SDA-1C placement for best soundstage?

00p225

I have my recently purchased SDA-1C's placed 66" apart on the long wall in my living room. My listening postition is 92" away from the sda's on center against the opposing wall.

When I recline my chair the sound stage opens up and moves even furthur beyond/outside the sda's. When I recline my listening chair my listening position actually moves to the rear about 6". Does this mean I should move the sda's closer together? I can't setup the sda's any farther apart as there is an open doorway on each side of each speaker. Does anyone have a tried and true ratio to setup these? I'm mainly looking for how far the speakers are apart vs distance away from speakers for listening position. Thanks.

Zane

warviper

Try to keep an equilateral triangle. The farther apart your speakers are the farther from them you can be. I currently have mine 27" from the side walls also and I wish that I had the room for about 10" more. Keep on tweaking the placement of the speakers they are worth the time. Or maybe you can move your listing position to better suit the speakers.

F1nut

Zane,

The ideal set up would be 6' to 8' apart, at least 3' from any side wall, no toe-in and very close (5" is ideal for me) to the back wall. As Warviper stated, try to keep an equilateral triangle. One thing that may be happening when you recline your chair is that the reflected sound waves are allowed to flow more freely there by "opening" up the soundstage. If your chair has a tall back, in it's upright postion, it's cutting out those sound waves.

F1

00p225

Thanks for the tips on placement. My recliner does have a very tall back which probabally does affect the soundstage changing when reclined.

When measuring from the listening position to the speakers, what is everyone measuring from, the inside edge of the speaker or the stereo driver? It seems it would be better to measure distance from the stereo driver since the dimensional driver depends on time/distance to the listeners ear? Anyway it's time to start experimenting again. Thank god the 1-c's don't weigh 180lbs!

Larry Chanin

Originally posted by F1nut
The ideal set up would be 6' to 8' apart, at least 3' from any side wall, no toe-in and very close (5" is ideal for me) to the back wall.

Hi F1,

I'm in the process of designing a home theater in which I intend to use SDA-1Cs as my mains. Due to space constraints, up until now, I've regreted that I only have a few inches from the back of the speaker to the back wall. For some reason I always thought that most main speakers performed better when they were spaced away from both the side and back walls by a few feet

Could you elaborate on your back wall spacing comment? Is this something you've observed from your experimentation with SDA's? Do you have a theory why the close spacing is better, i.e. better bass due to proximity with the wall, etc.?

Thanks very much.

Larry

F1nut

Larry,

The SDA speakers are not like other speakers as I'm sure you well know. The SDA's will produce more/better bass when placed closer to the rear wall. If you read your manual it states so and that has been my personal experience. Of note, the TL series came with a "Bass Brace" which is a rod to connect the back of the speaker to the wall. It is used in place of spikes. The measured length of this rod is about 16". From this one could reasonably assume that Polk doesn't want the speaker any further away than that.

Try moving them in and out yourself and post back what you find. I think you'll agree that closer is better.

Jesse

Larry Chanin

Thanks Jesse,

After all these years I had totally missed the reference in the manual to the back wall spacing. :rolleyes: It looks like I'll have about a 5" spacing.

I'm in the midst of building my home theater so I won't be able to post any experiences for some time. However, thanks to you I'm feeling much better about what I thought was a defect in my layout has turned out to be the preferred distance.

Regards,

Larry

BobMcG

You can't go wrong following the Polk Owner's Mannual for positioning your speakers.

One element some people forget about when setting up their "sweet spot" is the amount of distance there is between their head/ears and the wall behind them. You should probably have at least three feet here too.

warviper

Hey Larry if you want I can send you a copy of the manual that I got from F1nut PM me you addy and Ill copy and send it to you.

Larry Chanin

Hi warviper,

That's very kind of you, but not necessary. I've still got my original manual. I just failed to read it carefully enough.

Larry