Optimizing the sound stage w/ RTi70s

quadzilla

Hi,

Got the new tweets in for my RTi70s, broke them in about a week, and now I'm trying to get my sound stage set up. My listening spot is right at 9 ft from the front, and I've set up the speakers in an equilateral triangle per the owner's manual. However, especially when listening in stereo, sound seems to come directly from the speaker, very point-sourced. I've tried various amounts of toe-in, as well as moving the speaker closer to/farther away from the wall, but do not seem to be able to get a proper sound stage out of the speakers. So I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Anyone has any experience with these speakers and willing to provide a somewhat dense neophyte with a few helpful hints?

The rest of the system is:
CSi5 center
LS50s rear
LS F/x sides
2 PSW 450s
Pioneer SC-05


Speakers are wired normally, not bi-wired using a decent 14 ga. cable. The room itself is about 22x24x15 ft effective, when considering the connected areas. I also have a set of R20s and a CSi40 to play with, so I have some flexibility in my set up. The issue isn't as apparent when watching movies, but when listening to music, especially classical, the majority of the sound does seem to come directly from the speaker.

Face

How close are they from the back wall?

How much toe do you have?

Is there anything between the speakers, such as an equipment rack, TV, etc...?

The last thing is the biggest killer IMO. For music, your mains should be at least 1'+ in front of any racks, TV's, etc...

kuntasensei

My RTi70s took a little toying with to get really good imaging. At first, I had them toed in too much. Had to fiddle with them a little. I have mine about 8" away from the front wall and 3' from the side walls.

I know this doesn't help you, but mine were fairly easy to localize... until I did a proper run through with Audyssey. The slight rolloff of the highs seems to help, which makes me wonder if these speakers are a bit too directional and need some taming of the high end to bring them to life.

Also, while the whole equilateral triangle thing is a good rule of thumb, you also need to consider where that puts the speakers in relation to the side walls. Sidewall reflections are often part of the equation as far as getting good stereo imaging (though you'll see a lot of people tell you that you want to minimize sidewall reflections for frequency response reasons). If you can, put each speaker around 30 degrees to either side of center, without any toe-in. If that's not possible, the further you get beyond that 60 degree cone, the more you'll need to toe them in.

Whatever you do, don't point them directly at the listening position. A good method for aiming is to take a laser pointer and put it against the inside edge of each speaker. Then, aim the speakers so the lines from the laser pointer would intersect around 1 foot BEHIND where your head would be.

The last thing I'd mention is the potential for phase issues. Make sure you've wired the tweeters and the speakers themselves correctly, because if they're out of phase with each other, they won't image well. On a related note, double check the speaker distance settings, since incorrect distances in your AVR can put the speakers slightly out of phase and ruin imaging.

quadzilla

Thanks guys. I did finally get it sounding pretty good last night. I ended up moving my listening position back a foot, and the speakers another foot farther apart. I also moved them back towards the wall, as I had them about 1.5 ft out. That leaves them about 3.5-4 ft from the side walls. I also ended up with 1/4 in. toe in as measured across the back.

Another thing I noticed is that while this did make things much, much better, with classical I'm still getting a little bit of an imaging problem. The best way I can describe it is that the orchestra seems split in half, with each half lined up behind one of the speakers. It's not nearly as bad as it was before though, as now I have at least some center. As kuntasensei said, the important thing is to avoid pointing the speakers directly at the listening position.

Anyway, there's still a bit more tweaking to do, but at least it's getting close.