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RB-5 Owners - where are your speakers?


MarkPayton

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I have owned RB-5s for about 6 months now, and have them simply placed on ledges right along the front wall of my home theater. They are very close to the wall, angled with less than 1" of clearance at the closest point. Lately, in doing some testing with AVIA, I have noticed some rather sharp spikes in output at different midrange frequencies, presumably induced by the location of the speaker and maybe resonance of the rear port with the wall. I have also read that rear-ported speakers are best positioned about 18" from the rear wall. Is this true? In this case, the term "bookshelf" becomes rather difficult to apply, since few bookshelves are 18" deep and would likely have resonance issues as well.

So my question is this: what are other RB-5 owners doing? Where do you have your speakers placed? Is everyone using stands? have other folks encountered the feedback/resonance issue, and if so, how did you solve it?

At this stage, my options are fairly limited. The ledge on which the speakers are located is fairly shallow, so the shelf positioning will probably not work. I am beginning to think my options are to either buy a set of speaker stands for about $200, or to tr to trade in my like-new RB-5s for RF-3s that I can position away from the wall. Your thoughts?

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Well my RB-5's when used( LOL ) are positioned on solid 18" stands.The stands are 3 feet from the rear wall and 4 feet from the side walls.This when I use them in my large room.In the small room the RB-5's would sit 2 feet from the rear wall and about 3 feet from the side walls.

I never would place a speaker against the wall or in a corner...unless you have the famous and timeless Klipsch Horn.This design is to be placed in a corner against the wall.

Speakers like the RB-5's(almost all speakers)lose midrange definition and sound boomy when placed against or to close to a wall.Any bass gain is worthless unless you like thumping boomy bass and colored as rainbow sound.

TheEAR(s) Now theears

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I'm kind of stuck with a bad situation here too. In my living room I have to have my TV in a corner, facing out vertically. I have my RB-5s on homemade speaker stands on either side of the TV. The right speaker is fine, but the left is only a few inches away from the wall.

Nothing I can do about it really. To tell you the truth I'm not sure I've noticed the difference in sound quality between the two, but I probably would if I tried hard enough.

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I have my RB-5's placed on 24" stands and are about a foot from the rear wall. The left speaker is flush with the end of the wall, which takes a 90 degree turn and goes down a hallway. The right one is about 5 feet from the corner of the room. Certainly not an optimal placement, but I don't have any boominess or midrange spikes that I can detect.

Mark, one possibility might be to put some acoutic damping on the back wall of your shelf. This might dampen some of the boomy bass you are experiencing. Although, it might also make the bass sound a little muffled. Might be a cheap fix though.

------------------

RF-3's : mains

RC-3 : center

RS-3's : surrounds

KSW-12: subwoofer

Receiver: Denon 2801

DVD: Panasonic DVD-A120

CD: Yamaha CDC-765

Cables: Tributaries

Sat Receiver: Hughes Direct-TV DD5.1

-------------------------

Family room:

RB-5's (Mahogony)

Receiver: Denon AVR-2000 (2ch.)

Amp: Onkyo M-5000 (2ch.)

CD Player: Yamaha

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