Over 15,000 audiophile music lovers have received Jim Smith's publication, 31 Secrets to Better Sound. And they've sent him many hundreds of thankyou notes. If they thought that was good, wait until they find out that Get Better Sound includes 202 tips, and it's illustrated!

You are reading theolder HTML sitePositive Feedback ISSUE 59january/february 2012Get Better Sound Three DVD Reference Setby Jeff DayThe ManI suspect nearly everyone reading this article willalready know about Jim Smith's expertise in Hi-Fi system setup and voicing, as hisreputation has become legendary.

I attend about five concerts a year at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. As my interest in classical music has grown, I have used these performances from the listening perspective of the eighth row, center, as a reference for how reproduced music should sound in my home. Over the last ten years I have assembled a good collection of audio gear and have strived to make that system approach what I hear at the BSO. Toward that end, I bought a copy of Jim Smith’s book, Get Better Sound.The book is well written and easy to understand. I was particularly interested in the speaker placement and room interaction sections as I had recently purchased a new pair of speakers.

By following the advice in the book, I was able to improve my system to the point where I was quite pleased but not truly satisfied. Ricochet infinity serial number. Compared to what I heard at the BSO, my system still lacked dynamics and that palpable presence of a live performance.Jim suggests in his book that careful placement and proper integration of sub woofers can often provide dramatic improvements to a system. With this in mind, I bought a pair of high quality sub woofers and hired Jim to voice my system and to integrate my subs with my main speakers. After some communication about system details and scheduling, Jim agreed to “voice my system to my room”.Jim arrived the night before the RoomPlay session and connected his laptop and DAC to my system.

He listen to some music in order to get a general sense of how my system sounded and what we could do the following day to improve its performance. The following morning we set up Jim’s test equipment. Jim began by running test tones and measuring the room. He wants to first establish the correct seating location based on the smoothest and best bass.

We then moved the speakers back and forth listening for the most balanced overall frequency response. This distance relationship between the listener and the speakers, relative to the dimensions of the room, minimizes frequency peaks and nulls and establishes the smoothest frequency curve. The next step involved establishing the proper distance between the speakers. Here Jim listened for a sense of weight and body to the voices and instruments and for appropriate inner detail and center-fill. Finally, we tried different degrees of toe-in and tilt, listening for tonal balance.

All of these extremely precise adjustments required the use of laser levels and measuring devices. It was an exacting and very deliberate process.Once the main speakers were correctly positioned, we worked on integrating the two sub woofers. We tried many different locations and orientations as well as phase angles, cut off frequencies and slopes. After a few hours and much effort, we agreed that in my system and in my room, the subs, though extending the frequency range of the system, detracted slightly from the overall sense of tonal balance and clarity. We decided the trade-offs were not worth it, so the subs were removed from the room.It has been about six weeks since Jim’s visit.

I have had some time now to reflect on the visit and the results of his work. I had read his book and worked diligently to improve my system to the point where I was not sure what further improvements Jim could bring. Nevertheless, my anticipation of and expectations for his visit were high. If he could improve the sonics even slightly, I would be happy. I can now say that I was not properly prepared for the degree of improvement Jim made to my system.

Jim speaks about Tone, Presence and Dynamics. He tells his clients that he will make the musicians perform for them in their rooms. His goal is to have the client thinking about a listening session long after it is over, in a similar way that he continues to think about a great live performance days after it is heard. Jim achieved all of this and more.

I simply did not realize to how high a degree my system could perform.Jim is a very personable fellow, full of knowledge and experience. Though I learned a great deal watching him work, I also really enjoyed being in his company. The improvements he made to my system are dramatic and I consider his fee to be a bargain relative to the overall investment I have in my system. His RoomPlay service is the single best purchase I have made in this hobby. I listen more intently, enjoy the experience more completely and have a much deeper appreciation for my music. I would have thought that results from his efforts were some kind of lucky fluke were it not that he performed the same service with very similar results on a friend’s familiar system. Our two systems improved in similar ways and are similarly involving.

I am now fully convinced that the speaker/listener/room relationship is the primary component to good and convincing sound and that the equipment plays a subordinate, though important role.On Good Friday, I went to the BSO to hear Bach’s Passion according to John. It is a large choral piece with full orchestra and six solo vocalists. The performance was deeply moving.

On Easter evening, two days later, with Bach fresh in my mind, I listened to an LP recording of Jesus Christ Superstar, the Passion according to Andrew Lloyd Webber. No, it did not sound quite like the real thing, nor was the scale of the music as majestic as in Symphony Hall, but the performance was just as emotionally involving. I was just as moved by the recording and as Jim predicted, I continue to think about how good it sounded.Here is a link to my system. Persistence is all.

Thanks, Peter. What, if i may ask, did Jim change in your system? Perhaps its not appropriate to tell everything, but would be curious to now. You have your system in a nice room where it would be awkward to just lift everything up and move it, etc. So clearly, he was somewhat constrained by your living environment.Also, on your TA equipment.what do you have under your TA Power Isolator? I have one as well.and the Stillpoints guys were suggesting i try something underneath.

What happens when you remove that isolation platform under your TA Power Isolator? Thanks!!You write excellent reviews.enjoyed the Pass one as well. Persistence is all. Thanks, Peter. What, if i may ask, did Jim change in your system?

Perhaps its not appropriate to tell everything, but would be curious to now. You have your system in a nice room where it would be awkward to just lift everything up and move it, etc. So clearly, he was somewhat constrained by your living environment.Also, on your TA equipment.what do you have under your TA Power Isolator?

I have one as well.and the Stillpoints guys were suggesting i try something underneath. What happens when you remove that isolation platform under your TA Power Isolator? Thanks!!You write excellent reviews.enjoyed the Pass one as well. LL21, Thanks for the kind words. I thought I had responded to your question months ago. Basically, Jim made just a few subtle changes, but they amounted to a dramatic improvement in listening enjoyment.

After a brief listen the first night, he suggested that I damp and cover up the upright piano in the room. He also suggested raising the listening seat. So by the time he returned the next morning, I had damped the piano keys and covered the piano with two mover's blankets. The piano was adding a resonance to the room. I also cut a plywood board and placed in under the cushions of my sagging sofa. This raised the height of the listening seat by about 4'.The next morning Jim listened for bass nodes.

This resulted in moving the listening sofa back about 7'. Then he listened while I adjusted the speaker positions. They ended up moving forward, away from the front wall about 4' and toward each other about 1-2'. All was then matched exactly for symmetry with a laser: distance, toe-in angle, tilt, height. In summary, Jim's three main sonic attributes all improved: Tone, Dynamics and Presence.Jim was constrained by the room layout. He actually suggested moving everything around 90 degrees, but that was not going to happen without my wife's approval, and she was gone and we did not have time to start over. It is just fine the way it ended up.My TA Power Isolator is on a Townshend Seismic Sink.

It helps slightly. All of my equipment on my main rack is on these Sinks, except for my turntable and two mono block amps which are on pre loaded (ballasted) Vibraplane isolation platforms. I borrowed a set of Stillpoint Ultra 5s from a buddy to try under my speakers. Last night, before inserting the Stillpoints, I wanted to be darn sure that I would not alter the positions of my speakers, so I took very precise measurements with a digital laser measuring device. I wrote down the exact distances from the tweeters to the sidewall and to a spot directly behind the listening seat, as well as speaker height, tilt and toe-in. I compared these measurements with what I had recorded just after Jim Smith has finalized the positions of the speakers. To my surprise, in the three years since his RoomPlay service was done, my speakers somehow moved slightly toward the listener, 1/8' in one case and 3/16' in the other.

I do occasionally check for tilt, toe in and distance from side walls because who knows what can happen with kids, cleaners etc. But I had not ever checked for distance from the listener.So before I inserted the Stillpoints, I wanted to listen to the system after moving the speakers back slightly to match Jim's original positions. This would serve as an acoustic base line or reference for comparisons to the sound with the Stillpoints. I'm still struggling to understand why such a small repositioning away from the listener could produce such a change, but it did. Bass was slightly smoother and more articulate, leading edges were cleaner, but most importantly, there was an increased overall clarity to the sound with better depth and spacial information.

I even think the sense of rhythm improved. The sound just 'locked in', as Jim describes in the book. Amazing really, considering I just moved them slightly back to where they had been positioned by Jim three years ago. I'm wondering now if it is a placebo effect or real because the tracks I listened to sounded considerably better than they sounded less than a week ago.But for now, I have a newfound appreciation for just how much Jim is able to improve the sound of a system by simply listening very carefully to his reference tracks and positioning the speakers and listening seat in exactly the right spots. I have experienced how as little as a 1'16' at the speaker for toe-in can alter tonal balance, but I'd never experienced the kind of difference moving a speaker slightly back and forth can make.

It's incredible that 3/16' can make such a difference to the enjoyment of the music.I will post my impressions of the Stillpoints in an appropriate thread once I have a better understanding of how they are effecting the sound. About us. What’s Best Forum is THE forum for high-end audio, product reviews, advice and sharing experiences on the best of everything else. A place where audiophiles and audio companies discuss existing and new audio products, music servers, music streamers and computer audio, digital to audio converters, turntables, phono stages, cartridges, reel to reel, speakers, headphones, tube amplifiers and solid state amplification. Founded in 2010 What's Best Forum invites intelligent and courteous people of all interests and backgrounds to describe and discuss the best of everything. From beginners to life-long hobbyists to industry professionals we enjoy learning about new things and meeting new people and participating in spirited debates.