XR290 Listening Impressions

What I liked about the 290 was it never changed its personality as the volume increased. Sure our hearing perception changes with increase in volume, but for some reason, the 290 isn't like a Corner Horn or an Altec Valencia, JBL Harkness or Paragon. Turn up the volume on an EV Patrician and you can just hear the harmonic distortion increase in Magnitudes. Todays top of the line speakers don't change as drastically as they used to in the past with increase in volume. Whats amazing is 290's were doing this almost 30 years ago. Some folks say B&W and Wilson speakers were doing this, too, years ago. But that isn't the way I remember B&W 801's or wilson speakers. Now a B&W 808 was great at moderate levels and louder levels but it, too was weak kneed and lost almost all perspective near maximum output which was supposed to be 120 db at 1 meter. Another big disappoint me for me 30 years ago was Tannoy.

Happy to say the 290s are still doing that. Put in some Room Perfect and remove the room modes. Believe me Twiiii they are better than you remember. They are a bit more holographic sounding in Global Mode immersing you in sound. Focus mode is totally live performance imaging and I keep gravitating back to that Selection.
 
You know I'm looking for a MX-150/151 It will give me the choice to have room perfect a t a very reasonable price. I do need 1 more input than my MX 119 or 120 will provide. and I will be able to switch all my video with one unit instead of having to change inputs on the display in addition. So for convenience and to get room perfect I will take the economical route. If I am happy as you then I can retire MY Crown EQ 2's. Then all I will need is a 4 in 12 out electronic crossover.
 
I was considering the MX-150 or 151 but picked up Lyngdorf used. i saw on for sale on UK craigslist for 2K pounds back in January. Maybe after I get my recent purchase down and sell some of my unused equipment.

I saw Lyngdorf now has their ow HT processor the MP-50 that does all the MX-160 does for 6K less.
 
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As I have said else where I imagine when you pay the full price for a 151 or 160 people expect it to be installed, connected, and calibrated for free. And from what I gather Mcintosh price is negotiable now days. Back when I was in the business, the price was the price, unless the unit was discontinued and there was a replacement. Folks got some real deals when C-32,s came along on 29's and 30's. but of course they didn't get the 5 year warranties either. If I had a time machine and could go back and buy 100 MC 275's and 1000 MC 3500's; I wonder how much money I could make bring them back to sell today? Of course I would have to sell them quietly so as not to deflate the demand. I'd also like to bring back a bunch of 290's and maybe talk Roger into developing a model to go between the 290 and 250.
 
As I have said else where I imagine when you pay the full price for a 151 or 160 people expect it to be installed, connected, and calibrated for free. And from what I gather Mcintosh price is negotiable now days. Back when I was in the business, the price was the price, unless the unit was discontinued and there was a replacement. Folks got some real deals when C-32,s came along on 29's and 30's. but of course they didn't get the 5 year warranties either. If I had a time machine and could go back and buy 100 MC 275's and 1000 MC 3500's; I wonder how much money I could make bring them back to sell today? Of course I would have to sell them quietly so as not to deflate the demand. I'd also like to bring back a bunch of 290's and maybe talk Roger into developing a model to go between the 290 and 250.

You are correct.
Most people that have dollars to buy a Lyngdorf MP-50 or MX-160 with 16 channels of Room Perfect HT correction probably do not expect it set up for the 10k or 16k processor price. They will happily pay an installer nowadays. Relatively few peoplewould install atmos outside of a custom built theater

Was not the XRT22 between the XR290 and XR250?

Few people want and appreciate huge speakers and huge amps due to wife acceptance factor and room limitations. Thus it is a good thing for the remainder of us to pick up the equipment pennies on the dollar and be happy they can't. You can't miss what you have not experienced. Once you do however there are those of us that make it happen, mainly by picking up the cast offs of the elite who could afford the best at its rollout.
 
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The XRT 22 was an updated production change to the XRT 20 in 86. . The XRT 18 was developed in 84 7 years before the 250 and 2 years before the 22. The 22 was discontinued 92, the 250 starting in 91, the 290 in in 92, the 250 was discontinued in 93 , the 290 in 99. So it should be 20, 18, 22, 250, 290, 24 26, 28, 30.
 
I have never heard XR250. I bet they were Roger's best point source. I do think his other line arrays I would slip in higher over the point source in Damacman's equivalency chart. The best thing about the hobby it creates moments and there are many combinations that can be perfect for a moment. A song or a room. The line arrays can bring crowd source music handily so everyone feels they are in a sweet spot.
 
The XRT 22 was an updated production change to the XRT 20 in 86. . The XRT 18 was developed in 84 7 years before the 250 and 2 years before the 22. The 22 was discontinued 92, the 250 starting in 91, the 290 in in 92, the 250 was discontinued in 93 , the 290 in 99. So it should be 20, 18, 22, 250, 290, 24 26, 28, 30.
The 19 came after 20 and the 18?
 
So what does room perfect really do?

Well I finally moved the XR290s into an optimal position for room and used a calibrated microphone with a blue icicle hook up to the ipad to evaluate how the XR290s perform in the room. Room is 16 by 19.feet with speakers on long wall, Tweeter arrays are 10 feet apart. The speakers are all the way to the back wall with tweeter array angled 1 and a half inch closer to listener. I am going to post three screenshots first showing combined signal left and right channels, The mike was on a stand in the sweet spot. I fed in pink noise and took combined L and R signals. I may play with separate channel comparisons. Preamp was Lyngdorf TDAI2200 with room perfect, Amps MC1000s volume at 84 dB on lyngdorf. The Room Knowledge 99 percent. Room correction 28 percent. The first graph is without Room Perfect in Bypass. Second is Neutral focus 1 position. The last is Neutral Global mode. The best sound in sweetspot is focus 1. Next is Globlal with best overall around the room. Note the yellow lines above histogram bars are frequency peaks at 1/6 octave.

I am interested in any feedback from the experts and or the opinionated on what you might Tweak if anything?

RoomPerfect in Bypass 1/6 Octave

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RoomPerfect Neutral Focus 1 1/6 Octave
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RoomPerfect Globlal 1/6 Octave

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RoomPerfect Full Octave Bypass

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RoomPerfect Full Octave Focus 1 NeutralIMG_0041.PNG

RoomPerfect Full Octave Global
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How does it sound?
Like you are at the concert or in the recording studio. We had a dinner party Saturday and it totally flabbergasted the guests with the Eagles 1977 DC concert blu ray DVD. Guests had there hands up shouting with the crowd like they were there.

What blew me away tonight is I sat in a swivel recliner far right end of room Right ear facing the Right speaker 13 feet away. i got near perfect stereo separation in the left ear left speaker 23 feet away. I swear vocals from left speaker backup speaker sounded like they are behind me whispering in my ear. How do these line arrays pull that off? XR19 surround speakers were off.
 
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Postulatng the above I went back and reread Roger Russell's site. The mususic playing was my daughter,s new age selection. Roger talks of they waythey record and loss of directionality and how you can get immersed due to recording styles and line arrays.

I also foud this bit on CD players and digital to analog coverters. My DAC uses separate Left and right DAC chips. It is suprising what you can get in terms of dead on imaging with one recording and separation but voice throwing with the line arrays and wall reflections at a distance when you mix the too. It was Pandora Premium streamed at 24 bit 192 KHz.

http://www.roger-russell.com/truth/truth.htm#cd


His listening and hearing page was also a good read. You can tell why hevoiced XR290 like he did in the curves above in my RTA posts and why Lyngdorf uses their Room Perfect smoothing in Focus ad Globlal modes.
http://www.roger-russell.com/hearing/hearing.htm
 
The Raw curve is basically very good for a speaker in a room. The Room Perfect curves, though better still aren't up to professional standards. I'd be pulling my hair with that boost at 40 hz. With a Stereo 4 0r 5 band Klarke Techniq or two mono UREI, parametric Eq, you really could get a much better curve. Like I say I'm flat with in a 3db envelope between 25 and 4000 hz. I maintain a little wider envelop with a 3 db centered down slop to 10,000. Then I roll off another 3 or 4 db to 18 KHZ. Current systems are controlled with digital processors to with in 1 db. Personally I don't like automated systems. Preferring to choose the curve to meet the room and the loudspeaker system selected. With some speakers like Bozaks that tend to be a little warm, you want a flat woofer response. While with speakers like the ML and XR series, 1 or 2 db boost might be more to my liking. The current woofers using ports, I would have to experiment. Basically the 290's are dry and I would prefer that 2 db boost to be below 70 hz. Altecs and Horn loaded JBL and Klipsch Heritage speakers like my Bozaks need to e kept almost perfectly flat below 250 hz. Because of using horns I would put a 2 db dip in the range they cover and then start the 2.5 to 5 Khz roll off depending on your listening choices.

The one thing we haven't talked about is the room. The environment your speakers are located in. How much of the sound you are hearing initially is the first wave front arrival and how much is the reverberation of the room. Line arrays, especially the 290, should present a very accurate first wave to just above the mid/woofer crossover frequency. And the frequencies below are so influenced by the room taking your measurements at the sweet spot are OK. But the ear is really influenced by early arrivals as frequency rises so as to be able to discern directionality, or where the source comes from. So I check the out put of the speaker at 4ft, too. Just making sure the early sound from the speaker is correct, too. If it is not I tend to message the response to get an average of the two. And this is what Room perfect does in a more sophisticated way, But I want to be in control of the averaging. A db or two in the 250 to 5000 hz spectrum can really change the over all sound of a recording. Though I am not a trained professional musician I can appreciate what they listen for and most of the time its different from what the rest of us do. They want that first wave to be very accurate and they can listen through the sound of the reflections. I am easily influenced, and is why I don't like point source speakers. I want horns and prefer line arrays. That said you can have to much of a good thing. Big highly directional horns, from EV, Altec, or JBL aren't my thing either.

The advantage of having a really controlled frequency speaker response is it not only to control the accuracy of the spectral response but with speaker designs that were made with great care the corrections also reduce the timing errors. Which is something Room perfect is suppose to do, too. and is very important, in fact, fundamental in getting an accurate mental picture of the performance.

That said, As Don Davis , Altec and Syn-Aud-Con, use to say if you can't get the timing issues right its better for the listening experience to be way off with your driver Alignment. Thats why people have accepted Klipsch Heritage speakers. The fact their drivers are not coherent has the same effect as room properties reflections being different at different frequency bands. And remember like Bose, Paul was trying to produce an illusion of a real performance. Not the accuracy of the illusion the recording engineer and producer heard in the studio.

Remember folks this is all smoke and mirrors, so don't think the image we try to create in our homes is to be Gospel. Its not, we are trying to accurately reproduce an illusion.

Of course there are exceptions. Folks who make Stereo recordings with a single stereo mic located to capture the performers first with a hint of room thrown in can be just down right scary when reproduced with line array speakers in a soft room. No illusion there folks. I have made any number of those recordings. Norad band, US Navy Band, Barbershop finals, and my favorite Steam engine recordings. Pipe organ, Dixie land Band, Brass and string quartets and Quintets, Pianos and harps were on the list, too. UP 8444, SP 4449 flying buy at 75 mph at 110 db is a real thrill. And there is absolutely no way of producing the roar of 8444 as she glides by a crossing a 10 mph try ing to accelerate under full throttle while you stand at almost arms reach. There just aren't that many woofers in one room to shake the earth/your room and body. My favorite engines are 611 and 1218 of the N&W. So smooth, perfect mechanical machines with out a stray sound out of place. No clinks, Clanks, bangs, knocks to distract from that wonder full sound of a big steam boiler producing that raw energy to be applied to cylinders driving pistons connected to rods turning massive 80" discs of steel to propel almost a million pounds of machine down the rails. When I play those sounds on my system and it brings back those memories, what more could you ask a system to do?
 
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You can see the room at 40,80, and 160 as well as at 30,60 and 120. Could do the math but no ceiling height is provided.

Since you have posted the combined L &R response you can not see if there is any differences, lack of symmetry between L&R.

When I would do room analysis back in the stone age the process really matured from smoothing the response, of balancing the bass and treble, into dialing in the L and R curves to minimize the differences between them.

After my discussions with Gow, Coderman and RR about a client's sensitivity to a 1 dB difference between channels at a critical voice frequency, we began to concentrate more on minimizing channel differences as well as frequency curves.

What is a "stereo" image? As Twii has stated most recordings are contrived illusions not reconstructed live events. There are those special recordings though.

Twii you have some "Power and Majestry" leaking out, makes me remember those early recordings. Can't remember if those were early MOFIs or American Gramaphone?
 
You can see the room at 40,80, and 160 as well as at 30,60 and 120. Could do the math but no ceiling height is provided.

Since you have posted the combined L &R response you can not see if there is any differences, lack of symmetry between L&R.

When I would do room analysis back in the stone age the process really matured from smoothing the response, of balancing the bass and treble, into dialing in the L and R curves to minimize the differences between them.

After my discussions with Gow, Coderman and RR about a client's sensitivity to a 1 dB difference between channels at a critical voice frequency, we began to concentrate more on minimizing channel differences as well as frequency curves.

What is a "stereo" image? As Twii has stated most recordings are contrived illusions not reconstructed live events. There are those special recordings though.

Twii you have some "Power and Majestry" leaking out, makes me remember those early recordings. Can't remember if those were early MOFIs or American Gramaphone?

The room ceiling is coffered. 8 feet at a 3 feet out framing from the walls. The ceilin inner Rectangle is 10 feet high at the inner rectangle.

How do you calculate Room excitation frequencies for that type ceiling?

The RTA iPad software allows separate R and L plots. Iwill grsb some more snd do an iPad mike vs the Lyngdorf mike. i do not have cal files for the Lyngdorf mIke though software has that ability. So I am assuming it is relatively flat.
 
The Raw curve is basically very good for a speaker in a room. The Room Perfect curves, though better still aren't up to professional standards. I'd be pulling my hair with that boost at 40 hz. With a Stereo 4 0r 5 band Klarke Techniq or two mono UREI, parametric Eq, you really could get a much better curve. Like I say I'm flat with in a 3db envelope between 25 and 4000 hz. I maintain a little wider envelop with a 3 db centered down slop to 10,000. Then I roll off another 3 or 4 db to 18 KHZ. Current systems are controlled with digital processors to with in 1 db. Personally I don't like automated systems. Preferring to choose the curve to meet the room and the loudspeaker system selected. With some speakers like Bozaks that tend to be a little warm, you want a flat woofer response. While with speakers like the ML and XR series, 1 or 2 db boost might be more to my liking. The current woofers using ports, I would have to experiment. Basically the 290's are dry and I would prefer that 2 db boost to be below 70 hz. Altecs and Horn loaded JBL and Klipsch Heritage speakers like my Bozaks need to e kept almost perfectly flat below 250 hz. Because of using horns I would put a 2 db dip in the range they cover and then start the 2.5 to 5 Khz roll off depending on your listening choices.

The one thing we haven't talked about is the room. The environment your speakers are located in. How much of the sound you are hearing initially is the first wave front arrival and how much is the reverberation of the room. Line arrays, especially the 290, should present a very accurate first wave to just above the mid/woofer crossover frequency. And the frequencies below are so influenced by the room taking your measurements at the sweet spot are OK. But the ear is really influenced by early arrivals as frequency rises so as to be able to discern directionality, or where the source comes from. So I check the out put of the speaker at 4ft, too. Just making sure the early sound from the speaker is correct, too. If it is not I tend to message the response to get an average of the two. And this is what Room perfect does in a more sophisticated way, But I want to be in control of the averaging. A db or two in the 250 to 5000 hz spectrum can really change the over all sound of a recording. Though I am not a trained professional musician I can appreciate what they listen for and most of the time its different from what the rest of us do. They want that first wave to be very accurate and they can listen through the sound of the reflections. I am easily influenced, and is why I don't like point source speakers. I want horns and prefer line arrays. That said you can have to much of a good thing. Big highly directional horns, from EV, Altec, or JBL aren't my thing either.

The advantage of having a really controlled frequency speaker response is it not only to control the accuracy of the spectral response but with speaker designs that were made with great care the corrections also reduce the timing errors. Which is something Room perfect is suppose to do, too. and is very important, in fact, fundamental in getting an accurate mental picture of the performance.

That said, As Don Davis , Altec and Syn-Aud-Con, use to say if you can't get the timing issues right its better for the listening experience to be way off with your driver Alignment. Thats why people have accepted Klipsch Heritage speakers. The fact their drivers are not coherent has the same effect as room properties reflections being different at different frequency bands. And remember like Bose, Paul was trying to produce an illusion of a real performance. Not the accuracy of the illusion the recording engineer and producer heard in the studio.

Remember folks this is all smoke and mirrors, so don't think the image we try to create in our homes is to be Gospel. Its not, we are trying to accurately reproduce an illusion.

Of course there are exceptions. Folks who make Stereo recordings with a single stereo mic located to capture the performers first with a hint of room thrown in can be just down right scary when reproduced with line array speakers in a soft room. No illusion there folks. I have made any number of those recordings. Norad band, US Navy Band, Barbershop finals, and my favorite Steam engine recordings. Pipe organ, Dixie land Band, Brass and string quartets and Quintets, Pianos and harps were on the list, too. UP 8444, SP 4449 flying buy at 75 mph at 110 db is a real thrill. And there is absolutely no way of producing the roar of 8444 as she glides by a crossing a 10 mph try ing to accelerate under full throttle while you stand at almost arms reach. There just aren't that many woofers in one room to shake the earth/your room and body. My favorite engines are 611 and 1218 of the N&W. So smooth, perfect mechanical machines with out a stray sound out of place. No clinks, Clanks, bangs, knocks to distract from that wonder full sound of a big steam boiler producing that raw energy to be applied to cylinders driving pistons connected to rods turning massive 80" discs of steel to propel almost a million pounds of machine down the rails. When I play those sounds on my system and it brings back those memories, what more could you ask a system to do?

Which curve should I strive for with XR290.

I have an unused MQ107 and MQ102. Would you suggest tackling the 40 Hz spike and boosting the 20 and the other room notches?

As for Reverb. It is very warm in bypass and some backup vocals covered up. There is listening through reflections.

In Focus one neutral RP it is not detectable to my ears any reflections. All vocals and instruments jump out.

In Global mode just a small hint of reflections at lower frequencies and very slight warm sound.
 
Is the room symmetrical in the speakers placement. Windows the same on either side or other objects that act as bandpass devices because of the nature.

Negotiating soft fabric wall hangings instead of glass protected art was also a interesting challenge to fix reflections and such after room analysis would show off such issues. Applying EQ was the last dialing procedure after passive and placement approaches were exhausted.

Lets see, log20 equations for dBVoltage conversion, degrees to radian trig to measure arc radius for a worn stylus, and now 3d wave analysis for a tray ceiling, I think not. My math gymnastics are 40 years gentrified. Although I did do a 3d wave expansion analysis for a EV horn loaded speaker array for a sanctuary system to show my boss why we needed to purchase the EASE auditorium acoustics analysis program. But that was 25 years ago.
 
IMG_0149.JPG
Is the room symmetrical in the speakers placement. Windows the same on either side or other objects that act as bandpass devices because of the nature.

Negotiating soft fabric wall hangings instead of glass protected art was also a interesting challenge to fix reflections and such after room analysis would show off such issues. Applying EQ was the last dialing procedure after passive and placement approaches were exhausted.

Lets see, log20 equations for dBVoltage conversion, degrees to radian trig to measure arc radius for a worn stylus, and now 3d wave analysis for a tray ceiling, I think not. My math gymnastics are 40 years gentrified. Although I did do a 3d wave expansion analysis for a EV horn loaded speaker array for a sanctuary system to show my boss why we needed to purchase the EASE auditorium acoustics analysis program. But that was 25 years ago.
Not symmetrical. Man Cave, Cave Man Sketch attached.

There is also a swivel recliner in right rear corner next to fireplace forward of XR19.
Stereo separation is good over there in global mode. Bypass sound is good too.
 
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Guys, you do realize that this knowledge isn't being passed down among professionals. It's press a button and go. Before long, it will be but a distant memory.
 
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