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Speaker positioning and setup.


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Would anybody care to share how they go/went about setting up their speakers in their room to find the best positioning? I'm having a hell of a time getting mine in the right spot. Playing with distances off the back and side walls, toe in, etc. It's proving to be pretty tough. My room is also awful acoustically, lots of hard surfaces and I get lots of echo/reverb, i've been planning some acoustic treatments but do I do that before or after getting my speakers positioned?

 

Have any of you ever followed any of the 3 "methods", listed below?

 

1. Cardas method

2. Audio physics method

3. Wilson audio setup procedure

 

I liked the cardas method because it is just simple math but it isn't practical for my room, it puts the front of the speaker nearly 6' off my back wall.

 

I also tried the WASP method but talking loudly while I slowly walk away from a wall to find where the sound "opens up" proved to be a failure. Is the best way just back and forth, side to side, while taking notes? Will the "best" position I find without treatments also be the best after adding some bass traps and possibly a panel or two at the first reflection?

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Your positioning will change after treatments..by how much, no one could answer that.

If you have hard floors, don't under-estimate the value of a rug & pad to shake out a lot of problems. Curtains also brought my current room into something I could live without further treatments.

 

You have already found some of the better reading material out there...certainly enough to get you started. Using masking tape to get a "reference" mark, noting the changes when you are off that mark.

Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment. Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not." — Nelson Pass

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What are your room dimensions? If rectangular do you have the speakers along the short or long wall? What type of speakers do you have (monitor/stand mount, tower/floor mount)?

 

Room is 13x25, though I am not able to use the full length since I have a small dining table on the opposite end. My seating position is about 16' from the front wall and 9' behind me to the other back wall. Speakers are on the short wall and are floor mounted towers.

 

Your positioning will change after treatments..by how much, no one could answer that.

If you have hard floors, don't under-estimate the value of a rug & pad to shake out a lot of problems. Curtains also brought my current room into something I could live without further treatments.

 

I do have hardwood floors throughout and have been shopping for an approx. 8'x5' area rug to throw between my speakers and listening position. The wall behind my speakers consists of 4 tall but narrow windows, takes up nearly the entire wall, each window has a sort of honeycomb/cell fabric treatment over it so there isn't much else I can do to the back wall.

 

Since my original posting I found another method, this one was one the stereophile site. Discussed some golden ratio that I was never familiar with. Pretty much distance from floor to center of the woofer (my speaker has 2 so I went to the center of the lowest one?), multiplied by 1.612 which gives distance off the side wall to center of the woofer, and that number again multiplied by 1.612 which gives distance from back wall to face of the speaker.

Anyways I gave it a shot, ended up having to move my speakers closer together from their previous position and quite a bit forward. I must say it made a HUGE difference, I actually had a decent amount of bass back, something that I seemed to lack no matter how I placed the speakers. It is much better, and though my speakers are not bass monsters, I still feel there should be even more bass from a speaker with 2 8" drivers. I'm going to use the current position as a starting point since it made such a big difference and go from there.

If anybody else has any other ideas I would happily try them out, my speakers slide around easily so they aren't anchored to their current position.

 

Thanks

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If you are still using the Revels you may try another forum (cough) and specifically ask about these speakers and where other owners have placed them or any tips on placement/toe in. They are certainly popular enough, I think you could find more than a few other owners. Personally, I do toe-in/out at the very end after distance from the walls has been sorted out...more of a fine tuning and one less variable to deal with in the whole process.

 

I had a pair of the little Revel M20s, they were not so easy to place and have heard most of their other speakers in audio shops. Many of the shops where having some bad room interactions even with treatments on the larger models. Even with the 2 x 8", I think they throw a lot of energy into the problem areas. More work for you now but more rewards later.

Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment. Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not." — Nelson Pass

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If anybody else has any other ideas I would happily try them out, my speakers slide around easily so they aren't anchored to their current position.

 

 

Try using this program and put in the dimensions of your room and select the most similar speakers to your own and experiment with placement and listening position placement. It can give a rough idea what various configurations in your room could do.

 

hunecke.de | Loudspeakers Calculator

 

Next step would be to try one of the configurations that looks good with that and actually measure the frequency response at the listening position and see what you have got. You may only need to make small changes after that.

 

Of course it is a balance between the frequency response and other aspects such as good placement for stereo imaging. This is why crossing over to subs even just as low as 40 or 60hz can give greater flexibility and placement options.

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The Salon2 you own

 

I found this review and regarding positioning ( of course the person didn't state room size)

"Deciding on final positioning took a few days of experimentation between toe in and front wall distance, which is to be expected. I must say, the EQ controls did prove useful though, especially the low frequency controls. I ultimately ended up placing the Studio2's about eight and a half feet apart with the slightest bit of toe in towards the primary listening position with the back of the speaker itself resting about three feet off the front wall. In this position, while I could hear a difference in the bass response if I jogged through the various compensation controls, I ultimately chose to leave the Studio2s in the normal bass setting.""

 

And here is a review that has in-depth measurements Revel Ultima Studio2 loudspeaker | Stereophile.com

 

You have enough power to push them, I think its just finding a good location. Can you provide a drawing of your room ( where the furniture set etc..)

The Truth Is Out There

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Have you tried to go diagonal? This is recommended as a sort of last resort, but in my case it made everything fall into place. And after I posted my experience on a Danish forum, it led to several others trying, with several of them reporting enthusiastically back.

All best,

Jens

 

i5 Macbook Pro running Roon -> Uptone Etherregen -> custom-built Win10 PC serving as endpoint, with separate LPUs for mobo and a filtering digiboard (DIY) -> Audio Note DAC 5ish (a heavily modded 3.1X Bal) -> AN Kit One, heavily modded with silver wiring and Black Gates -> AN E-SPx Alnico on Townshend speaker bars. Vicoustic and GIK treatment.

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Hi robbby,

 

Would anybody care to share how they go/went about setting up their speakers in their room to find the best positioning? I'm having a hell of a time getting mine in the right spot. Playing with distances off the back and side walls, toe in, etc. It's proving to be pretty tough. My room is also awful acoustically, lots of hard surfaces and I get lots of echo/reverb, i've been planning some acoustic treatments but do I do that before or after getting my speakers positioned?

 

Have any of you ever followed any of the 3 "methods", listed below?

 

1. Cardas method

2. Audio physics method

3. Wilson audio setup procedure

 

I liked the cardas method because it is just simple math but it isn't practical for my room, it puts the front of the speaker nearly 6' off my back wall.

 

I also tried the WASP method but talking loudly while I slowly walk away from a wall to find where the sound "opens up" proved to be a failure. Is the best way just back and forth, side to side, while taking notes? Will the "best" position I find without treatments also be the best after adding some bass traps and possibly a panel or two at the first reflection?

 

 

The following has worked for me in my own studio/listening room and in several rooms I've designed and/or set up for others:

 

Setting up your monitoring environment

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

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There's no hard rule for speaker placement Robbby as no two rooms or speakers radiation patterns are the same. You can 'follow' various golden triangle musings, but always be prepared to make adjustments as room interaction will always be a variable.

 

I strongly suspect your lack of perceived bass response is a cancellation 'null' where the LF content of each speaker is canceling as the waves propagate and meet out of phase from each other. These LF waves aren't directive, so moving the speakers about can produce some improvement, but it's the reflected waves from boundaries that usually cause the trouble.....not to mention that the better placement for bass response is almost never the right spot for soundstage or imaging.

 

As mentioned earlier, treating your room with bass traps does often mitigate the problem, but they're big, ugly, and expensive not to mention unless you've measured your rooms response, there's no way to effectively no what or where to use.

 

The topic of a subwoofer was introduced, and somewhat accurate.....you 'should' expect better LF response from a pair of 8" woofers.....but alas, not every room is cooperative in this regard. Placing the speakers closer to boundaries like the side or real walls can help, but such will always also affect the midbass response, creating a 'hump' in the response where it isn't needed.

 

So as to spending money on treatments or subwoofers or whatever, it's a crapshoot at best unless you can identify the null with a response measurement. To say that 'bass' is lacking is a very wide sweeping assumption......the problem isn't nearly as broad as you might think.

 

I'd start with the position that works best for you in regards to imaging and soundstage first. Then....ignoring soundstage and the rest, move your listening position around until you've reduced or eliminated the null. You can also do the crawl test where you move around low to the floor to find the best bass response.....your ears are 'under' the vertical window of the rest of the system....easier than trying to ignore it instead. Once you've done this, map out your room and mark the speaker position, your preferred listening position and the spot where bass sounds the best and report back....hint hint....it won't be in the middle of the two speakers. A Birdseye simple diagram would also be helpful.

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Jim Smith's book and/or DVDs are well worth the read/view (see Chris's review for more details). One of his hints worked for me (although I re-discovered it before getting his book): Put the speakers on a diagonal in the room. This works naturally for me because our fireplace makes a 45° angle with respect to two adjacent walls that form a 90° corner. The speakers flank the fireplace symmetrically, and sit forward from it, toed in slightly. It sounds far better than speakers parallel to any of the available walls. I used another of his suggestions, the Bosh laser measuring device, to get the distances to the sweet spot perfect.

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I should say that Barry's guide was what made me realize what kind of soundstage was possible. If I hadn't read the guide, I would probably just have ended up putting the speakers close to the front wall in order to get sufficient bass. When I tried the diagonal setup, it was immediately apparent that this gave me the best of both worlds - good bass and great soundstage. The latter probably because first reflections from walls get more delayed. In fact, except for the ceiling, there's no obvious first-reflection point for my right speaker.

All best,

Jens

 

i5 Macbook Pro running Roon -> Uptone Etherregen -> custom-built Win10 PC serving as endpoint, with separate LPUs for mobo and a filtering digiboard (DIY) -> Audio Note DAC 5ish (a heavily modded 3.1X Bal) -> AN Kit One, heavily modded with silver wiring and Black Gates -> AN E-SPx Alnico on Townshend speaker bars. Vicoustic and GIK treatment.

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Thanks for all the replies, definitely going to read through all the links and try different things out.

 

I will try and draw the layout of my room for those that asked. I also have REW and the appropriate spl meter and sound card to take measurements but like most new software it isn't easy and takes lots of reading and testing to get everything setup properly. I have a few hours to burn tonight so i'm going to play with the speaker positioning a bit and give REW another shot.

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I also have REW and the appropriate spl meter and sound card to take measurements but like most new software it isn't easy and takes lots of reading and testing to get everything setup properly.

 

RAW can be a pain in the butt to use. I think it was written by computer nerds for computer nerds.

 

My favourite software is TrueRTA. Sure, you have to cough up a few dollars for the higher resolution versions... but the program works straight off the bat without all the fuss.

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I noticed the suggestions about the diagonal setup but it just is not practical for my living space

 

A close to centre long-wall setup could be worth a try. Two benefits from it are that 1; It gives plenty of space to the sides of your speakers and can produce a very expansive soundstage. 2; It puts the listening position towards the back long-wall and away from the centre of the room which can give you better bass, as the centre of the room is usually the worst place to get a good bass response.

 

Using that loudspeaker/room calculator I posted earlier can give you a rough idea and saves a lot of physical work before you even think about making radical changes.

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Hi robbby,

 

...Will the "best" position I find without treatments also be the best after adding some bass traps and possibly a panel or two at the first reflection?

 

In the rooms I've set up, the answer is yes. However, the answer, in my experience, can depend on how you arrive at that "best" position. With the method outlined in the article I linked to, I would say the answer is yes.

 

With regard to the software you mentioned, I would advise that it *can* reveal symptoms but cannot reveal problems. It *can* also lead to the *creation* of problems. I say this for several reasons:

 

1. Room issues are time-based, not amplitude-based. Some of the symptoms show up in the amplitude domain and this is what software can *sometimes* reveal.

 

2. The "mic and software frequency response" method makes certain assumptions, the first of which is that what the mic "hears" represents what a human listener would hear. My experience is that this will be true IF the human has an extraordinarily narrow head with a single ear in the middle of their face. Outside of that, all bets are off. ;-}

 

3. Using the results of the "mic and software frequency response" method often leads folks to change the amplitude response (i.e, frequency response) of their loudspeaker. To my ears, what this accomplishes is the *degradation* of what the speaker designer has worked hard to achieve. This too operates on what is, in my view, an erroneous assumption, that being that changing the speaker's response will alter how the room behaves. It won't. It might make things *look* "better" to the software but that's all it will do. The room's resonances will still be there. And the speaker's response (which we hear *before* we hear the room) will be skewed, resulting in the *addition* of a second problem rather than a solution to the first one. As I've said elsewhere, attempting to fix a time-based problem with an amplitude-based "solution" is like trying to fix a broken arm by wearing a different hat. ;-}

 

Regardless of the type of loudspeaker, there are places in *any* room where the room is excited the least, where the room is excited more and where the room is excited the most. Some folks confuse room resonances with bass, when in fact resonances have nothing to do with the bass contained in the recording and in almost all instances will be *out of tune* with the bass in the recording. My experience has been that the best place for bass and the best place for imaging are the same place -- just so long as what one seeks is the bass contained in the recording and not the stimulation of room resonances to create a fake bass (such as the "one note bass" we hear from many automobile systems).

 

The physics of rooms is the same everywhere. Pressure builds up at boundaries and this excites the room's resonances. Every room has a fundamental resonance for each of its dimensions (length, width and height). There are first and second harmonics of each of these resonances, which are prominent at fractional lengths of the room's dimensions. This does not change with a change in speakers or a change in type of speaker. That's good news because it means placing speakers and treating room acoustics are not the arcane rites they are made to be in some quarters. A tape measure will help you get to the right place faster than any microphone and any software will.

 

My best advice, as always, is to NOT simply take my word for any of this. Listen for yourself and draw your own conclusions. Experimentation is work but it costs effort, not money and that effort is well rewarded when you know your system is dialed in just right and you're getting the best from your system and room.

 

Have fun!

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

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3. Using the results of the "mic and software frequency response" method often leads folks to change the amplitude response (i.e, frequency response) of their loudspeaker. To my ears, what this accomplishes is the *degradation* of what the speaker designer has worked hard to achieve. This too operates on what is, in my view, an erroneous assumption, that being that changing the speaker's response will alter how the room behaves.

 

I agree if one is just plonking their speakers down in any location in a room that just happens to fit the décor or will keep the wife happy and then uses large amounts of EQ to make a response look smooth.

 

But how about using that mic and frequency response method to find speaker and listening position placements in a given room that gives the least amount of peaks and dips to begin with and then hardly any or no EQ is needed.

 

This way the speakers are working as intended, the signal isn't being distorted, and off axis response is similar as well.

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Hi Kiwi2,

 

I agree if one is just plonking their speakers down in any location in a room that just happens to fit the décor or will keep the wife happy and then uses large amounts of EQ to make a response look smooth.

 

But how about using that mic and frequency response method to find speaker and listening position placements in a given room that gives the least amount of peaks and dips to begin with and then hardly any or no EQ is needed.

 

This way the speakers are working as intended, the signal isn't being distorted, and off axis response is similar as well.

 

My experience has been that finding the place with the least amount of peaks and dips is relatively easy and no EQ is necessary. Nor, in my view, would any EQ be desirable if one starts with decent speakers. Peaks and dips are symptoms, not the problem. More importantly, to me, is finding the place that excites the room the least. Doing so will automatically minimize the peaks and dips because it is addressing the problem that generates those (among other, to my mind, more severe) symptoms.

 

This is just my perspective of course but all of the systems I've heard that I deem able to reasonably get out of the way and provide the listener access to the recording itself, have been done with no EQ in the path. And all the systems I've heard that do use EQ sound, to my ears, like big car systems. As I've said elsewhere, room issues are time-based, not amplitude-based. In my experience, the way to address them successfully is to shorten the duration of resonant ringing (lowering the "Q" is a start) and to absorb early reflections so they don't reach the listener. Neither of these involves changing the amplitude response of the speaker.

 

With regard to off axis response, the only way I know of to get it right is to use a speaker with the proper amount of dispersion and to control the acoustic issues of the room at their source.

 

I know folks who feel differently about all of this. The above is just what all the great systems and rooms I've heard have in common and what my experience has been with monitor EQ, from my earliest days in the studio to a number of super expensive audiophile setups I've heard, which also use it and to me, still sound like car systems - highly colored and very far from what I'd think of as transparent.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

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Barry, I appreciate the reply, lots of helpful info.

 

Decided to try and get REW setup just to see what the heck i'm working with, I really think I did something wrong because this graph looks terrible. Believe it is a sweep from 15->20kHz

 

full scale.jpg

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Hi Kiwi2,

 

 

 

My experience has been that finding the place with the least amount of peaks and dips is relatively easy and no EQ is necessary. Nor, in my view, would any EQ be desirable if one starts with decent speakers. Peaks and dips are symptoms, not the problem. More importantly, to me, is finding the place that excites the room the least. Doing so will automatically minimize the peaks and dips because it is addressing the problem that generates those (among other, to my mind, more severe) symptoms.

 

This is just my perspective of course but all of the systems I've heard that I deem able to reasonably get out of the way and provide the listener access to the recording itself, have been done with no EQ in the path. And all the systems I've heard that do use EQ sound, to my ears, like big car systems. As I've said elsewhere, room issues are time-based, not amplitude-based. In my experience, the way to address them successfully is to shorten the duration of resonant ringing (lowering the "Q" is a start) and to absorb early reflections so they don't reach the listener. Neither of these involves changing the amplitude response of the speaker.

 

With regard to off axis response, the only way I know of to get it right is to use a speaker with the proper amount of dispersion and to control the acoustic issues of the room at their source.

 

I know folks who feel differently about all of this. The above is just what all the great systems and rooms I've heard have in common and what my experience has been with monitor EQ, from my earliest days in the studio to a number of super expensive audiophile setups I've heard, which also use it and to me, still sound like car systems - highly colored and very far from what I'd think of as transparent.

 

Best regards,

Barry

Soundkeeper Recordings

Barry Diament Audio

 

Are your experiences primarily using Planar panels or a mixture of conventional cone and dome loaded box speakers?.....for if you were talking Maggie's or similiar dipolar systems then I could understand your experiences and guidelines.......but if you were to apply the same principles to front loaded boxes....well....the same assumptions don't apply.....not even close.

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