Puzzling results with ATC SCM50ASLT loudspeakers vs. previous system
- Thread starter Matthew J
- Start date
But you will not compensate the reflective sound and loss of the spatial info. The whole point of moving speakers 1m+ from the wall is to not mix direct sound with reflections.
tuga
Legal Alien
You’re making stuff up…
My speakers have narrow directivity from the midrange upwards and as mentioned I am using EQ to compensate for the bass reflections.
Columbo
pfm Member
Correct me if I'm wrong, he's simply saying people have different tastes.
This channel https://www.youtube.com/@stjernholmreviews/videos when he reviews gear he has 3-4 of his mates come over and give their listening impressions. Same speaker, same set-up, same music and they often react wildly differently.
camverton
pfm Member
Not sure that is quite true. If speakers are close to the wall the delay between the direct and reflected sound (from the wall behind them) will be minimal and not particularly noticeable. When the speakers are away from the wall there will be a noticeable delay between direct sound and reflected sound, although the further the speaker is from the wall the lower the relative volume of the reflected sound. Imho it is this mixture of direct and delayed reflected sound that gives the illusion of spaciousness and a realistic illusion of having a musician playing in front of you.
As to the effect, created this obviously depends on the type of speaker and is particularly obvious with omnis and diminishes as you though dipoles and box speakers to cardioid speakers. The problem is that moving the speakers away from the wall can seriously upset the frequency response particularly in the bass due to cancellation.The trick is to find the best position which balances spacious and realistic presentation with a decent frequency response although DSP is the friend of those who prefer their speakers to be out in the room. For those who don’t like the spacious effect then a position closer to the wall can give a better result for them, particularly if they are more interested in listening to the recording per se - not that there is anything wrong with that.
alanbeeb
pfm Member
Or just get some headphones.
Usually it completely destroys the soundstage, that’s why people typically putting speakers like 30cm from the wall have no idea what the soundstage is about
You can download any audiophile calculator, put room dimensions there and look what a speaker position should be. Also youtube channel ‘new record day’ once made a good guidance how to properly position the speakers.darrenyeats
pfm Member
Controlled directivity like MEG and D&D 8C also handles this (but deep bass is still not directive so if you have a deep room mode it won't help with that) so you can better use that 0.6-2m zone. Am not keen on being stuck on a particular DAC though like in the 8C (also last I checked internal rate was 48kHz). I like the MEGs, heard the RL-901. Anyway an aside.Yes, this is a problem and the reason why I now have my speakers very close to the front wall and use EQ to compensate for the boundary gain.
If you add subwoofer(s) AND high-pass the speakers the problematic range of distances is greatly reduced (see red distances in the tables below):
darrenyeats
pfm Member
As for near front wall, the wall itself is less of a problem than large objects near the speakers like furniture, chimney breast, TV, equipment racks etc. If you can't avoid entirely, speaker baffles should be in front of such (that makes toe-in difficult but you should be okay up to at least 0.6m from wall as discussed). If just a wall with diffusor panels on it between the speakers, you should retain sound field ok.
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No, I'm offering objective denialists the path to understanding their biases and how they project them onto others. Of close to half a dozen so far, no takers. It seems they're cleverer at avoiding cognitive dissonance than at diving sound they haven't heard from tech they won't allow.
For sure, there should be nothing between the speakers, it’s a must
camverton
pfm Member
It depends on the speakers, their types and the room they are installed in. There is plenty of guidance and dogma available for speaker positioning and some of it might give a reasonable starting point particularly if using the speakers as a monitor for the recording.Usually it completely destroys the soundstage, that’s why people typically putting speakers like 30cm from the wall have no idea what the soundstage is about
For achieving a realistic illusion of having music performed in front of one there is only one way to find the “best” result for each individual. It is often a case of balancing opposing factors and what will work well for one person won’t for another. I think genre of music plays a part as well. If listening to Yello, for example, I’m not really interested in getting an illusion of muscians playing in front of me so much as getting engrossed in the sound they make. For that a monitoring setup might be best for me. If I’m listening to a small classical ensemble or instrumentalist where they could conceivably fit in the end of my room, a realistic illusion of them playing in front of me is much more important.
One thing I have discovered is that the positioning of speakers in the room, whether ATC or other types and brands, will have a much greater influence on the sound then tweaks elsewhere in the audio chain - ymmv.
Realistically there are only 2 ‘schools‘ that diverge from that. Audio Note and big Klipsch. For 90% of boxes it’s the same.
camverton
pfm Member
I’m struggling with this. What exactly is an “objective denialist”? Is it an objectivist that denies the opinions of those who take a more subjective approach, or is it a subjectivist who denies the objective approach?
camverton
pfm Member
I’m not familiar with the schools of Audio Note or Klipsch. My thoughts are based on experience of positioning different types of speaker in a variety of rooms of different size, shape and damping. Fair enough if folk want to adhere to guides but I would respectfully suggest that most would benefit from trying their speakers in different positions to find out what works best for them and the type of music they listen to.
gez
pfm Member
No you're just creating word salad. None of what you said has any meaning at all, and it certainly had nothing to do with what I wrote.
In one system I have my SCM10 positioned in free space off the wall (in a room width similar to OP's). Listening to them in the other room they're close to the wall and also near the floor on those low Ikea stands. The same speakers can sound amazing or congested depending on their setup.
How are they positioned OP?
How are they positioned OP?
LOL. This is a classic example of denial, in this case, rhetorical instead of technical.
Our kindly interlocutor will, having randomly jumped someone in a public conversation, avoid the clear implications of his own fallacies, in his case about sound versus technological classes. Aside from my not owning him a reply, he got one, and now that what he thought was his position re: sound vs tech has dissolved, any doubting it hereby word salad, the standard midwit avoidance tactic. At least we were spared the mom's basement insults.
Meanwhile there still isn't a correlation between what they think they're on about and proper musical replay. There's just a lot of dust in the air.