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Vibration/boomy bass and assorted uses for old mouse pads (1 Viewer)

Chu Gai

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2001
Messages
7,270
every go jogging or riding with a cd player...maybe play one in your car? doesn't matter so long as it doesn't skip and lose info. the boominess lies in your speaker/room interactions. that's it.

And Rob...you ain't goin there.

To paraphrase Dr. Seuss...

You can put them on a brick
something thin or something thick
very hard or very soft
a piece of cork or a piece of cloth
maybe red or maybe green
maybe something in between
maybe steel or maybe wood
no matter how you play the game
the sound will be just the same.
 

RobWil

Supporting Actor
Joined
Mar 17, 2003
Messages
733
As Quick Draw McGraw once said....Iiiiiii'll do the paraphrasin' around here! In this case I'll paraphrase me!

I thought I heard some boom,
coming from my room,
maybe caused by some vibration,
it was not my imagination,
then a thought at once I had,
what about that old mousepad?,
so I stuck that sucker under,
what I thought was causing the thunder,
and lo and behold that night,
that bass sounded mighty tight,
so I shared my new found knowledge,
with some people with too much college,
and my theory they did debunk,
they said it was nothing but junk,
made me just feel like dyin',
guess I'm off to AudioAsylum. :frowning:
 

Jim A. Banville

Supporting Actor
Joined
Jun 20, 1999
Messages
630
Lewis, you said...
Room treatment for the room naturally,the other component I could only talk about was the speaker,
Sooooo... painting the edge of a CD is NOT a treatment you spoke of, and you didn't mention "lifting components"? I never read of people lifting SPEAKERS. Moving them around, yes, but most are designed to be at ear level, so I assume these "components" you speak of are NOT speakers. "Lifting components" means you are putting something under them. Something most people call "teatment". Vibration dampers, etc.
Do you still say you didn't speak of treating things OTHER than the speakers and room?

The only "path" someone is going down by "lifting components" and "treating CD's with a green pen" is that leading to grandma's house, or any number of other paths mentioned in childhood Fairy Tales :)
 

RobWil

Supporting Actor
Joined
Mar 17, 2003
Messages
733
but most are designed to be at ear level, so I assume these "components" you speak of are NOT speakers.
Lifting, or placing speakers on solid platforms, is a very common practice. Just peruse audiogon a little and see what some of them freaks do for tweaks! And, placing a speaker on a two inch slab raises my tweeters closer to ear level than they were. I'm assuming you meant speakers were designed to place the tweeter at ear level since it would be hard to put the whole speaker at ear level without turning them sideways.
Also, I would not expect the use of dampening material to make any difference in a system that did not have vibration related problems to begin with. I saw first hand how the sound changed when I placed that rug underneath the 'then playing' amp. This was not imagination and it surprised the hell out of me since the only reason I placed it there was to prevent the wood from getting scratched. There have also been suggestions written on how to rid your listening room of items which may pick up vibrations and negatively affect the sound. My listening room is on a raised wooden floor with a large garage below that acts as a resonating chamber. All you have to do is go down there when the music is playing and you can see. To just blatantly say that dampening certain components and/or speakers is hogwash without knowing any other factor (besides the fact that I'm a dumbass :D) is, (to steal a phrase from Mike Tyson), just ludicrous.
That's my story and I'm stickin' to it :^P
 

Larry Talbot

Second Unit
Joined
Jun 8, 2003
Messages
388
In all seriousness, if you want to try to change the "boomy" sound you describe, you might be better off experimenting by building sound absorbing panels and trying them in different places around the room. Bass traps might also help you out a lot. Yes, this will take more time and money and effort than mouse pads but the results are likely to be much greater as well.
My semi-decent system sounded like a broken transitor radio after I moved it into a room with poor acoustics. I built sound panels for the room. and the overall sound improved greatly. One benefit which I did not expect was the tremendous improvement in bass response. I too suffered from boomy bass and figured that I needed to upgrade my sub at some point. Now it is the best sounding link in my theater.
 

RobWil

Supporting Actor
Joined
Mar 17, 2003
Messages
733

RobWil

Supporting Actor
Joined
Mar 17, 2003
Messages
733
if you want to try to change the "boomy" sound you describe, you might be better off experimenting by building sound absorbing panels and trying them in different places around the room.
Thanks, Larry....great post! Sheesh!....don't know if I'm quite THAT industrious but I may investigate further.

BTW....many have mentioned the sub but this phenomina occurs even w/out the sub, and, not on all recordings. Could be some of the recordings are to blame.
 

Chu Gai

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2001
Messages
7,270
It's actually less effort and less skill needed than you think Rob and it can even be incorporated into a design motif for the room so that it looks like you haven't even done anything.

As far as those links...well you can sell just about anything and for Terry's bloated bass, I can only suggest this.
 

Lewis Besze

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Jul 28, 1999
Messages
3,134
Sooooo... painting the edge of a CD is NOT a treatment you spoke of, and you didn't mention "lifting components"? I never read of people lifting SPEAKERS. Moving them around, yes, but most are designed to be at ear level, so I assume these "components" you speak of are NOT speakers. "Lifting components" means you are putting something under them. Something most people call "teatment". Vibration dampers, etc.
Ok here we go.
I was responding to the author.When I said lifting components,I meant he "isolated" the CD player[amp?] by "lifting" it up and putting the mouse pad underneath.
I also in that sentence pointed to the silly practice ,of lifting cables off the ground,or using the green pen to treat their CD's.I'm not condoning such "tweaks" as they don't have any real scientific merits.Which is why I said:" if he subscribes to that notion he's on the right path.I do not! Which is why I was recommending the room treatment,and speaker positioning,as the only viable option here.
I hope this clears it.
 

EricaC

Auditioning
Joined
Aug 3, 2001
Messages
8
Pardon me for adding fuel to the fire, but mechanical vibration can, indeed, affect the sonics of hi-fi equipment.

With apologies to any lurking electrical engineering professors: current traveling through a wire will induce a magnetic field about the wire. This field will, in turn, affect the transient behavior of the current in the wire. This phenomenon is called self-inductance, I believe.

Now, consider all the analogue circuits in your audio kit; mechanical vibration can alter the inductance of those circuits because now their traces are moving, however so slightly, and introducing perterbations in their attendant electromagnetic fields.

This in turn will affect transient response, which in turn affects the sonic character of the kit.

That said, whether or not this is a significant factor in the tweaking of the setup is another issue. There may be larger problems, such a poor speaker placement or poor room acoustics which mask these effects. Or maybe the gear doesn't have very good transient response to begin with and has lots of filtering to produce consistent results at the expense of fidelity (true for lots of low-end stuff).

Lots of very high-end electronics are ruthlessly revealing and unforgiving of such tweaks and really require good isolation and 'grounding' of mechanical vibration. Just for fun, try putting your source or preamp directly on top of a speaker. Then compare against putting the gear on a decent rack or, if possible, in another room. If you have reasonably attentive ears, you'll hear the difference.

So the phenomenon is quite real, even if most of the solutions out there are utter bunk/snake oil. So-called microphonic effects are very hard to solve and are not addressed simply be isolating the kit from the shelf it's sitting on, or the floor, or whatever. Some high-end designers take great pains to isolate PCBs from the case, which can ring from airborne vibration. Others design feet and stands that are designed specifically to conduct vibration away from the electronics and into a large mass. In any case, the best judge should be you and your ears. If you can't perceive a difference, then it's not a problem. But if you are having issues, then it makes sense to consider where and how your gear is sited relative to the speakers.

My $0.02.

Erica

- whose amps are in the basement
 

RobWil

Supporting Actor
Joined
Mar 17, 2003
Messages
733
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I love you dearly and I want you to bear my children! Please tell me you are available (and female!) :D
BTW....Erica is a very nice name! :emoji_thumbsup:
 

Larry Talbot

Second Unit
Joined
Jun 8, 2003
Messages
388
SWM seeks F. Must be attractive, HWP, no kids, and believe old mouse pads will make a difference in home theater. Send photo, preferably of your self.
 

RobWil

Supporting Actor
Joined
Mar 17, 2003
Messages
733
Hey!....back off! I saw her first! :angry:
And I don't care if she's attractive or not....I like the intellect! :emoji_thumbsup:
 

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