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Vocals in Soundstage way too far back.. What to do?

D

Deaf Cat

pfm Member
Hi
Don't know if you may be able to help?
I hope I can explain what I am hearing..

My old speakers laid out a nice musical image, in to the room in front of the speakers, across the room and gave a nice bit of depth to the musical image too. (stereo pair of speakers)
Vocals were a little too far back in the image but nothing too much to worry about.

In come the new (2nd hand) speakers, musical image is much clearer around each speaker, instruments behind, fractionally in front, to the left and to the right of each speaker, vocals now however are way way back, almost as if the singers are off the back of the performance stage, with all instruments grouped around each speaker, which does not seem quite right..

Any suggestions to get the vocals up front, and bring the soundstage more forward in to the room generally?

I have tried a1 sized sheets of hard board with blankets over them behind each speaker and vocals seem to have moved forward a little and become clearer, but are still way way back. I would very much like vocals up front in the musical image, any ideas how?

Thanks for reading,
Cheers
DC
 
Try some more diffraction or damping behind the speakers, if that doesnt help, change speakers.
 
Try angling the speakers inward/outward/straight ahead etc. Some arrangements will work better than others in different rooms. Also adjust the distance between the speakers. I have found closer together is often better than further apart.

Check that phasing is correct, positive from amp to positive in each speaker. If you are unsure of the speakers' history, look inside them and check that the wiring is correct and identical, also that both have similar stuffing/damping. You never know...

Tell us more about the current arrangement/positioning in the room, and the music that you listen to. And what are the new (and old) speakers.
 
Well, a bit more info.:
Old speakers ditton AV3's I made them active with the help of Phil at Marchand, with some xm44emb boards, now, I recall a question to Phil about my soundstage going 2d after trying the 24dB slope cards, everything much cleaner but 2D. Phil suggested swapping the + & - on each tweeter (reverse), which worked a treat.

Hence, when I tried my Forest's active, I left the + & - reversed.
I understand my Forest's were 12dB slopes (passive) as like my old speakers, and switching to 24dB slopes (active) the + & - needed to be swapped...So I thought!

Anyways I have put the + back to the + and the - to the -.
Soundstage has changed, previously instruments were in front and clearly defined, vocals took a back seat, now instruments are not so clearly defined, and vocals take a front seat and attention is now focused on vocals and not instruments - Weird!
I think the soundstage is not so wide now..

Just goes to show, me a beginner, has no idea as to the phenomenon of driver & XO relationships.

I'm intending to investigate something like the minidsp to have a play with phase and XO's etc. and I may be able to tweek phase in smaller increments that 180deg to hear differences.. :-o Lots to learn!

It would be nice to get the clarity back of the instruments, but I don't want to loose the focus on the the vocals.

Many thanks for the suggestions!

The boards and blankets make a small but nice difference, will have to look into something that maybe does not stick out like a sore thumb in the living room..

I will have a play with speaker positioning too soon :)
Many thanks for you help!

One happy Bunny looking forward to the next listening session, and learning more ;-)
Cheers
DC
 
Uh huh. At least the OP would know how the speakers are supposed to sound.

Which, if they're Totems, is very good.
 
i carn't even get Forest's active up on google, what are they, and why again was there no mention of what the speakers maker model and name in the first post
 
I'm no expert. But if reversing the tweeter connection helped, this might mean that you increased the sound level at the overlap between tweeter and woofer, effectively making more sound at the frequency which is important for vocals. So the vocals stand out more compared to the rest.
 
You say vocals were a little far back before changing your speakers so the problem seems to lie elsewhere, maybe your source or amp could be the cause or room acoustics, I have found this to be the case if the room is rather live sounding, try hanging something behind the speakers & opposite the speakers on both walls, this made my music sound more immediate once the flutter echo had been dealt with. Vocals & instruments sounded a little better defined also with a more direct sound.
 
Is it not just a basic issue of phase? Vocals are generally placed (mixed) down the centre and if one of the speakers is wired out of phase there will be cancellation. If it's your crossover is part of it wired out of phase particularly in the frequency range where the vocal sit? Simple but worth checking.
 
Sounds like you have a phase issue on tweeters or woofers or both.

You need to try swapping one at a time...do a bit of fault finding
 
Hey, quite a bit to catch up on, thanks,

Michael J - thank for the link, will read, :)

Passive crossovers were in for a while, bass was just a tad slack to what I was used to so just tried active as an experiment, and bass tightened, and music seemed to have more life to it, so stayed active.

Thanks Muttley2 for the power cable tip.

No I don't think you will find active versions of these speakers as I believe they are around £4k new, so I can't see many people ripping them apart at that price! - I bought mine a while ago and they were 12 years old then, as one may guess not in top shape at that age. Careful experimentation was planned so they can be put back to original as I did not expect an improvement due to the quality of the speaker design/build to start with - but I guess they may have had a hard life..?

Paul MB - I understand it that if the woofer and tweeter are in phase there would be no canceling around the XO point, giving maximum transfer of output signal to ones ears.
If 180deg out of phase there will be a lot of canceling going on, and anywhere between 0 & 360deg there would be varying canceling..
I have no idea how the original passive XO affected phase when working with the drivers, but would guess it was designed very carefully to give the best sound. Hence I'm liking the idea of playing with phase difference, slope order etc to see if I can hear differences... :-0

Keith - no I did not, it was just a quick experiment to see how they would sound with the active XO I already had for the Dittons. forests - 2.5, dittons 2.3 As it happened I liked it - No telling what people may like ;-) - except for of course the back stage vocals!
Original ditton XO 2nd order, original forest XO 2nd order,
I preferred the far cleaner sound of the 4th order with the dittons so just went for that with the forest quick experiment.. Not realizing the effect of driver / XO relationship affecting phase in different designs - interesting stuff!

Ragaman - yes was worried it may have been my dac/pre, but with the primitive absorption behind the speakers and at 1st reflection points, things do improve, - and of course the phase change! :)

Twoseventy - hope covered above.

davidsrsb - will be interested to read if available

cackhanded - yes I think so, I would not have guessed two different speakers would have needed the phase reversed to sound good, just shows what goes on the the passive XO's is a mystery to me.

All - Many thanks! :-D

(going to experiment and learn about room treating next)
 
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