Happy new Cornwall owner, seeking advice

[deggie]

notice jerrys comments from the wam show yesterday

The Klipsch Cornwall rearranged my perception of Klipsch speakers, and very much positively. Amazing clarity, detail, speed and dynamics. I was expecting unacceptable levels of tonal colouration, but nope, remarkably natural. Remarkable speakers.

I agree with jerrys comments above , as i was in the same room sitting next to jerry .....it was a very small room i may isay and i was expecting the worse ... but they did sound good.

 

[A.S.]

I am truly loving them, but have noticed something of which I will appreciate some advice? As I increase volume, they appear to become brighter ('right' level, no brightness, 'too high' and they start to become bright). I suspect that this is not fault of gear, but rather my room (reflective surfaces etc). Am I right in my suspicion, and if so, what affordable hacks might I employ to start conditioning my room? I plan to get rug for in front of speakers, as a starter, and have read that hanging a rug behind each speaker may help.

Cheers in advance.

A

Odd's bodkins….!!

That room doesn’t get any worse. As you have clearly pointed out, you have a room almost exclusively of hard surfaces. Couldn’t be worse for hard surfaces. The first thing studio and acoustic engineers do is attend to the room before they so much as spend a penny on fancy boxes and speakers. Treat that room with carpets, rugs, books, sofas, cushions, invest in a big hairy dog/wife, discrete homely sound panels etc etc… 90% of the sonics is down to the room and speaker interaction. Do not, I repeat do not, be persuaded to go and buy expensive bling boxes, valve rolling or other audiophoolery unobtanium quantum cable shopping for a bit of tonal equalising until that room is neutralised. All the best. Oh by the way, congrats on the speakers.

 

[tuga]

Interestingly 2- and 3-way horns with bass bin work well in small rooms due to the narrow directivity and limited bass extension. One doesn’t get the expansive soundstage of small monitors but neither do we get the blurred imaging or muddling of the recorded or produced ambience.

There’s an immediacy to the sound of horns which impresses but once the novelty wears down the shortcomings become more obvious.
I had a pair of horn-loaded upper-mid/tweeter + 12” bass bin speakers and after adding a horn tweeter, modifying the crossover, changing the upper-mid horn and physically aligning the drivers I still felt that I needed a better 12” wpofer and something to reproduce the sub-bass so I ended up selling them.
Maybe they would have been ok for someone who could accept the lack tonal balance accuracy as a trade-off for “excitement”.

I still hope to give horns another go at some point, but proper time-aligned 3-way + bass-bin ones.

 

[hiesteem]

but rather my room (reflective surfaces etc).

Yes, I am sure that room is going to reflect a lot of energy. I would cover the floor with a carpet big enough to cover the area and sit the speakers on top of it. The speaker needs to pull away from the walls, as it will be reflecting against it and I think your idea of dampening the back wall to absorb reflections is a good one.
I find that furniture placed around the listening area helps absorption.

 

[tuga]

Yes, I am sure that room is going to reflect a lot of energy. I would cover the floor with a carpet big enough to cover the area and sit the speakers on top of it. The speaker needs to pull away from the walls, as it will be reflecting against it and I think your idea of dampening the back wall to absorb reflections is a good one.
I find that furniture placed around the listening area helps absorption.

A horn produces narrow directivity and so the Cornwalls will only be throwing low frequencies to the back so one would need really thick rock wool panels to absorb those frequencies. Not feasible in a small room, unless one fills the alcoves to the sides of a chimney breast.

 

[hiesteem]

A horn produces narrow directivity and so the Cornwalls will only be throwing low frequencies to the back so one would need really thick rock wool panels to absorb those frequencies. Not feasible in a small room, unless one fills the alcoves to the sides of a chimney breast.

It is always a compromise when using our living room as a listening area. I have speakers which are too big for my room and have always had to battle with the energy they produce. I haven't spent anything on room acoustics, because it's a living room first.
However, I am lucky enough to have concrete floors and walls and an oblong room. The shape helping with the soundstage and the concrete better to work with than wooden, and suspended floors, in my experience.
I have carpet in the main area and lots of furniture which helps to absorb energy. I have the speakers pulled out from the walls, and have lots of extra cushions placed in the corner of the rooms to absorb bass and also help with high frequency to a lesser extent.
It also helps that I am a confirmed bachelor and don't have anyone to bend my ear about the lived-in environment that I choose.

 

[Turn it up!]

Hi guys. I am burning in a pair of Cornwall IVs (roughly 90 hours in). This is my first time living with horns and I really do think these are a special pair of speakers (may die with em). I have them paired with a Gato Amp 150, metrum acoustic onyx dac and mac streamer (audivrana (non-studio version):

Congratulations on your new speakers, I owned a pair of Cornwall III a few years ago and loved them. They are the only speakers I have truly regretted selling but a move of house forced the sale due to space. They are big beautiful beasts and I wrote a review on my experience of them. They are not perfect speakers (what speakers are?!) but what they do well they do amazingly well. I ran them with a pair of Quad II amps and I don't have any memory of them sounding harsh as they got loud, they are so ridiculously sensitive you hardly need any power so it's unlikely to be amp distortion. I think your room might be adding to a lot of that harder sound with volume, I'd definitely add a thick rug or even look at sound treatment. I've never had a chance to hear the IV to compare, at some point I need to get a demo. The Cornwalls are IMO the sweet spot of the Klipsch heritage range although the Forte are also very good value. Just to add I raised my Cornwalls off the ground on a platform with wheels (mainly as I needed to move them around for listening) but this definitely helped with the sound but more in the mid and low end.
Enjoy your new speakers, look forward to hearing your thoughts after they have settled in. Cheers

My review on the Wam if you're interested https://bit.ly/3SVTIQN

IMG_2981 by Paul Grant, on Flickr

 

[savvypaul]

Rug, good. Carpet with thick underlay, very good. And, textured wallpaper (anaglypta), painted in a matt finish, is a great room treatment, ime. Many of the rooms at Stoke had this (though some had a gloss finish, which is less helpful).

 

[Sir_Franc]

First of all the speakers may still be running in so could be worth waiting a bit longer before making any changes. Having said that, looking at the OP's room I'd say there's far too many surfaces for the sound to bounce off. Playing at low level won't bring the room in to the performance that much, but turning the volume certainly will do. There's all the cd's and other bits 'n' bobs in between the speakers. They'll almost certainly rattle at higher volumes. The tv will reflect a lot of the sound and also not help with definition and sound staging. Try placing your duvet over the tv and rack and see if you notice any improvement. The walls look pretty bare so they will also reflect the sound and hinder the sound stage. The floor has already been mentioned. How is the wall behind the listening position? Any damping there? I feel room treatment will really help.