Stereo image and soundstage. Initial setup and adjustments.

Alan_r

Dskip: I am currently looking at the AC-14's. I started a new thread for that challenge.

L&C: Agreed. However, I am quite happy with the sound of my RT600's. For the small investment that I have in my system, I don't think I could have done much better. At this point, I am playing with the cables more from a hobby standpoint than anything else. Regarding speaker upgrades, the next will be the sub. As good as I have gotten it to sound with many hours of tweaking and tuning, I do find it's limits.

tonyb

To net bigger results in cable changes, one first needs a system able to portray those changes....not so sure the rt600's are up to that, but you should still hear some improvements. The more revealing your system becomes the more cable changes become audible to larger degrees.

treitz3

Tony, I have had those speakers in my rig. They are capable to these ears. Maybe not on the finest [most subtle] of changes but these responded well enough.

Tom

Alan_r

Hello! As anyone who has been reading this thread knows, I have been working hard to get my system set up properly. I have set everything up as suggested and then made tweaks that I felt were necessary to fine tune the setup. Over the last few months I have gotten it really close. I got wrapped up in doing what was necessary to place the singers in the center of the image. I was actually pretty happy with what I achieved. So, this morning while sitting on the floor organizing CD’s, I just happened to sit in a particular spot that changed what I was hearing. This resulted in me sitting in the listening spot and reflecting on whether or not I have achieved what I was looking for. The following is what I came up with. Hopefully someone can have a look at what I noticed.

When I started, I was under the impression that a properly set up system would paint a clear picture of the stage in front of me. Simply put, everyone was where they were supposed to be. Picture a three man band. During the recording, the singer stood dead center, the sax player stood to the left and the drummer sat on the right. When I sit in the center of my system and close my eyes, I should hear the voice centered, the sax on the left speaker and the drums on the right speaker-understanding that some sound would bleed into the others due to ambiance. This is what I thought was right, and this is what I for the most part achieved.

Now for the confusing part, I’ll try to articulate what I heard the best I can so bear with me. When I sat on the floor I just happened to sit dead center about 4’ back from my speakers. What I heard was almost an echo. The sound stopped coming from my speakers and instead created an “atmosphere”. The image still had the locations right, but seemed to transform from the sound of a CD being played on a stereo system to a weird recreation of the atmosphere and space that the music was recorded in. It wasn’t perfect by any means. But oddly enough, I was able to pick out sounds that I did not notice before. It sounded realistic enough that my mind couldn’t stop paying attention to it. It was if the speakers disappeared and with my eyes closed, I could not pinpoint where my speakers were. (Of course I could due to memory but you get the point) This had happened a few times while setting it up but I didn’t pursue it.

What I did then was measure the angle of the speakers and then applied that to my listening spot. It became a little more “echoic” but remained nonetheless. I noticed that this image was extremely fragile and when the dog walked past 5’ from the speaker the image was temporally shattered. Now don’t get me wrong, the work I did before resulted in very “clean” sounding music that provided an image and was very pleasurable to listen to. But this new image was on a whole new level. It sounded different than anything I have heard before. I don’t know how to explain it other than saying that the speakers were removed from the sound. And I mean moved out of the room. Words to describe this would be airy, open, atmospheric and natural. The soundstage width changed in that before you could hear the edges of the stage whereas now, the stage disappeared and was replaced by the entire room it was recorded in. I could almost discern the echo’s in the back of the room. I can’t empathize enough how fragile this was.

Normally, when sitting in my spot, I could do other things, such as read and listen at the same time. However, with the new image I was constantly drawn into staring at the centered fireplace half expecting to see someone singing in the flames. So, this insane revelation has me fumbling around trying to chase this. Of course being a rough setup, the new image is not perfect. So before I spend any more time on it I wanted to post this and get some opinions.

Is this what I should be chasing? Is it just some reverberated sound wave issues or is this the “holy grail” that everyone seems to chase? I am absolutely floored by this. It is a whole new dimension, and I mean freaky weird. Nothing is pinpoint; everything has a fuzzy “realness” to it. It is not without some perceived downsides though. Solo piano works sound as if I am sitting in an empty concert hall. I can hear sounds reverberating around the “hall”. None of this was apparent at all before. Has anyone experienced this? I do not believe it is simply “bad acoustics and negative reflections” because I have not heard them before. I have tried to describe it the best I can and hopefully someone understands what I am hearing because I am completely confused……

aboroth00

DSkip wrote: »

With that said, proper setup is key in any system. When people talk about the generic triangle you start with, its just a starting point. You have to play around with everything. How far a speaker is from the wall gets mentioned, but you often don't see anyone on this forum mention things like how far the listener is from the back wall. This plays a role in how the sound is heard as reflections do change for every position in the room.



I think the reason it worked 4 ft away is that you were having a near-field listening experience. I've often found it to be that speakers disappear better from a near-field position and most speakers I've heard can do it in that setting fairly well. The challenge comes when you move back 6 ft and get closer to that equilateral triangle.

The closer you sit to the speakers and the further the speakers are from the walls, you remove room contributions to the sound. Of course where you sit relative to the room has a big contribution as well. As Dskip mentioned, your relative position to the rear wall contributes to the amount and which nulls and peaks you'll hear. Bass radiates off the rear wall and reflects returning to the LP.

A nearfield listening experience best removes the contributions from the room however you may not be necessarily on axis for all drivers of your speaker for them to integrate best. Room acoustics are a huge pain to deal with but is an extremely rewarding endeavor.

treitz3

Hello Alan and good morning to you. What you experienced is the classic near-field listening position. Like everything, it has its advantages and its disadvantages. As you have discovered, the experience can be quite pleasurable.

Let me ask you this. From memory, the speakers you have sit low [tweeter height]. Have you ever thought to raise the speakers to where the tweeter height is close to the same height as your ears? Perhaps tilting the speaker no more than 3 degrees back so that the angle of the tweeter is directed more at your ear and not your knees. Maybe a combination thereof. Most of the forum members here who have commented and utilize your style of speaker have the tweeter pointed at or near around the ear to around 4 inches out without "crossing the beams". FWIW, mine are pointed around two inches out and the tweeter height is the same exact height as my listening position.

You have already learned quite a bit about the sweet spot since you joined the forum, so you will know when you find it and the progress will be somewhat quicker now that you have some experience under your belt.

Tom

gmcman

Alan, after reading over your threads, I admire your attention to detail and dedication into this hobby....I know it sucks me in as well.
Not sure if you have tried this yet, but if that were my setup and I was going back and forth like you have been, I would try to pull those speakers out about a foot and see how they sound. I would get them out of the corners by the fireplace and let them breathe a little more.

Worst case is you can put them back, no harm no foul.....worth a try.

tonyb

Agreed ^^

Pull them forward past the face of the fireplace but just short of the front of the hearth. Way too far back as is in the pics.
That room with the open area right behind the couch is going to bleed reflections. Sound works off reflections, for the better or worse, but generally you want those reflections to meet at some point at your listening position. Hard to do with nothing for it to bounce off behind that couch. So that's a limiting factor. Had my system set up just like that at one point, speakers flagging the fireplace, tv in the corner. Worked ok for music but movies you lost that front stage.

May have said it before, but try putting the tv on an angle in that corner with the speakers on each side as far as possible. Maybe 7-8 feet apart. Might give you the best of both worlds for HT/music. Worth a shot anyway, and cost nothing.

treitz3

gmcman wrote: »

Alan, after reading over your threads, I admire your attention to detail and dedication into this hobby....

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Tom

Alan_r

Good morning everyone, I guess I'm back at it again. We just had new floors put in so it gave me a chance to move things around again while the wife was distracted with setting the room back up. This morning I am putting the system back together again. I am going to try to move the speakers 1' out from the wall. That's as far as I can go before it is in the traffic area. I am also moving the subwoofer back so that it is in between the main speakers. I started to have problems with the base being easy to pinpoint. Certain frequencies did not blend in and it was easy too notice that base was coming from the corner. Some of this may be for nothing because I think it will change again when the Marantz finds it's way back into the system. Right now I am running my CD' s through a Samsung BD-D6700 BluRay player. Crazy as it may seem, when he Marantz went down, we noticed a definite change in the sound stage. If it's even possible, it seemed that the sound became more sterile and lost some warmth. Regardless, fingers crossed, the Marantz should be back together in a day or two. More to follow, AR.