Bright speakers, how to level them out?

Don't listen to music on youtube as the encoding process kills the quality....

So does mp3's you want to listen to music buy the cd

As for general brightness turn the treble down a little

Oh and keep the tweeter grill on!

Room acoustics can over-emphasize the high end sound, so you might research room treatments and speaker placement.

Newer models of receivers have room correction software that will attempt to try to flatten the frequency response of speakers, so a new receiver might help.

x2

And in general the VF-36, is a bit lacking in the midrange.

Nope. It's the other way around.

Are you talking about taking the MP3s and putting them on a CD? That's not going to help.

A CD you buy at store has music stored as a .wav file. That's an uncompressed music file. When an mp3 is made from a wav file, it throws out information to make the file smaller--to compress it. It is a "lossy" compression file format. It "loses" information. That information is gone forever, and converting the mp3 back to a CD won't help.

If you have music CDs and want to store them on your computer, you can other use a program to copy them as wav files, or you can use something like Exact Audio Copy (EAC) to rip them as .flac files. Flacs are compressed--they are a little bit smaller than wav files--but lossless. They don't lose any information if the ripping process is done correctly, and can be converted back again to wav files on a CD without loss of audio quality.

Nope, not even the highest bitrate mp3's are equivalent to the original .wav files. As mentioned, .flac files reduce the size of the file, but retain the full quality when ripped properly, and you can then convert the .flac file back to the original .wav should you choose to burn them to a CD-R. The whole purpose of mp3s was to reduce the file sizes significantly, allowing you to store a lot more music files in a drive with limited capacity. A regular CD can hold 700MB, which translates to about 72 minutes of music in .wav format, or hours of music in mp3 format depending on the bitrate.

Of course there are other music formats out there that offer even higher fidelity. There's SACD that uses DSD, and there are also lossless HD audio formats like DTS HD-MA and Dolby TrueHD.

Where CD's are encoded at 44.1kHz 16-bit, DTS HD-MA and TrueHD go as high as 192kHz 24-bit.

As far as your original problem, a receiver with one of the higher end room correction solutions (like the Onkyo 3009 with Audyssey XT32) have pretty powerful frequency response correction solutions. The technology is aimed at optimizing the in-room frequency response of your sound system. 'Bright' or harsh sounding speakers are a result of an uneven frequency response with too much emphasis on the higher frequencies.

Room correction technologies like Audyssey calibrate the system by measuring the frequency response of your setup in your room and then applying equalization to optimize the frequency response to flatten out peaks and dips.


Max

How do you correctly convert to flac? I've been using itunes loseless for my cd collection

Nothing wrong with Apple lossless, no need to convert to flac....at least in my opinion.

Have to agree with Gooddoc.

I'm just getting into music downloads. Doesn't lossless reduce the original file to roughly half-size? Even if so, I know I have a hard time discerning any difference from Redbook, at least with my low/mid-fi equipment ... and 59 year old ears.

As to the OP's problem, yes, a new receiver with proper room EQ will go a good ways to taming some of that brightness. Toggling EQ on/off shows just what is going on in your listening space, despite any preconceptions you might have about the in-room sound, especially if untreated. It can be quite eye-opening. And as I recall, older Yammy entry-level models had a reputation, deserved or not, for being bright sounding. In combination with some Klipsch speaker models, it might make for an unpleasant experience at times

Several programs will do it. Google it. Take your pick. I still prefer 'FLAC Frontend' to go both FLAC>WAV and WAV>FLAC. If I ever have to convert all my CDs that I have converted to Apple Lossless (~425GB) to FLAC, though, I will probably be looking to something that will allow me to batch it. Like Foobar2000.

It depends upon the complexity of the source material, but it doesn't reduce it by that much.


If it's lossless there IS no difference. That's what "lossless" means.

Put a sock on it...literally

There is only so much you can do with the VF-36 - more power can
make it sound bigger. However, if you put 125 watts on that 97db
sensitive speaker - you may give up, before that speaker does. More
power will not give the speaker more resolution in the midrange. And,
it will not take a bright or harsh type tweeter, and give it new character.
Some room treatments, and better source material - can help you out.
Also a receiver with better room EQ, can help.

I have listened to the Klipsch Reference series speakers, with real expensive
McIntosh amps. And the nature of the Klipsch stayed the same. In the end the
result was, less distortation at higher volumes.

Yes, there are various EQ options available that are much more modestly priced.

Higher quality audio is available in several different formats and forms. You can purchase SACDs (mostly online as regular stores like Best Buy don't tend to stock them), DVD-Audio (a mostly dead format with hardly any/no new material being released on it). These days, Blu Ray HD audio is beginning to appear (different from regular BDs in that the disc only holds audio. They use it because it supports up to 192kHz 24-bit audio and can hold way more data).

You can also download HD-audio files from various online sites.

As far as power goes, you only need more power if you need more volume. With a 97db sensitivity, you don't need much power at all to get high volumes out of those speakers, and as mentioned, more power isn't going to alter how the speakers sound tonally (unless you're getting compression/distortion, (which is unlikely with those speakers if your avr can put out at least 40 watts per channel cleanly).


Max

The Denon 1712 has Audyssey MultiEQ XT which has filters to equalize your speakers.


EAC is what a lot of people use. Don't ask me how I know this, but EAC is the one that you see regularly used by serious rippers on Bittorent downloads Hydrogen Audio has a good wiki with configuration guides for EAC.


Agreed.

Although iTunes as a media player is a problem if someone wants to play flacs that other people have created without having to convert them. This is one reason why I refuse to use iTunes, because they refuse to support the open standard lossless format to try to lock people into using iTunes and Apple file formats.

I have the VF 36's paired with a Pioneer SC 35 and the sound is awesome with HT and music. You most likely need a better avr with room correction. The mid-range stuff is from a few reviews on the net. They produce a very good mid-range sound if properly set with a good avr and room correction. I have compared my system to B&W, Klipsch Ref. series and Paradigm HT systems in custom audio shops and find my system to be very good compared to those systems. My speakers are not bright and sound well balanced.

Check out the 1712 as mentioned by CEL above. My brother just picked one up for $309 shipped from Electronics Expo (authorized Denon dealer).

I prefer dbpoweramp, in fact I just finished archiving about 900 cd's (with exactly 17 songs that would not rip - pretty darned good!). In one pass I ripped to FLAC, 256kb MP3 and WAV. I did a lot of research before I began, including trying out both EAC and Foobar2000 for ripping. dbpoweramp's multiprocessor capabilities, multi-encoder and ease of use trumped out EAC by a large margin, and with Foobar2000 I had errors that dbpoweramp never saw. I could also use multiple instances - I had 3 CD players ripping at once.

Since you are listening to youtube I presume you are directly connected to a PC. If so you have multiple EQ choices, and if using Winamp or MediaMonkey there are plugins that can help tame bright tweeters.

Here's a good reference for further learning: Media Formats Explained. Its a bit old (very little info on FLAC, but just treat it as the best lossless format and you will get the gist) but it cleared up all of the questions I had.

If archiving your collection for the first time go with FLAC for longevity and wider support. ALAC is proprietary and you never know what may happen in the future (with any proprietary format). But if already ALAC and all you will ever do is listen on Apple hardware you should be fine (but I do pity you ).

Edit: Oops, I forgot, Apple open sourced ALAC last fall. Even so, hardware support is abundant for FLAC but very limited for ALAC, and FLAC has a much wider following.

You might want to install and test out Studio Sound FX plugin for winamp. There is a "Tweeter tuner" setting to change from aluminum to silk that really worked wonders while I was auditioning speakers. I got Energy RC-10 to almost equal the more subtle high ends of the Mordaunt Short silk tweeters.

Thanks for posting your preference in programs. dbpoweramp is a truly flexible and powerful tool with multi-encoder options. Very easy to set up and perfect for different archiving/usage.

Or is there a setting on your AVR such as Dolby sound levelling or MP3 enhancement or the like that is actaully interfering with the sound?

One thing to note, is if your speakers sound bright due to distortion such as cone resonance, EQ wont be able to help you there.

Your solution is to buy better loudspeakers and to AVOID Klipsch's IMHO HORRIBLE signature ear fatigue due to just god awful tweeter design...