Interesting observation about speaker placement

[wuzzzer]

My basement is only about 10 feet wide so to get the widest soundstage I have put the various speakers I've owned right up to the wall, toed in towards the listening position. I installed 2" acoustic foam in a 2 foot by 2 foot square on each side wall to lessen the first reflections. The foam helped quite a bit.

As seen in my signature, my house currently is the home of 3 pairs of Klipsch speakers. When my friend brought his KLF30s over to my house to store until he gets a new place to live I put them in between my Forte's and the TV. Well, a couple days ago I decided to move the KLF30s out of the way since I had been primarily listening to my Forte's and the KLF30s were in the way of me being able to get behind my TV and to my subwoofer.

I decided to experiment with the Forte's and I moved each of them about 6-8" from the side wall, again toed in toward the listening position. I put in a few different CDs and was very pleased with the results. The stereo imaging actually improved noticeably, and ironically the sound seemed to have an even wider soundstage than it did before. Recorded ambiance such as echoes and reverberated notes and voices seemed to emanate from all around the speaker instead of directly from them. I'm glad I took the few seconds to give it a try!

I guess 'wider is better' is better suited for Pontiacs than Klipsch!

[oldbuckster]

Is it so much the placement of the speakers................or..................the room it self..............all rooms are different and present different problems...

[wuzzzer]

I think its a little of both. The previous owners definitely did not have acoustics in mind when they finished off the basement room that my stereo is in. They did have a TV and speakers and at one time even had a pair of Klipsch.

Whatever the difference is, it sounds better to me!

[theplummer]

Try one other additon, this worked well for a friend with his Forte's (that I happilly own now). Take a small throw pillow and cram it into the corner, on the floor, behind the speaker. This works well for tightening up the bass, especially on a speaker with a rear mounted passive. I learned that trick from Thom at Flip's, In St. Louis, 20 years ago.

[wuzzzer]

Unfortunately due to the layout of the room I'd only be able to do that with 1 speaker. There's a slanted wall that starts out about halfway in the middle of the room and ends just behind the right speaker. This leaves about 3 feet behind the left speaker and about 8" behind the right one.

[jt1stcav]

Mark, if you moved your Fortes about 8" from the side walls (toed in towards the sweet spot), how much did you move them away from the rear wall? Or are they still butted up against the rear wall due to space limitations?

[colterphoto1]

rule of thumb: One half the width of the screen is the maximum screen to speaker distance you should have for proper HT soundstage.

And of Forte II with 15" passive, if put directly in the corners of the room, leave about 3-5" between rear corners and the side walls. This is about 12" from center back to corner of room. If flat to the front wall, about 10" from wall works well. It's about leaving enough room for the passive to 'breathe'.

[Islander]

That rule makes perfect sense for HT use, but for music, Heritage speakers like to be much further apart. Having them that close makes for a compressed soundstage when listening to music, although it places movie sound where it belongs. With my old Audio Logic speakers, the same narrow placing worked well for music and movies, but with the La Scalas, it seemed that I had to make a choice, so I went for a better music soundstage and an overly wide, but not too distracting, movie soundstage.

[wuzzzer]

Mark, if you moved your Fortes about 8" from the side walls (toed in towards the sweet spot), how much did you move them away from the rear wall? Or are they still butted up against the rear wall due to space limitations?

I just did some exact measuring. The right speaker is 9" from the slanted wall behind it (the wall is basically angled at the same degree of the speaker toe-in), the rear corner of the speaker is 10" from the side wall and the front corner of the speaker is 14" from the side wall. The left speaker is placed the same distance from the side wall and due to the design of the room it is 33" from the wall behind it.

[DrWho]

I hate to give a frequency response example for issues that are definetly the result of the time domain, but here's an example of the changes that could be realized with as little as 4" movement of the listening position (similar results come about from moving the speakers):

http://www.ethanwiner.com/believe.html
(there's more plots if you follow the link)

I've been meaning to post some of my own measurements that I'll be doing over the next week, but Damon presented this article recently and since Ethan is more reputable and has better measuring equipment, I think it shows the issues more reliably. +-6dB changes all over the place with just a minor change in position...gotta love acoustics.

I don't think it's news that speaker position matters though. You know you're getting crazy when you're moving them as little as 1/16".....though if you're like Woodog, you're moving speakers on the order of 1/100" [][Y]

I think it would be interesting to see your before and after results Mark. You can drive yourself nuts playing with positioning trying to figure out which position sounds better (since it changes between recordings).

[oldbuckster]

Maybe you need an equalizer for that room...............just a thought