A NEW city, a NEW home and a NEW listening room

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🎥 Camera: John Darko
🎬 Editor: John Darko
🕺🏻 Motion GFX: John Darko
💰 Ad segment: Jana Dagdagan
🎵 Song IDs? Playlists of all music heard in this video - and other videos - can be found on PATREON: / johndarko
👉🏻 As mentioned in this video...
Samsung The Frame 2022 65"
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IKEA Vindum rug
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IKEA Vimle sofa
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Zu Soul 6
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NAD M10 V2
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Buchardt A500
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Buchardt loudspeaker stands
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Your ROOM is messing up your SOUND (again):
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Jesco Lohan (Acoustics Insider) explains WHY the room is critical to good sound
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Room EQ Wizard
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Umik-1 microphone
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Paper Cuts: How I Destroyed the British Music Press and Other Misadventures
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Roger Waters - Amused to Death
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#roomacoustics #reverb #hifi
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[@petterklepelv]

As a live sound engineer working in loads of different rooms, it's great to hear someone in the hi-fi-world talk about the importance of room acoustics! These are the problems we fight every day. The frequency response can be altered a great amount using an EQ, but the reverb in a room has to be treated physically in order to get an awesome listening experience.

[@presc13nt]

Omg, finally a video again starting with Jana's voice 🫠 Aaaand Talk Talk in the video !! Awesome 👍🏻😁

[@tomhirschel8524]

Welcome to Portugal. Keep on rocking in the free world! One Pastel de nata on each loudspeaker improves the sound too !

[@EricIzabelle]

As the french saying goes, a man with two houses loses his mind (qui a deux maisons perd la raison). Good luck trying to stay sane between two houses, especially in two different countries. Cheers!

[@RobWhittlestone]

Lisbon is a nice choice. Portuguese are great people: relaxed, cultivated, knowledgeable, friendly, uncomplicated & great at languages. And the food and wine are great too. I can relate to using hi-fi in a tiled room. Curtains, carpets and tapestry can all help, as well as cloth furniture and dedicated hifi sound sinks. Good luck! All the best, Rob in Switzerland

[@yupanquid5538]

Wait, what? 2mts tall?!?! I did not imagine you were that tall. Great video as always, John

[@bsbabcock]

Good opportunity to see the spectral decay of the room. Waterfall plot. You’ll see that reverb over the frequency bandwidth over time to show all that “bouncing” from walls to listening position. That’ll be the most telling before/after graph in my opinion when you treat the room. Looks like a lovely space though. Lots of potential for sure. Will take a boat load of absorption panels, low frequency absorption (bass traps) etc to tame that beast.

[@pablofagoaga3474]

John. Two meters tall…. What an unexpected distraction from every other thing you said. Great video

[@andrewstacey246]

John, you just need some of those plants you talked about in a video about 10 months ago. Surely they will sort your frequency and reverb problems out😉

[@soupistasty5]

What an informative & unique opportunity to measure all of these sound parameters! Not all of us get the chance to upend our lives (for better or for worse) and change our entire listening space. In particular, I enjoyed the graphs on the RT60s of your new space & anticipate the changes that acoustic treatment will make 💓

[@ANTONIOCAMPOSNEVES]

Darko, welcome to my beautiful country and city, welcome to Lisboa

[@AudioVisual82]

good to know, we'll have you back in berlin in the summer.

[@manuelp6785]

Moving forward pls share with your community the dealers and record shops in Lisbon that you get acquainted with. I know them all but it will be interesting to have your perspective. Enjoy the city. Don’t worry about the cold and damp weather , March is just around the corner…

[@Bruno-Melo]

Oh my, that is a lively room, just like mine 😂. I also live in Lisbon and I also have tiles on my floor so it’s going to be interesting to see how you’ll deal with that. Maybe I’ll grab some ideas from your solution. Welcome to Lisboa. Keep up the excellent work.

[@salreda7470]

Great video glad your feeling better. I can hear the difference when I swap out my paintings for different size ones. Although the crows are still outside make all kinds of sounds still.

[@GPintoFerrao]

Welcome to my country and the city where I was born. I am very happy for your choice and it is possible that we will meet around there. Welcome once more

[@fRESHd4X]

Sometimes I wish KZbin would allow me to give more than one thumbs up to a video. This video is one of them. I love your openness about your imperfect room and how you are going to tackle the problem. Fingers crossed.

[@andreasboe4509]

Great idea. Can't wait for the results of the room treatment.

[@buffal0bilious]

Black and white tile with a green rug is something I haven't seen before, and I wish I had. I love the way it looks. Congratulations on the new space!

[@Fontsman]

Lisbon is a fantastic city. Probably much cheaper too! Plus you'll keep in shape yomping up those hills!

[@izavial]

Welcome to Portugal (again)! I've lived here since 1996, I think you are just a tad optimistic about it being quite chilly for just 4-6 weeks - from late Dec to mid March its often quite fresh and not warm except for the odd days and in the middle of the day. Its a great city - enjoy!

[@alexanderstefanov6474]

@@razisn I think the problem is the lack of insulation in Greece, if the buildings had good insulation you'd only need heating about 2 months

[@Kah0ona]

I love this. Making a new listening room from scratch is so fun to follow along. Looking forward to the 'after' and hopefully some shots of the installation

[@leemartin2978]

Lisbon is a fantastic city to explore . So much to see and so atmospheric in the warmer months. Easy links to other beautiful cities like Porto and areas of the Algarve . Sounds like a lovely life balance and great for the viewers to see how you develop this listening environment

[@KM-wl1tp]

All this just made me want to get my headphones out! 🤣

[@finnroohomebrewing]

Hahaha 🤣

[@helderpereira715]

Welcome to Portugal! Portugal in the winter for you reminds me of the summers I spent in Swindon, Wiltshire, England…. hot days in buildings not prepared to deal with any heat waves.

[@samanlashkari1702]

One of your best videos ever. Thank you. Hope Lisbon offers what you expect of it and more.

[@bobpachner7528]

Since you now live in the home country of Vicoustic and Artnovion the acoustic treatment install should be interesting. And, of course, Innuos is based there too, up near Porto. Good luck with your new space. And your health too!🤞😃

[@franciscojosecastanedojord3457]

With my deepest respect, I venture to recommend you to read and study a good book on the Physics of Sound. It will answer many, if not all, questions you have on how sound behaves the way it does and how to change the way it responds to, among other things, different surfaces. And as far as I know, the echo of a room can not be "fixed" using electronic or digital equipment. FWIW, I love your videos. Cheers!

[@paulcomeau6]

Could not agree more John on acoustical impact of the room! Looking forward to the new Vicoustic treatment sound. Great bang-for-the buck audio investment. Thanks again for the great videos.

[@cillyede]

Alles Gute in dieser wunderschönen und aufregenden Stadt. ❤

[@mrfrosty3]

I believe the Portuguese have some cork for your room treatment.

[@ricardokintas7125]

Possibly you need some curtains, and some more furniture...and some art paintings on the wall

[@eleventhvolume9362]

You're living the dream, moving between Lisbon and Berlin seasonally. My first visit to Lisbon was for a Raster Noton festival to see the likes of snd, Alva Noto and Bytone. Please say hello to the spirits of Jose Saramago and Fernando Pessoa for me.

[@johantheron4282]

I have heard a large bookcase filled with real paper books also dampens the reflections.

[@rosswarren436]

Glad to know all your room treatment efforts in Berlin won't be lost. Good luck taming the room in Lisbon. Maybe get a class-A tube amp to heat your room (just kidding). Enjoy your time there.

[@dagreatstoney.5869]

Best of luck in Lisboa, I lived their in the 90ies , beautiful place, great people, enjoy 👍

[@PhillioDoede]

This is pretty awesome and timely as I have a similar size and shaped room (TV is in about the same location also) that I have been living with for about 2-3 years. Right now from an acoustic perspective the font and rear wall are basically untreated bare walls. I recently purchased a mixture of diffusion panels (similar to what you have in Berlin) for the rear wall and side wall, a quadratic diffuser for the rear, and a few absorption panels for the front between the the TV and speakers. Before I install it though I wanted to measure the room for a before and after and knew I wanted more than just the response so RT60 is what I'm looking for thanks!

[@kaite8371]

To get down with RT 60, it's about how much treatment you use. Not where the panels sit. Many users have built kind of ceiling sails.

[@nunofernandes4501]

Welcome to Portugal, John!

[@rasardo1]

John, enjoy Lisboa and visit Portugal, when you can. Even thought it's a small country, Portugal has a lot to offer, from north to south. You won't regret, I'm sure :)

[@bryantaylor2946]

John, you seem more relaxed and full of energy!

[@pmpgonzalez]

Can’t believe you’re in my city! Hope we can meet, sometime. Have a cup of coffee, I’ll give you a few cool hints on the city, you’ll give me hifi advice 😂😂

[@marcgoldstein2957]

TWO METERS TALL! Specs we can believe with our own eyes!

[@weisstdudochnicht1]

Welcome to Portugal 🇵🇹 After 3y in Portugal, I tend to prefer for the months of Dec-Jan to go to either a warm country like Asia, or a country with proper heating and good insulation like Switzerland, or Germany… Feb-Nov is nice though - just enjoyed the sun this week. 😊

[@derekdenyer5546]

Welcome to Lisbon, I love it here, hope you will too.

[@great100m]

A very interesting video. I like the incremental change approach of your technique. A side note, at first I found the audio in this video annoying since the echo (referb) was evident but after a few minutes apparently my brain adjusted to what I was hearing and the effect was not as bothersome.

[@JohnRussellHodge_progtwit]

This is one of your best videos, John. I love the macro approach to the issue of room influence and the fact that you have taken the opportunity of the move to confront what we all go through when moving house. I also love the details and imagery that you deliver so easily... sound "snookering" around the room is a perfect image for reverberation. You are looking well so let's hope the Portugal/Germany splitlife works for you for a long time to come.

[@granddolph]

never realised john is 6'6" !

[@jerryscanas]

Based 6foot plus gang

[@tasisto2]

I’m also 2m and didn’t notice too. He hide it very successfully…

[@lbunjes]

Woah!

[@SebastianUllrich1990]

Was really surprised with this fact too, obviously never having met him.

[@trevekneebone369]

He's 30mm on my screen 👍

[@rcrdsntsslv]

Welcome to Lisbon! We're happy to have you :)

[@Desmotube100]

Welcome to my country Darko. I would be glad to meet you in person one of these days to have an expresso with you. Cheers.

[@BlackAera]

Glad to see you back on track :D You moved to Portugal just for the winter season with a completely new flat and you even brought your speakers? May I ask how you made that works? Do you just have a second apartment now? What about your old place in Berlin? Do you plan on returning back to Germany? Did you switch jobs or do you work remotely? And what's your profession?

[@warfam_clan6933]

Hi John, new room looks great. Love the stair access at the back of the room. Question for you, although it's quite off topic, will you be making a trip to the UK for the Bristol HIFI show?

[@pedrobandeira3575]

Hi John, hope you have a great time in Lisbon, it is a beautiful city. Take some extra time to get to know Portugal and the Portuguese people though, I guarantee you will not regret it.

[@pedromanuelsilvasantos1303]

Welcome to Lisboa 🖐️ good surprise!!! 😀

[@geoffreyblofeld9783]

Welcome to Portugal. Really interesting video. Come down to the Algarve to hear the daily morning chorus of petrol-driven leaf blowers in the gardens 😂 That trumps idling cars and barking dogs anytime!!

[@Rustyzeroo]

Welcome to Portugal!

[@KeithHeinrich]

At last, the subject not touched on by many. Good job and looking forward to what is learned in your situation and then what we can all take away from that.

[@Kbaum752]

Ceilings can be just as bad as floors. Each speaker reacts differently depending on their dispersion characteristics.

[@nathankimmett8803]

Depending on speaker size - ceilings can be worse than floors lol

[@yellow_noise3]

in short. John! you rock!

[@mychildrenareashamedtobese3398]

Spirit of Eden!!! Mark Hollis is worthy of an entire episode. Do it.

[@KevBest]

Love the astro turf John, best of luck with the new place

[@Dpace111]

Such an informative video! Thanks John. This further justifies my preference to chase a high quality sound via headphones as opposed to loudspeakers

[@joaocordeiro5788]

Welcome to Portugal, hope you get better.

[@oliverjosshvac2101]

You could use reverse cycle A/C if there is one. It's a heatpump and normally cheaper to heat than pellets.

[@brianburke1135]

Welcome to Portugal ! I’m in Tomar - best advice I can give you is keep ya pellets dry and get a decent dehumidifier. It’s a bit moist over winter !

[@Harry-IV]

Nice to see you have to start from scratch so I can learn something. I am currently starting with the acoustics in my home office: 4x3 meter. I planned on building some sound panels with rockwool.

[@audibleeleganceinc]

Well, Good Sir, I am confident that you will discover new joys and challenges in new room. The best of them can make a great sound in any room and I trust you are amongst them. It always amazed me how many manufacturers at shows put up a bad sound and then simply dismissed their lack of skills on the room they were in. Yet, year after year, a little manufacturer consistently put up a good to great sound, year after year for 40 years. Tells you something, I think.

[@trastonwarrior]

I was hanging on by finger nails at keeping the green eyed monster at bay as you describe (in your magical and addictive manner) the system you have in your kitchen that sounds 10 times better than my main system. But no, now we have to winter in Lisbon and summer in Berlin ! ! Hope the eye is better, please never tell me about the stitches ever again. And finally, If you ever do move house properly and have a boot sale can you let me know where and when ?

[@audiotakebyscho1881]

Love the channel and your take on things. Also, and more importantly, very glad to see you are getting better!

[@thewaygokid3135]

Went to Portugal last fall. Beautiful country! Glad you can spend time in a more favorable climate for part of the year.

[@stevevlahos1]

You hear cars idling or a dog barking…. Or an audiophile and his music. 🤭 Enjoy your new home.

[@akilansakthi3250]

Great Video! Looking forward to the one with A500 room correction. I am currently running the Forward MidRange MT on A500 and I notice a drastic change in sound after I added a rug and couch(in a bad way. Lost Bass). I liked it better when the living space was almost empty. Planning to test the stock MT and see how it sounds next.

[@superfitzy]

Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden! Would love to hear your thoughts on late Talk Talk/Mark Hollis and how you got turned on to them. I think your audience might dig that music, and they may only be aware of early Talk Talk.

[@myhrlfc]

Excellent video, found it super interesting. Can't wait for the follow up. Keep up the good work John 👍👍

[@marcgabor9690]

Have you considered treating the staircase? You might be getting a lot of reverb spilling back into the room from there.

[@RbNetEngr]

This was a great video! You did a great job of explaining room reverberation (which I always incorrectly called ‘echo’) but you also quantified it with your room measurements. For me, this video was a great quick study in room acoustics. I look forward to seeing your updates on results after acoustic correction of the room.

[@slam854]

The Zu are very efficient speakers. Zu factory is about 50 miles from me. Glad to hear from you again.

[@aceofspades6667]

Same Zu is 40 away as is tekton and Wilson is about 20 min and spatial lab acoustics about 25 min. Lots of hifi in UT

[@hudo]

1s RT60 is really a lot. I recently moved to a new apt, and RT60 with the basic furniture was around 0.6-0.8s, I just couldn't listen like that. Added few GIK panels, and now its pretty flat and around 0.3s, so lower boundary of recommended. Took me few days to get used to it, its a different feeling of listening in a non-reverberant room, but now really like it. There's still some room modes, but that can't be fixed without huge traps and investments. Looking forward to more videos about Darkos room journey, this will be very interesting and useful!

[@isar-wildlife]

Surround sound is a completely different use case as stereo imaging. Diffuse sound effects are crucial in Surround where in proper stereo they can destroy the sound stage. Please note also, that the video shows how important the listener or/and the speaker position is. Six inches can make the difference. So play around with that, too.

[@GBarros7]

How interesting how I watch your videos for years and now to see that you are so close, in my city. Great choice for a place to live. Enjoy Lisbon. Enjoy Portugal.

[@Group51]

I considered the NAD but got the Blue Sound equivalent because I can’t imagine having another colour screen on when I’m trying to watch TV.

[@audio-arte]

Welcome to Portugal.

[@paulopereira6996]

Welcome to Lisbon! A lot of Portuguese are subscribers, great! 🇵🇹

[@rogeriopauloaleluiasilva2688]

Welcome to Portugal 👍

[@photogcw]

I think you should add a second area floor rug and heavy drapes over the windows. I had an apartment in San Antonio, Texas that had hard reverberation. It took three floor rugs, two bookshelves and heavy drapes to reduce it as best as I could. You could move the speakers further away from rear and sides(if possible). I don't think you will ever completely defeat the room reverb. Or you can try near-field listening.

[@gomes5171]

Welcome to Lisbon!

[@dougcampbell2814]

Great...now I have to move my system from the short wall to the long wall in my room. Thanks a lot, John. :) I hope you enjoy your new place in Lisbon!

[@318ishonk]

A great opportunity to get a grasp of how much sound in a room changes with sound treatment. Looking forward to this John!

[@willblomker1393]

Thank you for using the move as an opportunity for a room acoustics/treatment course. I’m learning a lot! Also, as someone in Brooklyn on a street with seemingly constant jackhammers, idling trucks, airplanes, crying babies and/or exuberant street conversations let us know how that goes for you there! Haha Earplugs can be a man’s best friend.

[@hugolopes7654]

Welcome, I'm sure you will be very happy in Lisbon. Wish you all the best for this new journey!

[@stofferrussell]

Whilst you’re in Lisboa, check out the village of Sintra, especially the castle. The Português homes are very like ours in Andalucía, at least the traditional ones. Try Málaga for your winter break next year! Thanks for the look around your new place. Enjoy Portugal… especially their coffee.

[@marcgabor9690]

Using the handclap to illustrate the effect reverberation has on listening to music was really clever. I used to have a listening space where it made sense to place the sofa against the wall but I was always bothered by the effect of music bouncing of the back wall so close to my ears. I would often find myself sitting on the floor in front of the sofa when I wanted a more active listening experience. Moving that sofa out into the room about 6 inches made a big difference.

[@yanivshef]

In my personal experience a rug make a noticeable improvement, it captured the low extension and reverberation. Beautiful floor and home as much as I can see😊. Good luck LeBron

[@NicolaDiNisio]

I can predict that active room correction will not help at all with reverberation. Even though I would love it be true...

[@tbyrchr]

Sitting here in chilly Berlin and I just had the feeling you’d have gone to Portugal! We’re getting 12C and sun next week, yay. All the best

[@lsaideOK]

I am demoing the zu audio dirty weekends right now. I strongly recommend adding isolation footers. Mine put a lot of vibration off along the floor and into the room when playing deep bass before I added them. Room rattling! Now I just feel the bass. Also think about tilting the speakers. The super tweeter sits below ear level for most people. Would be great to see a comparison with the room EQ wizard

[@johnenglishIII]

I'm in the same situation, in the first few weeks of owning my Zu DW and stil testing things. With rubber footers the bass is much clearer, but waay less fun, as it is less pronounced and the roll of at 50hz is very noticiable. I do miss a bit of the punch and the feeling of the vibrations, might remove the footers at some point (or get a sub?)

[@oliverploeger9430]

Yes. It`s THE ROOM. So many times i`m kinda speechless when i see really expensive gear in bad rooms. Sounds harsh, but: Money eats brain when it comes to this...

[@nealandkriz5078]

Berlin Winter is the best for listening to HiFi! That said, I can understand that one would love a city like Lisbon to call home. Also I am sure that you are very aware of the immense privilege of having one or two apartments of that caliber in cities like these, be it for rent or as an owner. Love your channel and your approach - keep going!

[@paulojoaquim2723]

Hi John , welcome to my city...enjoy.

[@scruffy8861]

John, wish you well in your new space. For the floor, see if you can get high density carpet with a thick pad underneath, it's the density that makes a difference when it comes to absorption and eliminating floor bounce. Acoustic art panels with Owens Corning backing for the hard surface walls should help as well. Looking forward to how it come out.

[@jimdavis5230]

Amazing that many you tubers publish speaker demonstration videos in totally untreated rooms. My listening room is only 12 by 10 feet and has cost me £2,500 to completely acoustically treat it. Yes a lot of money but the result is spectacular sound quality.