Bernard
Well-known member
Interesting (awkward?) situation to be in - your sound guy is happy but you are not. It may well happen, of course, based upon differences in hearing....and preferences.
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System #204 (Vantage)
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churchill
Well-known member
Glen, did he listen at various volume levels or one set volume through the evaluation?
Jim Smith
Member
Hope it's OK to reply in this thread.
I'm not Glen's "sound guy." At least I don't think of it that way. I've never sold - or tried to sell - him anything. Don't know if that is what you meant.
Edit - he did buy the Get Better Sound manual from our website, but I didn't talk to him until after he contacted me. My goal is to dramatically improve systems with the components and rooms that audiophiles already have, not to sell them more gear.
He asked me to evaluate his system and that's all that was done on that visit.
The goal will be to address every item on the list satisfactorily (obviously, to his satisfaction).
And yes, a variety of sound levels were employed.
Does anyone here know why the woofers are in inverted polarity to the screens?
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Bernard
Well-known member
No, that's not what I meant; it did not occur to me that it could be interpreted that way. What I meant by "sound guy" was the acoustical consultant. Sorry Jim. I understand your intent.
Jim Smith
Member
Just checked with Martin-Logan.
They say that the Vantage woofer is actually intended to be in inverted acoustic polarity to the screens.
So the speakers are operating as M-L intended.
They say that the Vantage woofer is actually intended to be in inverted acoustic polarity to the screens.
So the speakers are operating as M-L intended.
Presumably 8,9 and 10 are statements made after 5 was corrected?
Anyway, after 5 was fixed, you should at least have some bass!!!
7 just goes to show that room treatments are difficult, and require skill to place, together with knowledge about what kind of treatments are needed in the first place. I'd wager there are so many out there who have, quite simply, got it wrong.
Of course, this is pretty ripe from someone who doesn't use any, hey Rich?
Good luck with it. Most of all, if you don't like the sound when he is happy, you must say so. Then you can work together to find out why not.
I agree Justin that if #5 is causing a problem then once it's addressed then some of the other issues will be more manageable or maybe even nonexistent. If it's not the root then it will most likely be my room/speaker placement. And you are right that there is more to just adding room treatments on the wall and corners, and I am one of those out there that did not have them properly placed. It's a learning process
.I can't imagine not being satisfied with Jim's adjustments especially knowing he will have me involved in the whole process. Many of the problems in my setup are foundational in nature so addressing these are neccessary for a more accurate rendition of what was intended by the artist. If I have several bass nodes which smear the nuances and lessens the musical impact then this would not qualify under preference I wouldn't imagine. So in that since they most likely would not be preferred by anyone and should be avoided or at least kept to a minimum whenever possible. It was interesting to see some of these peaks and dips on his RTA as he moved the microphone around my listening area and observe the drastic changes in response to a small movement forward or side to side. If I understand correctly the object is to find the areas where the room is minimized in its overall effect on the music allowing my Vantage's to perform to their potential. If this is the goal then I am not worried at all with not being satisfied.
Glen
Yes he did. He listened at length to a variety of recordings while making adustments to the volume as he needed and took notes.
Glen
Jim Smith
Member
Yes, the phase inversion is 180.
It's a 2nd order 12 dB/octave slope, at about 400Hz.
I don't feel comfortable saying more at this point. Not enough info.
They did give us permission to try inverting the screens. So we'll eventually see/hear. So the bottom line will be a real world test.
BTW - some pretty well known speaker manufacturers do this. One famous (and expensive) brand has the bass out of phase with the mid, which is out of phase with the tweeter.
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Yeah, and it's one of the reasons I just trash the passive crossover and use an Active, specifically one where I control the phase and delay settings.
But if stuck with passives, it's fine to put panel and woofer back in phase, and then deal with rear wave cancellations via absorption.
Also, I'm of the general opinion (after much testing) that pretty much any ML could use a well-integrated sub to provide realistic reproduction. So the bass challenges might require just that to fix.
So, how does one go about changing phase between panel & woofer? A simple reverse of leads between speaker input posts on the outside or does one have to switch the panel wires inside after the electronics?
BTW, Mine sound fine but I have the vantages time delayed in relation to the subs.
BTW, Mine sound fine but I have the vantages time delayed in relation to the subs.
Jim Smith
Member
On Glen's Vantages, M-L uses metal jumpers. They cannot be switched to reverse polarity.
So, as a test, you'd have to make up a short set of jumpers, using wire.
Since the subs are hard-wired, I'd reverse the leads from the sub terminals to the screens.
But this will reverse the acoustic polarity of the screens from what you had. So I'd probably reverse the hot and return leads at the amplifier (or at the speaker) to restore the whole system to the same acoustic polarity it had on the screens before. This would allow a more accurate evaluation of any changes.
Then listen to see if it's an improvement. And it might not be better, but worse.
The reason why that might happen is why I get the big bucks. :ROFL:
OK, I'll just do the (wire as) jumper trick to see what happens. I don't want to change the whole speaker reverse phasing at the amp as I have the whole speaker time delayed in relation to my subs, which sounds to be very well integrated at present. Thanks, Jim.
PS: Ooops, I see what you mean - the screen reversed as well as the amp terminals, end effect only woofer reversal.
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Yes, the phase inversion is 180.
I don't feel comfortable saying more at this point. Not enough info.
BTW - some pretty well known speaker manufacturers do this. One famous (and expensive) brand has the bass out of phase with the mid, which is out of phase with the tweeter.
What would Martin Logan and "some well known speaker manufacturers do this?"
What is accomplished by doing this? Does it widen the soundstage?
Jim Smith
Member
Someone like Richard Vandersteen or Richard Hardesty would frown on this practice. Yet it is very common, even in the famous (expensive) US speaker line that gets rave reviews.
It has little or nothing to do with soundstage. Often, the chosen crossover slope and/or any out of band irregularities near the crossover will call for a phase reversal to help to ameliorate slight peaks or resonances.
Honestly speaking, I have no idea why M-L chose to employ this technique with Vantage. I'm sure their engineering team has excellent reasons. I just haven't heard them - pro or con.
Hifi setup
Hey Guys, I wanted to do a follow up review of the second visit from Jim Smith as I promised. For those of you that have not followed some of these last few posts, Jim Smith is the author of Get Better Sound and has proven himself in the audio industry as being one of the top hifi setup guru's in the business. On August 20th Jim paid me a visit and spent nearly 6 hrs. voicing my system to the room. He already had a good idea of what to expect from a previous visit which entailed a brief listening session several weeks prior. Jim made several notes about the overall performance of my system which has already been posted. There were several areas of concern that he noted in which my setup was deficient. He addressed these areas this past Thursday and provided me with an excellent reference point when listening to music. Anyway on to the good stuff:
First off Jim is highly focused and goal oriented when he is working. He does not stop to eat or drink anything until he is completely satisfied with the sound. I tried my hardest to get him to take even a glass of water, but to no avail, he was relentless in his goal and continued to work straight through to the end! When he first arrived he sat down and listened for a couple of minutes to familiarize himself with his previous visit and compared this to his notes. The first area of concern after setting up his RTA and taking some measurements throughout the room was the bass response from my listening seat. There was a noticeable peak in the region of 250hz and a big drop-off in bass response from 50hz down. In fact you could say that I was missing much of the lower octave causing my Vantage's to lack any real authority in the bass region. While I don't want to speak for what Jim was thinking, there did seem to be a concerned look on his face and in his tone as he swept the mike forward and backwards from my listening chair looking for a spot where the bass would even out. Of course as he moved the mike towards the back wall the lower bass picked up, but then other problems would occur on his RTA graph that showed huge peaks and dips that were not better tradeoffs.
After talking with a Martin Logan rep over the phone we then took some jumpers I had made earlier and reversed the polarity of the woofers to be in phase with the panels. (The panels and woofers are designed to be in opposite phase from the factory). After getting confirmation from the Logan rep that it would not hurt the speakers or my amp, Jim put the woofer and panel in phase with each other using the jumpers, then he relistened to a few musical cuts. Jim felt that just by this adjustment there was a nice improvement in the music, and he began measuring again using his RTA. After adjusting the 35hz control some he achieved a much smoother bass response at my listening seat and we had not even moved the speaker yet! Whether this was due to odd issues in my room causing a unique situation, I am not sure but it may be worth trying to see how it works in your room.
After this it appeared that Jim was much more enthused with the sound and this gave me confidence that my setup was not going to be impossible. (I was genuinely concerned at first that this may be the case.) The next step was to adjust the rake of my panels which were leaning too far forward. This took some time due to the supplied spikes not allowing for enough adjustment forward and the aftermarket spikes, which I was using in the rear of the speakers, did not want to screw in enough to lower the rear far enough down. We spent probably 1/2 an hour on the rake until finally he achieved his goal. What was the goal you may be wondering? Well, it was not getting the panel to be vertical to the floor as I once thought, or even just tilting it forward indiscriminately which apparently I had done. Jim's method was to get the center of the panel, up and down center not side to side, projecting towards my ear. If the panel is angled too far back or forward you will cause some of the sounds being emitted off the panel to arrive at your ears at different times. His suggestion was to adjust the rake using a level with lasers on the inner side of the panel halfway up, then raise or lower the rake until the laser hit the center of my ears. This was done for both speakers, but only roughly at first. When Jim was satisfied with the placement of the Vantages at the end of the day he adjusted all measurements and angles until they were dialed in to my ears.
When some of these issues were addressed Jim began moving the speakers forward and aft to work on other deficiencies like sound staging and overall liveliness. Somewhere about 2 1/2 hrs into the process Jim felt that the room was not too dead as he previously thought due to my acoustic panels, but rather it was a speaker placement issue. So we never even touched the acoustic treatment, but rather he voiced the room with them on the wall. I was willing to move them, but I must admit that it was nice to not have too.
During each iteration of moving the speakers we roughly adjusted them so as to get a better picture of what that placement sounded like. Jim paid close attention to every detail along the way, except where he kept misplacing the remote, so there would be no false conclusions. As he was getting closer to where the Vantages would stay I noticed Jim would listen longer to his musical selections and begin to nod his head. Every now and then he would glance back at his RTA graph just to get a peek as to what the bass was doing. Watching Jim was like observing someone putting a puzzle together, and the image that he was looking for was in his head. There was no hesitation when something was not quite right and it was obvious through his body language when things were not working according to his mental aural picture. I believe some fatigue started to settle in towards the end of the day (should have taken that sandwich I offered him:ROFL, but Jim was good to his word to make my system perform at a higher level.
When he felt good about how the setup began to sound he would ask me to sit in the chair and play some music I was familiar with, and then ask for feedback. This took place a few times during the process and this allowed me to voice some of my opinions. Which consisted of mostly, "WOW, that sounds so much better.":rocker: After he settled on what he thought sounded best and asked me to listen I gave him the thumbs up that I was thoroughly satisfied, but he added there was still an additional 45 minutes to an hour of adjustments that needed to be made. Everything from rake, level, toe-in, 35hz control, distance from my ears to the speakers was addressed again with careful detail. Jim did hint that there was still a little further we could go, but he would leave that up to me for another day if I chose to take that next step.
After all was said and done the speakers were moved approximately 6 inches further into the room and about 2 inches further apart. The 35hz control was changed from -3 to about 1/4 past 0. The rake was altered from leaning a good bit too forward to just slightly past vertical. As for toe in, I am not sure I could place a measurement on this, but it was adjusted a hair more inwards towards me. Jumpers were used to change the polarity of the woofer to match the phase of the panels which eliminated some nasty dips and helped restore a little extra liveliness. My listening chair was not moved at all since it seemed to be the best spot to sit in relation to the Vantages. All acoustic treatment remained on the wall where it was previously. All measurements were done to a high degree of accuracy and these were centered around my ears along with using the center line from which he based his measurements.
Upon Jim's exit I sat down and listened to multiple cd's and quickly realized the changes that were made was much more pronounced than I had first thought. The improvement in the bass was absolutely huge. Never did I imagine that the Vantages' were capable of such deep bass with well defined definition. I am not saying that the bass was louder, but there was now lower registers being played in the music that I had never noticed before. This added a new dimension to the music that was sorely missing. Jim had mentioned on his previous visit that there were notes missing and this contributed to the instruments sounding emasculated. I did not disagree with him, but since I had no reference I was not entirely sure what he meant by this at that time. Now I know!!! It's amazing that when the bass is right how much this adds to ones listening pleasure.
As for the soundstage, I wish I had the vocabulary to describe the difference. There is just a certain rightness to it that you can't help but wonder at how two speakers can do this. Of course I know there are many others out there that have even more magic in there systems than I do, but just to experience this in music you know backwards and forwards is extremely satisfying. The Vantages really do just get out of the way and play music.
Musical detail has increased along with a much livelier presentation. My theory is that because I had the panels leaning too far forward then this attributed to some of the details being lost or masked. I was probably realistically listening to only the top 1/3 of the panel and this was squashing some of the nuances that are so important to the music. Why I had decided on that rake a few months ago is beyond me, but it definitely opened back up when Jim used his method.
I could not be more satisfied with hiring Jim and his many years of experience. The enjoyment that I have gotten just these past few days has been more than worth the effort and cost. I don't know if I will try to get that last 1% or not, but the difference he has made already makes me a satisfied customer!!!!
Glen
Hey Guys, I wanted to do a follow up review of the second visit from Jim Smith as I promised. For those of you that have not followed some of these last few posts, Jim Smith is the author of Get Better Sound and has proven himself in the audio industry as being one of the top hifi setup guru's in the business. On August 20th Jim paid me a visit and spent nearly 6 hrs. voicing my system to the room. He already had a good idea of what to expect from a previous visit which entailed a brief listening session several weeks prior. Jim made several notes about the overall performance of my system which has already been posted. There were several areas of concern that he noted in which my setup was deficient. He addressed these areas this past Thursday and provided me with an excellent reference point when listening to music. Anyway on to the good stuff:
First off Jim is highly focused and goal oriented when he is working. He does not stop to eat or drink anything until he is completely satisfied with the sound. I tried my hardest to get him to take even a glass of water, but to no avail, he was relentless in his goal and continued to work straight through to the end! When he first arrived he sat down and listened for a couple of minutes to familiarize himself with his previous visit and compared this to his notes. The first area of concern after setting up his RTA and taking some measurements throughout the room was the bass response from my listening seat. There was a noticeable peak in the region of 250hz and a big drop-off in bass response from 50hz down. In fact you could say that I was missing much of the lower octave causing my Vantage's to lack any real authority in the bass region. While I don't want to speak for what Jim was thinking, there did seem to be a concerned look on his face and in his tone as he swept the mike forward and backwards from my listening chair looking for a spot where the bass would even out. Of course as he moved the mike towards the back wall the lower bass picked up, but then other problems would occur on his RTA graph that showed huge peaks and dips that were not better tradeoffs.
After talking with a Martin Logan rep over the phone we then took some jumpers I had made earlier and reversed the polarity of the woofers to be in phase with the panels. (The panels and woofers are designed to be in opposite phase from the factory). After getting confirmation from the Logan rep that it would not hurt the speakers or my amp, Jim put the woofer and panel in phase with each other using the jumpers, then he relistened to a few musical cuts. Jim felt that just by this adjustment there was a nice improvement in the music, and he began measuring again using his RTA. After adjusting the 35hz control some he achieved a much smoother bass response at my listening seat and we had not even moved the speaker yet!
Whether this was due to odd issues in my room causing a unique situation, I am not sure but it may be worth trying to see how it works in your room. After this it appeared that Jim was much more enthused with the sound and this gave me confidence that my setup was not going to be impossible. (I was genuinely concerned at first that this may be the case.) The next step was to adjust the rake of my panels which were leaning too far forward. This took some time due to the supplied spikes not allowing for enough adjustment forward and the aftermarket spikes, which I was using in the rear of the speakers, did not want to screw in enough to lower the rear far enough down. We spent probably 1/2 an hour on the rake until finally he achieved his goal. What was the goal you may be wondering? Well, it was not getting the panel to be vertical to the floor as I once thought, or even just tilting it forward indiscriminately which apparently I had done. Jim's method was to get the center of the panel, up and down center not side to side, projecting towards my ear. If the panel is angled too far back or forward you will cause some of the sounds being emitted off the panel to arrive at your ears at different times. His suggestion was to adjust the rake using a level with lasers on the inner side of the panel halfway up, then raise or lower the rake until the laser hit the center of my ears. This was done for both speakers, but only roughly at first. When Jim was satisfied with the placement of the Vantages at the end of the day he adjusted all measurements and angles until they were dialed in to my ears.
When some of these issues were addressed Jim began moving the speakers forward and aft to work on other deficiencies like sound staging and overall liveliness. Somewhere about 2 1/2 hrs into the process Jim felt that the room was not too dead as he previously thought due to my acoustic panels, but rather it was a speaker placement issue. So we never even touched the acoustic treatment, but rather he voiced the room with them on the wall. I was willing to move them, but I must admit that it was nice to not have too.
During each iteration of moving the speakers we roughly adjusted them so as to get a better picture of what that placement sounded like. Jim paid close attention to every detail along the way, except where he kept misplacing the remote
, so there would be no false conclusions. As he was getting closer to where the Vantages would stay I noticed Jim would listen longer to his musical selections and begin to nod his head. Every now and then he would glance back at his RTA graph just to get a peek as to what the bass was doing. Watching Jim was like observing someone putting a puzzle together, and the image that he was looking for was in his head. There was no hesitation when something was not quite right and it was obvious through his body language when things were not working according to his mental aural picture. I believe some fatigue started to settle in towards the end of the day (should have taken that sandwich I offered him:ROFL, but Jim was good to his word to make my system perform at a higher level. When he felt good about how the setup began to sound he would ask me to sit in the chair and play some music I was familiar with, and then ask for feedback. This took place a few times during the process and this allowed me to voice some of my opinions. Which consisted of mostly, "WOW, that sounds so much better.":rocker: After he settled on what he thought sounded best and asked me to listen I gave him the thumbs up that I was thoroughly satisfied, but he added there was still an additional 45 minutes to an hour of adjustments that needed to be made. Everything from rake, level, toe-in, 35hz control, distance from my ears to the speakers was addressed again with careful detail. Jim did hint that there was still a little further we could go, but he would leave that up to me for another day if I chose to take that next step.
SUMMARY
After all was said and done the speakers were moved approximately 6 inches further into the room and about 2 inches further apart. The 35hz control was changed from -3 to about 1/4 past 0. The rake was altered from leaning a good bit too forward to just slightly past vertical. As for toe in, I am not sure I could place a measurement on this, but it was adjusted a hair more inwards towards me. Jumpers were used to change the polarity of the woofer to match the phase of the panels which eliminated some nasty dips and helped restore a little extra liveliness. My listening chair was not moved at all since it seemed to be the best spot to sit in relation to the Vantages. All acoustic treatment remained on the wall where it was previously. All measurements were done to a high degree of accuracy and these were centered around my ears along with using the center line from which he based his measurements.
OBSERVATIONS
Upon Jim's exit I sat down and listened to multiple cd's and quickly realized the changes that were made was much more pronounced than I had first thought. The improvement in the bass was absolutely huge. Never did I imagine that the Vantages' were capable of such deep bass with well defined definition. I am not saying that the bass was louder, but there was now lower registers being played in the music that I had never noticed before. This added a new dimension to the music that was sorely missing. Jim had mentioned on his previous visit that there were notes missing and this contributed to the instruments sounding emasculated. I did not disagree with him, but since I had no reference I was not entirely sure what he meant by this at that time. Now I know!!! It's amazing that when the bass is right how much this adds to ones listening pleasure.
As for the soundstage, I wish I had the vocabulary to describe the difference. There is just a certain rightness to it that you can't help but wonder at how two speakers can do this. Of course I know there are many others out there that have even more magic in there systems than I do, but just to experience this in music you know backwards and forwards is extremely satisfying. The Vantages really do just get out of the way and play music.
Musical detail has increased along with a much livelier presentation. My theory is that because I had the panels leaning too far forward then this attributed to some of the details being lost or masked. I was probably realistically listening to only the top 1/3 of the panel and this was squashing some of the nuances that are so important to the music. Why I had decided on that rake a few months ago is beyond me, but it definitely opened back up when Jim used his method.
I could not be more satisfied with hiring Jim and his many years of experience. The enjoyment that I have gotten just these past few days has been more than worth the effort and cost. I don't know if I will try to get that last 1% or not, but the difference he has made already makes me a satisfied customer!!!!
Glen
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Hey Glen, congrats on the improved setup my friend!
And yes, good bass is critical, and I'm glad yours is better integrated now. :music:
Satch
Well-known member
Glen,
Thanks for the great write up on your experience with Jim Smith. I'm going to re-read this thread and then I'm going to order the book.
Satch
Thanks for the great write up on your experience with Jim Smith. I'm going to re-read this thread and then I'm going to order the book.
Satch
Thanks Satch for the kind words. I believe you will really enjoy the book, and what I like about it is that you can read it just like you would a manual. If you are pondering an issue or just want to skip to the speaker setup, then no problem because it is written in that format. Have fun!! And let us know what you think after you try some of the tips.
Glen
Glen
