Getting soundstage depth out of Klipsch speakers...

[maxg]

I am not sure if I have written about this one before - if so - apologies.

It has been my opinion for a while that Klipsh speaker are not all that good at creating a deep soundstage. Width is fine but the sense of depth was always limited to my ears.

The thread on speaker placement reminded me of this - and the solution I employed which I thought I would share here.

When I had the Heresy's I had them toed in to the point that their paths actually crossed in front of the listening position (sweet spot). This added the missing depth, without unduly compressing the width, as long as I increased the distance between the speakers accordingly.

I have since tried this out with a pair of KLF 30's and a pair of LaScalas and got much the same effect.

Does anyone else listen with this much toe-in? In fact has anyone else tried it? I would be interested in your experiences.

[3dzapper]

Khorns almost naturally do the "X" when placed along the long wall. Lionel Hampton is up on stage in Newport right now. Yes, up on stage. The height of the top section and depth of field places the musicians above and in front of the listener. Makes a twenty-two foot wall of sound where listening position is not critical. It sounds soooo gooood everywhere in the house.

Rick

[mark1101]

As far as soundstaging goes, I have found the corns to be most difficult to tune, LaScalas next, and heresys easy.

In fact the Heresy design soundstages great almost any way they are set up from my experiences with them. No problem there.

To me the biggest issue with the corns is spacing them at the proper distance so as to not lose the center and having them sound individual instead of as a stage. This can be tricky. I have found optimal distances from one another varies allot depending on the room and surroundings. I have also found that moving one speaker a mere 6 inches to a foot can create heaven from hell.

I do usually toe in, but have found that the best for me is to point the speakers at the ends of the couch. In other words, not at a sweet spot target, but instead create the whole couch as the sweet spot. This has helped give much better bass.

I also always use the wide wall of the room as the stage. In other words play to the short dimension of the room, not to the length of the room. This change in placement made the biggest difference.

I also space the speakers from the side wall enough so you can walk outside the sound field, or around the outside of the horns.

All were improvements for me that I learned here over time.

The corns are the tough ones.

[ben.]

I have Khorns in my living room, which is about 17'x 13', IIRC. They are positioned on the long wall. They intersect just in front of the listening position. With the 299C, I found that when I sit forward a bit, so they aim directly at my ears, they image and soundstage their best. However, sitting back, they perform very well in that regard as well.

My 299C is in the shop right now, so I am using a modern SS receiver. There is no comparison between the two. Imaging and soundstaging are flat. Tonal balance is actually OK, but the overall experience just leaves one cold. This will come as no surprise to many reading this, of course. I bring it up only to illustrate the impact of upstream components in the issue, and not just placement. I wouldn't be surprised to find that position would need to adjusted with amplification changes as well.

[Guest Anonymous]

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Max,

I also toe in my corn's, they are about 12' apart toed in to my seating position, and about 1.5 feet from the wall. This seems to give Me the best imaging and soundstage. I also bought a pair of verts, which I will get in January to see if they will image better, cause I will be able to Mirror image them.

Smilin

[AnalOg]

"I wouldn't be surprised to find that position would need to adjusted with amplification changes as well."

bclarke,

You hit that one on the nose.

I have my Scala's tweeters pointing at my cheeks, soundstage, imaging & layering of the music is at its best at the moment.

Tom

[garymd]

I agree with Mark here. I toe in my corns just slightly for best results. The soundstage is great but not extremely deep. My altecs image much deeper. The corns have almost pinpoint accuracy for stage placement while the altecs sort of loom over you. I like them both and it's nice to have them different. Amplification is critical. Changing to the scott forced me to reduce the toe-in (vs SS). Seems no matter how I toe-in the altecs, I get pretty similiar results with the Mac240/Marantz 7C.

[dubai2000]

Amp and room dependent. In my study (Heresy/Eico combo) I tried it the way Max described. It worked in a way, but because I sit quite closely to the speakers, letting them fire straight ahead works best.

The Khorns intersect where I am sitting (can't really move back much further). I remeber using them in this room for the first time: I was playing a recording of the first piano concerto by Liszt...and suddenly the piano had breathing space between the instruments. A great experience, so width isn't a problem. Depth is very amp and even tube dependent! With the right combo the sound reaches out towards the listener so that one is sometimes tempted to get up and almost walk among the musicians...kind of uncanny if it's a live relay from an opera house...because I couldn't possibly sing in front of such an audience .

Wolfram

[Allan Songer]

Mono rules!

[Allan Songer]

Mono rules!

[Colin]

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On 12/11/2003 11:37:16 AM maxg wrote:

I am not sure if I have written about this one before - if so - apologies.

It has been my opinion for a while that Klipsh speaker are not all that good at creating a deep soundstage. Width is fine but the sense of depth was always limited to my ears.

The thread on speaker placement reminded me of this - and the solution I employed which I thought I would share here.

When I had the Heresy's I had them toed in to the point that their paths actually crossed in front of the listening position (sweet spot). This added the missing depth, without unduly compressing the width, as long as I increased the distance between the speakers accordingly.

I have since tried this out with a pair of KLF 30's and a pair of LaScalas and got much the same effect.

Does anyone else listen with this much toe-in? In fact has anyone else tried it? I would be interested in your experiences.

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Point horns at your ears or the back or your head, move them three away from the front wall, much better imaging than cone speakers....

[Kudret]

Hey, Allan. You don't have to say that in stereo .

[wheelman]

I know i have junky gear compared to you guys, but i get awesome depth front to back soundstage. However i found my klipsch to have a really bad width in soundstage. When your off the sweet spot. I have my speaker on the long wall 22' and toed in alot. I sit 9' from my screen and stereo equipment and my speakers are about 10' to 11' apart. I almost got rid of them because that width is important to me. And for awhile i was used to back row speakers not front row on stage speaker sound. But the depth and snap of a string being plucked is completely real especially on stringed intruments their is nothing touching them. Except for better horns. But back to the soundstage if i don't toe them in i get this huge hole in the middle sort of like mono sound. I love klipsch but i dont know if i like their soundstage. Everything else is great. It's pretty good if your directly in the middle of the speakers. Actually it's great then. The center channel is very narrow i meen narrow, but that is another section of the forum. Anyhow i get amazing depth just poor width

[maxg]

Interesting to see the range of experiences with soundstaging. Most of you seem to be talking about width rather than depth.

I think I ought to illustrate what I am talking about so maybe you can get more of an idea.

With my current setup, when I describe how it sounds I often refer to the speakers disappearing. To me this means simply that if I close my ears I am unable to locate where the speakers are from the music. This is in terms of both their distance from each other and from me. Some sounds appear to be right in front of me (say half the distance the speakers are from me - or less). Other sounds appear to be so far off in the distance that it is hard to believe I am in the same room as the source.

Note that I said my current system. IT is, in many ways, the greatest change from the Heresy's I used to have. With the Heresies toed in as described above I could get close to this but not there, so to speak. When I ran the Heresies flatter (i.e. less toe-in) the depth decreased to the point that I knew exactly where the plane of my speakers was.

[3dzapper]

wheelman,

I know that this may sound trite but, check the polarity on your speakers. What you are describing is the same phenom. I have experienced with the Khorns when out of phase. That is, two individual speakers rather than a broad sound stage.

I don't know if this will help but, it can't hurt, switch the wires on one speaker and see if it makes a difference.

Rick

[KeesGuy]

I've never heard a horn system that could present a soundstage in all directions like a panel speaker. I've never heard a panel speaker recreate dynamics like a horn system.

Ya gotta pick your poison!

Speakers such as Thiels and Vandersteen do both pretty well but not as well as the extremes above.

BTW - I don't believe for a minute that the soundstage presented by a panel speaker is accurate and a recreation of the recorded event. It is pleasant none the less.

I'm having a lot of fun with my Klipsch but, with some recordings, I'm missing my Maggies!!

-Jim

[3dzapper]

You know this sound stage thingy might be being blown out of proportion somewhat. When I go to a concert the sound stage is usually a bank of drivers to the left and right of the performers and a flying bank above them. Really a rather flat sound stage aided by the unique ambiance of the venue. The deepest soundstage I have observed are at outdoor or stadium concerts with speaker pylons placed in the crowd.

Some groups in smaller venues such as a jazz combo are usually just a few feet apart on a smallish stage. Better localization but not much added depth. A symphony orchestra has a deeper sound stage than the above but, many hours and much money is spent designing the stage to present a coherent sound stage else the oboes would be lost in the strings.

I personally do not think that those loudspeakers that, when properly placed, appear to have a sound stage which extends behind the speaker. It's just not "natural".

Most of what we percieve of sound stage in recorded music is microphone placement and the whim of the producer in the mix, not reality. In our minds we create a new reality when we listen to the recording.

My $.02 rant. Your experience and tastes may vary.

Rick

[maxg]

Rick,

Whilst you may well be right and the soundstage is an artifact rather than a truer representation of reality I find that it adds greatly to the feeling of reality for me.

It does vary greatly with the music you are listening to. I listen to a lot of large scale orchestral works and a fair amount of Opera. Getting that sense of size, space and sheer scale of the production is a major part of the enjoyment.

Basically I like to get lost in the music and almost invariably listen with my eyes closed just to enhance the illusion.

At the other end of the music scale depth can be irrelevant. I well remember a night at Tony's when he had his KHorns. We listened to an Ella Fitzgerald recording with just her and a single guitar for accompaniment. Wondrous and probably the most realistic feeling of being there I have ever experienced - save for the fact that the scale was, if anything too big.

I described it at the time on this forum as Ella with a 10 foot head.

[mark1101]

Max,

Some people might get a little upset with this comment, but I have used Klipsch Heritage speakers for over 20 years.

Their weakest characteristic has always been their imaging. You can get them to image, but they are like tuning a race car. You need to adjust, adjust adjust. Anything you change, adjust again. When I say adjust, I mean move them, sometimes just 6 inches to a foot.

Especially with old cornwalls.

The biggest issue with this in my opinion is that the horns project the sound to the point that most rooms are simply too small to get the best possible effect.

If someone asked me what is the optimal distance to listen to LaScalas (loaded question). I would say the best LaScalas ever sounded to me was from almost 100 yards away outdoors at a party I attended. When it got dark out (important)

The horns project and need distance to develop their full envelope. I know everyone here describes their little 12 foot room and how perfect the image is. But IMHO, a speaker like a Khorn or LaScala is very restricted in a room that size. Not saying that they can't sound good, just that they are not able to develop their full potetial.

So the best you can do is try to adjust for best image. And everyone will tell you somehting different because that's what it takes, adjusting. Everyone will have different results.

I do not get the deep sound stage you describe from any of my klipsch systems. I get an excellent side to side stage where the speakers can disappear if set up correctly.

My SONY "HT in a box" ($399.00 for reciever and speakers) gives the "deep" sound stage you describe. The speakers absolutely envelop the room. You can not tell where any of them are. Cheap but good!

You take your Klipsch outdoors, and when it gets dark, to me that's the best they will ever sound. You'll get your long and deep stage and them some.

[jdm56]

I have read so much in Stereophile about speakers and even electronics either having or not a having a deep soundstage, but for the life of me, I don't think I've ever heard much difference. Sure, di-polars and bi-polars can bounce a wave off the front wall behind the speakers that hits the listener with enough delay to give an audible illusion of stage depth, but that is all it is; a room/speaker distortion. The only way depth variations between sounds can be recorded is with differences in level, arrival time, phase and reverberation content. And I think klipsch can reproduce those recorded differences about as well as any speaker.