Loudspeaker positioning

[Nigel]

Anyone got any views on placement? Just spent most of yesterday experimenting with different positions, including the Cardas nearfield, only to revert back to virtually where I started. My new room isn't ideal from an acoustic point of view, being almost square in the walls department, thank goodness the ceiling isn't the same height.

Also, where do you all sit in relation to the loudspeakers? George Cardas recommends an equilateral triangle for the best possible soundstage, formed by the listeners ears & the two loudspeakers.

I don't think George had loudspeakers from the British school of musicality totally in mind though when he came up with his golden formulas.

[Deleted]

George Cardas recommends an equilateral triangle for the best possible soundstage, formed by the listeners ears

Nigel
I find that best in my seconded spare bedroom, which is a little larger than many.
Attached is what came with my speakers, but I am unable to have mine that far into a room , because of the room size.
Obviously, other speakers will have different requirements, but some of the points mentioned may be of general interest.
Alex

[Nigel]

Yes, thanks Alex. 3ft out in your case then.

[Deleted]

Dec 13, 2010 10:30:38 GMT Nigel said:

Yes, thanks Alex. 3ft out in your case then.

Nigel
In my case, anything more than 2 feet out means a lttle too close to the listening position in this particular room, so I have a little less than optimum very low frequency performance.
I try to keep the same distance from the side walls too.
I also use 50mm thick, 1M high pieces of foam around both side walls and behind the equipment. It gives a huge improvement to imaging, by greatly reducing reflections, but because it is a rented house I can't do the job properly, with a far better look about it.
Alex

[Deleted]

I've often thought about using foam. So it works Alex? Is it normal foam or higher density, slightly more tough stuff?

Another Idea someone gave me was to stick egg boxes on the wall at reflective points (using a mirror) and the paint over them, the same colour as the wall.

(The wife might not notice then!!)

[Deleted]

Hi Ian
It is the normal foam as often used in cheap matresses etc. Unfortunately it darkens with exposure to air. You can often buy protective mattress type zip covers too.
Definitely not wife friendly though !
It does have another major advantage, especially when renting,
in that it dramatically reduces the level heard outside, so that there is far less risk of neigbours complaining. In my case, it also means that I could watch TV etc. at a reasonable, but less than normal level without keeping the grandchildren in an adjoining bedroom awake.
Alex

[Nigel]

I bought some of the acoustic egg box shaped foam from ebay & treated the side wall first reflection points & stuck some on the rear wall behind my listening position. Initially I went a bit over the top & the room ended up sounding too dead. I used spray glue to fix the foam to the wall & a small part of the ceiling. It certainly sounds better, as Alex says the soundstage improves. There's a guy in the US called Ethan Winer who's a room treatment genius, mainly home studio applications but thoughts expressed concerning home listening rooms as well, some of his videos inspire food for thought.

www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

for an article on 'Acoustic Treatment and Design for Recording Studios and Listening Rooms.'

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbLVjHfHahg

for the video 'How to Set Up and Treat a Listening Room'

[Deleted]

Nigel
I am pleased to see that you were able to achieve worthwhile improvements without needing a bank overdraft !
Regards
Alex

[jonclancy]

Placement tips here:

www.acoustica.org.uk/

HTH

Jon

[rowuk]

My rule of thumb says that the angle should represent how you like to listen to live music. If you like to be in the front row, get the speakers as far apart as possible. If you like to sit in the back of the hall, they can be close together. The equidistant triangle often gives a good degree of focus but still a decent spread of the instruments. The tweeter response determines if the speakers are pointed towards the ears or straight ahead.

[Deleted]

Stumbled over this and couldn't help but post it. These are Martin Logan Script i hybrid electrostatics.

Talk about the 'Sword of Damocles'? . . .







Is this what they mean by High end speakers?


Jeff

[Crispy]

Mar 19, 2012 12:01:24 GMT @ekbluesboy said:

Stumbled over this and couldn't help but post it. These are Martin Logan Script i hybrid electrostatics.


Is this what they mean by High end speakers?


Jeff

LOL ;D ;D

I was very interested in them speakers a few year ago, but lack of money and you always have to travel 1billion miles to audition them put the dampers on them.

Never mind I may get myself some electrostatic speakers one day

[Deleted]

Mar 20, 2012 9:26:22 GMT Crispy said:

Never mind I may get myself some electrostatic speakers one day

Chris, when you do , remember to screw in the eye hooks into a strong cross beam.
Also, if you rigged up a pulley system you could 'easily' adjust your speaker positioning, maybe to reinforce the bass, for instance.
A couple of turns 'up' and they are a bit closer to the wall ceiling and so more bass. A couple of turns down to reduce etc.
Maybe when the family are asleep and you want to listen to some music but can't be bothered to get your headophones out you could just lower them right down so they are about two inches from your ears - WOW talk about nearfield monitoring
Who needs headphones?

Maybe this lunatic is actually on to something?

Jeff

[Crispy]

Mar 20, 2012 9:32:32 GMT @ekbluesboy said:

Mar 20, 2012 9:26:22 GMT Crispy said:

Chris, when you do , remember to screw in the eye hooks into a strong cross beam.
Also, if you rigged up a pulley system you could 'easily' adjust your speaker positioning, maybe to reinforce the bass, for instance.
A couple of turns 'up' and they are a bit closer to the wall ceiling and so more bass. A couple of turns down to reduce etc.
Maybe when the family are asleep and you want to listen to some music but can't be bothered to get your headophones out you could just lower them right down so they are about two inches from your ears - WOW talk about nearfield monitoring
Who needs headphones?

Maybe this lunatic is actually on to something?

Jeff

Jeff, somebody out there is now going to try this ;D
Brilliant till one falls on your head

[Deleted]

I was going to start a new thread, but saw the title to this one...and here is where I'd like to present this to the group. Speaker placement.

Firstly the electronics and phase corrections. Two of the company's products I own will invert phase if used as the only phase inverting component in the system. My Croft amp and preamp together maintain correct phase, however if I swap in my Rothwell Indus SE passive preamp and swap out the Croft preamp, I have to swap speaker leads red for black on the speaker. Same with the Audio Note preamp. And if not corrected at the speaker binding posts, well, we all know how "out of phase" sounds.

Secondly this idea for speaker placement seems to work the same on all of my speakers, whether close to wall siting or in the near-field (I don't own corner horns). I'll narrow this down to my Triangle Titus XS stand mounts fed by the Croft amp and preamp and any source I have, and a small 8 inch powered subwoofer placed between the speakers, but 8 inches from the back wall and driver and port facing the wall. Speakers are on Sanus 24 inch high Ultimates, and on it's top plate spike's. Speaker wire is Audioquest CV-4 with DNM interconnects all around.

I was in my "library", sitting in the only chair there...you know, the one with the big hole in the middle of the flip-up seat...reading an old copy of a Hifi Choice equipment review mag from Summer of 2006 and fell upon the review of the GamuT L5 speaker system. The designer of the speaker suggests an interesting placement technique and I tried it with the Triangles. He states that symmetrical diffraction distortion radiates off the edges of the speaker cabinet and creates the greatest distortion. He suggests setting up the speakers to have their baffles parallel to the rear wall to eliminate symmetrical diffraction and creating a more music friendly asymmetrical diffraction distortion. Also, he suggests angling the tweeters down to aim at the "ear plane", not angled AT the ear, keeping the baffles parallel to the rear wall still. So,I measured with a tape measure each speaker's far edge on the front baffle to be 46 inches from the rear wall, which keeps the baffle's edges equidistant from the rear wall and thereby paralleling the rear wall. I'd never tried this before, always angling the drivers in the speaker to either cross a few inches in front of me or behind my head, like the majority of reviewers suggest. Now, some speakers designed for corner placement...Audio Note, Klipsch corner horns, etc., should be in corners, but, with these Triangles....

The presentation is more "centered" between the speakers, not going out-board of the speaker boxes too much. But, what is in the "center" presentation is much improved over the angled-in positioning. An extraordinary amount of instrument/vocal separation is now heard. Depth is marginally improved, but what impresses me most is how all of this separation of instruments/vocals gives a more coherent presentation of "playing together" for the song. When Chet Baker's trumpet is featured with the piano to the left and just behind it on a live version of his "Once Upon a Summertime", it is clear, clean and not overbearing, just "there", like never before in this system of mine.

A very nice find in an old magazine....one other point of interest is that sitting out about 7 feet and centered between the speakers, I look at 'em and they "seem" to be pointing outwards, so I measure 'em again. And, they're still parallel to the rear wall...must be an optical illusion, or maybe I should slow down with the root beer soda...

I would suggest trying this placement for your speakers...you might like it like I do...If you don't own corner horns or Audio Note speakers, that is.

J

[Deleted]

Apart from everybody's unique room acoustics various 'speakers also react differently to those acoustics. Then you figure in how the manufacturer intended the 'speakers to be used.
So experimentation is definitely necessary to gain the best response for your ears and then maybe use some acoustic help as already described above.
When I eventually get my target system up and running I'll be using 'speakers that are designed to go backs right up against a solid wall, no toe in, firing out along the shorter length of the room with plenty of space from the side walls.
As always, some kind of compromise will be struck, before I am!

[Deleted]

After listening to this speaker based system with the drivers/baffles sited parallel to the rear wall, something was gnawing at me about the presentation. Then it came to me...an approximation of closed-back headphone listening! All the intimacy, detail, and dynamics presented within a sort-of confined sound stage...but especially the dynamics. I'll be listening further with comparisons in mind...AND enjoying this new found sound...

j

[Nigel]

So basically no toe-in, Johnsan? Yeah, I'll have some of that.

[outdoorguy]

Nov 29, 2013 22:42:37 GMT @johnsan said:

I was going to start a new thread, but saw the title to this one...and here is where I'd like to present this to the group. Speaker placement.

Firstly the electronics and phase corrections. Two of the company's products I own will invert phase if used as the only phase inverting component in the system. My Croft amp and preamp together maintain correct phase, however if I swap in my Rothwell Indus SE passive preamp and swap out the Croft preamp, I have to swap speaker leads red for black on the speaker. Same with the Audio Note preamp. And if not corrected at the speaker binding posts, well, we all know how "out of phase" sounds.

Secondly this idea for speaker placement seems to work the same on all of my speakers, whether close to wall siting or in the near-field (I don't own corner horns). I'll narrow this down to my Triangle Titus XS stand mounts fed by the Croft amp and preamp and any source I have, and a small 8 inch powered subwoofer placed between the speakers, but 8 inches from the back wall and driver and port facing the wall. Speakers are on Sanus 24 inch high Ultimates, and on it's top plate spike's. Speaker wire is Audioquest CV-4 with DNM interconnects all around.

I was in my "library", sitting in the only chair there...you know, the one with the big hole in the middle of the flip-up seat...reading an old copy of a Hifi Choice equipment review mag from Summer of 2006 and fell upon the review of the GamuT L5 speaker system. The designer of the speaker suggests an interesting placement technique and I tried it with the Triangles. He states that symmetrical diffraction distortion radiates off the edges of the speaker cabinet and creates the greatest distortion. He suggests setting up the speakers to have their baffles parallel to the rear wall to eliminate symmetrical diffraction and creating a more music friendly asymmetrical diffraction distortion. Also, he suggests angling the tweeters down to aim at the "ear plane", not angled AT the ear, keeping the baffles parallel to the rear wall still. So,I measured with a tape measure each speaker's far edge on the front baffle to be 46 inches from the rear wall, which keeps the baffle's edges equidistant from the rear wall and thereby paralleling the rear wall. I'd never tried this before, always angling the drivers in the speaker to either cross a few inches in front of me or behind my head, like the majority of reviewers suggest. Now, some speakers designed for corner placement...Audio Note, Klipsch corner horns, etc., should be in corners, but, with these Triangles....

The presentation is more "centered" between the speakers, not going out-board of the speaker boxes too much. But, what is in the "center" presentation is much improved over the angled-in positioning. An extraordinary amount of instrument/vocal separation is now heard. Depth is marginally improved, but what impresses me most is how all of this separation of instruments/vocals gives a more coherent presentation of "playing together" for the song. When Chet Baker's trumpet is featured with the piano to the left and just behind it on a live version of his "Once Upon a Summertime", it is clear, clean and not overbearing, just "there", like never before in this system of mine.

A very nice find in an old magazine....one other point of interest is that sitting out about 7 feet and centered between the speakers, I look at 'em and they "seem" to be pointing outwards, so I measure 'em again. And, they're still parallel to the rear wall...must be an optical illusion, or maybe I should slow down with the root beer soda...

I would suggest trying this placement for your speakers...you might like it like I do...If you don't own corner horns or Audio Note speakers, that is.

J

Would this be close to the same thing as placing some sound absorbing, (felt'ish?), material on the speaker face and front edge?