I tried that golden ratio speaker placement...WOW!

[aidynphoenix]

i guess i cant do it with my room. i have my setup on the wide wall.. its asking to put my speakers 70" into the room.. thats practially on top of my couch which on the wall opposite of the entertainment area...
my room is 13' or 157" by 10' 120"

[89grand]

Originally Posted by aidynphoenix

i guess i cant do it with my room. i have my setup on the wide wall.. its asking to put my speakers 70" into the room.. thats practially on top of my couch which on the wall opposite of the entertainment area...
my room is 13' or 157" by 10' 120"

You don't set it up the same way if your room is like that.
Look for diagram F:

http://www.cardas.com/pdf/roomsetup.pdf

[Kneedeepinit]

waf went down but my JBL L36 have never sounded so inviting

I think this is what is meant by the term "Studio Monitor". So clear

[JoeESP9]

Now you know what us sound stage fanatics are talking about.

There are currently a couple of threads on room treatments for improving sound. They seem to neglect speaker positioning.

Speaker positioning threads always neglect room treatment.

Proper speaker positioning goes hand in hand with room treatments.

[Kneedeepinit]

my primary listening space is unfortuntaley a mess for fidelity. It is L shaped with a 24' wall on the back. It consists of a living room and a dining room. The dining room is what expands the normal rectangle to make the room L shaped.

By building an imaginary wall between the two rooms and using these measurements, I have placed the speakers well into the living room and it works.

I am sitting a lot closer to the speakers than I thought would be ideal. The highs seem to be less forward than when they are placed farther back against the wall.

[89grand]

Originally Posted by Kneedeepinit

my primary listening space is unfortuntaley a mess for fidelity. It is L shaped with a 24' wall on the back. It consists of a living room and a dining room. The dining room is what expands the normal rectangle to make the room L shaped.

By building an imaginary wall between the two rooms and using these measurements, I have placed the speakers well into the living room and it works.

I am sitting a lot closer to the speakers than I thought would be ideal. The highs seem to be less forward than when they are placed farther back against the wall.

Yeah, it's nuts. Friday after I did the calculations I thought, hmmm, that's going to put the speakers way forward. After I moved them to that position and saw just how much closer they were to the seating position (about 6 feet vs 10 or more before), I thought, they're going to sound like they're right in your face, this is going to sound like shit.

I fired them up and thought WTF...they sound further away than they are, the sound stage has depth I've never even approached before, and the tonal balance is considerably better as well. I played two mono recordings from Elvis, I Got Stung, and King Creole, and I would have bet money that the sound was coming not from the mains, but the center channel that is about 3.5 feet further back behind the mains. I kept listening to it, trying to detect the mains and I couldn't. The image was so centered and deep that 9 out of 10 people would have bet money it was the center speaker that was actually playing.

It's bizarre that speaker placement can change things to this degree.

I might have to check out those Maggie MMG's after all, because they wouldn't even need to be as far out in the room, the calculator says about 10" less. Plus they're easier to move then the JBL's.

[tomlinmgt]

^^^

Couple of things....

One, a few have mentioned acoustic treatments. Some absorption in the right places (on wall behind speakers and at first reflection on side walls) will give you back much of the improvements you lose when you move the speakers to a more "liveable" position. I see you have none...you really should give very,very strong consideration to getting some panels up. I've yet to hear of one person who didn't hear a noticeable improvement in all the areas you mentioned you experienced an improvement in after they put up some absorption panels. And most of them just kept the speakers right where they'd always had them. On the front wall behind the speakers is a great place to start.

Second, as far as the MMGs go I have a set and have done much research and experimentation wrt their placement. The only way you can get away with getting the planar dipole magic from them without having them at least three feet out from the front wall is if you get some deliberate diffusion behind them. By saying "deliberate diffusion" I mean real diffusion panels....either commercially available units or something you build yourself. I built a pair of five feet tall by three feet wide diffusion panels to place about two feet behind my MMGs and it was like I put a much better Maggie model in place of the MMGs after I situated the panels behind them. I have a thread detailing the construction of the panels and the effect they had. The diffusion panels do wonders for my dipole Infinity QLS-1's as well.

- Michael

[89grand]

Some non-unsightly room treatments would definitely be a plus. I've looked into it quite a bit. I really wish I had a dedicated listening room where I could put speakers and treatments wherever I wanted without causing any issues.

Like in my living room, I cannot keep the speakers where they are now, full time, it just wouldn't work with the general space or with movies. Treatments could present a problem as well. Behind the speakers would be fairly easy, but the side reflections may not. If the first reflection happens to be where a window is, I can't cover the window with anything. Or on the other wall, it may be where furniture is and has to stay put.

I need to make some measurements and see just how much I can really do in this room.

If I ever buy some MMG's, I'd probably use a traditional speaker for my movies, and leave the MMG's off to the side against the wall when not listening to music being as thin as they are, then just bring them out when I wanted to listen to them.

[JoeESP9]

Heavy curtains work pretty well for windows. You close them while listening.

[Copa1934]

Originally Posted by 89grand

What sucks is that I don't think the Time Windows will work well in this arrangement because of the way they have two woofers and two tweeters, one pair on each of the angled front baffles. One woofer and tweeter would be firing right into a chair that I really can't move.

I might try them just to see, otherwise, the L80t's are staying in this system, and they TW's will go in my computer room setup.

I'm sure some of the speakers I've booted out of here, would have sounded a lot better in this setup, but, then again, I've always kept the speakers that I thought sounded the best in my previous less than ideal setup, so those same speakers probably sound better in this setup too.

I've always been kind of curious about the 901's. I've only heard one setup many years a go. I seem to remember it sounded pretty decent.

Check the link again. I could swear it touches on this, uses a different multiplier. I could be wrong, but thought I read it there.

[spkrdtr]

Originally Posted by 89grand

Like mentioned earlier, it's the golden ratio.

Basically, you take the width of your room, and do this math.

The distance from the center of the woofer face to the side walls is:

Room Width times .276 (RW x .276)

The distance from the center of the woofer face to the wall behind the speaker is:

Room Width times .447 (RW x .447)

In my case, with a 13 foot wide room, the center of the woofer is 43.05" from the side wall, and 69.73" from the rear wall. Now this is from the woofer cone, not the edge of the cabinet.

Go here, there's a handy calculator.

My stereo sounds the best it ever has. I'm not even getting any of the shrillness the L80t's occasionally had before. I know this is nothing new, but it's mind blowing to me. I'd heard of it years ago, but never bothered to try it because it requires the speakers to be further from the rear wall than I had wanted to do before. I probably can't leave mine like this, but now that I know the measurements, I'll just move them back when I know I'm going to listen to music all night.

http://www.cardas.com/content.php?ar...=26&pagestring

So, who's right, George Cardas or Jim Smith?
Who's Jim Smith? He's the auther of the book 'Get Better Sound'. http://www.getbettersound.com/ (I have no personal iffiliation).
Jim's a consultant who's done 100's of room installs of 2-channel systems - many for high end audio gear companies doing demos at audio shows. What he preaches in his tip #77 is instead of an equilateral triangle espoused by Cardas that the leg between the speakers be 83% of the equal distances between the listener and the speakers. He does mention that 'some compaines recomend an equilateral triangle. But goes on to provide ways to test and optimize the distance between the speakers. Smith's book goes into much detail about setting up a room for optimum acoustics enjoyment.
It appears that Cardas takes a different approach in setting the speaker/listener interface from Smith. Whereas, Cardas locates the speakers using the golden mean formula based on the series 5,8, & 13 and THEN plunks the listener down equidistant from the speakers the same distance that the speakers end up apart after applying the 0.618 X Back wall distance, Smith locates the listener position first in a place that minimizes room mode effects (tip #76) and then the speakers are place roughly 8-10 feet (X) from the listener and .83 times whatever X is.
I'm going to try both techniques with my speaker set up in my 13 foot sq. room and report back what I've found.

[craig25]

These posts have the ring of truth. I did the calc's and put a mark on the floor. Tomorrow I'll move some things around and check the WAF. Do three leather couches in a 13 by 19' listening room count as bass traps?

[Wes_in_VA]

I tried all the applicable Cardas methods and none are doable in either my main living room seteup or my listening room/mancave.
'Course, I have considered swapping the living room system so that the stereo is along the short wall and not the long, but it would involve a considerable amount of work and a major amount of consideration from the WAF: the speakers would need to be 5' out into the room.
But still...
I think it's time to read the Smith book and see what he has to say.

[89grand]

Originally Posted by Wes_in_VA

I tried all the applicable Cardas methods and none are doable in either my main living room seteup or my listening room/mancave.
'Course, I have considered swapping the living room system so that the stereo is along the short wall and not the long, but it would involve a considerable amount of work and a major amount of consideration from the WAF: the speakers would need to be 5' out into the room.
But still...
I think it's time to read the Smith book and see what he has to say.

I will say I got some improvements just from switching my room around 90 degrees recently, going from the long wall to the short wall.

If that's doable, I'd at least try that.

[Gang-Twanger]

Originally Posted by spkrdtr

So, who's right, George Cardas or Jim Smith?
Who's Jim Smith? He's the auther of the book 'Get Better Sound'. http://www.getbettersound.com/ (I have no personal iffiliation).
Jim's a consultant who's done 100's of room installs of 2-channel systems - many for high end audio gear companies doing demos at audio shows. What he preaches in his tip #77 is instead of an equilateral triangle espoused by Cardas that the leg between the speakers be 83% of the equal distances between the listener and the speakers. He does mention that 'some compaines recomend an equilateral triangle. But goes on to provide ways to test and optimize the distance between the speakers. Smith's book goes into much detail about setting up a room for optimum acoustics enjoyment.
It appears that Cardas takes a different approach in setting the speaker/listener interface from Smith. Whereas, Cardas locates the speakers using the golden mean formula based on the series 5,8, & 13 and THEN plunks the listener down equidistant from the speakers the same distance that the speakers end up apart after applying the 0.618 X Back wall distance, Smith locates the listener position first in a place that minimizes room mode effects (tip #76) and then the speakers are place roughly 8-10 feet (X) from the listener and .83 times whatever X is.
I'm going to try both techniques with my speaker set up in my 13 foot sq. room and report back what I've found.

That's funny... I trial-and-error'd my way to the Jim Smith approach and didn't even know it... Only took me 3 years. I'll tell ya though... Once I found that sweet spot, it was like hitting a switch. Suddenly everything became three-dimensional and open.