I'm new to high end audio. This is a true neophyte question.

Does it matter if I place my system I am purchasing on carpet? I mean
on the rack but in a carpeted room.

Thank you,

Darryl

Darryl wrote:

I'm new to high end audio. This is a true neophyte question.

Does it matter if I place my system I am purchasing on carpet? I mean
on the rack but in a carpeted room.

Thank you,

Darryl

While live music often sounds better in an uncarpeted room,
audio systems tend to sound better when there is carpeting
on the floor and a reasonable amount of wall-damping
material.

You can overdo things and carpet (or drape) the walls all
over the place, and I do not advise going that far. Some
systems (those with flat on-axis performance but erratic
frequency response at wide and ultra-wide off-axis angles)
may benefit from an extremely damped room. However, most
good speaker systems have problems with too much acoustic
treatment of that kind. Yeah, I know it makes for better
imaging and the like, but too much padding sucks the life
out of good concert-hall recordings.

Carpeting on the floor is a good compromise, however, and
nearly all audio systems sound better in carpeted rooms than
in rooms with hard floors.

I have both situations at my place: the living room has
hardwood floors (over concrete), with an area rug. The small
audio system in there sounds OK, but only because of the
area rug. (The room also has a grand piano in there, which
sounds, well, grand.) The two other rooms, which hold my
main and second AV systems, are blessed with heavy
carpeting. Even though one system makes use of speakers with
narrow and controlled dispersion patterns and the other
makes use of speakers with wide and controlled dispersion
patterns, both arrangements benefit from the carpeting.

Incidentally, the main system can be seen at:

http://www.michieldvd.com/

Click on "Howard's essays" on the left and when the next
page comes up (the header picture is NOT my room) scroll
down past the article list to "Howard's room & equipment"
and click on that. The room is different from what the
picture shows. New carpeting, furniture, and drapes, and the
surround speakers have also been replaced. The system now
also has a processor that lets me use center-back speakers.
Still, the overall arrangement is philosophically the same
now as it was then. Anyway, note that the room has carpeting
on the floor. Thick carpeting both then and now.

Howard Ferstler

From: (Darryl)
Date: 5/26/2004 7:21 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: ZJ1tc.117803$iF6.11138104@attbi_s02

I'm new to high end audio. This is a true neophyte question.

Does it matter if I place my system I am purchasing on carpet? I mean
on the rack but in a carpeted room.

Thank you,

Darryl








It shouldn't be a problem at all. You might need to use spiked feet for the
sake of stability.

Darryl wrote:
I'm new to high end audio. This is a true neophyte question.

Does it matter if I place my system I am purchasing on carpet? I mean
on the rack but in a carpeted room.

You should be OK, so long as the air vents of the components aren't
blocked (which might happen if you sat a hefty amp down
directly on a shag carpet).

Having a carpeted floor is generally a good idea in a listening room,
since it ameliorates strong reflections from the floor.




--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

Darryl wrote:

I'm new to high end audio. This is a true neophyte question.

Good. I'm tired of talking to the paleophytes. :-)

Does it matter if I place my system I am purchasing on carpet? I mean
on the rack but in a carpeted room.

It doesn't matter what your system is on, as long as the rack is reasonably
stable. (If you have a turntable, change that to *extremely* stable.) Ditto
speaker stands, if you use them.

Carpeting can make a big difference in the sound of your system, since it
affects the overall reverberance of the room, and in particular absorbs
sound at a key inflection point. The sound that bounces off the floor
between the speakers and your ears can play havoc with the bass, especially.
But it sounds like you've got that covered, so to speak.

bob

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Bob Marcus wrote:

Carpeting can make a big difference in the sound of your system,
since it affects the overall reverberance of the room, and in
particular absorbs sound at a key inflection point. The sound that
bounces off the floor between the speakers and your ears can play
havoc with the bass, especially. But it sounds like you've got that
covered, so to speak.


To absorb bass frequencies, you need something else than a carpet. U can
usually expect a porous absorber to start working at wavelengths higher than
10 times its thickness, so a carpet of 1" from 1350Hz on. Not exactly bass
frequencies anymore.

--
ciao Ban
Bordighera, Italy

Thank you all. The ideal place for my new setup is in a carpeted room
in my home. I'm glad to learn from you that this is good for the
sound.

Also, thanks to the Moderators of this newsgroup.

Darryl

On Wed, 26 May 2004 14:21:45 GMT, (Darryl) wrote:

I'm new to high end audio. This is a true neophyte question.

Does it matter if I place my system I am purchasing on carpet? I mean
on the rack but in a carpeted room.

Thank you,

Darryl