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In Reply to: RE: 1.7's for Room posted by rosendds@frontiernet.net on January 23, 2016 at 10:21:25
Look up "Limage" on this page and you'll see one option that several of us have decided to use with maggies in a room like yours.
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This really is a good room proportion to try the "Limage" placement scheme.
From what I gather,Limage placement has the speakers more than 6' from the rear wall?I have the 1.7's set up using the shorter 16'dimension which has the listening position sofa only about 1' from the rear wall.When I make the move,I'm going to start with the speakers about 7' from the rear wall and the sofa about 10-12' from the speakers.If I like it,I can try moving the speakers out beyond 7' from the rear wall,but I will first have to relocate my audio rack.I have two M&K subs to relocate as well.
Remember also tweeters in and the side of the speaker 1' from the side wall The distance from the front wall into the room is 40% of the length of the room. If Limage works the speakers should just totally disappear and you will get wall to wall sound. Very realistic.
Alan
The speakers can be about 12 1/2' from the FW due to the room entrance.If I were to bring them out more,the right speaker would not have a side wall,where the left speaker would.
Dave
That sounds like a workable distance, Does the entrance have a door?
How far from the speaker would the entrance be? the wall space in front is more important than that behind the speaker and the wall right at the speaker is necessary for loading it. Otherwise the speaker on the open side would be lacking in lower mid energy and give lopsided image locations of some instruments. I have wainscoting that I can slide over the sidewall entrance when I place the speakers within 2 ft of it. Very cheap easy and effective for this purpose, and does not look bad.
There is no door to the room.The width of the room is 16' and it is 30'long.The F.W. has a large window with vertical blinds.I have yet to determine how far apart the speakers would be.I appreciate all of the help here.
Dave
With the Limage setup you don't determine the distance from the speakers beforehand but place them about 1 ft from the sidewalls as seen in slapshot's pic and the tweeters go inwards, in a 16' room that would come to appx 10'ish ft. The distance to the sidewall is adjusted to achieve tonal balance.
How far in would they placed in a 26' room?
10'
Of course you have to fine tune but a good starting point is 40% of the room's length. In your case I would start at 10 ft with the speakers 10" off the sidewalls as you will likely need more bass reinforcement with the long room. Keep the speakers perfectly face forwards as you try them at locations progressively farther from the front wall. You should hit a very particular location where everything "snaps together" (particularly the soundstage) and from which further distance detracts.
You can use the "monkey walk" method (look it up on the MUG) to determine the next location according to where you get the "cathedral effect" when squat walking on the midline between the speakers. The Limage setup can work in rooms that don't give you the "cathedral effect" so I prefer the gradual movement in increments of an inch or two as above. more time consuming but will definitely get you there if the room can accommodate the positioning.
My room is a bit smaller than yours, but her are a couple of images to show you the Limage setup as I have it. Will never go back to a conventional setup. One of the photos is a bit deceptive as there is absolutely no toe-in on the speakers; they are perpendicular to the side walls. These were taken while I was experimenting; in the final positioning, they speakers are a bit further into the room, and closer to the side walls.
Seven feet out may not give you the Limage effect. It usually is found around 40% out from FW. I would start at 11 feet, and about ten inches or so from SW and move further out from there. I have no suggestions on how to deal with the equipment rack.
Is your room pretty lively?
The seat placement for the Limage setup is closer to the back wall (usually 2-3 ft and up to 5 ft in long rooms with L/W ratios over 1.6) so you will have quite a distance to the speakers even when they are pulled into the room to 11 ft or more.
If you can temporarily place your rack in the middle of the room between the speakers it would make experimentation easier and when you have the placement worked out and decide whether to keep it or not then move the rack to a more practical position.
Thanks.The first step will be to move the equipment closer to the center of the room.It will have to be the weekend after next.Thanks much for the advice.
Very nice gear and set up Slapshot.Do the trees make good diffusers?I gather that a listening position of 2-3' from the back wall is set up and then the speakers are moved about 40% into the room and about 1' from the side walls.Adjustments are then made by listening and making speaker positioning adjustments.
Dave
Yes, the trees make pretty good diffusers; plus, they are nice to look at if the lights are on when I am listening--the soundstage appears to come out of the forest then. There are a lot of other room treatments as well. With the Limage setup, the room becomes part of the "box" for the maggies, that is, the room is an important part of the sound platform. My listening position is about 1-2 feet from the back of the room.
Note that little adjustments can make a big difference, so you have to be willing to move things around a bit until, as Satie said, the image "snaps" into position.
1' to 2' from the back wall
Alan
thks for this post. i am new (2mths) to maggies (1.6's) and after reading all the post on this thread i moved mine around. wow! dramatic improvement. my basement listening room is 19'x 13' w/ speakers on short wall.
5ft out from front wall, 1ft in from side walls, toed a bit, with tweeters on inside. now the whole room is sound stage! crazy.once i flipped the tweeters to inside, all started coming together nicely.
thks all.
Edits: 01/26/16
So what do you think in comparison to the Gallo/Mapleshade speakers?
They are both very cool speakers.
The biggest difference would be the gallos can play louder (if your into that) and the bass can go deeper. You can get very nice articulate sound out of both with crazy sound stage.
Note I diidn't really love my gallos till I got the bases.
I love them both and swap them regularly. Depending on my mood. But getting these Maggie's in the right place in the room is critical!
What are you using for amplification? I presume it is not the SET looking things on top of your rack.
BTW the 805 tube based SETs can do 50W and drive a maggie so long as you don't need to push the bass. (use powered subs) or are willing to avoid bass heavy content or live with the limited volume.
satie
no those are decware preamps (cps3 and zp3).
amps are odyssey karthago extreme monos. they do great with thirsty gallos and maggies. they are basically kismets in karthago case.
I know that the side walls and rear wall should have some sound absorption treatment.What is ideal fro the front wall?I have a large window on the front wall.Would thick curtains be enough to block reflections vs some kind of floor standing panels?
What sort of blinds do you have on the front wall? Fabric coated ones can beused as minor absorbers and partially opened to provide some dispersion/diffusion.
There are stand alone panels for diffusion that you can buy or make. Like QRDs. Buy from RPG or DIY - http://www.subwoofer-builder.com/qrd.htm for some background
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Diffusors/ci/16134/N/3992462134 to see a variety of commercial offerings. You would put them in a frame to raise them to the mid wall level where they are needed.
The sidewalls only need some diffusion if there are problems, Often a plain wall is not much of a problem with a Limage positioning scheme. Absorption is rarely needed
The front wall large window has vertical blinds.I'm not sure that sound waves wouldn't reflect off of the spaces in between the blinds.I am open to making DIY sound absorption or diffusion panels.
The blinds are very thin.This weekend my wife and I are going to work on making some heavy drapes and if necessary I will order materials for DIY panels.I also seem to wind up having the speakers apart about 50% of the distance to the listening position and about 5' from the side walls.I have been using mono female vocals to position the speakers so that the voice is centered.For some reason,when I switch to stereo,I find that I need to move them closer to not hear one speaker more than the other...
The heavy drapes idea is one I was going to suggest, but refrained since it is a megalithic WAF issue. I do think that is a very good idea and can suggest the heavy tapestry like drapes and velvet drapes for absorption.
IIRC you have an opening on one side wall near the speaker location. You need to figure out how to block it (install a door or have a board on hand to close the opening) so that you can create room symmetry. I think that is what is driving you to plae the speakers in the middle of the room.
Your methodology with mono recordings is very useful to find a starting point before you fine tune placement for stereo . .
Thanks for the advice on the fabric.I will move the speakers further out from the listening position and closer to the side walls.The harsh reflections off of the window just goes to show how important the room and room treatments are.
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