Just auditioned a rug

[Chrisandalex1]

No wonder nobody needed 50,000 amps, preamps and speakers and such in the 60's and 70's.

All we need to do is bring back SHAGG and make it from cotton.

Hell, put it on the walls too.

[Portugal]

Originally Posted by Mike82ARP

If you really want to hear a difference, put a wool or cotton rug on the floor between the speakers and your listening position. If your wall-to-wall carpet is made synthetic fibers as most are, you will hear a more natural sound with the wool/cotton rug.

To check this out yourself on the cheap, do this:
1. Make sure your wife is out of the house for a bit.
2. Get as many bath towels (usually 100% cotton) as you can find and lay them over your w2w carpet between the speaker and listening position.
3. Listen to your favorite music.

You will notice a difference. This was demonstrated to me about 15 years ago when I was reviewing for SoundStage!, Pascal Ravach, from Mutine-importer of CEC, Audiomat, came to my home to deliver the phenomenal Arpege* integrated amp. I thought I had my room pretty well set up- treating front wall, back wall, side wall first reflection, etc. My wife was out on a business trip so I grabbed every towel we had- about 20- and covered as much of the w2w carpet as we could. Listening to my usual test discs, the sonic improvement was clearly noticeable.

*the Arpege was intro priced at the time for $1990.00 at the time. A friggin’ steal, IMO! I actually quit reviewing and opened a small boutique shop in my home because of this review. Picked up some more dealers and sold quite a few of these along with their stablemates. The Arpege now sells for about $4500., in a “reference” edition.

Interesting post and experiment.

[GIK Acoustics]

Originally Posted by Mike82ARP

If you really want to hear a difference, put a wool or cotton rug on the floor between the speakers and your listening position. If your wall-to-wall carpet is made synthetic fibers as most are, you will hear a more natural sound with the wool/cotton rug.

To check this out yourself on the cheap, do this:
1. Make sure your wife is out of the house for a bit.
2. Get as many bath towels (usually 100% cotton) as you can find and lay them over your w2w carpet between the speaker and listening position.
3. Listen to your favorite music.

You will notice a difference. This was demonstrated to me about 15 years ago when I was reviewing for SoundStage!, Pascal Ravach, from Mutine-importer of CEC, Audiomat, came to my home to deliver the phenomenal Arpege* integrated amp. I thought I had my room pretty well set up- treating front wall, back wall, side wall first reflection, etc. My wife was out on a business trip so I grabbed every towel we had- about 20- and covered as much of the w2w carpet as we could. Listening to my usual test discs, the sonic improvement was clearly noticeable.

I think this is probably more due to the thickness and softness of the material, and not necessarily the material itself. Case in point: insulation is basically 100% absorptive of most frequencies (except obviously lows depending on thickness). But in any case I totally agree that a thicker, more permeable rug would likely be an improvement to even 'regular' carpet in a room.

[Kelvinz]

This is the funniest thread title I've read this week lol

[HiFiCrossFit]

I'm interested in a rug that already comes burned in, let's say a minimum of 100 hours. Ivan, shouldn't you be able to burn these in with your many systems....just place a rug in each room and let the systems do their work.

[Masterlu]

Originally Posted by HiFiCrossFit

I'm interested in a rug that already comes burned in, let's say a minimum of 100 hours. Ivan, shouldn't you be able to burn these in with your many systems....just place a rug in each room and let the systems do their work.

Absolutely; I just have fun doing it!

[HiFiCrossFit]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

Absolutely; I just have fun doing it!

Now that is how you burn in a rug! Special AA pricing I assume.

[PMCH]

I went crazy trying to find a new rug that sounded better than my old one. I tried a few, synthetic, wool and blends. All the new ones I purchased and returned all looked much better than my old braided rug but sounded much worse to me. I couldn't explain it but when I put the new ones down everything just sounded off to me. I decided to just keep the old rug even though I don't like the look that much. Perhaps I just became accustomed to the sound of the old rug. I did feel silly returning rugs that were beautiful but did't sound good. I did prefer wool over synthetic.

[r0b]

I was just thinking about doing this since my cheap rug seems to have flattened and no longer has its soft thick pile! Good to know I'm not the only one conscious about rug choice for listening environments!

[vinod_david]

r0b, welcome to AA.