Should I change my room layout for KHorns?

[HPower]

Hey Guys,

I have been rethinking the layout of my basement listening room and would like some thoughts
before I commit to the rearranging.
My current room is really 1 long room that I use the back 15' x 20' area that is raised up one step from the front part,
which is about 4 ' narrower.

I have been relatively happy with the sound I am getting with the current layout but while I was playing around with
my new amps I was doing some listening standing in front of the sofa coffee table and was thinking the Khorns
sounded better with that ratio of listening distance to speaker width.
I was probably only 10' back from the Khorns compared to approx. 15' in the normal sitting position on the sofa.
With the new layout the speaker would be in corners 20' wide and the main listening seats would be approx.
12.5-13 feet back.

Before I go all out and build a 10 or 11 foot wall to separate the front part of the room (and form a good corner for the
left Khorn) I will probably move the one speaker over there and try it in one of the false corners that came with the speakers
when I bought them from Claude.

Anyways, does this ratio look better, or will I now be too close for the speaker width?
My main focus here is for stereo music listening, but what do you guys think about the proposed positioning of my
La Scala center and Heresy rears?

Here is the current layout:

[HPower]

Here is the front in real life:

[HPower]

Here is what I was thinking for the new layout:

[Don Richard]

I think that your changes would work well, especially with a center channel. PWK favored long-wall placement of Khorns combined with a center channel.

[IndyKlipschFan]

yes yes yes yes.. on the long wall....

When you build your wall behind your K horn on the left...use stacked 2x4 glued and nailed together too...at least in the part where the k horn will be.

You Could make false backs as well...and leave it open to the room beyond it... Just do the backs even to flair out to the front sides...That way you can also tilt them perfectly where u need them too.. just a thought..

You might be surprised how much better your k horns would / will sound if you do so.

[artto]

When I first built my room in the early 80’s I intended to have the speakers (flanking Khorns + Belle center) on the narrow wall (18.5 feet) so I could have more space behind me (theater-like).

Some time later, I forget why, but late one night I decided to move one of the Khorns (wall to wall carpeting had not been installed yet so it easy to slide it) to the other corner of the long wall.

I was amazed at how much the sound opened up and how much more detail there was while being in the full direct radiation path of the horns at a distance where the sound could properly blend and become more coherent. And all this could also be achieved at much lower volume levels thus reducing distortion and room interaction (from reflections/reverb). I never looked back and it’s been left that way every since.

[artto]

One other comment. I don't think you'll want your back up against the rear wall. A lot of bass piles up there (which can good or bad depending on the music/recording) but more importantly you'll be getting almost immediate interference reflections from the rear wall in the midrange/treble region (actually same thing with the coffee table right in front of the couch). You really want your ears at the intersection of the flanking speakers. The second and third seated listeners should be considered as back-seat riders, there by invitation only. Why compromise 90% or more of YOUR listening pleasure for something that occurs infrequently? You can change it later temporarily when required.

[Bill H.]

I too like the long wall idea better. Later on when funds are Built up, You could get a Plasma Flat screen TV. Then you could mount it on the wall and place the LS under it..............for a cleaner look. Just my 2Cents. Good Luck and watch with the heavy lifting !

[Islander]

The long wall is the better way to go. I had my La Scalas only 5 feet apart and another forum member had a listen. He immediately said I had to get them farther apart. In this case it meant moving everything in the room, including the four surround speakers attached to the walls, since I had to move the main speakers from the north wall to the west wall, in effect rotating the room 90 degrees.

It was worth it! With the La Scalas 12 feet apart, the soundstage opened up beautifully and, for some reason, there was more detail in the sound. I later replaced the four small surround speakers with a pair of Heresy IIs and the center speaker with another Heresy II for a complete Heritage system and I'm really happy. The La Scalas are now JubScalas, but the principle is still the same.

As well, the new layout makes the room seem more spacious and I got a lot of positive comments on that.

You will want to experiment with your sofa location to see if it's best near the wall or a few feet away from it.

[HPower]

Hey Guys,

Thanks very much for passing on your experiences.

Yesterday, I got up to discover about 5-6 inches of snow and since we are a little slow this week at

work I decided to take a "snow day".

First thing up was cutting an old butcher block into a couple of 12.5" x 16" amp stands for the new to me, DRD 45s.

Next was drag my right Khorn to the diagonal corner to make it the left speaker on the long wall.

I slid it into the false corner and moved the electronics to the centre of the long wall and fired it all up.

WOW, what a difference!

You guys are absolutely right about there being much better detail and the sound on the long front wall is HUGE.

I am not sure if I fiddled a bit with the left and right gain on the JM Peach but the sound as well as being bigger

and more open, seems to be louder at a same spot on the volume control.

Everything is just bigger and better, so much so, that off to Home Depot I went and got some lumber to build the

wall to separate the front and back of the basement room.

I got the wall framed and erected and then moved the rest of the furnishing around a bit to get an idea of how

things will look and sound... a little stiff this morning.

I may have to shorten the wall to 8 feet from 9 feet to allow for a better opening into the front part of the room.

I have not moved the old rear projection TV yet, but Bill, read my mind about mounting a nice flat screen on the

wall above the La Scala, right side up...

Maybe when I move the TV I will accidentally, on purpose, tip it over and break it.

Honey, I don't know how that could have happened [*-)] but maybe we should got to Best Buy and have a look around.

I think you guys are also correct about the sweet spot may be better if I move the couch off the back wall a bit, I

will have to play with that location after I get the room back together.

I will maybe snap a couple of pics when I get home tonight to show what stage I am at.

Don, I wish I had access to another Welborne DRD 45 to try the La Scala as a centre for the 2 channel music.

1st impressions are that I am getting a pretty good centre stage, but it is something that I would like to look into.

[HPower]

Well...

I got side tracked yesterday watching 3 blow out games and didn't get much done other than clean up a little
and take a few pictures to show my "lack" of progress.

Still to do, hang the drywall, mud, sand, paint, stain trim, install trim.
I will what to relocate my dedicated AC lines to the long wall for the electronics...
not looking forward to working with that 10/2 Romex again.

[HPower]

Veiw from the front room:

[HPower]

New amp stands, will need to add some spikes:

[HPower]

The sweet spot... it will be much sweeter once the job is done and the room is put back together:

[DrWho]

One other comment. I don't think you'll want
your back up against the rear wall. A lot of bass piles up there (which
can good or bad depending on the music/recording) but more
importantly you'll be getting almost immediate interference reflections
from the rear wall in the midrange/treble region (actually same thing
with the coffee table right in front of the couch). You really want
your ears at the intersection of the flanking speakers. The second and
third seated listeners should be considered as back-seat riders, there
by invitation only. Why compromise 90% or more of YOUR listening
pleasure for something that occurs infrequently? You can change it
later temporarily when required.

Well the Khorns are a
bit lacking down low, so I think the boundary gain works a lot in their
favor. One nice thing about being close to the middle of the rear wall
is you won't have any dramatic modal dips - just a big flat pressure
zone (for the most part).

Moving the couch forward will actually
make the effect worse, since you'll push the comb-filtering from the
boundary reflection lower in frequency - which means throughought the
entire spectrum you'll have more comb-filtering (since every harmonic
above the fundamental gets nailed by it too). In addition, the delay of
those reflections becomes slightly longer, which smears the sound more.

All
that to say, when you can't achieve a good 20ms of delay from a
reflection (so ~10ft from a boundary), your best bet is to get as close
as possible. It's also why a high-backed chair (or sofa) can do wonders
in improving the sound. If the bass is too exagerrated, then just pull it back some - and enjoy the lower distortion from a speaker that isn't working as hard.

I think one of the achilles heals of
the Khorn is that in order to be on-axis with both speakers, you're
forced into a 90 degree stereo spread. Ideally, you want it to be more
like 60 degrees, but you can't achieve that and be on-axis with the
khorns at the same time. 3-channel stereo can certainly work wonders in
solidifying the central image, but I find it distracting because the
timbre is very different between a lascala/belle and a khorn. I guess
if it doesn't bother you, then don't worry about it, but I find that
I'm unable to ignore it. I would rather have 3 lascalas and two potent
subwoofers (like maybe a pair of tc sounds lms-5400's that have way
less distortion than the khorn and dig lower).

Anyways, I think moving to the wider wall is going to sound better - although the surround in movies is going to sound worse since it won't be as immersive (need a lot of space behind the sofa to accomplish that).

[HPower]

Doctor,

With the little bit of listening that I have done so far, things are sounding pretty good with the couch up against the rear wall.
I am sure the sound will change again (hopefully better again), once I have the new wall dry-walled and finished.
Sitting in this position, the sound stage seems at least twice as wide as what it was on the 15 foot wall.

In the old set-up, the rear channel effects were very good with the Heresys being 3 or 4 feet behind the main couch.
The rear channels for HT are definitely going to suffer, but for the 10 percent of the time that we watch movies will be
overshadowed by the huge improvement that I am now getting in stereo music.

Not sure if I will get everything finished this weekend but I will at least have the drywall hung, that will let me
hear how things will be sounding.

[tommyboy]

I say yes, you should. Our room isn't as "serious" as yours, but I re arranged our living room to better accomodate our system, and it made a HUGE difference. My gf couldn't believe that just setting it up a little differently would make that much difference in over all performance. Hope this helps.......

[HPower]

tommyboy,

You are right, it is amazing what a huge difference this has made.

I am excited all, over again with these speakers!

I was able to get the drywall up, mudded, and sanded.

Hopefully I will get the wall primed tonight after work.

[HPower]

Well, it took a little longer than expected... I should know better than to start a project at this time of year.

Here is the new right side of the room...

[HPower]

New center...