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In Reply to: RE: 3.7i Break-in posted by Swamis Cat on June 20, 2014 at 09:06:35
SC
Time for break-in update...just looking for your thoughts...21 days from when you first posted..
thanks
Mark
Follow Ups:
I think I should try to cook up a little upgrade comparison write-up. In another week or so I will substitute my old speakers back into the mix and compare the two with fresh ears (and measurements-- they are clearly voiced differently in upper mids and lower bass)
That said, after about 250-300 hours, the initial problems I had with coherence, depth and imaging are long gone. These speakers need lots of play time to break in, and they continue to get better each day.
They no longer require toe in to sound good. My current set up has them in a classic Limage set up; exactly ten feet from the front wall at exactly one foot from side wall, one inch toe in. Eleven feet and eight feet sound pretty good too, but there are always trade offs. Eight feet has killer, cone style bass but doesn't quite get the soundstage thing right -- it's too close to the front wall which is untreated. Eleven feet is dramatic with great near-field imaging and depth, but is somewhat claustrophobic.
Tomorrow I will probably try something slightly different....
S-Cat:
Did you give the dimensions of your listening room - sorry, maybe I missed it. My room is 12.5 x 22 x 8.75 with 1.7s currently sitting in it (out in front of the short wall). I am considering 3.7i's. I think that the room isn't too small but your thoughts (and those of other inmates) would be most welcome.
RR,
They work just fine...mine are 42.5% into the room, (8'-4"), off the FW, 11-1/2", to the edge of the speaker off the side wall...listening position is 10'from speakers to ears, +/-....
Hope that helps...
thanks
Mark
Ps. I have a partial wall behind me, then open to the kitchen and dining...I have foyer to my left and hallway to my right, Sadie advised me to put my ears within these two alcoves, which really works well...do not know why, but it does...
Mark: The discussion got a little sidetracked to one about bass panels (still very helpful). I assume that you are talking about "they" being your 3.7's?
Other topic... I am shifting some gear around. I have a power amp sitting on the floor between my 1.7s (possibly soon to be 3.7s?). I would like to move my (digital) front-end to a spot against the front wall (on a small stand). So, it would be behind, and to the side of, the amp. I don't think that this would be completely inadvisable but would welcome comments. I could move the front-end gear to the right side wall but then the gear would be in front of the right speaker.
Thanks to S-Cat and Satie for their comments about bass panels.
Behind my speakers are 4 silk fichus trees per channel at varying heights to break-up my back wave, cheap diffusion that makes a terrible front wall work...
The rack in front of one of your speakers...try it, see what you get...
I have a pair of 6 meter interconnects to get my rack on side wall in front of my speakers, it makes putting anything more than a loveseat in the listening space crowded, so I put my rack right in the middle between the two speakers, lower profile rack with 42" TV on top of that...definitely not ideal, but it works well...I did not notice any real change in what I was hearing??!!?? I asked a few on this board if I was nuts...I won't go to all the inmates that said "yes you are", but someone, (Sadie), said there can be nulls at the edge of speaker, this rack is mostly air, rack is 5'-6" long and the distance between speakers is 6'-6"...
The room and the set-up within that space to get optimum sound, is part of the fun for this hobby for me...
Good luck on your journey...the 3.7's are an easy recommendation...
thanks
Mark
Satie, How far from the side walls are your mains?
Mark, can you remind me how much toe in you prefer at this location?
One other comment on positioning. I have been able to find only two listening (seating) locations with extremely smooth bass in my current room. One is in exactly the spot predicted by the rule of thirds. With the chair at just under seven foot from the BW, the bass bumps and dips are clearly smoothed out. The other place in my room, is about two and a half feet from the back wall.
I have never noticed any negative impact of having the rear wall, which is totally untreated, this close to my ears. I tried treating once, and did find this had adverse effects.
At the area between 2.5 and 7 feet from BW, I get various dips and some extreme bumps. They are pleasant briefly for rock music, but prove irritating over time.
Currently no toe, perpendicular to the side wall...quick story...
I have been playing with locations and toe in over the last 6 months, keep coming back to Sadie's first location...it is really spooky when they snap into focus...
My listening position, can move 18" window back and fourth, when I am all the back to the partial wall, my ears are to the right of the partial wall, so 10' open behind my head...my right channel has been a little off, as the left channel is ever so slightly stronger...as I was measuring and trying to figure things out, I noticed the inside leg of Mye Audio stands, was about 3/4" askew on the right channel, I loosened the screws, made a slight shift...everything is fine now...
My point being that I heard, that minor shift before I ever saw it...to me that just screams how important that room location is...
As you have clearly stated, your distance off the front wall is all about trade offs and where you are willing to live with them...
thanks again for taking us on your journey...always interesting...
Mark
The bass panels are perpendicular to the "sidewalls" flush to them with the deep bass panel at the wall and the midbass panel in line with it in the middle. The mid and tweeter are about 7" closer to the Front Wall and separated from the bass panels with a wing covered by a fuzzy fabric. That maintains time alignment with the midbass when using 1st order XO. That leaves the tweeter roughly 4' from the sidewalls. Significantly further than ideal, but still no slouches in the Limage effect.
The bass panel arrangement is what magnepan suggests for Tympani in the split configuration, but I found it effective for all setups as it kicks up the deep bass very effectively if you recall my bass freq scan. Saves a boat load of power for the bass amps.
The "sidewalls" are a loaded bookcase row (9' long filled to the ceiling) and on the other side there is a gap in the bookcases for most of the workable Limage positions. That leaves about 15.5-16' of acoustic width.
Thx. Sounds like you are not too far off the back wall as well.
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/MUG/messages/21/211405.html
covered it in the post ref'd above.
Pretty much in the middle of the room.
My room is 20 by 14 by 8 basement dedicated to music only. This gives me the lucky freedom to place my speakers wherever they sound best without worrying about the screen or spouse.
It also gives me the freedom to experiment and move them. I do so constantly as I try to find where they sound best. Sometimes I go eleven feet out from the FW, sometimes as close as eight. Sometimes I I toe them in, sometimes I fire them exactly parallel. I even played around with the Roose and perpendicular arrangements mentioned on this site. (very cool! )
In my opinion, even small changes in speaker position dwarf any other change in my system. Large changes, such as moving from ten to eight feet from the front, are orders of magnitude more important than anything else when it comes to sound in my room.
I have absolutely no issue with my room being too small. I actually tried moving to another, much larger part of the basement, but I did not find it did anything for my prior three series. I much prefer the more live sound of my current room. This is probably especially important for me though as I simply am not satisfied with the sound of my speakers three to five feet from the front wall. I prefer the depth of a much deeper sound stage (perhaps diffusion on my front wall would allow me to move them closer???)
The challenging dimension for you is of course the width. My guess is that this is more than ample for a 3.7i. In general, I agree with Satie's speaker placement philosophy. Try them forty percent or more of the length (around nine foot or more), tweeters in about twelve inches or so from the front wall. Start with no toe in, but experiment with adding it in.
My guesses are that with this type of narrow room you will not want to be too far from the speakers, though room treatment of side walls may reduce this problem. Being closer to the speakers may bring out more micro details and reduce the extent of indirect sound bouncing off the side walls. Assuming your speakers are about seven feet apart, I would probably start by sitting eight or nine feet from the tweeters and experiment from there.
On toe in, the difficulty in my shoe box room is that the toe in excites the width modes of the room, whereas firing straight ahead takes this out of the equation. In most locations, toe in makes my bass noticeably boomy and muddy. It is frustrating. You may have the same issue??
Btw, I supplement my 3.7i with two DWMs and a Rythmik subwoofer. The DWMs are amazing additions. They allow me to fine tune the bass and fill holes and smooth peaks in the upper and mid bass. They give me the positioning freedom to move the main speakers, as any bass anomalies can be fixed via relative movement of the bass panels.
The short answer is that I think 3.7s will be great in your room. Sorry if I rambled too much....
If you get paid by the word, I owe you big time! Your comments are very helpful, indeed. Thanks. I am particularly intrigued by your recommendation of bass panels. Hmm. Do they add a significant variable with respect to their placement? It sounds as if they actually make things simpler?
Thank you again.
Bass panels are certainly a new paradigm in audio. I think there is a strong argument for multiple sources of bass, hence the opinion that multiple subs is a good thing -- you can get more power, more evenly distributed into the room.
I believe the DWM taps into the same principle, within reason for mid and upper bass (mine poop out under 63 hz). It is hard for me to get my main panels to play evenly as desired across all bass frequencies in any one position*. Even worse, the place with the best and or most even bass is not the same place as best for everything else. Not even close.
The DWM panels, allow flexibility, though it probably makes things more complicated, not less. They can be adjusted via resistors and such, and small changes in relative distance to the listener, to the mains or to the nearest wall make large changes to frequency response from 63 to 250 hz. It makes it possible to tailor the bass to taste and or to smooth it out. They can eliminate nulls and in some cases even reduce peaks. They certainly allow much more power in drums and bass.
That said, you can't put them just anywhere, especially in a shoe box shaped room. If they are not roughly even to 24 inches closer to you than the mains, they can screw up the lowest mids and do some phasey comb filtering things. Oh, they also require a small separate amp or the ability of your current amp to play at 2 ohms.
I would strongly caution anyone considering DWMs to do an in house audition first and to NOT expect them to sound good without moving the main speakers (which have been optimized already for no DWM). They are not subs.
* does anybody have success with getting ideal bass and ideal everything else from a single pair of Maggies? It would be interesting to hear from others. My experience is it is all tradeoffs.
The bass is ideal in my room in two locations along the 20' sidewalls - about 8.5 ft and 11' and change. The intermediate locations between them have less powerful bass but it is still way better than closer to the front wall. Entirely acceptable to be off from the ideal bass spots. The front position does the whole Limage thing spectacularly, but has "head in a vise" issue, the soundstage is preserved as you go from the 11' to near 10' and starts losing depth and falling in scale from there.
I am ggoing to try the split position again with the bass panels at the 8.5' position and the mid/treble at the 10'+ to 11' position. Will have to work out the XO for that - will probably just use the Rane for bass LP and adjust phase. The LP would be 4th order then.
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