Speaker Placement - How Tight Is Your Soundstage?

[kdogg]

I have been expirementing with speaker placement and overall room acoustics recently.

Overall, the best placement I have found is placing the speakers roughly 12in to 24in off of the wall to increase bass response. The exact position depends on the size of the room and fundamental frequency of the speaker cabinet.

I regards to toe-in, I have seen a lot of systems where the front baffle is parrallel with the wall and some with a very extreme angle. For example, Vandersteen recommends to place their speakers with no toe in.

My tests and consultation with a friend (Trained by a Sumiko rep), have yielded the best performace to be where the speakers are aiming just behind your head. This makes the voices go from very wide to very very small. They are so small in fact, that it is very easy to distinguish between the height of a guitar and the artist singing above it. Listening to music like this is incredible!

Has anyone else had such stunning results?

[Wireworm5]

My room is narrow so I don't have the luxury of good speaker placement. With my set-up I get mostly direct sound with plenty of bass, however I use multi-channel stereo with floorstanders front and back. This gives me the alIusion of being immersed in 360* sound. I like this affect but I don't get the kind of soundstage you describe or the depth allusion of stereo.

[kexodusc]

My studio room has a recessed ledge about 1 foot deep at 3 or 4 ft off the ground. I've brought more than a few people over to show them how huge an impact this seems to have on "soundstage depth". Especially drums which sound incredibly deeper than the center vocal image. Moving speakers to a flat wall cuts down on this apparent depth considerably. When I bring the speaker further out into the room I don't get the same results so I dont' think it's that...it's pretty nice, I'm happy.

Unfortunately, after 2 years of tweaking and setting my two rooms up to perfection, I'm moving to Canada and have to start all over again :(

[cam]

My studio room has a recessed ledge about 1 foot deep at 3 or 4 ft off the ground. I've brought more than a few people over to show them how huge an impact this seems to have on "soundstage depth". Especially drums which sound incredibly deeper than the center vocal image. Moving speakers to a flat wall cuts down on this apparent depth considerably. When I bring the speaker further out into the room I don't get the same results so I dont' think it's that...it's pretty nice, I'm happy.

Unfortunately, after 2 years of tweaking and setting my two rooms up to perfection, I'm moving to Canada and have to start all over again :(
and please don't tell me you are going to turn into a stinken Leaf fan.

[Woochifer]

Once you find that spot, it can be VERY eyeopening. I think that the aiming behind the head approach seems to have worked very well with two systems where I've tried this. Of course, this also depends on how far apart the speakers are to begin with. I have my speakers setup about 60 degrees apart (have to do this to keep the speakers from interfering with the TV), which is wider than a lot of recommendations that I've read (50 to 55 degrees apart is a fairly common placement recommendation), so the toe-in is necessary.

If you want another approach to really tightening up the overall sound and improving the imaging, I would suggest that you try soundproofing of some kind behind the speakers along the front wall. This can entail commercial sound deadening panels or something as simple as a $16 box of acoustic ceiling panels. If you have a very live sounding room or if you have to keep your speakers fairly close to the wall, this can help a lot. When the sound reflections occur close to the speaker (such as along the front wall), your ear will interpret them to originate from the same source, but because the reflected sound occurs at a later time, it has the effect of smearing the sound and making it seem harsher. By minimizing this smearing effect, the imaging really tightens up.

[kexodusc]

Leafs??? Not in this lifetime...Moving to N.B. Not too far from where I'm at now...My Canadian relatives can't believe a "Yank" is leaving the US for a job in Canada...

I just sell-out to the highest bidder...

[toenail]

I've spent quite a bit of time reading about the effect a room can have on speakers. Everything from modes and nulls to reflections etc. Most of the time an equilateral triangle with toe focused a few feet behind the listening position does wonders. In my case bringing the speakers away from the wall and into the room causes the midbass vanish.

It is awe inspiring when you find the sweet spot, reduce some reflections and sit back and enjoy. It's like finding a new pair of speakers to evaluate, pouring over all of your old reference material for the umpteenth time while noting all of the improvements. Sometimes the best things in life are free.