

With the subs on you are feeling more bass because they can play all the lower end louder than you can get out of your speakers, but as you suspect you are most likely still not hearing the sound that is part of the null. I think if it was my room, I would just use my subs as I think the only way around this will get to be very expensive(room modifcations) and time consuming.

Riker, I think the Klingons may have arranged your twin subs so the low frequency waves cancel each other out. You may want to use your 0-180* function.

Or, find a Lirpa Loof and recrystalize the Lay Z Boy.

Stephane, I've pondered this for a few minutes, but the reported effect is puzzling. The floor to ceiling room mode is actually at its minimum midway between the floor and ceiling, so this primary mode, which would be around 71Hz for an 8' ceiling(1130/{2x8})would actually be a bit louder when you sit down. The magnitude of the effect is especially puzzling. Ponder...ponder...ponder.

John. Ear height sitting is pretty close to the 4' level. Certainly closer than when standing. I have a deep narrow null at 71ish Hz. at ear height in my room, but it is not that audible.

I am wondering if there is a combination of things going on to create a wider null. Reflections from the front/back of the room maybe??

Fred, I was using about 30" sitting and 60" standing. Certainly not enough below or above mode minimum to explain anything like the reported bass effect, but I mentioned it.

Have you tried the sub crawl?

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this yet but you could try elevating the speakers. To see if moving them in the vertical plane has any effect. Even if you can’t keep them like this it might help determine if it’s the effect of a vertical room mode. You could also try angling the speakers up to see if that helps clear up some of the nasal sound.

I find that my front soundstage sounds much better, more ambient and more precise, when my front speakers are elevated so that the midrange drivers rather than the tweeters are at ear level.

What bothers me the most is that the speakers have plenty of bass where they are currently located, but In order to bask in that wonderfull bass, I would have to sit 3 feet in front of them, which is not practical. I am not sure that moving the speakers would help since they sound really good where they are, except when I sit down on my loveseat, the bass is greatly reduced. What I will try this afternoon or tonight is to remove my seat completely and try a combination of different chairs at the same location, then move the chair that sounded the best backwards and forwards until I find the best sound. If that does not yield good results, then I will flip the room around 180 and see what effect that has.

These are brand new speakers that I got a week ago and in every respect they are superior to my previous pair. The previous pair had considerably less bass capabilities so I had to run them with the Subwoofers all the time, otherwise it sounded way to thin. But these new ones have really good bass for small drivers. It is a transmission line design with under hung drivers, similar to Thiel and Wilson. The bass out of these is of sufficient enough quantity and quality that I don't need a subwoofer engaged to hear good music. On movies, well the subs are obviously on.

The Adagios have a D'apolito configuration, the tweeter is actually slightly above ear level when I sit down. The bottom driver is more inline with my ear.. I mean it's still pretty close since I am 10.5 feet away and the speaker is 4 feet tall with 2 X 6.5 drivers and a ribbon tweeter, but I would not say that the tweeter is exactly at ear level in my case.

Here is a link to my room setup

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showgallery&Number=276319#comments

These are older pictures that show my Energy Veritas 2.3s and not my new Acoustic Zen Adagios but the room layout is exactly the same. I will be updating the pictures very soon with the new speakers and acoustic treatment that is now in place.

Unfortunately, the raw materials I need can only be found on Praxis... and we all know what happened to Praxis !!!
But your sugestions makes perfect sense to me

Well, If you only get bass sitting 3 feet away from them, it doesn't matter how good the bass is. I mean to me, it only matters to me how good a speaker sounds at my listening position.

You should have bought M80's, they are magical and would solve all your problems

Looking forward to your results, very puzzling situation.

I'm a bit taller than average but the numbers I use are 72" standing and about 54" sitting. With an 8 foot ceiling and bass source 6" off the ground (Riker, how far off the ground is the port ?) then that would put my ears right at the null when sitting (I think).

Presumably turning up the volume would make the bass come out a bit further from the speakers before falling to the ground, but I'm sure someone has already mentioned that

You're sitting in a bass null. You have to move the speakers or the listening position a bit. Simply pulling them out from the wall and extra 3-4" might even do it.

Hi guys, some measurements:


The port on the Adagios is on the Front of the speaker, 4" from the ground, 2 1/2" high and 7 " wide (rectangle port) No ports in the back. Transmission line design.

The speaker is 48" tall (49" with the plinth and spikes), 13 1/2" deep, 9" wide at the front then tapers down to 4 1/2" in the back. Similar to the M80s tappered cabinet design.

The first 6 1/2 driver is 31 1/2" (center of cone)from the floor.

Next is the tweeter which is 38" from the floor (center of cone)

Then the other 6 1/2 driver which is 45 1/2" from the floor (center of cone)

Measurements from wall surfaces are taken from the walls to the center of the speaker cabinet.

Right speaker is: 26 1/2" from back wall and 23 1/2 from side wall.

Left speaker is: 26 1/2" from back wall and 9 ft from side wall.

Now, I'm going to move some furniture / chairs and see what I can come up with. Will report later the afternoon on my findings.
Cheers

I bet you're losing the port output when you sit down

Just tilt a little to one side like Ray.

Well I think I have NULLIFIED the issue

I tried moving the speakers to the other side of the room, where the sitting area was, and that gave me more bass but the rest of the sound was terrible. It was worth a try. I put the speakers back where they were except much further out from the back wall. They are now 38" from the back wall to the front of the speaker. The biggest change was moving my loveseat completely up against the back wall .. Voila.. instant bass with no compromise on overall sound quality. I still have to put up a few acoustic panels on the wall behind the seat just to clean up the high end a bit, but it sounds very good from there.

My seat was initialy 4 feet from the back wall as I was observing this 3rd of the room "rule" where the listening position needs to be somewhere around 1/3rd of the lenght of the room.. or something like that. It works great for tv viewing, surrounds are in nice position etc.. but with the new speakers it sounds MUCH better with the couch right up against the back wall. Now my QS8s are actually slightly in front of my head.. But I don't think this will be a huge problem, the QS8s are very forgiving in placement.


Now the only issue is my 46" tv looks to SMALL from that distance .. Ah well, I guess that means I need a 60" TV then

Thanks everyone for the very helpful sugestions and ideas..
Cheers

We have a winner ! It took me about 3 months to figure and find the best location to all my speakers. Many changing position and listening test. Glad you find your setup. I bet you will move everything again soonly just to test once again if you right

The next move will be to make room for new Home Theater Seating which I am going to procure next spring. Then a new bigger tv.. but I think the speakers should stay relatively where they are and so is the seating position.

But hey, never say never !! LOL..

I say you should reward yourself with a projector and 100" screen. Big bass needs a big screen.

I actualy have the room for that..Thanks for putting that idea in my head !!!

But I need some nice HT Seating first, and an external DAC, and more acoustic panels.. you see where this is going LOL.

Steph

Stick around here long enough and we will put lots of ideas in your head, but you already know that!

OK, I am gonna ask, why do you need an external DAC?

That's what we're here for.

Because of the way I listen to my music. All of my music is on my Network Attached Storage in FLAC, WAV and some MP3 but few of that format. Mostly all FLAC. These files are then streamed via my Sonos devices to various places in the house. The Sonos device that is connected to my main system in the basement sends the digital signal to my Anthem AVM20 pre-amp who does the DAC function. After some testing, and much to my dismay, the DAC in my $300 pioneer BD Player sounds better than the DAC in my $5K Anthem (AKM DACs)!. Since I don't listen to music on CDs via my BD player, I am going to purchase an external DAC that is better than both, and put it between my Sonos device and my Anthem, which will then receive the analog signal and just pass it along to the amps / speakers. I'm looking seriously at the Benchmark DAC-1

Are you sorry you asked now ?

LOL

Actually no, as many of us found out last weekend at the Axiom plant, the price of audio gear is not always related to the quality of sound that it produces.

Very suprised that at your Anthem doesn't stack up to your Poineer. I would have never guessed. I am sorry you had to find out the hard way.

I would not have been surprised if the sound was indistinguishable. DACs are a commodity product these days. At OEM quantities, the difference between a standard and 'high end' DAC is mere dollars.

It was not night and day, but it was like ... Damn..my entire music collection on disk drive, of which I have over 600GB worth of, does not sound as good as the latest CD that I ripped to disk when played on by Blue Ray player.


Mind you, back when I first got the Anthem, it's AKM dacs were far superior to my older Yamaha carousel cd player.
Things change so fast in electronics / computers etc.. it's crazy !

Yeah Stephane, putting either the speakers or your ears very close to the wall behind them increases the bass. From your measurements, it appears that the back of the speakers were already only about 13" from the wall, but since there're no rear ports, have you tried putting them just an inch from the wall to see if that similarly increases the bass, but with a closer sitting position?

As to a separate DAC, it's unclear how anyone can "hear" how one sounds independent of everything else. An audibly significant difference due to that alone is highly unlikely these days.

I say you just get use to sitting down and don't even bring standing up into the equation; that's what I've done .

Those AVM20's are about 10 years old now, and minor upgrades to DAC's over the years have happened, whether or not those upgrades are audible is up for debate.

I wonder if there is something a miss with your ripped music as even FLAC files have been known to be missing the odd bit here and there. Some of the newer ripping programs verify the rip against the master to ensure there were not any mistakes(a long process), perhaps this is what is causing the sound differential and not the DAC. It is simply that you are hearing the true sound from the cd.

Say. Cam, does drinking alcohol from a straw improve the bass?

Well I don't know about every single song I have , but I recently ripped a CD with Exact Audio Copy using the most conservative / secure / verified etc.. ripping possible ie: no burst mode etc.. the best possible rip I can get out of EAC. I then played that WAV file via Sonos digital out to the Anthem AVM20 which was doing the decoding of the WAV file. I'm not even talking about a FLAC or MP3 etc.. just the best WAV rip I can get using EAC. Then I played the original WAV from the CD via my BD player.

I can absolutely hear a difference between the two, no question at all. The CD WAV file just sounds better than the RIP WAV file. I'm not going to go into all the details of why / what I find better, just that to my ears, the CD version is the better version by enough of a margin for me to go out and purchase a dedicated high quality external DAC unit to ensure I get the best out of my hard disk based WAV, FLACs, APEs, and whatever else I have.

I don't know if the straw helps, I've been concentrating just on the volume of consumption via the normal input method of "bottle to lip" .. so far, I think it's working out GRATE !!

Hi John, I appreciate your sugestion of moving the speakers closer to the wall as opposed to moving my seat back..but I think the seat was definitively in a bass NUL where it was. Although it was in a perfect postion from a room point of view, it was in the worse position from an audio point of view.

As for DAC, as I mentionned in a post just a few minutes ago, I can definitively hear the difference between the best WAV rip I can do on my computer and the original WAV on CD, which means to me that the DAC in my BD player is better than the DAC in my Anthem. Which further means that I need to invest in a high quality external DAC that is better than both of my devices. The Benchmark DAC-1 is on my very short list.

I say you both give it a try some time......this weekend !

What do you mean " this " weekend ? I've been "training " every day man !! LOL but I will integrate the straw technique into my routine to see if it will take me above my current "plateau" Do one rep of bottle to lip, rest for 10 seconds, then one rep of straw to lip with medium sucking force, rest for 10 second, then repeat until the fridge is empty, or you can't walk over to the fridge. Repeat 7 times a week for maximum effectiveness. You will get pissed or your money back !!!

[quote=wheelz999I say you just get use to sitting down and don't even bring standing up into the equation; that's what I've done . [/quote]

Cam, your the best

-->No excuses walkie.....at that point you get in wheel chair.....refill fridge....drink !

Cam, your the best [/quote]

Anything for a laugh, bro !

I've seen Cam drink from a straw and it usually has a great view at the other end. That has to improve something!

Scott

Is this one of those 'membership has its privileges' promo spots?

Using EAC was what I was thinking of....too bad it still doesn't sound right. At least that DAC isn't too expensive, hope it helps.