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Finding the best position for Maggies?

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Posted on April 30, 2015 at 04:56:35
AkuAnkka
Audiophile

Posts: 167
Joined: February 3, 2013
 There's another great discussion going on about the limage- setup, but since it surely does not work in every room, I would like to start another discussion about other methods for finding the "best" position for Maggies.

My own T-IVa's are not yet up & running, so I don't know if limage would work for me or not. But since my forthcoming listening room will be far away from a "box", I'm quite sure that some more traditional setups might be better.

So, what I would like to hear is your comments on how did you find the best sounding position for your panels (with NO limage setup)? Did you start with some measurements, or do you trust your ears only? If you measure something, what and how? Which kind of a music do you listen when doing setup, and how do you know when it's "there"? What are typical faults in sound, if Maggies are misplaced, etc. etc.

And of course, it would also be nice to hear what is your final setup; what is the distance between:
- speakers and side- and front walls
- left and right speaker
- speakers and listening position
- listening position and back wall

All comments are highly appreciated!

 

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RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on April 30, 2015 at 11:58:55
DrChaos
Audiophile

Posts: 2063
Location: San Diego
Joined: July 13, 2009
I use a mono source. Move until the mono 'image' is a thin and dead center vertical line, and does not move or change with volume or frequency.

At that point, when there is no spatial effect with mono, the spatial effect with stereo will be best.

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on April 30, 2015 at 13:16:02
Swamis Cat
Audiophile

Posts: 272
Location: Illinois
Joined: September 7, 2013
 Great discussion topic! This probably the most important factor in optimizing the sound of a pair of Maggies. IMHO it is several orders of magnitude more important than the various tweaks, cables, and such, and even may be more important than most component changes.

I have tested hundreds of locations across three different rooms. Every one of them sounds and measures different. In some cases the differences are quite extreme.

My technique is always to move the speakers to a prospective location and listen to a set of reference tracks (which I stream in a playlist). The test tracks include mono, small acoustic, symphony, bass killers, rock, vocals, etc. ( I would be glad to share the list if anyone is interested -- most are 5 star recordings). Some are specifically included because they do something which is difficult to produce well -- for example the bass track is easily buried in the mix, or the guitar excites problems in the bass/ midrange, or the sounstage is naturally holographic.

After listening, I usually tweak things like toe in or the alignment of my DWMs with the mains (3.7i's). If I don't love it, I go on to another test or back to one of my favorite locations. If I do like it I test it using a Radio Shack meter at the listening position and the test tones from Stereophile number 3 CD. At this time, I may further tweak toe in, DWM placement, sub settings and phase etc. For the record the DWMs are both an awesome addition and a pain in the neck. However, the positioning of the bass panels allows both smoothing and amplification of bass and lower mid frequency response. I record my measurements (by hand) and settings on an excel sheet, and adjust for the known inaccuracies of the RS meter. At this time I will also use string to perfectly equalize the distance to the measuring seat. If it's REALLY good, I will tape it on the floor and label the tape with the test number.

Oh yeah, I also write subjective comments to remind me what it does subjectively and any problem tracks or issues. In my room my biggest problems are usually bass and upper midrange related.

My three favorites are:
1) a Limage type setup ten feet out from FW, but toed in and 30 inches from the SW without DWMs. ( my room is 20 by 14) my head is 42 inches from RW. Holographic soundstage but lacks impact and somewhat ghostly or ethereal sounding.

2) Even better is a conventional setup of roughly thirds. My speakers are six feet out from FW , toed in like a laser at my ears, 30 inches from SW. My ears are about 82 inches from RW. The DWMs are 30 inches ahead of the mains (making them twelve inches closer to my ears)

3) My newest experiment, and probably the best in sound quality and measurement, is really strange. The speakers are 21 inches from the SW, seven feet on the outside from FW, but toed in BEYOND 45 degrees, so that the inside edges are only 66 inches from the FW. This sprays the back reflection off the side wall and then to the front and then to my ears. The DWMs are set up EXACTLY parallel to the main speakers to effectively extend the bass like a wing. However because of the extreme toe in, the bass panels are closer to me than the mains as required for effective integration. This set up has better, tighter, fuller bass and also substantially livelier upper midrange without a hint of glare. Imaging is solid and realistic, but not as deep or holographic as Limage.

In all three cases, I have my Rhythmik sub closer to me than the speakers usually with the XO at about 45. Oh, in all cases my set up is with tweets in.

I just got back from AXPONA. In my jaded opinion, only the Acoustic Zen and Sonus Faber rooms sounded substantially better than my lowly Maggies in set up 2 or 3 (though other rooms did some things better and other things worse). The Maggie's that were at the show won best sound awards by JV at TAS (at least best for the money). Mine sound substantially better in every way than the show ones (they were shoved in a corner and only two feet from the FW in a too small room. Still they did sound real good, even Wendell approved).

Sorry for the too long reply. I can't wait to hear other ideas or feedback.

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on April 30, 2015 at 14:02:39
Markeneret
Audiophile

Posts: 83
Location: Oregon
Joined: November 2, 2010
 The first thing I attempt to achieve is the rough position of the speakers and listening chair for the best bass response. Not the loudest or boomiest. Listen for bass balance with the rest of the music and a clarity of bass pitch. Is it a kick drum, synthesizer, bass guitar? Can you hum the notes ?

To find a pretty good ballpark, try the Cardas dipole calculator, here : http://www.cardas.com/room_setup_calculators.php

Play a musical piece with bass and other instruments. Walk forward and back from the speakers along the centerline, listening for bass tightness,clarity and balance with the mid/highs. Your speakers will be roughly 1/3rd of the distance from the front wall and your chair will be about the same distance from the back wall.

NOW you adjust mid/high's by adjusting the toe-in of the tweeters. You're just about there !

Finally, get out some tape to mark your speaker / listening positions before you start the fine adjustments. 1/4 inch can make a difference. Adjust the distance between the speakers for the image with the best focus and front to back 3d imaging. Take notes and mark your floor with tape and the positions you like the best. Make sure that your primary left-right wall reflection points are absorbed ( use a mirror and a friend).

A great book on this is by Jim Smith http://www.amazon.com/Get-Better-Sound-Jim-Smith/dp/0982080700

Enjoy !
"I see sound waves"

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on April 30, 2015 at 16:06:23
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 In the case of the T-IV/IVa there are more variables and there is also a question of matching the XO to the geometry of the placement. (I am assuming you are still interested in bi/tri-amping)

For any symmetrical XO (probably electronic) whether 4th order or 3rd order or 2nd order or 1st order and for some hybrid combos (3rd + 1st is a favorite) the best setup is equidistant - where the panels are distributed on an arc drawn from the listening chair and the toe in of the mid tweeter panel is slightly adjusted for HF instrumental images to snap together more tightly. The panels are all leveled plumb vertical in both axis (front to back ans side to side) This will provide image precision surpassing minimonitor quality. .

The equidistant arc also works well for the stock XO and its electronic XO copies. But you don't quite get that precision as you do with the above XOs.

Unlike Magnepan's suggestion you should have the deep bass panel (the one without buttons) to the outside and as close as is practical to the sidewalls for deepest bass, not at the middle between the other panels.

Next issue is placement of the arc arrangement relative to the front wall and side walls. Then where to place your seat (note that you need to rejigger the arc every time you move your seat). I prefer to have the setup on the short wall if you have the space for it that way. The tweeter to tweeter distance need be only 6ft or greater and greater distances do not produce substantially different results in soundstage and image locations. The bass panels should be positioned to balance bass tightness extension and imaging and if you are a bass hound such as myself you should consider placing a bookcase or panel to narrow the open air slot between the wall and the edge of the bass panel.

The placement of the tweeter at the 1/3rd rule location will do best for a starting point. This will cause the bass panels at the outside edge of the arc to be closer to 1/2 way into the room.

One of the things you should look out for is having early reflections of either the backwave or the side radiation of the mid/tweeter bouncing off a central rack or TV. One of the telltale signs of this is a recessed central image - particularly when its' height is off despite having the speakers straight up vertical. This will require the use of diffusion (the famous fake ficus) in the line between the panels and the offending surface, or using wing panels perpendicular to the tweeters but behind the speaker for redirection of the backwave away from the surfaces (rack) producing early reflections (this is also true for the Limage setup).

If your back wall is very diffusive (like a loaded bookcase with random depth pattern of books etc., or with a diffusor) then you will probably not suffer any from having the seat just a couple of ft from the backwall bookcase or whatever. You are unllikely to have much in the way of bass nulls in that area. In any case, after creating a basic initial setup you will want to mark up the central line between the speakers from the 2/3 point from the front wall to the back wall and run bass sweeps to check for locations with minimal nulls and lesser peaks. Those spots are potential alternate locations for your seat.

As other have suggested you should start with balancing a mono recording so that all the instruments are located at the center along a thin line or (if everything is plumb and your seat height is near the height of the center of the mid driver) you should have a tiny ball source with the feel of a megaphone dispersion of the sound out of it. Tape hiss and FM noise should be a centered ball and image above the soundstage or be diffuse as a "frame" around the soundstage depending on the source.

I use early stereo reccordings of live concerts (classical orchestra and jazz) with simple mic techniques (2 or 3 mics) to check and adjust the fine tuning after the mono tests. I also follow up with solo instrument recordings - particularly piano and percussion - to check on precision of timing so that piano strings/drum whacks etc, don't produce "double vision" images between the transient as it comes off the drivers and with the sound event's trails as the piano string or drum transition to silence.

Another thing to try is a Partial Rooze setup. Where the bass panels are placed in a Limage like wall loading setup and the mid/tweeter panels are aimed at the sidewalls (they are located so that the apparent panel width is minimal when viewed from the seat - which is at the dipole null). If you are interested in details tell me and I can report some of the tricks involved in making that work.


 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 1, 2015 at 05:24:08
Roger Gustavsson
Audiophile

Posts: 2058
Location: Huskvarna
Joined: February 12, 2010
 Setup is very dependent of the room and where you have your listening position! As AkuAnka, like me, live in Scandinavia, our rooms may be a bit different to rooms in the US or Hong Kong (as I think is where Limage came up). I have been renovating my listening room and just pulled the speakers, the electronics and a few furnitures in there to listen - it sounded awful. At first, I thought something had happend to the speakers. After a while, more furnitures entered the room and it started to sound like before. As I see it, many Scandinavian style rooms need some work, we often have to little of dampening furnitures. I would start with following the instructions given by Magnepan. My own modified Tympani IVa will need to use a different setup as my room is narrow.

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 1, 2015 at 08:42:55
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 Understood, that scandinavian interior design is rather spare and thus result in some echoey and top heavy acoustics. That only means that some effort should be put in to have something in the room to deliberately diffuse sound - particularly in the back of the room (listening seat side) when doing a Limage type setup and the front of the room for most other setups.

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 2, 2015 at 01:28:37
AkuAnkka
Audiophile

Posts: 167
Joined: February 3, 2013
 Thank you very much for all great comments and instructions!

I'm fortunate that I will be able to build a dedicated listening room upstairs, so I will surely be using some diffusers, bass traps, absorption etc. to get good enough reverberation time measurements thru the whole frequency range. My room will be (after I brake a few walls...) about 5m x 7m, and since my house is made of wood, it should be quite a good room for this purpose anyway.

Swamis Cat; I would loooove to hear your list of reference tracks for setting up, just as everybody else's recommendations also! Even better if you could describe a bit why do you use that specific track; what parts of it do you listen for, when do you know setup is "right", which kind of a faults does that track expose etc.

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 2, 2015 at 01:31:21
AkuAnkka
Audiophile

Posts: 167
Joined: February 3, 2013
 This was an interesting idea!

But how exactly do you get a mono source; do you use some mono test tracks, or do you just feed the same signal (left or right from a stereo) to the both speakers?

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 2, 2015 at 02:00:51
Roger Gustavsson
Audiophile

Posts: 2058
Location: Huskvarna
Joined: February 12, 2010
 There are lot mono recordings available. You can get some from me.

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 2, 2015 at 09:42:53
AkuAnkka
Audiophile

Posts: 167
Joined: February 3, 2013
 I have never ever heard a mono recording... :-o

But basically is there any reason why sending the same right- or left signal to both speakers would not work just as well??

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 25, 2015 at 09:40:49
AkuAnkka
Audiophile

Posts: 167
Joined: February 3, 2013
 Markeneret; but is it actually better to listen for the best place for basses, or would it be easier just to measure it? I mean; isn't the best place where the response is flattest??

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 25, 2015 at 10:43:27
Swamis Cat
Audiophile

Posts: 272
Location: Illinois
Joined: September 7, 2013
 My experience is that flat is half the battle, especially with panels. The other thing is how tight and integrated the bass impulses are (actually all the frequencies). I am no engineer, but I believe it has to do with the rear wave and the front wave and how they combine together across all the frequencies.

At the same basic flat frequency response, the speakers can sound completely different based upon how the rear wave integrates and reinforces or how it conflicts and cancels. In addition, if you get the speakers far enough out, you can make the rear wave sound so delayed that it just becomes a reflection, at least in the upper frequencies.

In other words, at the same approximate bass flatness, it can sound tight and punchy or boomy and reverberant. I also find the Mids and treble sound different too. For example, if I put tweets out it measures as having more upper midrange energy, but (due to timing differences of the closer woofer?) it sounds the opposite.

My pet theory is that Magnepan designs and "voices" the speaker based upon a general range of distances from walls, especially the front wall. They kind of have to, imo. Most likely that voicing is reflected in their set up instructions, in the case of the 3.7i that is about four feet with toe in directly at listener. Again though, this is a guess. Perhaps they really design it for further out and just list the closer distance so that people aren't scared off by the real requirements for optimal set up. I prefer the speakers substantially further out.

But as above, I have no engineering expertise, and would encourage those who know better to correct and educate me.

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 25, 2015 at 11:28:17
JBen
Audiophile

Posts: 3082
Location: South FL
Joined: May 18, 2008
Contributor
  Since: July 26, 2010
 AkuAnkka, if you can't find a reference mono pink noise audio file, send me email and I'll get you one. Of course, if you can get REW to make measurements you are better off still. Come to think of it, REW can generate the file just as well as the signal feed. BTW, it is free, search the web for "Room EQ Wizard".

Now, SwamisCat has a point. "Flat" is part of the story -- and a deceitful one, at times (when taken out of context}.

Yet, it is still worth pursuing it via [consistently conducted] measurements. In doing so, you develop a reference set of measurements vs changes. Together with another -- more important -- reference set, you can both hear AND "see" progress.

This more important reference set is a "core collection" of music that you should choose and keep using constantly, for years in my case. In fact, I chose the core music and installed REW at the same time in 2008, short after I got the MMGs.

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 26, 2015 at 14:28:51
Swamis Cat
Audiophile

Posts: 272
Location: Illinois
Joined: September 7, 2013
 Yeah, I second the core music collection. Over time I find the easiest way to do this is set up a streaming folder on key tracks which reveal either strengths and or weaknesses. For example, tracks which make female vocals sound strident if anything is wrong in upper Mids (Rickie Lee Jones), or lower Mids, and which reveal subtle differences which can get buried in the mix.

This gets even better if you can listen to these tracks on other systems, to extend the reference.

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 26, 2015 at 14:47:52
JBen
Audiophile

Posts: 3082
Location: South FL
Joined: May 18, 2008
Contributor
  Since: July 26, 2010
 Y'r also absolutely right about the benefit of comparing with other systems. I wish I had the time to elaborate now. In any event, taking our core music to other (ideally "better") systems better anchors our point of reference against the tides of too much subjectivity. (And it will eventually make us mightily proud!)

 

RE: Finding the best position for Maggies?, posted on May 26, 2015 at 15:12:50
Markeneret
Audiophile

Posts: 83
Location: Oregon
Joined: November 2, 2010
 Posted by AkuAnkka (A) on May 25, 2015 at 09:40:49
In Reply to: RE: Finding the best position for Maggies? posted by Markeneret on April 30, 2015 at 14:02:39:

Markeneret; but is it actually better to listen for the best place for basses, or would it be easier just to measure it? I mean; isn't the best place where the response is flattest??

The Cardas calculator will get your speakers in a pretty decent location. Generally, you find that sitting the same distance from the rear wall as the speakers are located from the front wall will sound pretty nice. I'm a firm believer in listening for the best bass. Use a full-range music piece that you're familiar with, at your normal listening level. To hear what you DON'T want, listen to what the bass does when you're standing up against the front or rear walls. Boomy=no good. Now locate the center of the room, where you'll also find a bass node that creates boominess. These 3 places (and corners) are areas where every room tends to amplify the bass. This will help train your ear. Now listen for the negative nodes between the high pressure node. You don't want those either ! ( BTW, large rooms make this process a bit easier.

THE ROOM itself, owing mostly to its' dimensions, has places where the bass is amplified or reduced (nodes). Since you want a stereo image, you'll want to stay along that center line between the speakers. Walk forward and back, marking the floor with a piece of tape where it sounds good to you. Listen for the character of the bass. "Flat" is very difficult, because most of us don't find "flat" as being musically appealing. Particularly, listen for bass notes that you can actually hear the pitch. That's the spot for your chair ! Now you can move onto toe-in for imaging and treble response.
"I see sound waves"

 

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