The Problem Room and the PMC Fenestria Update!

Hi Everyone,

Firstly I just wanted to say a quick thanks to everyone who came to our Fyne Audio open day on Saturday, way more people than I expected, really impressive turnout for a speaker brand that most people had never heard of 12 months ago so thanks again everyone, maybe we should offer free Whisky at every open day

So onto the point of this blog, I get asked quite a lot from customers who read the original blog explaining how important the room is to any HiFi install and how we recently encountered this head on when installing a pair of the excellent PMC Fenestria’s before Christmas if the issue had been resolved yet, and the good news is that yesterday we got the Fenestria’s singing as they should.

Basically there was no real reason why the speakers wouldn’t work in the room as it is a nice size room driven by a high end Naim system, it turns out that we think the issue, which was 2 very large bass lifts at 2 certain frequencies, is caused by the composition of the stud wall behind the speakers as the rest of the room is solid wall.

So active bass traps were tried at the back of the room a couple of weeks ago which helped a fair bit but not enough really, to use this option it was recommended that 4 traps should be used ideally, one in each corner, this wasn’t really feasible so it was back to the drawing board, I knew what the answer was but it was finding the right implementation.

For me DSP in HiFi is massively overlooked, the rest of the world seems to welcome it’s advantages but for whatever reason in the UK it is frowned upon, personally I think this is the future of hifi as it is just getting better and better, I was first introduced to a system I liked with Dirac in the Arcam Cinema Receivers and Processors, this was the first EQ system that I actually liked and actually prefered to not using any EQ, so it was a matter of finding a good enough solution to slot into a Naim system which has it’s own challenges.

Testing the Idea of putting the Trinnov between the Naim NAC 252 and NAP 300, worked a treat

Step forward Trinnov, this is something I have tried in here a few years ago and was impressed then but just couldn’t see if anyone would adopt it but in this situation it is the perfect solution other than the fact you are looking at just over £6000, saying that if you want to hear your system at its best then if you can eliminate the problems with the room it is money well spent, especially on a system at this price.

And this was the case here, after a quick few measurements it showed the 2 big bass lift issues which once the processing was complete it almost eliminated, it actually did such a good job we actually put a little bass back in but by controlling these issue it allowed the mid and treble to shine through as well as giving a much tighter central image with better separation, focus and soundstaging, in this scenario the difference was chalk and cheese and I should mention that the Trinnov was totally invisible, you still kept the Naim sound that the customer loves and the Fenestria’s sounded just like they do in our showrooms, so other than the extra cost in this system it really did let the system shine and the music come through with no negative side effects.

I should say though that DSP shouldn’t just be used when you have a issue, you may think your room is fine but I am quite confident once you have tried something like this in your system you would prefer it, hence why most of the recording studios use solutions like Trinnov as if you can eliminate the room to hear the music more accurately then it really is a no brainer.

Anyway I’ll get of my high horse but the main thing is that this install almost felt like a case study on what can go wrong when the room isn’t on your side, I was confident we’d find a solution but was relieved when we finally did so now we are happy as the customer can enjoy his upgrade and music again.

Cheers,

Paul.