LSi9's lying on side, in cabinet...

pkhoopes

Hello all,

I will be using 2 LSi9's as the front mains in a 5.1 HT setup. I have a new entertainment center on order which will be housing all of the gear.

Each LSi9 will be in a separate cabinet on either side of the tv, even with the bottom of the tv. Each cabinet measures 24w x 13h x 24d. This means the speaker will have to lie on one side or the other. I know that when they are upright, it is better to have the tweeter on the inside. Any recommendations on placement for best sound? Also, will I need to add any kind of acoustic treatment to the inside of the cabinets?

Thanks,
Paul

WilliamM2

Generally, when you place speakers inside a cabinet, it ruins the sound, especially bass response, which can become rather boomy. Laying them on their sides will mess up the dispersion, Polk designed the driver layout with the speakers standing upright.

mantis

WilliamM2 wrote: »

Generally, when you place speakers inside a cabinet, it ruins the sound, especially bass response, which can become rather boomy. Laying them on their sides will mess up the dispersion, Polk designed the driver layout with the speakers standing upright.

Which is true but you still can get them to sound good not great in that position. You need to add in acoustic block inside the cabinet so you don't get Boomy bass. You also should run them in small at 80hz. this will further help your poor position.
If you can't get Acoustic block, Dynamat or something thick and dense will help. Even some carpet will do.

Dan

pkhoopes

Thanks guys,

I'm pretty much locked into this type of positioning. I will look into some kind of acoustical product to line the inside of the cabinet.

Paul

dorokusai

Go for it. Not everyone has a perfect location for everything and all you can do is make the best of it in the end.

There's all kinds of things you could experiement with to keep that cavity from loading your loudspeaker. It's not going to be perfect but it can be done.

Is the cavity above your listening position? or directly aimed at it?

You could use doorstops on the rear to aim down, carpet padding or small pillows for rough tweaks....even small children if a neighbor has an excess of them. Just tell them it's to do weeding or leaf removal and send them home with an M rated video game.

pkhoopes

Thanks for your replies everyone. I have been studying the schematic I have for the entertainment center (take delivery in about a month). The compartments that are meant to hold the speakers sit about 26" off the floor. It has a front door which is hinged at the bottom, and can be closed to hide the speaker (not a good thing, these things are beautiful in cherry!) Like I said earlier, the height is fixed at 13", 2" shy for the Polks to stand upright.

Here is what I think I'm going to do. The top outside ceiling of this compartment is basically a fixed shelf, and above that are 2 adjustable shelves. I will just sit the speakers here (on each side of the center) and adjust the shelf above so they can stand upright. I estimate that the height of this fixed shelf will be approx. 40" off the floor. The tweeter is 8 inches from the bottom of the speaker, so that will have the tweeter 48" off the floor. I understand the it is usually best to have the tweeters at ear height when seated. This height for me is 42", so they will be 6" above my ear height. Hopefully this will be ok. What do you think? The room is somewhat large at 18' x 24' with 10' celing, so maybe the slightly higher position will help(?) Comments welcome.

Paul

pkhoopes

dorokusai wrote: »

Go for it. Not everyone has a perfect location for everything and all you can do is make the best of it in the end.

There's all kinds of things you could experiement with to keep that cavity from loading your loudspeaker. It's not going to be perfect but it can be done.

Is the cavity above your listening position? or directly aimed at it?

You could use doorstops on the rear to aim down, carpet padding or small pillows for rough tweaks....even small children if a neighbor has an excess of them. Just tell them it's to do weeding or leaf removal and send them home with an M rated video game.

Ha ha! (about the kids). The center will be on a wall with 2 cased openings on either side. I have just enough room on the wall for the center and my subwoofer on one side. It will be facing the primary seating position (sofa), which is on the opposite wall. Thanks for the suggestions.

Paul

Eric W

Being on their sides won't be that big of a deal- the LSi9 has a cascaded crossover array, so its vertical dispersion is fairly close to its horizontal dispersion.

As for being in the cabinet, good advice in the thread so far. Just try it out and try to aim the speaker towards the listening area. It may boom some, it may not.

pkhoopes

Eric Wong wrote: »

Being on their sides won't be that big of a deal- the LSi9 has a cascaded crossover array, so its vertical dispersion is fairly close to its horizontal dispersion.

As for being in the cabinet, good advice in the thread so far. Just try it out and try to aim the speaker towards the listening area. It may boom some, it may not.

Thanks Eric...I will do some experimentation.

Paul

geronimou

Eric Wong wrote: »

Being on their sides won't be that big of a deal- the LSi9 has a cascaded crossover array, so its vertical dispersion is fairly close to its horizontal dispersion.

As for being in the cabinet, good advice in the thread so far. Just try it out and try to aim the speaker towards the listening area. It may boom some, it may not.

Hi Eric,

What is it about the LSI9's cascaded tapered crossover that makes the vertical and horizontal dispersions fairly close? The only info I found so far was here. My best guess is that the vertical dispersion must be somewhat "tall" if the two drivers produce independent frequency bands, and they both need to reach the listener at roughly the same power. But I would still assume the drivers would be designed with an even wider horizontal dispersion in mind.

Anyways my listening area is pretty much confined to a small 6 ft sofa about 10 ft away from the L/R speakers, which are 60 degrees apart and aimed at center. When the LSI9s are turned sideways, what degradation to imaging and other qualities could one notice within such a small target? Maybe there is some recommended reference sample to listen to where I could look for a difference. My green ears have not been able to detect much of a difference with various instrumental/vocal CDs so it may not matter to me, but I am very curious.

Systems

geronimou wrote: »

When the LSI9s are turned sideways, what degradation to imaging and other qualities could one notice within such a small target?

You might even try flip flopping them so that the mid-woofers are on the inside and woofer on the outside and vice versa.Their lobing pattern may favour one setup over the other as response in the mid-tweet crossover region may be better at your listening axis.:DOh yeah if you want to remove the bass boom created by the cavity resonance you will need some thick material like fibreglass,Roxul mineral wool,rolled up blankets etc.Thin material will have little absorbtion at low frequencies.

skipf

If you put an LSi9 on it's side, won't it turn into a LSiC?;)

Erik Tracy

skipf wrote: »

If you put an LSi9 on it's side, won't it turn into a LSiC?;)

Only if the left driver falls asleep:p

Systems

skipf wrote: »

If you put an LSi9 on it's side, won't it turn into a LSiC?;)

Pretty much,there is only slight differences in the crossover.