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speakers and soundstage

Andy1912

Andy1912

pfm Member
Hi,

I have been moving my speakers about for a couple of weeks now trying to get the best soundstage. They were previously about 75cm out from rear patio windows and they fire down the length of my room (about 6m) rather than across (about 4m). I have now moved them about 1m from the back windows now and they are about 80-90cm in from the sides of the room. I have also moved my listening seat (sofa) about 60cm from the back wall (it used to be hard-up against the wall). There is nothing in-between the speakers and the sofa apart from a rug on the oak floor. My LPs are on the left wall and my audio gear on the right, adjascent to the speakers. The speakers are about 165cm apart and I am about 250cm away from the centre of an imaginary line between them.

I have settled on the position of the speakers re: from walls and windows, and am now generally just moving the toe-in. I tend to settle on a position for a day or so and then tweak some more with soundstage altering a lot with very small changes in speaker angle, as does the nature of the sound (too much angle=grating, and so on). I am using a relatively small number of LPs and one CD. They are: Jennifer Warnes (Ballad of ...) and Suzanne Vega (Tom's Diner), mainly to set the vocals centrally and Blue Nile (Walk Across... and Tinsel Town) along with Sade (Diamond Life, side 1) to set the drums/beat, centrally. I then use various other music to see what like...

Often the sound is fantastic when I am on the PC (in the room corner) or out of the room, and it is very good when I sit down to only listen to music, but just doesn't feel "right" (no soundstage; instruments not separated/squashed; vocals to one side; beat to one side, etc etc).

I was wondering if I buy some of the test CDs that are available, eg, http://www.amazon.com/Stereophile-Test-CD-Vol-3/dp/B00008FUKL?tag=vglnk-c494-20 would the results tranfer exactly to vinyl listening? To be honest, I rarely listen to CDs so vinyl is by some distance the priority.

I might be becoming obsessed :eek:

Any advice would be great...

Best wishes

Andy
 
what are they??? a very important bit of imformation , you covered the detail , but forgot the obvious ...you have OCD. Sell your hifi and do whatever your wife tells you , she will be right and you will have a better life.
 
6m long 4m wide. I'd try firing across the room if possible. For some years I was hung up on firing them down the length. I used some spreadsheet calculator that I found online, which when you fed in the room dimensions it told you the speaker positioning.

** edit I'll add that mine are full range in-wall. As you havent given us your speaker details its just a suggestion to try and see if it works in your case.Of course if your speakers require some distance from the wall and your room furnishings dont allow you to do this.

There are some rules which is to avoid 1/2's and 1/4's but also the height of the room comes into play. My room is 17 ft * 11.3 and firing them accross the room works a treat. L to R is about 2 meters, and main listening position is 3.3m someone with more knowledge than my self will perhaps tell you the exact formula to use . I'll try and search the tool I used. Of course try and get speakers at ear height to :)
 
Andy1912 said:
Hi,

I have been moving my speakers about for a couple of weeks now trying to get the best soundstage. They were previously about 75cm out from rear patio windows and they fire down the length of my room (about 6m) rather than across (about 4m). I have now moved them about 1m from the back windows now and they are about 80-90cm in from the sides of the room. I have also moved my listening seat (sofa) about 60cm from the back wall (it used to be hard-up against the wall). There is nothing in-between the speakers and the sofa apart from a rug on the oak floor. My LPs are on the left wall and my audio gear on the right, adjascent to the speakers. The speakers are about 165cm apart and I am about 250cm away from the centre of an imaginary line between them.

I have settled on the position of the speakers re: from walls and windows, and am now generally just moving the toe-in. I tend to settle on a position for a day or so and then tweak some more with soundstage altering a lot with very small changes in speaker angle, as does the nature of the sound (too much angle=grating, and so on). I am using a relatively small number of LPs and one CD. They are: Jennifer Warnes (Ballad of ...) and Suzanne Vega (Tom's Diner), mainly to set the vocals centrally and Blue Nile (Walk Across... and Tinsel Town) along with Sade (Diamond Life, side 1) to set the drums/beat, centrally. I then use various other music to see what like...

Often the sound is fantastic when I am on the PC (in the room corner) or out of the room, and it is very good when I sit down to only listen to music, but just doesn't feel "right" (no soundstage; instruments not separated/squashed; vocals to one side; beat to one side, etc etc).

I was wondering if I buy some of the test CDs that are available, eg, http://www.amazon.com/Stereophile-Test-CD-Vol-3/dp/B00008FUKL?tag=vglnk-c494-20 would the results tranfer exactly to vinyl listening? To be honest, I rarely listen to CDs so vinyl is by some distance the priority.

I might be becoming obsessed :eek:

Any advice would be great...

Best wishes

Andy
Click to expand...

Lots of rooms and speakers never interact well. My worst was in a modern shoebox in Bristol we lived in. I would mark your existing favourite location with masking tape on the floor, then drag speakers and yourself right into the centre of the room, locate them best nearfield, then gradually move them away and yourself back towards the wall untill you find what annoys the most. Speakers with seperated drivers struggle in poor rooms. The modern fashions for narrow gives an uneven wide mid dispersion which is bad. Concentric or fullrange are more forgiving, and you soon adjust to their other weaknesses [usually treble]. That probably means build your own, or Tannoy etc.
 
Ok thanks everyone. The speakers are harbeth p3es-2 as per profile. Moving nearer field has definitely helped. Unfortunately I can't fire across the room.

BW

Andy
 
Well, it did take a while but I finally got there and I'm very happy with the sound now. Removed the spike shoes so the speakers are now firmly spiked to the floor. Perseverance; small movements and leaving the speakers then coming back to them after a few hours or a day, I think was how I finally got there....

BW

Andy
 
Please please safeguard your marriage. HiFi is just toys, bits of dead machinery. But people are people and irreplaceable. Read, listen to music (not test records) eat good food, go to concerts, talkto people about life, god, politics, economics.
Having said that, I'd also suggest giving up on the idea of your "listening position". You are not a robot, who will sit for 18 minutes perfectly immobile. "Listening" You may walk around, lie on the floor, or find you hear music best by taking off your shoes and lying across the sofa with both speakers on the same side. Relax, you are not charting a course to sail across the Pacific with no sextant. Now, if you like, feeel free to tell me to f**k off, I wouldn't mind at all
 
No problem. I'm not attached to the listening position anymoe and in fact am now sitting to the side because it's more comfortable and warmer by the fire. I still had to put in some work to get the speakers to have a decent and not too focused stage. Anyway as it happens most of the time I have a LP on I'm doing stuff often in the kitchen or may be on the pc. I have a few kids and a wife so as you can imagine it's a busy house...
 
Perseverance; small movements and leaving the speakers then coming back to them after a few hours or a day, I think was how I finally got there....
Click to expand...

I really think this the way to do it. You could say that there is some fast rules on how you should NOT place the speakers, like avoiding 1/2 1/4 of the room dimension mentioned above.
When it comes to finding a good spot, it's just down the good old trial and error method. When you found that good spot for the speakers you should be able to enjoy good sound pretty everywhere in the room.

JohanR
 
PaulMB said:
Please please safeguard your marriage. HiFi is just toys, bits of dead machinery. But people are people and irreplaceable. Read, listen to music (not test records) eat good food, go to concerts, talkto people about life, god, politics, economics.
Click to expand...

Heh heh, well that should be a sticky.

With the caveat that it's more fun repositioning my speakers in centimetre increments than talking about economics these days.
 
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