Hi All
On Sunday a couple of Forum members dropped by for a listen to the systems here and to measure them. The MK system is remarkably even all the way down to 10Hz and has incredible headroom which makes watching something like the latest John Wyck truly terrifying.
The smaller Steinway Lyngdorf Atmos system is also remarkably flat down to 20Hz in a huge open room. This system is clearly even more accurate and is also a remarkable stereo system.
I hope we will be able to post graphs on these readings soon as it may interest some people.
Part of the reason that the Steinway Lyngdorf system has the best stereo performance of any system I know of and has such an enveloping surround field is that its in a very live room. I’ve been posting about this on FB etc. and thought I’d share some of the info here……
Room Acoustics, A Different Approach
While more people agree that the room is typically the weakest link in a home audio system, there are two very different approaches to dealing with its effects. For home cinema, the most common approach is to remove the reflections from room with treatment, so you only hear sound coming directly from the speakers.
While this approach is perfect for the assessment of sound, it isn’t the best approach for its enjoyment. This approach has two shortcomings; it requires far more power for good results because the room absorbs rather than amplifies the sound from the speakers. It also creates obvious gaps in the soundfield from places in the room where there are no speakers.
All expert, independent research shows that to recreate a completely seamless soundfield with no gaps around you requires 1000’s of speakers, an approach that’s simply not practical.
A Different Approach – Use The Room, Don’t Fight It.
In spaces that people visit go to hear music at its best such as Concert Halls and Jazz Venues, the reflections from the room are a huge contributing factor to the overall sound quality. For 30 years, Lyngdorf have used this as the starting point for the design of their audio system, utilising the additions from the room rather than trying to remove them.
Hifi lovers have never absorbed room reflections as it creates a dull, lifeless sound. Developed for use in Danish homes with harder, modern interior Lyngdorf audio system have been developed for use in these live interiors. As interior design follows the clean, uncluttered modernist approach, audio systems designed for the spaces are the natural partner.
Here the walls amplify the sound from the speakers. This means the system has to play at much lower levels to achieve the same volume of sound so there is far less leakage to adjoining rooms.
With hard, reflective walls, the gaps in the soundstage around the listener are filled by the reflections off the walls. This creates a more enveloping experience that makes you feel you are there with the actors or musicians.
Testing the Theory
In the UK there are many showrooms where you can hear cinema systems in highly treated rooms. At Gecko we have both. Here we have a highly treated cinema room and 8 systems in normal, live rooms.
We encourage people to go and compare both approaches. The stereo and surround systems here sound far better in normal, untreated room.
The Big Picture Great Sound- In One Room or Every Room
Most installation companies pay little attention to delivering great sound around the home. The focus is maximising the profit in the cinema and hoping to sell better in ceiling speakers in a few rooms. We believe this is a huge missed opportunity.
Whatever system you client has, Lyngdorfs technologies allow you to deliver higher quality sound than ever before. By demonstrating incredible sound can be achieved in normal rooms, many dealers are now selling incredible audio systems throughout the home rather than just one room.
Steinway & Sons collaboration with Lyngdorf was only agree because their audio system could perfectly reproduce their pianos. Something that no other audio system is capable of. This is one of the events where listeners could hear that there is no difference between a live piano recital and a Steinway Lyngdorf audio system.
Lyngdorf’s complete music system shares much of this technology and costs £6,000 has been winning best sound at show where many alternatives cost 20 times as much.
To hear both options for yourself, please content
www.geckohomecinema.com