The Door has Closed on this ReviewAfter some convincing, my significant agreed to adding a door to the entry of the basement. The selling point was twofold:
1. it would add symmetry to the room painting a better sonic picture — all for the sake of her beloved and his crazy hobby
2. Prevent noise leakage upstairs
She has been a fantastic partner and agreed to yet even this request. It was not necessarily an easy decision because of concerns that the entry to the actual usable area would become even narrower (and it was narrow to begin with) and then whether the door should swing in to the basement steps or the actual useable area. I proceeded to buy a solid core door couple of weeks ago, which was installed last Friday. We decided to swing it in to the basement as it was going to be too tight to open in to the staircase. Even though I had covered my 2 channel and HT rig with plastic drop in sheets the night before the install, I was sweating bullets the day of the install when my contractor informed me that he would need to cut the walls to install the door frame. He knows how anal I’m about my rig and brought his commercial vacuum, promising to gobble up dust and debris immediately.
I’ve had a couple of listening sessions to evaluate since and I’m thankful I waited because it has taken me some time to grasp the full impact.
Let’s start with noise leakage.
Big, easy, win here!
There has been more than a significant reduction of music leaking upstairs. The fact that my wife hasn’t continued to complain (post install) about yet another structural and or sonic addition to the rig, or text me to turn the volume down, means she is digging the results.
The review could end right here, but that would cheat you audiophiles of the impact within the room.
So here’s what I was expecting with Symmetry:
The right channel would sound better:
Check—notes/instruments are decidedly more resolute, but there’s more—the way they hang in the air (higher) and the way they decay (a tad longer) is damn sexy. While all instruments sound better, I think Guitars are a standout.
There is a delicious sizzle and bite in addition to being more full bodied in tone and having more air to breathe in, that has me captivated.
No scratch that—drums are sounding fabulous as well.
A great example is the ‘Drum Solo’ track by Manu Katché. I’ve always loved this track, but the way the percussion was pressurizing the room, the impact of the drum set—it was phenomenal.
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll fall in love with how the piano or violin sounds. Such is the state of affairs…
Better Pressurization of the Room:
Check—with the door closed, there is definitely an appreciable improvement in the low end response—the way I could feel the bass in the past couple of days indicates it’s going down a tad more cleanly. A standout track in the past couple of days was the Ray Charles ‘Fever’. The way this track exploded on to the scene took my breath away. I’m still thinking about it. On tracks where bass notes were subtle and might have been previously undetectable, now seem fully formed, leading to many moments where I thought to myself, ‘so that’s what I was missing..’.
I am going to lump better Dynamics in to the Better Pressurization section. There is an appreciable increase here too. I put on good ol Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Tin Pan Alley’ and it was the most dynamic presentation I’ve heard to date. I kept checking my Decibel meter app during this track to ensure I hadn’t set the volume too high, but nope, I was firmly within my desired range and yet, it was undoubtedly more alive.
Adjusting the volume down on my pre to listen to my preferred 75-85 db range:
Check—That was literally the first thing I had to do—turn the volume down. Wiith better pressurization, it’s coming up to my desired listening level at a lower db setting on my autoformer.
Here’s what I didn’t expect (and maybe should have):
Vocals:
Vocals were already to die for, but now they have this added clarity and gravitas, that I didn’t know I needed. I won’t even bother with a specific example because every track with vocals sounds gorgeous. That was a pleasant bonus and along with the noise reduction upstairs, one of the first things I noticed.
Balance:
The left channel sounding better—This was a very very pleasant surprise. Looks like an imbalance in symmetry impacts a room in unexpected ways, and having the door closed, has helped the left side of the room as well. There is more space for instruments to breathe on both sides of the room. It’s as if the open doorway on the right was sucking the life out of the opposing side of the room, and now balance has been restored.
Soundstage and Imaging
I didn’t expect the soundstage to get wider, taller, and deeper but all three things have happened. Well, I’ve been noticing all three but it was intermittent, as if held back by an invisible force, except for imaging-it has been more precise as of late, laser-etched even. I think the credit here is partly Sarah maturing over 1100 hrs but mostly my SRA speaker cables settling in at 200 hrs, the same time the door was installed. Talk about timing.
Changing Speaker Placement:
Surprisingly, I haven’t felt an overwhelming need to move and or tilt them around—so they stay put for now. Maybe part of it is that I don’t want to go through the ‘Ballad of Runaway Horse’ exercise so soon….good enough for now.
The Son Test:
As always, I took the opportunity to drag my son down to the basement and sat across from him so I could gauge his facial reactions. He didn’t disappoint. On one track, his eyes just bugged out and he looked at me just dumbfounded. Disregarding my own experience over the past couple of days, I became almost giddy with excitement—-the kind of feeling during that instant when you realize, you just struck gold.
But that’s not even the crazy part…
So he sits in my sweet spot and I sit on the sectional very close to the right speaker. Whenever I do that, I get mentally prepared for the soundstage to collapse from my vantage point, a monochromatic presentation from the sound source closest to me.
I wasn’t prepared for what I experienced.
The Soundstage didn’t collapse.
Everything about it—-the phantom center, the stereo separation, was intact. Only my perspective changed—I was just experiencing it from another angle. Hell, I even noticed an instrument placed on the left channel not only clearly come from the left side of the room, but also hitting way left of the speaker—-that just floored me. For the first time, I actually enjoyed listening from that position.
The very last track I heard before shutting off the system earlier tonight was Sara Bareilles’ ‘Come Around Soon’.
I was there.
The auditorium full of fans was wider.
And I swear I heard a female fan sob (for a fleeting second) three rows in front, to the right of center.
It’s either that or one of those ‘I’m not crying, you’re crying’ situations….
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