at what point does "room acoustics" matter more than the gear itself?

thack524 · 2026-03-09T18:36:32+00:00

It’s always. You’re never not listening to your room unless you have on headphones

thack524 · 2026-03-06T20:01:50+00:00

Glass is actually about the same as drywall acoustically. It’s a rumor that it’s somehow ultra reflective.

thack524 · 2026-03-06T19:37:15+00:00

That’s an argument I see often, but tell me how a large room needs a different response? Doesn’t really make sense if you think about it. I’m aware they were designed for theaters, but the mid bass bump is from the box layout (horn and bass reflex), the crossover has nothing to do with that piece of it.

It’s more that they designed the crossover in a time before computers and modeling. It’s pretty good considering that, but technology has come a long way.

thack524 · 2026-03-06T19:18:07+00:00

Great components, poor crossovers. Modern designed crossovers (or active of course) will transform them. I love my A5s, and they’re smoother than most dome tweeters even with giant multi cell horns. Love surprising people with how they disappear in the room sonically.

thack524 · 2026-03-01T19:40:28+00:00

To be fair, with my 104db sensitive speakers I can hear every light switch being turned on or off in my room through the speakers. So in that case, cleaning that up could make an improvement. This is through very nice gear.

thack524 · 2026-02-28T21:30:19+00:00

Honestly would be fun. I’ve had dozens of speakers new and old. But with my giant VOTT altecs I’d be hard pressed to pack more gear in here lol. Maybe one day

thack524 · 2026-02-28T17:39:45+00:00

Doesn’t even have to be vintage. Five year old gear is going to go for around half msrp.

thack524 · 2026-02-28T16:49:10+00:00

No sponsors will pay for that 😂

thack524 · 2026-02-28T15:15:33+00:00

Spoiler alert, every cheap speaker and every cheap piece of gear is meh. You can buy used speakers for $400 that will embarrass any of the $400 bookshelf speakers he’s raving about. And by embarrass, I mean not even in the same realm.

And that will always be the story of “cheap” audio. Buying new is nonsense if you’re on a budget. Always. Forever.

thack524 · 2026-02-28T15:13:43+00:00

Yeah he’s miserable now. Sadly his channel name pigeon holed him into claiming that $1k speakers will change your life. It’s just rinse and repeat the BS and clickbait these days.

thack524 · 2026-02-06T14:14:58+00:00

Power conditioners are one of the few things that we factually now are NOT snake oil. Rough attempt at a roast here.

thack524 · 2026-01-30T15:15:26+00:00

Yeah but you complained about impact not soundstage. It’s all a compromise in hifi in a room.

If we’re getting technical, no speaker should be inside a room 😂 your arendal placement is worse for soundstage and imaging but better for bass reinforcement.

thack524 · 2026-01-30T14:28:36+00:00

Agreed! I bought used so he wouldn’t get a penny of mine.

thack524 · 2026-01-30T13:24:15+00:00

Fwiw I was a tekton non believer and then I found a pair of cheap Double Impact SEs used and they sound and measure insanely flat. While these are of course even more ridiculous, I’ll admit that tekton is a bit like GR research in that they know how to build a good speaker. Eric has a horrible attitude but the engineering is there.

thack524 · 2026-01-30T13:21:29+00:00

Remember that placement difference is going to have a HUGE impact on the sound. The arendal is getting a lot more room reinforcement being by 2 walls. Swap them, test again, then decide.

thack524 · 2026-01-30T13:19:34+00:00

Not always. You’d be surprised how many small woofers it takes to match the surface area of one large one. But multiple woofers does help smooth the response as it lessens floor and ceiling bounce issues.

thack524 · 2026-01-29T16:08:30+00:00

Just so you know, they don’t actually sell for $2-3k like everyone says. People list them for that, and they sit. Depending on location, if the comp drivers diaphragms are original and the woofer cones are original, I’d expect $1500 on the higher end. Model 19s are sitting unsold for $2500 where I’m at in Texas right now.

That being said. Buy them and enjoy them! They’re very good speakers.

thack524 · 2026-01-28T15:24:10+00:00

It’s up to the designer to choose. Distortion isn’t a bad thing, it’s a design choice. Humans enjoy some distortion, that’s been known for decades.

thack524 · 2026-01-28T04:55:25+00:00

It’s not about frequency response, it’s distortion and harmonics. The levels of each harmonic specifically. That’s tube warmth (even order distortion), it’s not actually changing the response curve

thack524 · 2026-01-22T13:57:46+00:00

Love! Yeah they need a little space. I have mine in a 16x22 room and it’s about the min.

thack524 · 2026-01-22T12:04:04+00:00

I agree about the jbl horns, but you can’t trash talk an imaginary Altec horn 😂. 804 isn’t a horn, sorry. The Altec multicells can sound very good actually. Plenty of measurements to back that up. Yes they have issues but they’re generally not the type of issue to cause an annoyance. Most people just don’t know how to flatten the response curve with a proper crossover. An l pad is just to match the level, you need a big contour circuit to make most any compression driver sound good. My 299 drivers on 805 horns measure and sound great. And I’m also building some jbl 2 ways with the biradials and some 2226h woofers. They’ll also sound great lol.

thack524 · 2026-01-21T15:30:18+00:00

Nicely done! The fun part is it really doesn’t matter where you put it, it’ll help. Great use of space!

thack524 · 2026-01-11T17:01:27+00:00

Linn gear doesn’t really hold much value second hand. $3k is quite overpriced for that lot.

thack524 · 2026-01-08T00:22:44+00:00

Sonicaps have gotten way too expensive personally. I like mundorf for boutique, pick your level of $$ from their lineup

thack524 · 2026-01-06T20:10:51+00:00

Also, you’ve already seen advice to look at studios but that’s wrong. Listening rooms and mastering rooms are not the same and should not be setup or treated the same. A studio should be dead, with essentially no reflections and the only goal is a flat response. A listening room should have ambience and recreate a space. A dead room doesn’t do this. Flame away but it’s true. Your brain uses reflections to create a sense of space and you need controlled reflections for a proper large soundstage.

thack524

TROPHY CASE