ProAc D18 Floorstanders - Review

Come on man. Please reread all the postings. I have welcomed all CONSTRUCTIVE criticism and suggestions. Never have I said any of the suggestions are wrong. Most of them are very helpful with detail explanation. And there are no good or bad views. There is no law here, just guidelines.

Again, if you want to share your experience, do so in a proper manner and be focus on what you want share. Not talking about curtains, walls and designer's taste.

I rest my case.

Come on.. An RM3k speakers (with sub? used?) to compare with new D18.. what kind of statement is this. And you still looking for a used D18. Dude, your words are naive.

elhefe, your current setup may not optimize your speakers performance. So that is the fun part we are playing e.g. tweaks, placement, treatment, change of equipments, cables, etc etc. Have a great fun!

C'on Silli, I say in the same setup. You guys never read properly.
A 3K speaker tucked in the same place as the D18 wld probably sound better. That place is way too cramped man. D18 needs space. Those who do not have any experience with this speaker please do not make adverse comments.

Look back and read all my postings,

You too elhefe, side walls, curtains, front walls, symmetry, all affects the sound. My My, all that I am trying to teach you and you thought that I am telling you that yr curtains no beautiful enough???
And 15 years in Hifi, you still do not understand what I am talking about???
Anyway, enjoy yr new found love or whatever it is.
Salamat.

No need to mentionlah about what affects the sound. Even the ear wax in my ears can affect the sound.

Waaaahhh if you call your postings as teaching, pity your students lor.

Eh, whatever happen to 'I will keep quite' posting?

Dude, those who do not OWN D18 speakers do not make adverse comments.

hello elhefe, may i ask some question for reference. How far the distance from your speaker to your sofa? Do you feel any booming from setup after change bookshelf to floorstand? The imaging of Proac setup will better than epos bookshelf or not? My room is extreme bad if compare than you. My speaker & rear wall distance is only 1 feet.

kkthen wrote:hello elhefe, may i ask some question for reference. How far the distance from your speaker to your sofa? Do you feel any booming from setup after change bookshelf to floorstand? The imaging of Proac setup will better than epos bookshelf or not? My room is extreme bad if compare than you. My speaker & rear wall distance is only 1 feet.

Hi kkthen,

Currently the sofa is about 15 ft from the set up although will remeasure it again. On the booming effect, not at all. The low frequency from the ProAc is sufficient to my liking with no booming effect. Even with the EPOS, didnt have a problem with booming effect as the bass was quite subtle. However, I dont listen to really high volumes, maximum 10 o'clock on the volume knob. But hey, dont take my word on it as I am no expert here

As for imaging, hard to say whether its better or not from my EPOS. Still evaluating. Its definitely different from EPOS. first impression on the first day of demo, did not meet expectation. But as I grow listening to it for the past 3 days, it seems to be getting 'there' even without moving the speakers.

There is always a solution for every room to enjoy music. Even in kareoke lounge, very noisy also, people can enjoy

scllyt wrote:Dude, those who do not OWN D18 speakers do not make adverse comments.

I literally fell of my chair reading this

scllyt wrote:Come on.. An RM3k speakers (with sub? used?) to compare with new D18.. what kind of statement is this. And you still looking for a used D18. Dude, your words are naive.

elhefe, your current setup may not optimize your speakers performance. So that is the fun part we are playing e.g. tweaks, placement, treatment, change of equipments, cables, etc etc. Have a great fun!

I do agree mate. Thats the fun part of this hobby and passion. On the sideline, I would want to have a listen to my set up but with a newer amp. My XA1 and XA50s are 11 years old now. Still good. But I wonder how will it sound with a newer amp.

Congrats to you for the spkrs, my self using ProAc Tablette Reference 8 Sig. with REL Strata 5 subwoofer , limited space just 12' x 15' living room.

thanks for reply, 15 feet is very good distance. Your room is quite big. Please keep update of your system improvement. Your sharing will make this forum more fun.

elhefe wrote:
I do agree mate. Thats the fun part of this hobby and passion. On the sideline, I would want to have a listen to my set up but with a newer amp. My XA1 and XA50s are 11 years old now. Still good. But I wonder how will it sound with a newer amp.

''

elhefe,
Reading your threads, I gather that you are really enjoying your journey in getting better sound. It does not matter where you are right now on your journey, the most important part is having fun while you get there, since it is a hobby and not a job.
Imagine having to take a drive to a very nice resort on a beautiful day, which happens to have a very scenic, wonderfully smooth and well-cambered road. Some people choose to drive there with a Ferrari (or whatever is totally performance-oriented), wearing driving gloves, sunglasses, Puma racing shoes, warming-up the tyres for a time attack.
When they overtake you in your convertible (if there's only 1 or 2 of you), a nice MPV or better still, your Porsche Cayenne, with the family on board, they smirk at you. Hey man, we're probably having just as much fun as he is, if not more, just that he has a superiority complex.

Nothing is perfect....in fact we are far from perfect in so many ways. The key is not to create a perfect system, but to fully enjoy yourself in the journey of improving your system and experiencing the emotions that the music is meant to elicit in you. Great to have you share your excitement with us.

Mr Admin, I like whatever it is you're smoking ...

We are to perfecting 'own' HIFI system to make all the thousands worth! Then enjoy..

elhefe, check your mail. Hope this help.

elhefe ,

nice picts .... but as with all things "stereophonic", it is always best to have a room setup that is as symmetrical as possible. That way, even when u treat the room & play with speaker placements, etc etc, u get as balanced a sound field as possible. Its also easier to treat the room likewise, (ie, some traps or diffusors in the middle, or at the sides equally, etc etc.)

Understand that while this would be close to the ideal, most real world scenarios would not permit a fully "symmetrical" setup.
In this case, it always helps to be "creative" (Ikea stuff comes to mind) to try and create an almost sonically equal effect for left & right sides.

Ie, if one side wall is too close, good to treat it with some diffusors or mild absorption.

One of the worst possible scenario would be to have one speaker buried in a corner, and the other next to an empty space. Imaging, soundstaging, depth perception will all take a beating. And you'll get funny boom notes on certain bass freqs due to the corner loaded speaker. If u totally cannot avoid this scenario, then the corner area with the speaker should be best treated with stuff to diffuse and absorb as much sound as possible to try and make it as tonally balanced with the other speaker.

From your 3rd pict, i would guess that the right side would be much more bass heavy.. and also sound overall louder than the left speaker. It would be very hard to get the centre-imaging spot on.

In any case, having some simple tools like a SPL meter and some test CD with test tones would be quite helpful in evaluating if your homemade tweaks are helping or not.

But since u are moving to a new house or something, nows the time to ensure that u allocate a space that is as symmetrically possible for your system's new home. It will pay wonderful (sonic) dividends to come.

Once u get a "balanced" sound-field, then we can move on to tackling the other sonic ghosts lingering around. But these will be easier to tackle in time to come.

Happy tweaking and moving stuff around & listening.

BTW, it doesnt matter if speakers have rear firing ports or not . It's distance from the rear walls would have a very significant change in the sound perception and across the whole tonal spectrum.

Will not get into the physics of it for now, but everyone is free to experiment with further or closer wall to speaker distances and hear the sonic changes for yourselves.

Elhefe, one of these days I got to meet you in person and find out who you really are. From HCOC / HCOC forum eh ? heheheheheh.....

Actually I have given a little bit of thought about it and am wondering if it's going to be worthwhile for you to spend a lot of time tuning or tweaking the system at this point in time. You mentioned you will most probably be shifting in a couple of month's time right ? The best thing to do now is probably to just get to know the speaker well. As mugenfoo said, I too hope you have managed to allocate a nice room for the hifi in the new-old house !

Thanks all for the comments and tips. I decided to spend time listening to music tonight. I think i was in the room for 3 hrs until my 3 year old son came up and said, come and sleep lah. Hahahah.

Yes, i am renovating my house now and the room for music will be on ground floor and will be bare. Built in wardrobe will be torned down and the room will be empty to start with.

Thats what I have been trying to point out. Minimum tweaking now and just get use to the speakers. Even without touching anything, the sound is changing each day. As Mr Mod Hifi for Sale said, the speakers is slowly changing from kancil to iswara and now trying to be Honda hehehe. Light humour guys.

WongKN,

Yes was in hcoc between 2004 to 2005 only then moved to abu dhabi till 2007. Since then i shy away from hcoc as i passed my civic to my mum. Came back to malaysia but moved to miri. Only few months ago moved back to KL. Civic is still with mum though.

Yes a meet up would be good with all members. In fact I always welcome people to come and have a listen to my set up as well. I still consider my set up to be humble compared to some of the members set up but it works for me. I have been selling a lot of my old hifi recently to clear up space. So a lot people who came to listen to the items I am selling, end up being in my room listening to my set up. Hahahha. And some, once they see the drums and guitar, end up jamming.

Empty room is the most fun part to start setting it up for a hifi system.

mugenfoo wrote:Empty room is the most fun part to start setting it up for a hifi system.

Dont tempt me too much. Have to make sure mrs walk in wardrobe is done first

thats why .... let the mrs. decide totally whats to be done to the bedroom. with walk in closet, powder area, hotel-style bathroom with jacuzzi bathtub etc etc etc.

U just get yourself a "dedicated" hifi & music room, your own domain!
Then u can play/tweak/treat to your hearts content.

Most wifes are very supportive of this . Because it keeps their dear hubbies in the house more, and with the like-minded friends who are into the same hobbies. Instead of going berpoya-poya late at nights. hahahaha....

Thats the plan dude mugenfoo. I want to set up in an empty room first. Once the mrs requirements are met, then start my project lor.

Start with empty room. It's going to be painful but an extremely eye-opening and learning experience. Be ready to have to do some room treatment but generally a lot of experienced people do not like to overdo room treatment. The rule of thumb is 'minimal and only the necessary'. For e.g. I only have two sets of tube-traps in the corner. Simply because a music room can never be completely empty, so the LP rack, un-opened boxes of LPs, even a mattress in temporarily storage, all of them then became supplementary room treatment for me as well. So I can foresee a very interesting journey for you soon.

So you do agree with my suggestion then. Just sit back and listen to the new speakers for now. Get familiar with its sonic characteristic, learn its strengths, study its weaknesses (be realistic, any speaker will have weaknesses, even if you add one more zero to the price).

So in a couple of month's time when you shift to the new house, the real action starts. Let's hope by then forumers like Glassaudio would have cooled down enough and understood that this is the more sensible approach and he too would participate in the discussion. This after all, is what a forum is all about.

After recent "exhaustive" rounds of room treatment and spending a high fortune on room treatment stuff, i would have this to share:

1) Bass trapping is one of the most overlooked factors. One can never have too much bass trapping. The more effective the bass trapping, the more honest and realistic the speaker's bass reproduction will become. Better slam and dynamics as well. Contrary to popular (mis)conception.

2) Spatial diffusion. Especially good for typical mid-sized rooms, like 13x20 rooms. Use it to remove echo-slaps and other midrange & treble comb-filtering anomalies but without killing the overall room "ambiance".

3) Midrange to treble absorption. Use sparingly for first reflections points. Floor, side walls, ceiling, frontwall & backwall.


Some hard learned lessons over the years:

a) Commercial off-the-shelf so called "Helmholtz resonators" for 99.9% of the time, WILL NOT WORK in your room. HR's need to be custom built to really tackle a specific frequency only.

b) Big thick wads of foam WON'T DO Jack for modal Bass booms, nor will they cure Bass suckouts. But they will kill too much of the room ambience, midrange and treble energy. Foam panels would be very effective in small rooms with hard reflective walls. But in general, people tend to over-deaden such rooms. Use of Foam is often over-abused resulting in very dead-sounding rooms, but with nasty lingering bass irregularities.

c) Tube traps are effective & usually placed in corners. But these are rare and hard to come by locally. Although tube traps are a special case of a HR, their construction usually permits a slightly broader band of spectrum absorption to remove bass booms associated with corner loading. There was a local brand a few years back called "ATT", but they don't seem to be around anymore.

d) Broad-band bass panel absorbers (those that are semi-reflective and won't kill off the mids and highs) will do wonders in a room scenario. But theses are bulky, and some say very ugly. But sonically, they do the best job in improving the sound.

e) For diffusion, Some shops sell a local made copycat of the RPG SKyline diffusor. Made of expanded Styrofoam, there are very effective in spatial diffusion and removing echo-slap. They're not too expensive either. Comes in a box of 2 pieces. But these wont cure any bass boom problems.


In a nutshell, use the right treatment to address the right problems.

Good info Mugen !

Gonna use these for first reflection points :



First reflection points at the side wall & ceiling


These for bass trap :



Imagine 4 corners stacked together to the ceiling


Some more of these at the side walls :




Diffusers too !

Wah Guys, you all are truly gila about room treatment. Good sharing anyway.. I dont think I ever have the chance to do this. As mine setup is in the guest hall. Big no no for un-artistic "decor" like this.

joeling wrote:Good info Mugen !

Gonna use these for first reflection points :



First reflection points at the side wall & ceiling


These for bass trap :



Imagine 4 corners stacked together to the ceiling


Some more of these at the side walls :




Diffusers too !

These picts look super familiar...
Anyone using any of these in their setups ?

WongKN wrote:Start with empty room. It's going to be painful but an extremely eye-opening and learning experience. Be ready to have to do some room treatment but generally a lot of experienced people do not like to overdo room treatment. The rule of thumb is 'minimal and only the necessary'. For e.g. I only have two sets of tube-traps in the corner. Simply because a music room can never be completely empty, so the LP rack, un-opened boxes of LPs, even a mattress in temporarily storage, all of them then became supplementary room treatment for me as well. So I can foresee a very interesting journey for you soon.

So you do agree with my suggestion then. Just sit back and listen to the new speakers for now. Get familiar with its sonic characteristic, learn its strengths, study its weaknesses (be realistic, any speaker will have weaknesses, even if you add one more zero to the price).

So in a couple of month's time when you shift to the new house, the real action starts. Let's hope by then forumers like Glassaudio would have cooled down enough and understood that this is the more sensible approach and he too would participate in the discussion. This after all, is what a forum is all about.

Yes, of course need to do room treatment. To what extend? depends on how satisifed I am of the SQ after I re-set up my system in the new empty room. I know if its really empty, it may sound 'hollow'ish as no dampening at all. So stage by stage.

Of course Wong, thats my intention when I purchase the speakers. just listen in its originality and its bare nakedness. If I start tweak too much, I will never know how good the speakers can be. But I think in general, I know these are good speakers. Just a matter of getting used to it.

I had another 15 minutes of serenity before leaving for work this morning. French Kiss Soundtrack - La Mer by Kevin Kline and some other Frenchy tunes and oooppss I fell asleep hahaha.

Yes everyone can jump in again when I start up the room although now also I am already getting abundance of tips. Thanks.

Wah liau. I am sure there is a way to brighten up those diffusers etc. If not it will hurt eyes. Good for ears but bad for eyes

I went for the wheat colour. Goes with the decor I hope.

elhefe wrote:Wah liau. I am sure there is a way to brighten up those diffusers etc. If not it will hurt eyes. Good for ears but bad for eyes

Double

Hope someone can organize a mass order of the Real Trap. that would be so fun to get it fixed.

joeling wrote:I went for the wheat colour. Goes with the decor I hope.

elhefe wrote:Wah liau. I am sure there is a way to brighten up those diffusers etc. If not it will hurt eyes. Good for ears but bad for eyes

How many pieces did u buy and which types ?

Its now run in for about 120 hrs. Each day, I spent listening for about 20 minutes in the morning before leaving for work and 1 to 2 hrs at night before going to bed.

Each session gives a different feeling and experience on its own. I think it has a lot to do as well with the timing of listening and also my state of mind (before and after work). The sound is more relaxing before actually

The bass has definitely deepen and refined. This morning, was listening to Chris Cornell's 2nd album. His works with Timbaland produces some heavy bass drums and the ProAc can really deliver.

The double pedals on Metallica's One is also another example where each kick can really be heard.

As for vocals, it is sweet and and upfront. Putting on La Mer by Kevin Kline from French Kiss OST, i felt like going to France and have a baguette

Enjoying every minute of it.

mugenfoo wrote:

joeling wrote:I went for the wheat colour. Goes with the decor I hope.

elhefe wrote:Wah liau. I am sure there is a way to brighten up those diffusers etc. If not it will hurt eyes. Good for ears but bad for eyes

How many pieces did u buy and which types ?

Enough for the whole room. Costed an arm & a long. 3 months delivery. Still waiting....

The first point absorbers at first reflection points at the side walls & ceiling. The mega bass ones stacked to the ceilings at 4 corners. Diffusers at the rear walls. Bass traps sprinkled sparingly at other walls. Will give photos when the room done in a couple of months.

Good good. I'm thoroughly impressed by ProAc as u are. Hope u enjoy them for years to come.

elhefe wrote:Its now run in for about 120 hrs. Each day, I spent listening for about 20 minutes in the morning before leaving for work and 1 to 2 hrs at night before going to bed.

Each session gives a different feeling and experience on its own. I think it has a lot to do as well with the timing of listening and also my state of mind (before and after work). The sound is more relaxing before actually

The bass has definitely deepen and refined. This morning, was listening to Chris Cornell's 2nd album. His works with Timbaland produces some heavy bass drums and the ProAc can really deliver.

The double pedals on Metallica's One is also another example where each kick can really be heard.

As for vocals, it is sweet and and upfront. Putting on La Mer by Kevin Kline from French Kiss OST, i felt like going to France and have a baguette

Enjoying every minute of it.

While on the topic of room treatment, can anyone shed some light on stone walls like the one pictured here? The stone is aesthetically pleasing (to me) but what would it do to the sound if you were to put your speakers there? What would the random stone arrangement do? Basically is this good or bad for sound?



and how about this?

Joeling, How much do these cost and where can they be obtained?

OWA offers wall absorbers where you have the option of printed motifs of your choice.

bimmerman wrote:Joeling, How much do these cost and where can they be obtained?

These are real traps. U can get some idea of their prices on their site. Av designs is the local dealer. But I paid much more than the web advertised price for a peace of mind dealing with someone I can see & touch to ensure that my money did not get sucked into a black hole

bimmerman wrote:While on the topic of room treatment, can anyone shed some light on stone walls like the one pictured here? The stone is aesthetically pleasing (to me) but what would it do to the sound if you were to put your speakers there? What would the random stone arrangement do? Basically is this good or bad for sound?



and how about this?

The 1st wall shown is called Canyon Ledge from "Coronado Stone" from USA, but it has been widely copied locally. Using this stone for wall can helps in diffusing effects to sound but only to certain limited frequency range. Its random nature is good which avoid overlaid similar 'treated' frequencies.

The second wall is made of slates of different sizes laid randomly over one another. This is not possible in usual insitu laying method; it is usually laid horizontally like on false panel on floor until it is set before lifting the false wall against the wall. Comparatively, this wall has narrower frequeny range than the first.

However, in either case, they are only limited to mid-high to extreme high frequency range, those range that seldom excite the room node. Therefore, it depends on what you are expecting. May be I should also alert you that, eventhough both walls seems random, as a wall, the sound will still 'see' these two surfaces having uniform co-efficient with very small variance.

Jo Ki

Wow Jo, I am impressed! Not only do you know your Hifi, you know masonry just as well. Thank you for the info. Well, for me aesthetics matter almost as much as sound quality so I can't have an ugly room with good sound. I might go for the colorado stone and use some of the devices Joeling posted to do what the stone wall cannot.

So what you're saying is that the stone wall will help to diffuse the frequencies but with limited effect and only on the frequencies that don't matter that much? How about using wooden floor panelling instead of stone? What are the effects of that? Would wood be better than stone in the overall nett result?

I'm hoping to start a small renovation soon and i'm trying to gather as much data as I can. Once it's done it would be an honour if you would come for a listen.

Jo ki is absolutely right here ... at higher freqs, (hence short cm-length wavelengths) the sound would be easily scattered or diffused by the "non-uniform" wall finishing.

But at lower freqs where the wavelengths are in metre-lenghts, the sound will "see" the wall as one rather flat surface.

The Coronado brick or false-layer wall finishing vs. what Joeling posted are actually addressing two very different spectrums of the sound. Both would be needed in a top notch sounding room.

Basic wave equation.

V = F x L
V= speed of sound @ room temperature, approx 347mtr/sec at typical room temp.
F = FREQ, (Hertz)
L = Wavelength. (metres)

bimmerman wrote:Wow Jo, I am impressed! Not only do you know your Hifi, you know masonry just as well. Thank you for the info. Well, for me aesthetics matter almost as much as sound quality so I can't have an ugly room with good sound. I might go for the colorado stone and use some of the devices Joeling posted to do what the stone wall cannot.

So what you're saying is that the stone wall will help to diffuse the frequencies but with limited effect and only on the frequencies that don't matter that much? How about using wooden floor panelling instead of stone? What are the effects of that? Would wood be better than stone in the overall nett result?

I'm hoping to start a small renovation soon and i'm trying to gather as much data as I can. Once it's done it would be an honour if you would come for a listen.

Hi Bimmerman, I used Coronado Stone for my projects since 1994 and decided to stopped using them after some local copies emerged in the scene. See, I am architect by profession, so I ought to know this. I have manufacturers and suppliers names if you need any of these. Just PM me.

Wooden panelling is not adviseable unless they are done in such a way that is engineered to work in desireable manner acoustically. A straight timber boarding for floor and to be installed vertically as wall cladding has adversed effects on sound. UNLESS, the wooden panelling is a acoustic panels, which I also know couple of manufacturers; they looks good and would sounded good if you know how to use it. I can bet it will be a lot cheaper than imported Real Trap.

If you are thinking of doing up your sound room, do remember that the materials you so choose has bearing in 'modifying' the "base resonance character" of the room, like fibrous plasterglass ceiling with G.I. framing will augment mid-bass in deflection mode and its surface reflection would marred mid-height frequencies!

Regards, Jo Ki

bimmerman wrote:...(snipe)...

I'm hoping to start a small renovation soon and i'm trying to gather as much data as I can. Once it's done it would be an honour if you would come for a listen.

Oh yes, I forgot to accept your invitation in my earlier post; I would be most delighted and honoured to be given the opportunity to listen to your system. Please do let me know when the time is right.

Jo Ki

Okey..., so NOW you guys knows why so many people holds Jo Ki in such high respect.

Mugenfoo clarifies well why stonewall will not work on lower frequencies. The formula, V = F x L, explains it. However, is sound as simple as V = F x L? Base on my understanding, this is most basic. There are many more which is not commonly make known.

Before we dwelled too far from the topic (sorry elhele), I agree with those members (Wong KN, mugenfoo, moderator, etc.. even glass) especially those that uphold the importance of symmetry acoustics environment for stereo speaker system to conjured a stereo imagine & its attributes. Having said that, I can understand your standpoint as a musician who happen to be an audiophile also. So please do not take their comment bluntly but rather, as an alternative viewpoints which provide you understanding of pure music consumer standpoint which can be quite different from where you come from.

From the pictures you posted, it is obvious enough for me that you are a well endowed musician, this alone command enough respect from me.

Best, Jo Ki

WongKN wrote:Okey..., so NOW you guys knows why so many people holds Jo Ki in such high respect.

Aiya Wong KN, blush! I am learning from you as well as everyone here too.

jokiarch wrote: formula, V = F x L, explains it. However, is sound as simple as V = F x L? Base on my understanding, this is most basic. There are many more which is not commonly make known.

Before we dwelled too far from the topic (sorry elhele), I agree with those members (Wong KN, mugenfoo, moderator, etc.. even glass) especially those that uphold the imp

Here is where something like a Cray supercomputer would come in handy and perform some finite-element analysis heavy duty number crunching in order to best "predict" what to do and what not to do in an acoustic situation....


Thats the whole concept behind FEA as a matter of economics. Given certain criteria, and limited resources, then make a best "educated guess" in solving to a certain degree of approximation. Like the Chess vs. Tic-tac-toe analogy.




Then the rest, can fine-tune by ear to the pleasure of one's contend (or the fatness of one's bank account).

jokiarch wrote:

From the pictures you posted, it is obvious enough for me that you are a well endowed musician, this alone command enough respect from me.

Best, Jo Ki

Jo, For some reason, that sentence doesnt quite sound right.