Welcome! Need support, you got it. Or share your ideas and experiences.
Return to Planar Speaker Asylum
72.220.169.158
I've been alternating between tweeters in vs tweeters out (thanks to my Maggies on wheels).
Vocals are centered and defined. Raising the cables helped as well. But with everything else associated with this hobby it comes with a price: shorter soundstage. With the tweeters 'out' the soundstage is wide, open and expansive; tweeters 'in' bring the soundstage more inward, tighter, and intimate. Forunately most of my listening is small jazz combos (trios through quintets). When I'm ready to throw on orchestras I'll have to dose-see-doe and swing my pardner round and round (Maggies switching sides).
This weekend is calling for rain so I'll be fiddle fartin' around the room (gonna try and hang this monster on the wall as well:
Follow Ups:
For this configuration, tweeters also in. And no toe in.
Edits: 02/17/17
you need to motorize those Maggies and listen as they zoom around the room! :)
Every so often I'll try them out, but usually end up in. My preferred sound / soundstage with tweeters in, is mid panels meeting at a point in front of me.
I also find the tweeter/mid separation distance can dictate a lot, and should be what is maintained if you flip speakers. I prefer IIRC around 7 feet or so in my room, but I'd have to measure to be sure.
I keep my tweets 'in' now 100% of the time.
My speakers are wider apart than average.
but with tweets the same place as if 'out'.
Works for me in my room.
I've preferred tweeters in for every maggie I had, and I listen to mostly classical. If you want soundstage wider, move the speakers out.
And I also like modest toe-in, less than generally recommended.
Have the opposite view after many hous of experimentation. I have a big room 26x18x12.I play classical, organ and opera. Also is most revealing with piano
If I listened to classical predominantly, I would have them in also. It is the rock recordings that are unfortunately mixed to be played back in cars that require the tweeters out.
It's room dependent and in and out will vary from one user to another. Hard to tell from your picture but the toe-in seems shallow. What are your measurements from the wall and how much toe-in?
I married the perfect woman. The downside is everything that goes wrong is my fault.
For the toe in,I put a tape marker on the carpet about where my feet rest in the center seating position.I used two long tape measures with the flat backs against and 90 degrees to the center of each panel and then angled them so the tapes crossed at the tape mark on the floor.
That sounds a lot like my MMG setup - 45 degrees to in - tweeters in
Inside edges 7 Ft apart - center of speakers 7 ft from most common head position.
"The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat" - Confucius
comparing ribbons in vs. ribbons out?
Sure, ribbons out gives you a nice wide soundstage (which is what I have) and ribbons out will shrink it down ... but which has the greater depth ?
Andy
Another vote for the outies. Soundstage aside, for me it came down to the tonal balance. Tweeters in were just a little too prominent for me. Again, I have gone direct from DAC into the amps, and the whole system has become a little hotter. Resolving and detailed as hell; but tipped to the treble end moreso than when the preamp was in the chain.
But that was when I only had 50 hours on the DAC. I now have about 300 or so and I believe it is a little smoother, so maybe I will "doesee do" !
Which maggie do you have? The 3.6 and 1.6 era were pretty hot in treble for me. I used/use 1.5 ohm resistors (with chokes in series) and that nails it. My room is reflective as well (no rugs/carpets) so it's even more necessary, but probably 1 ohm is good for many.
3.6's . My resistors are bypassed; no option for that now.
depth is deep; although I attribute this more towards the mid range. Right now I'm listening to Bobby Hutcherson's 'like Sonny' and the tweeters are firing in layers (rearward and foward) and slightly behind the panels. The speakers are about 8' from the wall and his vibraphone is about 4 ft from the front wall but the drummer's high-hat is about 4' even further out (coming towards me). His ride cymbals are slightly ahead of his vibes, the piano is to the right and about a foot from the front wall. A nice little 'bubble' going on there but not much activity happening towards the left and right walls although I'm sure there would be if the tweeters were placed on the outside. I recommend his album 'Wise one', lots of fun and synergy happening in there.Keep in mind I haven't really experimented with toe-in/out; will do so this weekend. Also I've never done the panels aimed at the side walls configuration before, looking forward to doing that as well; again thanks to the wheels.
Once I settle in on a compromising position the wheels will come off, but I'm in no hurry.
Edits: 02/16/17 02/16/17
Ohhh, crap. Yet another battle is looming :)
I am with you, at least in my room.
You guys really ought to try the Limage/HK setup. If it works in your room you will never go back to any other setup
Alan
These Limage/HK evangelists. Darn it, Alan, am I getting old! LOL Should have seen you coming a mile away.[BTW , I was about to drop a line or two for Josh's benefit elsewhere here. It's related to PC-audio. You may want to pitch in if you see fit.]
Edits: 02/17/17
Limage setups are phenomenal when they work. You get a better fuller tonal balance and the wide soundstage of the tweeter out position and the image precision depth and detail of the tweeter in setup when in the near equilateral nearfield positioning scheme traditional for maggies.
GL, The maggies are generally crossed over to provide better time alignment in the tweeters out position, which is why they sound fuller and give bigger soundstages even with the distance between tweeters held constant.
I don't know if your room would support. the Limage setup since IIRC it is pretty much square. But it is worth a try.
I'd like to try this setup but that would place one speaker directly in the walk path and would require the speaker cables to run underneath a carpet.In addition my cables aren't lenghty enough to perform this free tweak (I estimate I'd need at least 15' per speaker x4 total in a biamp; However-it just so happens I'm waiting on a 100ft spool of pure copper speaker wire to arrive for a pre-planned DIY cable project. But even at 100' that may not be enough (my plan is to use triple lengths of 18ga in a helical pattern in 6' lengths biampe'd). Fortunately copper wire is fairly inexpensive -about $30 total.
Edits: 02/19/17
Copper is not copper, but I may be barking up the wrong tree.
Listeners seem willing to go to any lengths for improved sound.
:-) (Tweeters out is my preference.)
LoL ain't it the truth!
I experimented a LOT when I got my panels, at least the 1.6s.
Tweeters in or out?
And listen to fron or back?
All 4 logical cases were tried and I ended up tweeter 'in' and listening to the mylar side.
Some setups were immediately junked out. Others lasted an hour while several lasted a couple weeks or more.
The better the setup, the more time it took to properly evaluate.
Too much is never enough
For most every variable in set up there are trade offs.What are the trade offs of having the tweeters in vs out?
There are two main issues, the simple one is that you have the crossover designed for the tweeters out position, where the driver timing (offsets) integrates with the crossover's delays. The second is interaction with the sidewalls.
The "best" balance of reflected to direct sound is usually with the tweeter at about 3ft from the sidewalls. Larger distances emphasize the center image and reduce the dominance of ambient cues. If your room is narrow, then the tweeters out position will end up pushing the speakers too close together and the soundstage would narrow somewhat. In a wide room you would be able to "isolate" the speakers from the sidewall interactions and have tweeters out at either the normal 3ft distance to the sidewalls or pulled further into the room to give you the listening distance to interspeaker spacing ratio that provides you with the best aspect angle for your listening preference. For example, I like to have a close up perspective of a front hall seat. That requires a wide aspect angle that most people don't like. Most recordings are made with the assumption of a 60 degree angle so you are trying to get a wider soundstage than the recording was intended to provide. I was pleasantly surprised that it actually works quite well in presenting a close up orchestra without the soundstage distorting its shape up to nearly 160 degrees, My preferred angle is normally closer to 120 deg...
In a wide room with the tweeters in you hardly have any sidewall participation and you get minimonitor like lateral and depth dimensions with terrific precision, but lack a bit of an ambient sense of the hall.
There are two main issues, the simple one is that you have the crossover designed for the tweeters out position, where the driver timing (offsets) integrates with the crossover's delays.
Well SAid. I've been trying to simplify this for a while now without success.
Next step would be FIR crossover at the line level and add some delay to the nearest driver. Maybe 1ms or 2ms tops would do.
Too much is never enough
It is important to know that Limage does not always work. You simply have to try it
Alan
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: