Planar Speaker Asylum

Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share your ideas and experiences.

Return to Planar Speaker Asylum

Planar Speaker Asylum

RE: Maggies and acoustic panels

50.125.101.36

In Reply to: RE: Maggies and acoustic panels posted by Satie on June 02, 2016 at 18:59:37

This room is just for music and movies. The speakers are on a short wall. I set the triangle up so that the speakers are perpendicular to the triangle sides with tweeters on the inside. For REW testing the mic is centered on the intersection point of the middle of the tweeters and I move it up and down the height of the triangle a few inches either way looking for the best frequency response curve. I have settled on three positions, a short isosceles triangle close to speakers for near listening, an equilateral triangle and a taller isosceles triangle. The corresponding speaker angles from the base of the triangle are about 45 degrees for the near position to about 30 degrees for the farthest. I tend to sit a few inches in front of the ideal REW spot. I also have comfortable office chairs with wheels, height adjustment and tilt. There is really no bad place on the centerline of the room. If I don't have my ears nearly inline with the tweeters I loose too much detail on some classical recordings. The sweeter spot for soundstage for the middle and far positions is two chairs wide and for the near only one chair wide. It is important to have a near perfect triangle and have the speakers plumb. I don't measure off of walls to layout the triangle as the room isn't perfectly plumb level and square.

Follow Ups:

RE: Maggies and acoustic panels - Satie 12:04:38 06/03/16 (0)
So you are more of a nearfield listener. Are you trying to get more of a front row orchestra kind of perspective or is it just the increased clarity in fine detail that you are after?

I find my balance of clarity vs. reverb field being closer to the equilateral triangle, but I sit close to the wall and absorb the back wall.
RE: Maggies and acoustic panels - tedtag 11:01:37 06/03/16 (4)
I finally have my room sounding great but it took a lot of trial and error (and money!) The room is about 24 x 14 x 9 with the speakers on the long wall and a small office area all the way on the left side. There's a weird bump out in the wall behind my right speaker and a wall of glass all the way on the left short wall that's not in the pictures that I can look out of when I'm at my desk. I ended up with 3 Stillpoint Apertures on the front wall, 1 more on the right wall, and 2 more on the back wall for a total of 6. Then I've got a pair of 16" tube traps in the corners behind the speakers and 3 more 11" and 2 more 8" on the rear wall behind my couch. And to top it off I ended up with a bunch of Synergistic Research gear that really made a difference; 20 HFT's, 3 FEQ's, and 2 Black Boxes. Plus I've got everything up off the floor on 4" maple plinths with brass spiked feet and I built a 5" high platform under the couch stuffed with R19 insulation that gives the room a sort of stadium effect. But the best part is the oil painting of a 1951 Ford F1 Pickup truck that sits on the floor right between my speakers. I had to keep it there no matter what its doing to the sound. Actually I think it helps because the room sounds fantastic!
- RE: Maggies and acoustic panels - Satie 12:11:30 06/03/16 (3)
  Looks like you don't trust your floor much. How is it constructed?
  
  I generally either use very short speaker cables on monoblocks or bury the wire under carpet to provide physical damping.
  - RE: Maggies and acoustic panels - tedtag 14:02:36 06/03/16 (2)
    Guess I got hooked on near field because my first real listening room was pretty small. That's when I got into Quads and really enjoyed listening close. I do love the detail and experience of being immersed in the music with near field listening. With the Maggie set up in the pictures, I've got the back of my couch about 18" from the rear wall with the speakers out from the front wall about 5 1/2 feet and the listening seat about 7 1/2 feet from the front center of the panels.
    
    The center image appears to float just in front of the front wall about 3' or 4' or so behind the plane of the speakers on most vocal recordings. I'm also getting a pretty wide soundstage with images several feet outside the speakers.
    
    The floor is poured concrete with wall to wall wool carpet. Years ago I got ahold of a Mapleshade catalog and bought a pair of maple amp stands because I was afraid I'd burn my house down with giant tube amps sitting on the carpet. Then after numerous conversations with Pierre Sprey, the founder and head engineer of Mapleshade, he convinced me to put plinths under my speakers as well. I have since tried my speakers with no spikes, just Mye Stand spikes, spiked plinths with no Mye Stand spikes, and spiked plinths with Mye Stand spikes. By a huge margin, the double spiked plinth set up in the picture easily beat every other option. Its an amazingly lively, detailed, but very full sound.
    
    The couch platform was the final frontier. I mostly did that to get my ears more aligned with the center of the speakers since they were now a good 8" off the floor. But it also seemed to just help disconnect me along with everything else, from the walls, floor, and ceiling, of the room. The effect of all of it is a feeling of being immersed in the music, in about the 3rd row, with detailed images that seem to just resonate out of nowhere and float in space.
    
    This set up is probably not technically correct by any means, but I'm enjoying it and listening sessions have become extremely addictive. If I'm out of town or just don't have time to listen to music, I can feel withdrawal setting in after a couple of days. By 3 days, with no music, I'm a mess.
    I've attached a link to the Mapleshade plinths.
    - http://shop.mapleshadestore.com/Finished-Platforms-for-Carpe (Open in New Window)
    - RE: Maggies and acoustic panels - Satie 00:36:11 06/04/16 (1)
      Well, you wouldn't want to be in my shoes, I had flooding when the sump died and am still drying out the room trying to kill the mold. Its been a few months. I only did one short listen and all seemed intact but for a possible rattle on one bass panel which may be delam.
      
      I don't have enough clearance in the room for tall speaker platforms because of the acoustic ceiling. But I have a slab floor as well, obviously and had to face the realty that it transmits bass quite well into my turntable when both the stand and the speakers are spiked to the floor. so something had to get unspiked. The bass panels ended up with rounded spikes and sat on a rug.
      
      Also lifted my chair on blocks - did not occur to me to build a stuffed platform. I think the barka is stuffed enough for isolation.
      
      I have been trying to imagine what the maple platforms do to the sound of the speakers. Can you describe that in more detail as to particular audiophile SQ characteristics?
      
      I also like the close up front orchestra perspective but am not sure about the nearfield so much. The instruments can appear hyped up. Besides, how do you get to nearfield with a TIV?
      - RE: Maggies and acoustic panels - tedtag 02:09:23 06/04/16 (0)
        
        In Reply to: RE: Maggies and acoustic panels posted by Satie on June 04, 2016 at 00:36:11
        
        So sorry to hear about your flood. What a horrible moment that must have been to find water in your room! I had that once in a different house when a builder who was working on the kitchen upstairs left water running all night. Ended up filing a huge insurance claim and sending a bunch of gear back for repair. Not much fun.
        
        The platforms under the 3.7i's seem to open up the speakers and the sound flows more effortlessly with a certain nimbleness to it. They just seem lighter on their feet, faster, more detail, and more clarity. But not lean by any means. Behind the speakers I've got a pair of REL G2's that are not spiked and not on plinths. I've tried the subs on spikes and it just wrecked the sound. They became dry and thin and the decay in the notes was sort of chopped off.
        
        Also, the rack I'm using is a Merrill 450 lb cast iron monstrosity that is also spiked. On each shelf, I've got another 2" maple slab under each component on Herbie's Tenderfeet to isolate the slabs from the rack. The rack, being cast iron, has a ring sound and the shelves are slippery but the Tenderfeet with maple have eliminated both those qualities plus I've got all that weight for stability. My TT is rock solid on the top shelf and I've painstakingly leveled the platter with the floor spikes of the rack.
        
        Your right about hyping up. Sometimes its like being smacked in the face with a drum stick, or I've even found myself gripping the couch during a huge orchestral crescendo and holding on for dear life to get through it. Intense but I love it! But then on more quiet pieces, the textures and delicacy of the notes are just sumptuous.

Post a Followup:

FAQ

Post a Message!

Forgot Password?

Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
	Remember my Moniker & Password (What's this?) Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:

Message:	(Posts are subject to Content Rules)

Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:	Automagically notify you when someone responds.

To view your new posting or follow-up, click on the RELOAD or REFRESH button on your browser.

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: