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Best room position for Chorus II / Forte II ??


bhendrix

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A.) Long Wall

B.) Corner

C.) I prefer pretty tight in the corner. Another choice is whether you have the horns cross in front of you or more of an angle where they cross right behind you. I have enjoyed both positions over the years but tend to listen more to the later.

I've got about 16 years with the chorus II's and have tried about every position imagineable.

Hope this helps.

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Whether the loudspeakers are horns or not, I can tell you from auditioning a dozen loudspeakers, that they should be 3 to 4 feet away from the front and side walls to create the deepest soundstage, with the best vocal and instrument imaging. If sheer bass response is what you want, buy a subwoofer. This position away from the walls eliminates the nasty reflections in the mid bass. George Cardas, of cable fame, gives this excellent advice, http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/0602/cardas.html).

IF 3D imaging is what you seek, I would try the short wall, if the corners are good.

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I have the FIIs on the short wall. The seating layout makes that necessary. There is good center image.

Long wall placement is indeed the standard recommendation for KHorns and that probably is best for bass. Sometimes the spread makes a center channel necessary. But the FII are certainly not hurting for bass. So there should be some flexibility. You have to fool with them. What is best, depends on you and your room.

I have them in the corners, toed in, with the back edges almost touching the walls.

It is my theory that two channel forms the best center image if the room, or at least that end, is very symetric. Therefore wall reflections are symetric. Something to think about. If the room is not symetric because of windows, doors, couches, it might work better if you move them away from the walls.

People note good midrange and tweeter performance in different aimings. Crossed in front of you, in back of you, and some at you. This brings up another pet theory which is pretty much the same. What the mid horn is aimed away from may be as important as what they are aimed toward. E.g. crossing in front of the listener keeps a side lobe off the side wall, crossing in back keeps the other side lobe off the front wall.

You may say that 45 degree toe in keeps the lobes off both walls. I'm not convinced. Othewise we wouldn't have so many differing reports.

Just about everyone says the same. You have to experiment.

Gil

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I'll have to try this with my Quartets...not having the owner's manual and being "new" to this type of speaker (rear radiator) although my kg2s had them...I had them about 18" from the rear walls and corners...sound fine but I am always up for getting even MORE sound from them!

Thanks,

Bill

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A.) Long Wall

B.) Corner

C.) I prefer pretty tight in the corner. Another choice is whether you have the horns cross in front of you or more of an angle where they cross right behind you. I have enjoyed both positions over the years but tend to listen more to the later.

I've got about 16 years with the chorus II's and have tried about every position imagineable.

Hope this helps.

Ditto that except the 16 year part...I've only had mine for a year? or has it been 2? I don't even know, lol. But ya, tuck them into the corners with just a few inches on each side to allow the bass from the PR to wrap around the speaker.

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Whether the loudspeakers are horns or not, I can tell you from auditioning a dozen loudspeakers, that they should be 3 to 4 feet away from the front and side walls to create the deepest soundstage, with the best vocal and instrument imaging. If sheer bass response is what you want, buy a subwoofer. This position away from the walls eliminates the nasty reflections in the mid bass. George Cardas, of cable fame, gives this excellent advice, http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/0602/cardas.html).

IF 3D imaging is what you seek, I would try the short wall, if the corners are good.

3 to 4 feet corresponds to boundary cancellation at 90Hz:

http://www.peavey.com/support/technotes/soundsystems/boundarycancellation.cfm

Perhaps you just like the sound of -6dB at 90Hz? This would certainly be percieved as "less muddy" but it's probably not something one should strive for.

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Whether the loudspeakers are horns or not, I can tell you from auditioning a dozen loudspeakers, that they should be 3 to 4 feet away from the front and side walls to create the deepest soundstage, with the best vocal and instrument imaging. If sheer bass response is what you want, buy a subwoofer. This position away from the walls eliminates the nasty reflections in the mid bass. George Cardas, of cable fame, gives this excellent advice, http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/0602/cardas.html).

IF 3D imaging is what you seek, I would try the short wall, if the corners are good.

I think Colin is right on the money...............want real deep bass, buy a Sub...................

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Whether the loudspeakers are horns or not, I can tell you from auditioning a dozen loudspeakers, that they should be 3 to 4 feet away from the front and side walls to create the deepest soundstage, with the best vocal and instrument imaging. If sheer bass response is what you want, buy a subwoofer. This position away from the walls eliminates the nasty reflections in the mid bass. George Cardas, of cable fame, gives this excellent advice, http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/manufacture/0602/cardas.html).

IF 3D imaging is what you seek, I would try the short wall, if the corners are good.

I think Colin is right on the money...............want real deep bass, buy a Sub...................

I would agree with these guys I don't think you can go wrong with this! You may have to work with the distance away of course.

I have been fortunate to extract some very large soundstages, imaging means alot to me currently I am on the long wall with full corners room is 14x18 speakers are 8ft apart slightly toe in maybe 15 degrees with 5ft from the side wall, Imaging is really huge in my system from 10 watt 572 SET amps as told by my local club peers. I almost always have a wall to wall image with ambiant cues enveloping the entire room, The width of my stage can extend some 10 ft lateraly from my speakers and a 70 plus ft deep stage. I use a highly modified out board crossover with my Forte's the stock crossover still does a decent job but when the parts that it uses sell for 50 cents and a couple of bucks you can't expect much. Several of the guys on the forum have drop in replacement crossovers that will greatly improve the performance of the Forte Like Deans K-Stacks

All though I can appreciate the big Khorns I would never own them as I am not a fan of corner placement due to the highly entertaining lateral imaging that I have but if you don't have real good lateral imaging and their are plenty of amps that don't an example was a nice 100 watt Jollita that I had here retailing for some 800$ very rarely was it able to image beyond the speaker boundarys and of course the depth was poor It seemed like watch a little motion picture like an 8mm film the amp was very musical and enjoyable though just not up to my standards. so corner placment might be good! but watch out for the whole in the middle effect you certainly want a nice stable center image first.

Good corners are very important! Why ? because if you have the capacity for great lateral imaging there can be a sort of suck out ambient imformation for spacial cues and certainly and likey a bass imbalance I tried in my new place to make due with it but it was just not the ticket I switched walls to have the full corners and I was in heaven!

I also use Corner Tunes at the cieling corners to get rid of the muzzle effect just cup your hands together and put them up to your mouth and say something! Thats what the corners are doing! Take your hands away and say the same thing and thats what the Corner tunes are douing for the room, allowing the room to breath allows even louder volumes I have no troble exceeding 100db at my sofa, I also found a real bargin some years back in some Monster pannels which I use behind my listening sofa these were some 300$ each I picked up for 50 each they are lead lined and work great other products will do a good job as well including bass traps to extend the depth of the bass, So room treatments go a long ways.

Good Luck

SET12

.

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I have enjoyed my Forte II's slightly in from the corners, toed in so I can look down the throat of the horns in the sweet spot, and with the passive radiator a foot from the back wall. This is in my smaller listening area than yours. Play around with positioning and find what works.

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  • 4 years later...

"Whether the loudspeakers are horns or not, I can tell you from auditioning a
dozen loudspeakers, that they should be 3 to 4 feet away from the front
and side walls to create the deepest soundstage, with the best vocal
and instrument imaging."

Amen to that, brother. I lost that room setup to a move six years ago, and I still miss it.

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IMO, depends on your values ....

Values???

If you value a lot of very deep bass over tight, clean bass down to 40Hz or so, buy a subwoofer.

If you value tight, clean bass over quantity of bass, skip the sub and put your speakers in a corner.

If you value a precise, deep image over tight bass, and have a sub, put your main speakers out from both walls.

You may want to give yourself several days to try different speaker locations with several different pieces of music.

Many of the disagreements over speakers themselves, as wll as placement, may boil down to differing opinions about the importance of the image v.s. tight bass, dynamics v.s. smooth frequency response, convincing tonality and timbre v.s. "sweet" or "beautiful sounding" speakers.

Given a certain minimum quality, image depth/precision is not very important to me. Clean reproduction of great dynamic range is..

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15' X 20'

Short wall

Corners

Here's a quote from an earlier post I wrote on positioning my speakers:

"After reading a couple posts/articles I spent an afternoon setting up my
Forte IIs. Mine ended up about 10' apart, 16" from the back & side
walls, and toed in ever so slightly. Toe in was my last variable & I
think it made a final adjustment to the "stuff" (cabinets, etc.) along the walls in front of
(but not blocking) the speakers. My love seat/futon puts my ears just
above speaker height & 12' away."

Frank W.

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I am what you would call borderline nearfield listening......

I have the Heresies on the long wall; 9 feet apart; and I sit 9 feet from them.

I have makeshift risers; so they tilt upward;

I am toed in 25 degrees; with the inner edge being an inch from the wall......

I experimented for weeks; literally.....

The sub is the icing on the cake.....

Because your Chorus IIs have a passive; I suggest at least a foot to 18" from the wall as a atarting point.

Let them breathe (and hit) to start...... I recommend the long wall.....

(You are going to receive recommendations for both; I suggest trying both).

Good Luck.

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Interesting thread. I've been dabbling in this hobby for nearly 30 years and have yet to find a speaker that I like in a corner or against the wall. This is proving problematic for me in trying Klipsch speakers without a seperate sub. Smaller woofers around 6" seem to work nicely in my 12'x10' room without exciting bass nodes. The larger woofers often overwhelm my room. Place a large woofer against the wall or in a corner and instant BOOM! If I use a smaller Klipsch with a rear mounted passive sub; what do you suppose will happen? Those models need to be close to the front wall. I'm in a catch 22 here.

I too enjoy depth and excellent soundstaging. It helps me feel that the performance is more real. I never get that with speakers against the wall.

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I currently have my Forte IIs sitting about 12" from the rear wall and the right wall is a good 6 feet from the right speaker and the left wall is a good 10 feet from the left speaker. The speakers are aimed perfectly forward, not toed in at all. I previously had them toed in quite a bit, pointing directly at my main listening position. I read an article that was posted a while back from a guy who reviewed a pair of Fortes years ago and he found the best sound for his ears was to not toe the speakers in at all. I tried it and was very impressed. There was signifcantly more bass output, the center imaging was still superb and the sound stage was much, much broader than before.

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Although I have experienced more image depth with certain speakers when they were pulled out from the wall, I wonder how much of the loss of depth when they are agaist the wall is because you know the wall is right there, and instruments "can't" plausibly be beyond the wall.

The influence of the visual on a somewhat different aspect of image was once demonstrated at an audio fair in the early days of stereo. Ampex had a fairly acoustically transparent curtain up covering one end of the room. Two very widely spaced speakers were behind the curtain. The image was very detailed, with no hole in the middle (something they worried about a lot in those days), and yes, some depth. When they pulled the curtain back, revealing the speakers, the image degraded, pooling around the speakers, with hole in the middle all over the place. The best stereo image at the fair that year (although we didn't use the word image in this regard then) was found in two rooms: the JBL room, with their Paragon up against the wall (and on a riser), and in the Klipsch room, with Klipschorns in their corners.

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I currently have my Forte IIs sitting about 12" from the rear wall and the right wall is a good 6 feet from the right speaker and the left wall is a good 10 feet from the left speaker. The speakers are aimed perfectly forward, not toed in at all. I previously had them toed in quite a bit, pointing directly at my main listening position. I read an article that was posted a while back from a guy who reviewed a pair of Fortes years ago and he found the best sound for his ears was to not toe the speakers in at all. I tried it and was very impressed. There was signifcantly more bass output, the center imaging was still superb and the sound stage was much, much broader than before.

I read that article years ago and tried it and just couldn't make it work.

As far as more bass output out in the room I will kindly have to disagree. Passive radiators get reinforcement off of the rear walls or corners. Out in the room always gave me more mids and less bass.

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