|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
In Reply to: What do you mean by... posted by David Aiken on May 28, 2003 at 00:00:07:
Those are interesting points, and different than what a couple dealers had suggested to me in the past re: LF response. I'm sure that the topic of speaker placement has been covered a number of times here, but do you have any specific suggestions or references that you could point me to? I've tried the "rule of thirds" as I understand it, but find that set-up is not ideal in my room. I've generally preferred the speakers either closer to the wall (warmer, fuller) or pulled out a little more into the room (better image behind speakers, a little cleaner sounding). Also, because of furniture, TV, doors, windows, electrical outlets, etc., I have to place my speakers against the long wall (ie, 15 ft.) rather than the short wall (ie., 13 ft.). Thanks,
Terry
Follow Ups:
Re low bass in rooms - I think this is one of the areas that is subject to gross misunderstanding. Very low bass can be heard in small spaces - listening to even a normal setup without subwoofer in a small car should be enough to convince anyone of this. If you couldn't hear notes with a wavelength longer than the room's longest dimension, you shouldn't be able to hear notes lower than 75 Hz (a 15 ft wavelength) in your room and that means you couldn't hear the lowest octave on a double bass or bass guitar, or even the bottom octave and a bit of a piano. You also wouldn't be able to hear notes lower than 150-200 Hz in a small car which means you wouldn't even be able to hear the lowest notes of some singers, much less almost any note from a double bass or bass guitar. I can assure you that all of those ranges are audible in your room and in a small car, and ranges even lower than those as well. A bit of listening should convince absolutely everyone of this fact but for some reason this belief never goes away.For what it's worth, I can hear test tones down to 31.5 hz in my room which is where my speakers roll off too far for audibility. The wavelength of a 31.5 Hz note is around 36', far longer than any dimension of my room which is around 17' by 13', not much bigger than yours, with a 10' by 10' extension opening off the long wall on one side so the longest dimension is actually 23', a long way short of the wavelength of a 31.5 Hz note. The low frequency limit in your room is set by the speaker's performance, not the room's dimensions. I also place the speakers on the long side - that isn't a problem.
I use the Audio Physic method with speakers half way between the front and back walls and listen against the wall or rather where the wall would be if my room didn't take a bit of a bend there. My speakers are placed at quarter points from the side walls. You can use this kind of approach and place the speakers a quarter of the way from front to back instead of half way. It works well for me in my room, but speakers in the centre of the room don't work well in a living room. My room serves only as a listening room so speaker placement isn't an issue.
Other grids include a grid of quarters rather than the thirds you've tried.
There are other methods not based on grids like the Cardas which uses a mathematical formula and which I think doesn't come up with useable placements in a small room that is close to a square - it's based on a rectangular room with dimensions ideally related to each other by a factor of approx. 1.61. There's also the Wilson method which involves a process of listening and marking off on a grid pasted to the floor. There are links to all of these in the FAQ. There are also placements along a diagonal which can be good in rooms that are square or almost so, and there's some mention of them in the material on the Harmon Kardon site. I haven't tried that approach but Floyd Toole seems to like it.
What all of these methods are going to do is to reinforce or cancel various room nodes and frequencies to different degrees. One will work best in one room and another will work best in a different room. The dimensions of your room play a huge part in which will work best for you. There's also the issue of which methods are practical in your room - what works in a dedicated listening room may not work in a living room where furniture and other uses dictate that the speakers simply won't go in some locations, regardless of how desirable the sound improvement would be.
There are links to most of these methods in the FAQ.
Also, on the Rives Audio site (don't have a URL but you can do a google search) they have a scaled down version of the CARA software that allows you to experiment with various placements and see what their effect will be on a range of speakers. If your speaker is on their list, you're in luck. Otherwise I'd pick a speaker of a similar physical size and frequency response and play with that to get a rough idea.
Apart from the above and the FAQ, you're going to have to work it out yourself given your room and the uses you make of it.
David Aiken
David,Thanks very much. This is very useful information, and gives me a lot to work with.
Please keep changing equipment often and let us know so that we can pick up the leftovers (cheap).Sounds like you have a serious case of audiophilihtis. You need to love music for the sake of music more. Spend your more of your budget on concert tickets and music appreciation classes. Playback systems are primarily supposed to remind you of "real" music, not perfectly reproduce it.
From what I see some people spending on gear, I thought I was a "budget" guy. I actually shop carefully, buying mainly demo or used gear or closeouts, taking my time, and usually buying though local dealers when they have a deal available, so I can hear the gear first. As a result, I rarely lose much when I sell to trade up. In fact, I created a spreadsheet earlier this year showing what I had spent, and what I had sold gear for when I traded up, over the last 5-6 years. When I looked at the total difference, it was substantially less, divided into a monthly basis, than the $50 + I pay per month for cable. Yet, I get a lot more enjoyment out of my audio system than 250 channels of mainly junk on cable. I call that a deal!I think some people have confused my request. I'm not saying that I think my current system is bad or not enjoyable. In fact, in every way I can think of it is better than anything I've owned before. I've heard a lot of other speakers locally, both in dealers and in private homes, and while some of them in the same price range (Reynaud, Audio Physic, Harbeth, Thiel, Maggys, JM Lab) do some things that the Spendors and Ref 3As don't do quite as well, and all are excellent speakers, I'm not sure that I believe any of them are a clear step up overall over the de Capos or my main alternative in that price, the Spendor 1/2s. I do like the $7000 Living Voice Avatar OBX speakers that my local dealer has, but there is no way I will ever spend that much on speakers, unless I win the lottery (which I don't play). I was mainly soliciting thoughts of ways to upgrade/tweak my system w/out spending a fortune. Also, there was a pair of Ref 3A Integreles (?) on Audiogon for $1995 (maybe still there). I was thinking of selling my de Capos to purchase them, as it would not cost a great deal to make that upgrade, if I could get a fair price for my de Capos.
In retrospect, I think two reasons I'm a little unsatisified right now that I did not fully disclose: (1) I've sold off my analog system, and need to get back into analog, since that has always been my primary source; I was happier w/ my system last winter when I had a Michell Gyro/SME 309 w/ VDH & Clearaudio carts. I sold the Gyro because it was a little frustrating to try to set up properly; every time I thought it was close to just right, I would try to tweak it more, and would throw the set-up off. But when it was right, the combo of the Gyro/Avatar/de Capos was one of the best systems I've heard at any price. I wanted an Orbe, but could not justify to myself spending that much $$$. (2) I've been playing w/ tube rolling in the Avatar, w/ mixed results. As w/ the Gryo, every time I think I'm about "there", I make some more changes and find I am a little disappointed w/ the result. Perhaps these questions are better addressed to the Vinyl and Tube asylums, respectively, where I mainly hang out. Thanks for all your suggestions, particularily the ones about room setup/treatments.
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: