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I am trying to set up my 20.1 Magnepans for optimum set up. Recently installed Grant's Mye stands, have the speakers 5 ft from front wall and am trying to gauge what the appropriate angle of speaker to center listening position.
Here is the issue... If the wife and I are sitting on the couch, neither of us is in the exact center of the speakers.
Since I am left of center, the singer is always off to the side...
So, the big question. When 20.1's are set up properly, what is the width of the sweet spot so that someone on the left or right of center is able to experience an optimum experience.....
Moving these speakers now is not an easy task since I now have spikes into the carpet.
Your guidance is appreciatedAfter reading several responses....are most of you living with a highly focused small sweet spot of right smack dab in the center ????
Edits: 01/25/15Follow Ups:
Uh? Tweeters IN our out?
I'd think you should have settled WHERE before making it Very Difficult to ADJUST.
Too much is never enough
Pictureguy, in answer to your question, The existing setup is tweeters out. This is what the manufacturer recommends. Thats what I am using now. I need to get the sliders to move the speakers around. Will need to go to HomeDepot this weekend.
Looks like several folks are living with a very narrow sweetspot. (since they are the sole listener).
Experiment with tweeters IN and OUT.
Also, MEASURE and keep track of TOE. Than you'll be able to decide what constitutes best setup.
don't be afraid to let it sit for days at a time while you decide.
By measure I mean MEASURE. From some fixed point to the front wall. Use trig, later, to determine the ANGLE of toe.
And since the 20.1 and 20.7 are both push/pull, don't worry about front / back orientation like I did with my single sided 1.6s
Too much is never enough
I have 3.7's that I have had in two rooms.
The latest room is 24'x32' with 12' ceilings, so comparable to yours. In all cases, I have had best results with an equilateral triangle between the listening position and the speakers. Typically this is pointed at a 3-seat couch with (3) 24" wide seats. I typically aim the tweeters (tweets in) to the seam between the seats. So the left tweet is 12" left of the centerline and the right is 12" right of center.
With this arrangement and these speakers, I've found that when the sides of the triangle are increased to beyond 10 feet, you transition from near to farfield. I'd be interested to see how far the near field can extend with your 20.1's.
I have three seats in my listening room and my MMG's tweeters are toed in at a 45 degree angle in a "roughly" equilateral triangle layout from the center seat reference. The side chairs get a decent image even though the nearest speaker is pointed 75" oft of center line and the far speaker is almost dead head. Bipolar amazingness.I like the center seat best though!
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
Edits: 01/26/15
I recall back in the late '70s Bongiorno gave a presentation to our local audio club. At that time he had started GAS and was demoing his electronics with Maggie speakers. This was a presentation to a seated group of maybe 25.
He toed in the speakers so that the R channel pointed directly at someone left of center and the L speaker the mirror image. That presented a wide (if not precise) stereo soundstage for most listeners. He explained anyone seated on the left side of the room (facing speakers) had a short distance proximity effect to the left channel while having a more direct radiation effect from the right speaker. The toe-in looked a little radical but it seemed to work.
"You can’t know what the “best” is unless you have heard everything, and keep in mind that given individual tastes, there really isn’t any such thing." HP
I got an Ampzilla and Tympani demo back in the day, the sweet spot was about one foot wide and maybe 20 inches tall. If there is one thing that Maggies don't do, it's having a wide sweet spot.
Well, you never had the opportunity to hear my system (and I've now moved house - so you won't be able to! :-)) ). My room was about 27'x 17' and I had a 3-seater couch about 13' in front of my IIIas. Anywhere you sat on that couch - you were in the sweet spot.
Regards,
Andy
I think the key is having a large room such as your previous one. If I had a 27x`17 room I'd probably barricade myself in it all day.
They say you can 'trick' a room into thinking it's larger by adding treatments. I'd imagine such a feat would be a fairly daunting task. Hell I'm not even good at "slap echoing" and having an almost square room doesn't help either.
I assume the speakers faced the long way. And the couch was not against a wall? thanks.
Correct - the back wall was about 9' behind me.
BTW - don't forhet my post title was in quotes - as I was quoting what the person who I was responding to, had said.
Regards,
Andy
Makes sense. IT seems as long as you are not sitting against the back wall you can get wonderful dispersion and image. I had to move recently and have to use a short wall 16' feet away-quite different now....but I am not unhappy. Good ;luck in your new digs..
Perhaps because all the spots were equally sour? ;-).
I own Carver's C-9 'hologram generator' (since its beginning) and to obtain its maximum effect you will find yourself sitting in the "sweet spot", AND I'm willing to assure you that it wouldn't/couldn't possibly be "anywhere" on your couch.
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/173-2-channel-audio/1174682-carver-c-9-sonic-hologram-generator.html
"Thanks for great explanation of the C-9 processor and how it works. I have had a chance to play with it over the last couple of months. I can convince myself that the virtual soundstage is expanded a bit. I have a nice large music room but the "sweet spot" is a sphere about 2' in diameter.
.
Please accept my apologize for my mess-up, I very sincerely apologize.
Norman
- it was just a 'senior moment' on your part. ;-))
Regards,
Andy
I had both the original Ampzilla the the 'zilla II nethier of which could drive a lower than '8 ohm' Tympani. When they were reduced to '4 ohms' The 'zillas' was also reduced to being boat anchors (also having to add that the fan in the original 'zilla was way too loud and annoying to enjoy listening to music, but there were tricks and replacement fans to address that situation - I still have a 'zilla II and its fan noise problem was addressed by its manufacturer (no longer being JB himself.
IME (since the early 70s) it is not possible to avoid a sweet spot using any Tympani AND if you manage to do so you don't have them set-up optimally and then don't sound their best sitting anywhere. If one were to attempt measuring distances (feet/inches) between a Tympani and a seating position, just what part of the speaker is one to use, not even considering the fact that the T/M of the IVa (at least) is separable from their B panels. IMO like it or not, you will have to play 'MUSICAL CHAIRS' with your wife when listening to Maggies, and in this case the term takes on added meaning.
Fan noise was not an issue until the super quiet CD came out. Before then the record surface noise covered up that issue in large rooms. I have a nice 360 WPC amp sitting in the closet right now because the fan noise is a PIA.
Re-reading this thread (as well as beating the old and dead horse to death), I' m reminded as to how silly it is because at the time of the first Ampzilla's release CDs weren't even yet available.
Well we will disagree when it comes to listening to LPs and the fan noise generated by the *original* Ampzilla. Moreover, the "super quiet CD" needn't have been available, because listeners employed super quiet both O/R and cassette tapes. Additionally if one could have managed good FM reception and using a good tuner, live 'simulcasts' of the era were quiet. Indeed I myself recorded such broadcasted concerts and still have some of them on both tape formats. (Alas my Tandberg 10XD is on the fritz for nth time and I see very little purpose in having it repared once again.)
(If you happen to be referring to Ampzilla II or some other GAS product, the same rules don't apply.)
I was speaking for myself and my audiophile friends, YMMV.
"I was speaking for myself and my audiophile friends, YMMV."
If you are talking about fan noise in the first commercial Ampzilla, my mileage DID differ based upon what my own ears told me (having owned and used one).
I would start with positioning them closest to the front wall (furthest away from you) and incrementally move them forward towards you. However in doing so I think you may sacrifice sound-stage depth in order to maintain a decent sweet spot.My first encounter with 20.1s was back in 2002 at my local dealer. This was my 'Mecca' experience; that presentation convinced me audio nirvana was possible when certain criteria are met. Their setup was pretty much as optimum as one can get ie., perfect room size, room treatment, equipment (a no holds barred system including $25K speaker cables blah, blah). But at the end of the day I feel it all boils down to room size and room treatment.
One of the most appealing aspects of that system setup was the wide sweet spot; in fact I recall moving left and right on the couch without sacrifice. The speaker's position looked typical (perhaps Cardas setup or the 2/3rds rule)...in fact here's the room in question.
in any event they know Maggies and always have a room dedicated to them (this was not the room I auditioned the 20.1s in however).Granted, I don't get this nirvana experience in my setup, in fact just angling my head can affect the position of the sweet spot, but then again there's just me in the room listening.
*Disclaimer: I have no affiliation nor financial interest with the above business.
Edits: 01/25/15 01/25/15 01/26/15
Set them up with the spikes on slider discs and move the speakers around.
If you want a wide sweet spot then move the speakers as far to the sides as the room allows with tweeters inwards. If the room is particularly wide then set them up with the tweeters outwards and appx 32-36" from the sidewalls.
There is a version of the Rooze setup I tried in order to get a wider sweet spot for sofa sitting and it worked. (1) sitting in the right seat I turned the right speaker narrow side front till it was not possible to see its front or back. (2) sitting in the left seat I did the same with the left speaker. (3) I moved the bookcase and plastic drawer tower that the speaker ended up aimed at to clear the wall for a uniform reflection off appx 2.5' of clear wall on either side. (4) moved the sofa forwards and backwards till I found both seats imaging well and sounding about the same. The third seat on the sofa worked well too despite being over 4' from the center. The better part of the seat area behind and in front of the sofa did good imaging.
As always with a Rooze setup the soundstage was truly ginormous. In some recordings it was very impressive, spectacular even, in others it was overdone and was a bit of a caricature of imaging, very exaggerated.
With conventional face forwards with some toe in. There is no particular distance that is perfect, For each distance there is a particular angle of toe in that would work for one seat and you can find a compromise via less toe in that will be OK but not optimal for both seats. In the orchestra you accept that each seat will give you a somewhat different perspective. Try to accepst what you get here too. For as much as it is worth, taking the distance to extremes by moving the sofa to the far back of the room will diminish the differences between the two seat's perspectives..
Magic sliders until you find the right spot.
Tweeters in, and toed in more than seems right. Have the center of the panel point past the first listener by a ways. Play around from there.
That would be similar to the Biongiorno placement scheme M3 posted above?
I came about this just by experimentation from my thinking this set up would work better for a wider soundstage; something a lot of people complain about with Maggie's. Interesting somebody else came to the same conclusion long before I...
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