KHorns/Cornwalls - Corner Placement and Soundstage

[cjr888]

Soundstage -- As mentioined in previous post, I am used to traditional speakers, and placement where speakers are pulled out far from boundaries, and have a soundstage forming behind the speakers in the shape of a shell -- narrow part of shell being the two speakers, with the soundstage fanning out behind the speakers in a curved shape, with the widest portion the farthest back. This gives the impression that sounds are coming from outside the two speakers (but w/depth).

With true corner placement, and a well-recorded album with solid placement and depth (say a good classical piece), do you maintain the illusion that the soundstage is wider than the speakers? Can you get past the fact that your side walls exist? (I'm not talking about phase tricks in regards to width)

Outside of reflections, I think having speakers and walls close by does mess with the illusion (psychology perspective, not technical perspective) as you know the walls are there. It makes more sense for the brain to have a performer in your livingroom, but not to have a bass player just on the other side of the wall....as if the rest of the band hates him. :-)

Curious for impressions of those who have this setup, whether from technical or layman/general impression perspective.

[jdm56]

To me, klipschorns in the corners do have a somewhat shallower soundstage depth, than can be achieved with "traditional" speakers pulled out in the room, especially if those speakers have extra broad dispersion through the mids, or are bi or dipolar radiators.

As for imaging that extends outside the plane of the speakers, I personally very rarely experienced that with any kind of speaker, unless, as you mentioned, it was due to some phase "tricks" in the recording, or just anomolies of a particular speaker/room/recording interaction. At least that is what I attributed it to. It was that rare. That said, I have experienced that with k-horns, but less often than with with conventional speakers and set-up.

I think the key is what you termed "psychological perspective". I think that factor is more important to our satisfaction with a given set-up than is generally aknowledged. Some people just can't get past the impression that because the speakers are hard in the corners, the "band" is too!

[cjr888]

Appreciate the response and look forward to other's comments.

Regarding 'sounds outside of speaker boundaries', the way I see this, and how I perceive it is that with typical speakers, if given plenty of breathing room, the soundstage resembles something like a baseball field.

Think of yourself at home plate, with your speakers at 1st and 3rd base, or possibly between 3rd/2nd and 2nd/3rd. Recordings vary -- prominent part of center image (ie. vocals) come from somewhere between 2nd base (a bit behind the speaker plane), or occasionally creep towards the pitcher's mound.

Again, my experiences may be clouded by room interactions, even minor ones, whether in good rooms or bad rooms, but I think of the soundstage boundaries as if you were looking down the line at 3rd base and 1st base to the end of the outfield. With the back of the soundstage appearing as an arc, and with sounds coming from outside of the speaker boundaries, but when I say that, I mean in regards to images with depth -- images that would be somewhere in the outfield....not ones that are outside the speaker boundaries but along the front speaker plane, which I usually attribute to phase issues in recording, typically on purpose. An example of this would be some of the QSound recordings, like Waters, with the dog barking almost at your side....

A lot of popular, tuned for radio recordings either have everything flat and way upfront, or with everything coming from dead center... Thinking more about live audience recordings, close miked, etc to capture the spatial stuff as much as possible...

I have to think of some tracks that can be used as concrete examples, where say you have a vocalist up front, a guitarist or piano spaced back and to the side a bit, and then say a large spread out chorus that appears across the back of your room...

[Shock-Late]

i'm not using k-horns, but Scalas, wich means i can place them virtually anywhere in the room. Well, the best soundstage I get is by placing them along the long wall, far apart from eachother, and well toed-in. that way i get a very spacious soundstage. keep in mind however than most horn speakers image in FRONT of them rather than behind... wich can be good or bad depending on your tastes...

[j-malotky]

cjr

Khorns image great when they are in a properly designed room. Side walls, front walls are all gone. In the right room they do an absolutely stunning 3D imaging with sound sources sounding from in front and in back of the front and side walls.

If your room is iffy, you will still get great frequency responce from a Khorn, but you will get better imaging from a Cornwall or LAS.

JM

[Tozco]

The soundstage from K-horns on the long wall (recommended) of a 23x14x8 room is wide, tall and larger than life. I have many rigs and this is the only one that floats the voices out in the center of the room. If your eyes are closed it seems like a wall of sound is in front of you, not two corner speakers. It never sounds like the side walls are encroached, but sometimes the music sounds taller than my 8' ceiling. I prefer the K-horn imaging by a large margin to other high end systems I have heard. Incidently, I listen to live music and frequent the Symphony so I'm in touch with how I would like my home system to sound.

Mike

[cjr888]

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On 3/24/2004 11:28:33 AM Tozco wrote:

The soundstage from K-horns on the long wall (recommended) of a 23x14x8 room is wide, tall and larger than life. I have many rigs and this is the only one that floats the voices out in the center of the room.

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My room is about 24x14 or so -- need to measure again though. Was initially forced to the shortwall due to room layout, but its sounding more and more like once I get the room back, that I absolutely must try long wall placement. Guess its time to buy some longer speaker cables.

With the Cornwalls and the 2A3, outside of the 2A3's natural attributes, what you speak of above was what initially got me excited about the CWs. I had always been looking for a setup in which the soundstage was up close and personal, with big dynamic images. That combined with a good amp, and in my preference, the little SETs, lets the music almost wash over you, and you have a female vocalist putting a spell on you. For others, whether the sound is detailed, rounded, or otherwise, they prefer the laid-back, distant sound -- as if the music stays in one place. I guess the way I think of it is music that projects.. Don't know how else to describe it.

I will have to try the longwall placement, and somewhat close to the corners, but everytime I think about speakers 18-20 feet apart, with myself 12-13 feet from center, and further to each speaker, I can't fathom how one maintains a center image. Just previous assumptions and biases I guess.

I guess I'll have to try it -- I was surprised once, the first time I heard the CW/2A3 combination in my room, it sure would be nice to be surprised yet again.

Time to find some temporary, cheap, and very long speaker cables to give the experiment a shot.

I actually had read the comments about Corn(er)Wall, and placement being fine in either situation after I had acquired them some time ago. When I read that, I actually was annoyed to hear that they could be used in either situation.

Why?

Because it gives me one more thing to try, swap, and move in audio -- I'm afflicted enough as is.

[JBryan]

I was discussing this very topic with a fellow just the other day and we compared notes. We've both had Khorns and CWs at one time or another and we agreed that in our respective rooms, the CWs weren't as effected by placement - meaning they filled the room better than the Khorns. The Khorns imaged well and had a very nice soundstage but only in the listening position. I think this can be mainly attributed to our room size as we both have less than perfect dimensions (his - @15'x25' short wall placement; mine- @17'x30' long wall). I eventually convinced him that he could improve his sound/imaging with false corners which although very rough, worked nicely. In the end he sold the Khorns and bought CWs again and still has them. His reason being that he didn't want to be confined to a single spot in his room in order to fully appreciate his speakers.

Have fun -Bryan

[D-MAN]

My DIY Khorns are quite satisfying in this respect. They image at least as good as my (previous) KEF 4's, have a MUCH bigger soundstage (the entire end of the room, top to bottom, wall-to-wall + depth which exceeds the room dimensions), more extended "depth" and seem to actually "dissappear" with certain source material.

I actually am quite happy with the DIY Khorns I have as far as soundstaging and depth which I had some experience based on the performance of the KEFs, which I previously thought had excellent soundstaging and frankly, they are never going back into my system (rosewood- any buyers?).

I have always heard that horns image poorly and in the past, I find that may have BEEN true, but now I know from experience that poor imaging has more to do with the inadequacies of the room rather than the horns themselves.

However, it seems that with corner horns the sound tends to "reflect" off of the side walls due to the proximity so that it tends to restrict the width of the soundstage to fit within the outside walls to a degree. This varies with source, but it seems to be a tendency. Some judicious room treatments can help to tame this tendency, but I can;t get it to completely go away.

As far as depth; it exceeds my expectations. It definately goes well "beyond" the wall boundary. It goes back several "feet" behind the speakers. As my corners are only 13 ft apart, the center of the soundstage is full also.

I have turned my horns to point more directly at the sweet spot than the "regular" top cabinet (when aligned with the bottom). This greatly helps the imaging and gives a more direct diaphram to ear route.

One of my fav Cds is Telarc's "Fuare and Durufle: Requiems" which has a depth and soundstage "for days". Give it a shot. It is my "depth" and "soundstage" meter.

P.S. I am using what I consider "good" gear which is capable of reproducing the nuances of a recording and also recommend using ALK crossovers for better response in that area. I have owned equipment that was not capable of producing a viable solid image, depth and soundstage so I didn't know what I was missing...

DM

[DRBILL]

We have our K-Horns on the wide wall in two excellent corners. We have a center, additive, phantom, Heresy. My wife, who is no audiophile, indeed, just barely tolerant of my addiction, mentioned the other night, "Have you noticed that when you close your eyes the wall behind the speakers disappears? The room seems almost twice as big."

This just about summs it all up. We were listening to a technically excellent recording of a Dixieland band (no mixing, just two mikes). You could place every instrument spatially in a 180° arc that began on either side and in front of the flanking speakers and extended behind all three walls.

A lot of recordings have been so "fiddled with" by overzealous engineers, that you can't be sure what your speakers are doing. Too bad.

DR BILL

[avman]

after repositioning my KLF-30's for toe-in/out, i got a wonderful soundstage i describe as having those sounds that should be 'centered' sound solid and like they are coming from the tube of my tv(or the screen)WHILE ALSO having sound coming FROM BEYOND the left and right walls that the speakers are next to. my ht room is 12ft.wide by 23ft.deep. 3ft.of that depth is 'stage',and the klf-30's are about 10ft.apart(limited by their width and the 12ft.wide room).i sit about 13ft.back.

i also have heard 2-channel music have great 'depth',example:'jet city woman' by queensryche. when the jet flies over at the end of the song, it sounds like it is flying over my head!

avman.