Speaker set up guideline

[Bigmoney]

Awhile back I purchased a book called the master handbook of acoustics. I hadn't really had time to read through it until the road trip this past weekend. I stumbled upon a a speaker set up guideline which I was soon eager to try. The book states position your loudspeakers .183 the length of your room from the front wall, .298 the width of your room from the side wall and form and euquilateral triangle with your seating position. So sit exactly the distance between your speakers from them. This should position your listening position about 3/7 the length of your room from the front wall. I tried the set up this morning and had tgood results. Good tight bass response. Excellent imagining. I had been using the cardas method but this by far sounds better to me, no offense george. Maybe lacking a little depth and spaciousness in comparison to cardas, but than again its all about compromise. I found the bass to be much stronger but not boomy. I also checked the results with an spl meter to confirm my findings. Not sure if this will work for everyone, but if you like to experiment with your set as I do, please give this method a shot and let me know what you think.

[filecat13]

Master Handbook of Acoustics

Who's the author and/or publisher?

[Bigmoney]

F. Alton Everest is the author and the book was published by Mcgraw Hill

[filecat13]

Thanks. I'll check it out.

[aevans]

can you fill me in on the cardis method?

I currently have mine setup in an equlateral position just by default, and the fact that I'm stuffed into a 10x11 room until my kid gets old enough to know not to touch dad's shiny toys or I build my own toy room.

[Bigmoney]

Here is a link to the cardas website
http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=26&pagestring=Room+Setup
If you like to read there is a lot of good info on speaker placement on the site. The link provided brings you to the set up for a rectangular room. You might want to check out his set up for a square room which is a few clicks away from the page I provided. The latter may prvide better results for you becasue your room is nearly square. It is a good thing for you to have your speakers set up in an equilateral fashion in regards to your listening postion, but the distance both the speakers and you are from the wall will determine the frequency response of your system. My advice would be to try the square set up provide by cardas and position yourself equi distant from where the speakers are postioned according to cardas. Likely you will be aroun a third of the way into the room from the rear wall if you use the rectangular guideline.

[aevans]

no way I can pull that off, I've got so much crap piled in this room (it's also an office for wife and I).. but I did give everything a full read and it gave me what I think is going to be a good solution for my room that I plan on adding to my house. you can check the other thread for more info on that.

[O'Shag]

A good general rule of thumb, but....

I've found that different types and sizes of speakers work better positioned differently. The common approach is to position your speakers at about 7ft to 8ft apart. KEF suggests that 6ft is the absolute minimum, with about 12ft being about the maximum (for their speakers). Corner horns for example need to positioned far into the corners, whereas some smaller speakers need to be positioned at about 7ft apart.

The Monitor Audio GR60s are very flexible with placement. I've had fabulous results with then set about 8ft apart. But they also sound terrific spread a lot wider and angled in towards the listener. In fact I find that the wider placement makes them sound slightly 'bigger'. The big KEFs such as the 107 and especially the 109 are a little more challenging in a smaller room, because they inherently sound large.

Also, the dispersion and driver characteristics do change things up a bit. For instance, you don't want your speakers too close if the tweeter/mid is somewhat forward and aggressive. Such speakers sound better set further back and to the side of the listener.

Payce

[E-Stat]

no way I can pull that off, I've got so much crap piled in this room...
Use that to your advantage. Most speakers benefit from having their first reflection points diffused. Translation: put damping panels or my approach, fake ficus trees at that point on the wall/floor. You may be able to use some *stuff* from the room to fill that need.

I've tried a number of schemes (including the Cardas for dipoles) and found that they will get you close, but experimentation can fine tune the room specific results. Good luck.

rw

[hermanv]

Cardas? Oh my Gawd, doesn't he sell snake oil?

Seriously, I find his explanations refreshing and mostly straight forward (not too sure about this "Golden Ratio" though).

His stuff seems well made and while not cheap his prices aren't astronomical either.