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...troublesome. Longer wall got longer, but shorter wall got shorter than the previous one. In the previous apt., I was placing the speakers on the longer wall. Speaker separation was about 8ft, distance to listening position was about 7ft. If I try the same arrangement (which I am temporarilly doing), distance to the listening position is like 5 to 6 ft. OK, I could place the speakers on the shorter wall (window), in which case, the speaker separation would be more like 6 ft, but the distance can be more like 10 ft or much more. Well, the more troubling fact would be that there would be almost NO WALL behind me because there will be "loft kitchen" bihind me on one half side, and, on another half side, long corridor to the master bedroom door which is like 30 ft away. It's a "long" apartment, and I hope you can get the picture.A Question to experienced audiophiles is; which would you choose? Any cure for either placement? Of course, I am going to try myself, but I just want to get your opinions.
FYI: I did this move only for my wife, who had wanted washer/dryer in the apartment for the past 7 years during which we lived in the previous apartment. Life is full of "trade-off", right?
Follow Ups:
for opinions and insights from very valuable to bandwidth wastes. Rental apartment is not very renovatable and I did check the apartment before signing but wife was the decision-maker on this. Not every audiophile is so fortunate.
I will surely do experiment after things got settled down. I will report back when and if I can.
...my family room (where the hifi is) is similar in design: 12x17, but it is completely open to the kitchen, so it's really 12x35. I placed the speakers on the short wall, which puts them about 7' apart (to the woofer cones) when they are far enough away from the side walls to sound good. I sit about 17' from each woofer. It's not a bad arrangement, really; soundstage width does suffer some, but I still get images out to the walls so no huge deal there.Before that I used them in a nearfield (6') listening situation. I had to adjust to the new positioning, but now I like it quite a bit. Depth has increased trmendously as I can place them 3' from the wall behind them, and their frequency response is much smoothed out. I guess because of the weird room dimensions, but i get a pretty fantastic(IMO) in room response from them. I do need alot more power where they are, as you need to push them harder to bring the images back up in size. But honestly, my hifi has never sounded better. Skinny/long rooms can work.
..at least until you check out all the potential listening rooms.DOH!!!
Oz
In my previous home we had a combined living/dining room that was 11' by 22' - almost exactly the same as yours. The problem was that there was a part wall that stuck out about 2.5 feet from one of the long walls, and about 18'' below the ceiling across the opening to the other wall, and there were doors in the short walls on the opposite side to the part wall. The doors effectively meant there was a hallway down that side of the room, at least as far as use was concerned.Running the speakers on the short wall pointing down the length didn't work well. One had to be around twice the distance from the side as the other to accommodate the 'hall' use down the side, and there was effectively an opening (the doorway) to the rear of the speaker rather than the corner on the other side.
I ended up firing them across the short dimension which meant living with placement in one half of the 22' length to accommodate the placement of the part wall. That worked well with dining room usage at the other end.
The problem is balancing the lack of a side wall on one side with a wall on the other. No matter what I tried to do with putting something in the gap, that didn't really work. Breaking up the reflections on the wall on the other side with some DIY room lenses did. While I have a room with walls on both sides in my new house, I still ended up with an open archway around 5 to 6' wide on the right side. I balanced that by installing around 12' of over 6' tall bookcases down the opposite side to absorb and diffuse the sound striking that wall. That works reasonably well. So does listening against the wall rather than out in the room.
Try placing the speakers on the long wall and using either absorption or diffusion on the closer side wall, either singly or in combination, and place the listening seat against the opposite long wall. It isn't perfect but nothing ever really is. You can get very good sound this way. You can also try sticking a bass trap floor to ceiling in the corner behind one speaker to help balance the lack of a corner behind the other. As a final thing, you can then try sticking some sort of decorative screen to the side of the speaker farthest from the side wall to give a feeling of some closure of the room on that side and to provide a bit of reflection to help balance the other wall. As I said, things won't be perfect but you can get a good L-R balance in the imaging, if not the best, and the other aspects of the sound can be very good. I have heard much worse results than I managed to get in my old room so it's worth persevering.
David Aiken
()
Why not try it? Imaging isn't everything, but beware....you might not like it, but the Mrs. might.......
...what are the exact dimensions of the room? I take it the width is fairly small (9 or 10'?) while the length is really of no concern... plenty that way.As you say, there is no substitute for experimentation... that will yield best results. But - is that "5 or 6' away" figure negotiable? - as in a furniture arrangement? After all, you made some concessions... maybe the wife will!
If you do the short wall, you're gonna need deadening on the (long) side walls at the reflection points. Even with this, the depth will suffer. But - the drivers will coalesce... always a trade-off.
Ya want the long-wall placement? Better soundstaging, but can sound a little different (not in a good way, IMO) in the mids - if you sit REALLY close.
Good luck - I hope you find audio nirvana!
Thanks,
The exact dimention on the floorplan is 10' x 22' (old place was 10.5' x 18 including dining area - usable long wall was just about 11 or 12'). I measured again and the distance is actually 7' (not bad, huh?). The space behind the speaker is 2'. I guess the distance was more like 8.5' in the old place. I think I will stick with the long wall placement for now. I may not like it in the end, but let's see. If needed, I will try the short wall. Wife will make concession as to my subwoofer purchase since the "length" of the wall is enough here. The issue now is when shall I ask her....
Thanks all.
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