Acoustic treatment? Have you tried sitting on the floor?

You may find that it's not so much that you've sat on the floor, but more to do with the fact that you've moved yourself away from the rear wall where the bass will be collecting. Avoiding close proximity to the rear wall tends to reveal much more detail and far less boom.

But then leaning forward in my imagined audiophile chin on fist position would have had the same effect would it not?  I have previously leant forward on the sofa, giving myself the same distance away from the back wall just with wall behind my head and not sofa.  Who knows though, I'm just guessing whats going on, quite enamored with it though whatever it is

Reality is the acoustics are different in each different part of the room. I got some flack on another thread recently for saying a move of a few milimetres can be different, and sometimes it can be a big difference. Here, you are lower, further from the rear wall, nearer the speakers and have absorbent material behind you. 

First thing to do is sit on the sofa with a big cushion behind your head and see what happens 

Hi Paul

I would have said much the same as David.  Years ago I used to set up hifi systems (I was a Saturday boy for 10 years!) and being close to the rear wall was almost always fatal, especially if it wasn't very absorbing.  Oddly the shop's demo room was so tiny we sat near the rear wall, but it was a sort of fibreboard partition, covered in a flock wallpaper, and with some sloping too, so was not too reflective.

'Head on hands' mode for you might go some way towards correcting, but sitting on the floor you are getting a very different perspective, and damping the floor with your backside!  It certainly reassures me about what I often ponder on this forum, that many of the 'faults' reported are set-up issues.

Glad you've saved a few bob, anyway!

With my listening room being so small iv had no choice but to sit up close to the rear wall.

As mentioned above this will be fatal unless properly treated hence the need for bass trapping.

Were my room big enough for distance between my sofa and the rear wall then diffusion could also be employed but in a small room situation heavy trapping/absorption is whats needed and there can never be to much of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o_2tsffkkY&feature=plcp

Treatment has become a bit of an obsession with me and iv come to appreciate just how incredibly important it is in order to hear a systems true capability.

Unfortunately many systems share a living space     ( though treatment need not be ugly) so unless you've a dedicated listening room you're stuffed, preferably with rock wool:rofl:

Hi Paul, I know what you mean with regard to hi-fi and listener positioning. I think acoustical treatments do quite a lot especially when the listening position is far from ideal. I used to sit around 5 feet from the speakers with my chair which was less than the distance between the speakers. I now sit in my bed, I get better focus although I'm getting some reflections from the back wall which I'm sitting close to. I think a bass trap might improve matter and I am looking at some at the moment.

Interestingly, when I had stand mounters I used to sit on the floor too as the speakers were at ear level, I think its hugely important to sit at that height....I just don't understand speakers which have their tweeter below their midgrange/bass driver.

Also I wanted to ask you Paul, what do you feel are the difference between Airplay and a direct connection?

Good acoustic treatment will make a lot of differences on the SQ in partuicular when a room is small.  Unfortunately a lot of people just do not accept the idea but prefer spending a lot of money to improve their hardwares  (CDP, amps. speakers and interconnects etc).  In my small living room I have also put in some acoustic tiles and bass traps (see the little photo on the left) but what is shown in the youtube IMHO is a bit over killed.  After making treatments it is also important to take measurements and check the various acosutics responses such as SPL, FR and waterfall diagrams etc.

Not at all sure what you mean by overkill . A small room can not have too many bass traps.

If you're thinking perhaps that the room is dead then you couldn't be more wrong . It sounds exceptional and in the flesh looks pretty plush. Even the hoover sounds good.

Its a listening room and its sole purpose is for listening in. Hand on chin. It has been put together slowly and carefuly, trap by trap over the past year using all the data available and under the guidance of Blue Frog Audio

Room's looking great Andy, nice one 

I wrote this in the now defunct Houndcat thread...

I need a new router as well to stop Airplay dropouts, but its such a boring thing to drop £100 on!  I built a crude parabolic reflector from card and tinfoil which gave me a near 20% signal increase in my living room.  This seems to have prevented dropouts from my laptop but not from my iPhone.  I'm pretty certain the Thunderbolt/HDMI connection gives me a cleaner sound.  Don't know why this is, I don't believe that resampling the data should affect the curve significantly.  Maybe its just the significantly shorter/simpler signal path?

Cup your hands behind your ears and see how much the sound changes...

Oh, my, God 

OK, maybe a bit of an overreaction, but my wife gave me a strange look and asked what I was doing....I did like the change in sound though.

The floor wasn't so effective for me because of the height of my tweeters, but my sofa is against the back wall, so moving away lessens the bass.  I can even adjust the amount of bass bloom by how far forward I lean.

Angling the speakers more than the makers recommendation also helped focus the soundstage nicely.

Im going to design an audiophile hat which does just that  Maybe it could use parabolic reflectors... Maybe I could build a beard in to it...

Have you tried the big cushion behind the head yet Paul? 

You should always try and listen as near to the tweeter axis as much as you can.

large suckouts in the tweeters frequency response develop if you sit either much lower or higher than the tweeters height.

You could try and lean your speakers back a bit by adjusting the plinth spikes or feet so they are higher at the front than at the back.

This will aim the tweeters up more to your ear level.