Hello all,
I can't think of a better title so I hope this suffices. I'm new to the world of "audiophile" (God, I hope I don't fall into the endless pit) and got myself a pair of B&W DM302s from a second hand store along with a NAD C356Bee amplifier. I'm not sure if this is the best combination, but I pretty much bought these two on whim so I'm not sure if this is a good combination. However, I did listen to the DM302s with another amp they had at the shop (long story short, I wasn't able to get that amp) and they sounded nice.
However, once I set the speakers at my home, that's when the nightmare began. Due to space constrictions (and practicality reasons), I placed the DM302s on my desk to start with, and they did not sound anything like they were at the store. In fact, they probably sounded worse than $50 computer speakers made by Logit3ch or others. It sounded very hollow (flat) and the bass was boomy. At first I thought it was because they were too low and on the table (a cheap IKEA table which was very light and would create noise as I typed). I then bought concrete blocks to elevate the speakers and they are now on ear level (off by an inch or two). However, the boomy and hollow-ness of these speakers did not go away.
Looking into articles, I realized that the boomy bass was caused by resonance. My room height was 2.45 m, and guess what? The resonance happened at around 140 Hz. Pretty much no matter where I went, the resonance would appear, hence I used an EQ to tone it down by -25 dB, which somewhat fixed theproblem. While I was playing around with the tone generator, and I noticed that frequencies from 75 to 96 and 108 to 124 Hz would disappear. It seems to me that the room acoustics have been wreaking havoc with the speakers. The current set up of my room looks like this (units in centimeters):
http://i57.tinypic.com/etbnsg.png
I'm the little circle and the dashed lines indicate that they point directly at me. I'm sitting about 10 to 20 cm away from the table (as would any regular computer user). My surroundings are mostly hard material, with only the bed and curtains along the window providing soft materials.
I've attached pictures to make it clearer:
http://i57.tinypic.com/21joks4.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/15qrluu.jpg
I noticed if I sit one meter or further way from the speakers, they sound nice again, but it's an impractical setup for me. The store owner mentioned that I'm sitting too close to these speakers and that I need to be further away to let these speakers "expand" their sound.
Currently they're giving me ear/head aches (literally, not figuratively) when I listen to them even at moderate levels for even as short as 15 minutes. I'm not sure what to do. Could anyone suggest something?
Hello all,
I can't think of a better title so I hope this suffices. I'm new to the world of "audiophile" (God, I hope I don't fall into the endless pit) and got myself a pair of B&W DM302s from a second hand store along with a NAD C356Bee amplifier. I'm not sure if this is the best combination, but I pretty much bought these two on whim so I'm not sure if this is a good combination. However, I did listen to the DM302s with another amp they had at the shop (long story short, I wasn't able to get that amp) and they sounded nice.
However, once I set the speakers at my home, that's when the nightmare began. Due to space constrictions (and practicality reasons), I placed the DM302s on my desk to start with, and they did not sound anything like they were at the store. In fact, they probably sounded worse than $50 computer speakers made by Logit3ch or others. It sounded very hollow (flat) and the bass was boomy. At first I thought it was because they were too low and on the table (a cheap IKEA table which was very light and would create noise as I typed). I then bought concrete blocks to elevate the speakers and they are now on ear level (off by an inch or two). However, the boomy and hollow-ness of these speakers did not go away.
Looking into articles, I realized that the boomy bass was caused by resonance. My room height was 2.45 m, and guess what? The resonance happened at around 140 Hz. Pretty much no matter where I went, the resonance would appear, hence I used an EQ to tone it down by -25 dB, which somewhat fixed theproblem. While I was playing around with the tone generator, and I noticed that frequencies from 75 to 96 and 108 to 124 Hz would disappear. It seems to me that the room acoustics have been wreaking havoc with the speakers. The current set up of my room looks like this (units in centimeters):
http://i57.tinypic.com/etbnsg.png
I'm the little circle and the dashed lines indicate that they point directly at me. I'm sitting about 10 to 20 cm away from the table (as would any regular computer user). My surroundings are mostly hard material, with only the bed and curtains along the window providing soft materials.
I've attached pictures to make it clearer:
http://i57.tinypic.com/21joks4.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/15qrluu.jpg
I noticed if I sit one meter or further way from the speakers, they sound nice again, but it's an impractical setup for me. The store owner mentioned that I'm sitting too close to these speakers and that I need to be further away to let these speakers "expand" their sound.
Currently they're giving me ear/head aches (literally, not figuratively) when I listen to them even at moderate levels for even as short as 15 minutes. I'm not sure what to do. Could anyone suggest something?