The Aggrivations Of Loudspeaker Placement...

Well now I have read where someone has...

One CD to the next??? effin' prefectionist..

Nah... not the recording. It's that your DT's aren't mirror imaged...

Originally posted by Tour2ma
Well now I have read where someone has...

well, i don't change out gear much since i put my rack on a diet and i would change positions whether there were new gear or not, so it's not really an issue for me. but, it's interesting how rare the hardware review is that doesn't attach some attribute that is affected by placement.

heh heh, so maybe if we are both a little bit right, this might help to explain why there's always so much fine gear on the block.

Originally posted by Tour2ma
One CD to the next??? effin' prefectionist..

well, i don't really change speaker position from one cd to the next, i just recognize that with my gear, in my room that there is no one optimal placement for every cd. so, whatever the placement is will be a factor in the playlist,.. until i want to hear the magic of a particular cd that needs a different placement to make it happen.

)

Hey i thought you came up with a great subject..it is very importamt .i misse all you guys man--i have been gone for awhile and its great to see all the same polkoids on here. ever notice when you get the placement just right you can sit in the hot spot and close your eyes and listen closely and point your finger to where the singer's voice is coming from. Then hold yur finger in place and then open your eyes and you will be blown away that the voice is right in the middle of the the speakers and on 2 channel there's not even a center channel but the voice is still there right in the center--an if the singer moves, you can notice-( depending on the P.A. set up in the studio ) the snare drum is about 10 feet or so behind the singer--such accurate placement of each musician---phenominal for 2 channel..
My RT 7's had to be placed kinda high maybe 5 feet up ad 3 feet from the wall and 8 feet apart which brings them about 2 feet fom the side walls. with the velodyne kinda close to the back wall behind the speakers with no carpet to suck up the sound.......................
The prodigy's were another story,,,very finiky even though they are bowed across the front it was a long drawn out proscess..i still have them toed in a little and way away from the walls--on these the soundstage changes critically even with the slightest lil' change.. I can't help but state the fact that those lli' polks RT-7's have such a phenominal imaging quality and they were about 8'000 dollars cheaper...ha,,go figure.
any way im exited about being back on here and looking forward to all the humorous and derogatory comments --i have been working on putting high end audio in my car lately--Have any of you ever seen Adcom's car audio amplifiers ?
Oh god man,,not bad at all..

as gmorris has said, my room is SMALL. 10.5' by 11.5'. I sit against the back wall, speakers are on the short wall. I have TONS of room gain so it was hard to get rid of the bloated bass. It took me MANY weeks of agrivation, but I've found a good balance. I still have some bloat at certain frequencies but it's pretty balanced (to my ears anyway).

I've gotten lucky and found a good spot for my speakers. I had the most success following the guidelines in the two links below. I did not however mess with seating position (I was limited to one spot), or toe in. I don't need no stinking toe in. my speakers image like **** and they seem to sound their best firing straight forward.

http://www.immediasound.com/Speakersetup.html

http://www.audioasylum.com/scripts/d.pl?audio/faq/audiophysic.html

the gist of it is, even spots in your room reinforce bass while the odd spots do not. I went for odd spots and it has worked out very well. speakers are 45" from the rear wall (to front of speaker) and 21.5" from the side wall (to outside edge of speaker). I get a nice balance of bass and soundstage size. My small room does not seem to effect how large my system sounds anymore. It sounds HUGE in a little room. which makes me wonder what it could do in a bigger room... someday maybe...

Yeah, my speakers on the 2-channel system sound better facing straight ahead, too. If I toe them in, the sound is too much in my face and the soundstage narrows.

Nice article on speaker placement, tryrrthg. I still looking for an article that offers real world advice. For instance, most people don't have the luxury of setting up speakers in their rooms optimally or even close to being optimal. Lots of reasons, of course.

In my case, the only location for my speakers is a couple of inches from the back wall, which, incidentally, both rear ports are firing into windows!! That's probably one of the worst combinations you can have. I can't move the system in another room or re-arrange the room or move the speakers forward whenever I listen to music. I have a similar situation with my HT fronts. So I just have to work with what I've got for now. I know I'm not alone on this issue. So if any of you guys run across ideas for mitigating major speaker placement violations, please let us know.

Originally posted by Vr3MxStyler2k3
Ah, I'm back folks...with more trials and tribulations and wow...some extra brain power...

3) Distance from the rear wall, this is REALLY over-looked, big time...the distance from the rear wall is crucial it seems, I just did this after reading someone doing it on the S&V board... and I will say the soundstage is much taller...and the sound is ALOT clearer...amazing difference

The difference can be quite startling. I've been tweaking distance between the speaker and the wall behind them and it does make a difference, especially in the area of bass response.

With my RTA-11's the best imaging is acheived when the speakers are faced directly forward. I believe the MTM design dictates this placement. The '11's toed in or out even slightly collaspes the sound stage quite a bit.

FWIW

H9

I found my optimum speaker placement some time ago but every once in awhile I get the urge to screw with it some more and every time I kick myself in the **** and end up with them exactly back where they were. I have found that this is the absolute only place they work for me. If I even mess with the toe-in 1/8" or move them slightly closer together it screws up the imaging and mushes up the bass. The optimal speaker placement for my room and system (if anybody gives a rats ****) happens to be 5' 4" apart from center to center which ends up being almost exact half the distance to my ears when I'm sitting in the sweet spot. They are 15" each to the side of my audio rack and 28" from the rear wall. The toe-in is approximately 1 1/2"-1 3/4". The room is 14' long and 11 ft wide. I just feel sorry for those who don't have a dedicated listening room and have to place their speakers to suit the decor or wife. It can screw up the whole thing royally and turn a great system into a very mediocre one. Like people have said previously, if you have the option to play with your speaker placement and haven't I strongly urge you to do so before doing any other tweaks whatsoever.