Audio Learning Series For Selecting Best Product - INDIQAUDIO

LEARNING SERIES

This series is aimed at providing insights on Audio domain while ensuring the ease of understanding. Don’t miss this opportunity of voyaging through maze of thousands of concepts, articles, thereby mastering the art of determining the best product. Your perfect setup is just few guidelines away.

  • Chapter  16  :   Danger of Audio Clipping

    • Clipping happens when we overdrive amplifiers and the output sine wave gets clipped at the top and at the bottom

    • It occurs when the amplifiers run out of power or have reached their max power output and are still being pushed hard

    • Clipping generates very high frequency energy majority of which is fed into tweeters damaging them beyond repair

    • This problem is more prevalent in low powered amplifiers paired up with low efficiency speakers, which are driven beyond their capacity

    • The best way to save the speakers is to go with higher power amplifiers based on your room size, general listening volume and the application

  • Chapter  17  :   Are Tone Controls good  

    • Tone controls (Bass, Mid, Treble) are required to alter the frequency response of the pre/amplifier

    • Generally speaking, tone controls are something like band-aid fix to inherent problem in the audio chain

    • Average tone controls design results in phase issues and loss of fidelity

    • If you have to increase the bass control then see why bass is low, is it the design or the placement. You might be better off having a subwoofer to solve the issue instead of increasing the bass control

    • Similarly, for treble. Are you seated too low or too high from the tweeter height? Change the position or speaker height, if possible

    • Many times, the tone setting is very specific to genre of music. The moment you play a different track the previous tone setting does not help at all and needs to be altered

    • In purist systems, usually there are no tone controls or have very transparent designs that do not color the sound at all and only alters the particular frequency they are designed for

  • Chapter  18  :   Box Vs In-wall Speakers  

    • Box speakers are the ones which have drivers in an independent and the complete cabinet

    • In-wall speakers have drivers fitted on the wooden / plastic / metal panel and the panel is either fitted inside a wall cavity or ceiling cavity

    • In-wall speakers are suited for low bass while boxed are for the powerful bass and loud sound

    • Boxed ones don’t get much of interference from the surrounding materials since they are inside the box

    • In-wall speaker’s sound have large amount of bearing due to wall or the ceiling cavity because of reflections or lack of

    • If floor space is a constraint, the best option would be low width boxed In-wall / In-ceiling speakers

    • Boxed speakers for LCR and In-walls for surrounds and ceiling setup is the best compromise incase In-wall speakers are the only way out

  • Chapter  19  :   Bi-Wiring Vs Bi-Amping  

    • Bi-wiring & bi-amping work on somewhat similar principle of feeding tweeter (TW) / woofer (WF) together in combination or separately through internal or external crossover

    • There would be 2 sets of binding posts at the back of the speakers and a shorting terminal / jumper in case you want them to be driven by the same amplifier

    • In bi-wiring, same amplifier channel is used to feed TW and WF using different cables as there is a belief that it improves the sound. In reality human ears are not capable enough to figure out the difference. Single wired with 14 AWG wire and bi-wired using same cable will not yield any audible difference. The difference will be audible if you wired using single 16/18 AWG and bi-wired using the same. Heavy gauge wires don’t really need bi-wiring

    • In bi-amping, separate amplifiers are used to drive TW and WF. This actually makes significant difference as people have choice of driving TW using tube and WF using solid state amplifiers

    • In case you don’t want to use different types of amplifiers for TW and WF in bi-amped setup, the difference in the sound will not be significant when compared to the cost of the additional amplifier

    • Using external crossover in bi-amped setup gives better results but is equally challenging to get properly configured

    • Bi-amping can be further divided into horizontal and vertical configuration, and will be covered in a separate chapter

    • Bottom line is, for a regular home audio, a properly single wired amplifier and speakers will be more than sufficient

  • Chapter  20  :   How to Improve Home Theatre performance

    • Check for the polarity of all the speakers. These days calibration mic that comes along with the AVR generally indicates if speakers are out of phase. But for older systems, it has to be done manually

    • Get the positioning of the speakers right by following the placement guidelines suggested by the manufacturer

    • Don’t run speakers less than or equal to 6.5’’ as “Large”, keep them small and add multiple subwoofers to take care of bass

    • Recheck the speaker calibration using the calibration mic again after 3 months of the initial setup. The speakers open up after initial run-in and might impact the delays, output etc

    • Lean towards having multiple subwoofers due to better blending and smoother bass instead of a single subwoofer. Experiment with the bass management to arrive at the best performance

    • Before deciding to go for expensive acoustics, first try simple thick rug in front of the speakers, thick curtains and padded furniture. Then evaluate the sound and decide if you want to go for wall mounted acoustic panels.

  • Chapter  21  :   Soundbars for Serious listeners?

    • Soundbars are very compact, easy to install and light on pocket speakers that enhances TV watching experience or background listening

    • Few Soundbars also come with wireless subwoofers to add the low end to your movie experience

    • For serious listeners and pure cinematic experience, these bars are not really recommended

    • No matter how sophisticated a soundbar is, it can never give you the same experience of sound actually being produced by speakers placed strategically across the room

    • Many of the soundbars don’t give option to go for an additional subwoofers or speakers, so you are handicapped for future upgrades

    • Soundbars are designed keeping an ideal TV unit and listening distance in mind, but in reality, there are lot of factors that come in to play. Direct reflections, distance from the listener, area of the room etc that impacts the sound and majority of the soundbars cannot tailor the output based on these factors

    • Bottom line, if you are looking for audio enhancement to your everyday basic TV viewing then a soundbar is perfect for you. Majority of soundbars lack depth when compared to home theatre or dedicated speakers for music

  • Chapter  22  :   Integration of multiple subwoofers

    • If you have a room that is large, has acoustical problems, or is irregularly shaped, you may need more than one subwoofer

    • Before going in for a second subwoofer, perform some basic room placement and bass management setting tasks to see if you are getting the best performance out from the subwoofer you already have

    • No matter if you use one or more subwoofers to get the best bass coverage for your room, regardless of the brand, model, size, and connection option(s), you need to find the best spot in the room for each one that provides the best performance for each one and all of them together

    • If you find that you need more than one subwoofer, go for the subwoofer from the same brand and model as the previous one. This enables the same low-frequency reproduction profile for your room

    • To accomplish this be prepared to do a lot listening and moving, along with making setting adjustments to get the best result for your room and listening preference

    • Dual subwoofers will greatly increase the available system headroom, providing greater dynamic range, reduced output compression and lower distortion

    • Dual subwoofers are nearly impossible to localize. Once listeners experience this immersive bass which seems to emanate from everywhere in the room, they never want to go back to a single subwoofer set-up

  • Chapter  23  :   Horizontal & Vertical Passive Bi-Amping

    • Horizontal and Vertical bi-amping are 2 channel music reproduction techniques aimed to bring in more flexibility in the way various drivers / speakers are driven by different / independent amplifiers

    • Vertical bi-amping is simple in terms of two of the identical amplifiers are connected to speakers independently. So, one channel of one amplifier will drive tweeter and the other channel of the same amplifier will drive woofer in the same speaker box

    • Vertical is preferred due to the fact that most of the single amplifier power is used by the woofer

    • Horizontal bi-amping is dedicating both channels of one amplifier to the woofers of both the speakers, and both channels of a second amplifier to the tweeters

    • Horizontal is preferred when you’re using different amplifiers to optimize sound quality. High-powered solid-state amplifier for the woofers, and tube amplifier for sweet and small top end

    • As a rule of thumb, vertical is best for identical amplifier models, horizontal is best for optimizing the synergy between different types of amplifiers

    • Bi-amping whether horizontal or vertical, will no doubt improve the sound, but the extent has to be experienced first vis-à-vis additional cost of setting them up

  • Chapter  24  :   Investing in Speakers OR Amplifier - Confused ?

    • This is a highly debated topic, so here is our humble take on this topic. The below views hold good for general scenarios as there would always be lot of exceptions considering the vastness of the Audio domain. Lot depends on the combination being auditioned, how well they complement each other, room size, placement and preferred genre of music

    • Power ratings should not be taken on its face value. X watts from one manufacturer isn't the same X watts from another. An entry level X watt receiver may produce X watts driving one speaker at one frequency, but manages to put out a fraction of X when running multiple speakers playing real music

    • A better amp will make your speakers play louder and sound better, but it won't make bad speakers sound like good ones

    • Size does matter, tiny satellite speakers and a sub can sound OK, they can't overcome science. Speakers are the easiest component in a system that an average consumer can appreciate sound improvements on. Quality speakers with average gear is more bearable than quality gear with average speakers or put differently, a great amplifier paired with average speakers will not sound as good as great speakers paired up with average amplifier

    • Yes, source materials, speaker wire and interconnects all help improve the performance of output but should be considered complimentary not core to the entire chain. With advancement in amplifier and DAC technologies, these days Amps / AVRs have improved a lot, so speakers become the weakest link. The combination of driver units, driver material, crossover points dictate tonal nature of the speakers, which can only be influenced by the amplifier driving them, but cannot be changed drastically

    • If budget is an issue, invest in quality speakers and an average amplifier first and then go for amplifier upgrade later

    • To reitrate what we had said in our earlier posts as well, always audtion the speakers and amplifier together and in the actual environment. Auditioning in a treated room will not be a wise move if you don't plan to treat your listening space


DISCLAIMER : The above information is only meant to provide useful and helpful insights on the subject discussed and in no way meant to challange existing practicies, beliefs, products and processes.