Loud Music Sounds Harsh

Dan2036

Mostly Mp3's that get really harsh

nguyendot

The fact that it's getting harsh is a good indicator.

zombie boy 2000

I have your set-up (a pair of Monitor 60's and a HK 3390) in my bedroom. I listen to music fairly loud at times and I can tell you with utmost certainity that -10 is WAY TOO LOUD. Regardless of source, it's probably going to sound a bit harsh.

tderks

Add up the total load of your system. Make sure you consider the Ohm load on your receiver or amps, this greatly changes the power requirements. Most houses use 15 amp circuits using 16 GA wire, that’s 1800 watts or 1800VA volts x amps. If you’re getting up to that or above your circuit rating, it’s a sure bet your dropping voltage and starving your amps. Furthermore line conditioners also reduce the amount of power available.

concealer404

ShinAce wrote: »

+1

Why didn't you just say that to begin with, instead of laying all the blame on mp3s?

Seriously, turn it down before you blow the tweeters and try a few different recordings to see for yourself if it's the music or the speakers.

Well, it's both, really....

Dan2036

So having it hooked up to a power strip is bad ?

tderks

It could be, give a list of equipment what is the draw on the outlet.

tderks

If the sound changes and from loud to really loud, you are probably driving something to hard. If you starve an amp for power it clips early due to the voltage drop. Distortion and amp clipping will kill the best speaker faster than over current. I run 450 watts per channel on my fronts and they sound the same no matter what listening level. The MP3 as stated in this thread early, garbage in garbage out. The power strip well, I don’t know what it is, the rating or the wire size is to the outlet. I would suggest a good power conditioner from Furman, Panamax, or PS Audio. To give you a clue, for my hungry amps I ran a separate 30 amp AC circuit from my breaker panel and the use the normal 15 amp outlet all on the same AC Leg (same phase), with three 15 amp conditioners.

T

Dan2036

What is exactly does a power conditioner do ? Make sure the receiver gets the power it need ?

F1nut

Bottom line, you are asking way too much from an 80wpc AVR or stereo receiver. MP3's aren't helping matters, but you need to realize the limits of your gear and either resign yourself to the fact that you can't turn it up as loud as you would like or that you need to get a nice power amp.

Here's a tip.....audio isn't about how loud you can get it, it's about how good you can make it sound.

Most houses use 15 amp circuits using 16 GA wire, that’s 1800 watts or 1800VA volts x amps. If you’re getting up to that or above your circuit rating, it’s a sure bet your dropping voltage and starving your amps.

With the gear he's running, he's not even close to the limits of a 15 amp supply.

Dan2036

Ya i was just testing the power increase from the HT receiver to the stereo one, i don't usually listen that loud and do prefer accuracy to volume, do i need a power conditioner though am i most likely clipping ? how can i tell ?

halo71

My recent experience....I noticed that my speakers were sounding a little 'harsh' last month. First thought was the wifey had been "blasting" them and the mids or tweets were f'd up. Well after hooking up another pair of speakers, they sounded the same. Long story short it was my old AVR. After hooking up another AVR from my guitar room in the den. The harshness disappeared.

concealer404

Dan2036 wrote: »

Ya i was just testing the power increase from the HT receiver to the stereo one, i don't usually listen that loud and do prefer accuracy to volume, do i need a power conditioner though am i most likely clipping ? how can i tell ?

Power conditioner isn't going to keep you from clipping. You need more clean power. Better amplification first.

Hawkeye

Let's see what your doing here:

Small room at high SPL levels: Overloading the room
Sounds like hash at high SPL: clipping your AVR
Using MP3: Useless
Power Conditioning: No need at this point

Corrective action:

Amplification. Your AVR is not going to push any speaker to ear bleeding levels without clipping or massive distortion. Keep pushing it and you'll fry your speaks. You need amplification.

Speakers. If your going for massive dorm room/club sound, look into club speakers ala JBL.

Your source could use some improvement. An I-Pod is not the highest level of reproduction available.

Your not ready for power conditioning yet. You can spend the dollars in more productive ways.

Quality sound is not how many ears you can make bleed. If that's what your after, your probably in the wrong place.

Gordon

Dan2036

Even at reasonable levels you think that the HK's 3390's 80wpc is not enough ? I don't usually blast, i was just worried if that meant something was wrong with my set up, now i realize it's me putting the volume up to high. honestly the most important thing to me is clear full range audio not volume

cnh

As said above MP3 suck!

But your CDP is also a very IMPORTANT factor...most cheaper CD players sound like A$$...especially when the volume goes up. Good quality DACs, jitter control circuits, noise reduction--and so on are asbolutely necessary in order to eliminate high end CD harshness (quantizatation errors). It is also possilble that some CDs themselves suck..

Many recent CDs are being recorded by compressing the sound range and boosting their LOUDNESS so that they sound BIG and BAD in a tricked out car with 5000watts of sub power! But when you play them on a good system the recording problems become OBVIOUS.

I'd recommend getting a new CDP as well? By a good used piece.

cnh

Dan2036

So in everyone's opinion what would be the best things i could do to improve audio quality ?

Dan2036

is a ps3 a good CDP ?

cnh

PS3 is OK but not great...a simple fix is to buy an external DAC box and hook up the PS3 optical to it...this allows the better DACs in the box to decode the bitstream and reduce noise and jitter....and the PS3 serves merely as a CD transpost device...you would connect the DAC box via L/R analog cables to your AVR....

There are a lot of DACs available...I think someone on this site was selling a cambridge audio DAC, Musical/Fidelity also sells some reasonably priced DACs...but remember you can spend upwards of 2000 dollars on DACs so we don't want to get too crazy here.

Another option is to find a good used player like a Sony ES series or a Denon DVD 3910 Universal player, etc. either will give you better sound than you have now.

cnh

Dan2036

First i need to buy some CD's ... and probably get a better sub because the psw10 is probably not a very musical sub

Hawkeye

Dan2036, what exactly are you looking for? Are you looking for a high SPL or an accurate presentation of music? It does make a difference.

Gordon

Dan2036

Gordon, Accurate presentation of music is by far more important to me

Fongolio

Very few AVR's can give really great sound at anything approaching high volume. If you want really great sound for music listening seperates or a really good integrated and a decent source is the way to go. My .02

Dan2036

So the HK 3390 isn't considered a really good integrated receiver ? By AVR do you mean the 5.1 or the Stereo one ?

tonyb

Dan2036 wrote: »

So the HK 3390 isn't considered a really good integrated receiver ? By AVR do you mean the 5.1 or the Stereo one ?

I think your missing the point. It's not that either receiver is bad, just that your asking more than it's capable of. Coupled with the crappy mp3 stuff your shoveling down it's throat, no way in hell you'll come close to good sound.

cnh

I hate to speak for someone else but I do think he means surround Receivers.
However a H/K 3390 is also a Stereo receiver and NOT an integrated amp or power amp and that is what Fongolio is talking about above.

However I, myself, find it 'very' difficult to believe that your 3390 would sound 'harsh' even at reasonably high volumes. I really do think it is your source.

H/Ks are 'warm' sounding and M60s are more laid back than let's say Rtis.

Are you using the M60s with the 3390 also?

That's NOT a harsh combo!

cnh

concealer404

cnh wrote: »

I hate to speak for someone else but I do think he means surround Receivers.
However a H/K 3390 is also a Stereo receiver and NOT an integrated amp or power amp and that is what Fongolio is talking about above.

However I, myself, find it 'very' difficult to believe that your 3390 would sound 'harsh' even at reasonably high volumes. I really do think it is your source.

H/Ks are 'warm' sounding and M60s are more laid back than let's say Rtis.

Are you using the M60s with the 3390 also?

That's NOT a harsh combo!

cnh

He's talking about hearing loss after listening. I wouldnt call that a reasonably high volume.

zombie boy 2000

cnh wrote: »

I hate to speak for someone else but I do think he means surround Receivers.
However a H/K 3390 is also a Stereo receiver and NOT an integrated amp or power amp and that is what Fongolio is talking about above.

However I, myself, find it 'very' difficult to believe that your 3390 would sound 'harsh' even at reasonably high volumes. I really do think it is your source.

H/Ks are 'warm' sounding and M60s are more laid back than let's say Rtis.

Are you using the M60s with the 3390 also?

That's NOT a harsh combo!

cnh

Agreed. Like I mentioned previously, I have the exact same combo in my bedroom. -10 on the HK would be punishing on anybody's ears with this set-up unless you're running it in a cathedral (which the monitor 60's were obviously not meant to be used in).

Fongolio

cnh wrote: »

I hate to speak for someone else but I do think he means surround Receivers.
However a H/K 3390 is also a Stereo receiver and NOT an integrated amp or power amp and that is what Fongolio is talking about above.
cnh

Precisely. Thank you.

steveinaz

4 factors:

-mp3; its tough enough to get smooth treble out of full resolution CD's, much less mp3
-monitors will compress at high volumes; if you want LARGE scale (spl), you need LARGE speakers
-possible clipping of the amp section
-poorly engineered recording(s)