Home Planar Speaker Asylum

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

RE: I have a hunch.

I think that what happens with the bass as you move the speakers out is going to be idiosyncratic to some degree, since it depends on the z-axis room modes in your specific room and whether the speakers are in a node or antinode or somewhere in between. But you also have the reinforcement/cancellation from the front wall reflection and that will just depend on distance to the wall. The one firm rule seems to be that best bass and best imaging are never in the same spot!

Regarding backwave -- it's artificial reverb, really, in both omni/cardioids and planars. And stereo needs it -- in an anechoic chamber, stereo sounds like it's coming from a narrow slit between the speakers. So the main problem you have is the conflict between the room reflections and the reflections in the original acoustic space. Low distances make the acoustic seem smaller (less soundstage depth) because the ear determines depth by timing the first reflection -- if it hears a loud first reflection and it's short, it will say there's a wall a short distance away. Both initial time delay and amplitude of the reflection are used to make the calculation.

So further out is better for orchestral music but not necessarily for chamber music or other music that was recorded in a smaller space or up close. But it should do little harm to the latter because you'll hear the first reflection in the recording. And note that modern recording studio control rooms are designed to suppress the early reflections *entirely* at the listening position. They then use diffusion at the rear of the room to create a diffuse sound field with low interaural cross correlation and having the desired Rt time (much deader in a studio than you would want at home, because you want to hear every detail on the recording and these are smeared by reverberation).

Add to that the fact that recording venues have very different reverb times -- it's impossible to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution.with conventional two-channel stereo.

Me, I always get stuck with rooms that are too small so I've never had a chance to get the speakers far out from the wall -- the farther out I move them, the better they sound to me.


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


Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups

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.