Hi David, a bit of a traumatic experience in terms of transport. I hope you are well.
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I had the Ovators initially on a solid floor and had problems with severe bass boom on certain tracks. I put the Townsend bars underneath and this cured the problem, and also seemed to improve the treble. I subsequently changed to a floating floor and the Townsend bars were just as effective.
Th improvement from isolation was very clear, despite the integral suspension of the Ovators.
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A suspended floor is always going to be suspended what ever you do to it and certainly in this case i would recommend the townshend podium, in fact i would recommend the podiums on any floor as the control they add to bass frequency is fantastic and this then lets the rest of the speaker work well, stopping the vibrations going into the floor and then into everything else thats sitting on the floor, like your hifi rack also brings inpovements.
But bass boom can certainly be a big problem with S600’s and thats why i got rid of mine really as i just couldn’t get control of it, but never tried the podiums, which might have solved it, but will never know now and moved on now, so never will know, but the podiums under my facr 12’s made a very nice inpovement
As i have free reign on the room i can go the route of previous experience where i built up from the foundations a concrete plinth that sits level with the mdf floor but not touching .I understand the process of trying to turn the floor surface into a snare drum rather than a bass drum …so to speak . But i fear after that the side walls which are stud partition will then be weak area…But thats all down the line .For me tonal balance is my first hurdle as they are too damn lean as they stand . But very live and even the top end roll off is not a prpblem for my 58year old ears .
Do i understand correctly that you are going to cut the floor up and put in concrete, so to get away from the suspended wooden floor?
I did this once before many moons ago in a property long gone ,we moved 7times over our married life . (Thats 8 dedicated electrical supplies i had put in , getting good at it ). The underfloor space is about 20inches ,plenty room for me to crawl lol , but not too much to build up via block .The problem is giving a big enough plinth base to still adjust the speaker ,then of coarse just placing it on that alone can throw things massively .
Lots of work in doing that then, footings, damp proofing it, strengthen the existing floor etc.
Try townsend podiums maybe first
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For S600 I found best results was having plenty of space to the side of them ( I had about 1.5m) but it was possible to have too much space behind them and the sound better a certain critical distance into the room.
I think it was about 35 inches from rear wall or thereabout. Closer to wall gives a richer sound and farther gave an over-lean sound - your comment about ‘lean’ reminded me.
Suggest try moving them back a bit and see if you prefer the presentation - and a very slight toe-in - almost no toe-in at all, just about 5 degrees - any more toe-in and the sound collapses and they lose cohesion.
I set mine up level and moved them back until I got the presentation I wanted then very slight toe-in until image snaps into place.
Paradoxically the S800 was a lot easier for my room - I think because its resonance is lower and more away from room interactions.
DB.
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Interesting topic and goes some way to explaining why the S600 might get such bad press? I’ve only heard them in two systems, a 500 system driven passively and in another system being driven by a Statement. The later was in a London basement flat with a stone floor and was just simply amazing. The 500 system was also very good and eventually prompted the owner to move on to S800’s. He’d been an ardent Quad electrostatic fan for years but said that these were the first speakers he’d heard that truly outperformed them.
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Thats pretty much how my s600 are set up……36 inches from rear wall with about a 1.5 m either side and a very slight toe in. I did read a while back on the forum somebody said Mark Raggett had said Ovators were often unfortunately demoed in rooms that were too small, they need to really have some air to breathe and move.
Similar setup here as well, approx. 60cm from front wall (measured from the back of the speakers, not the baffle) and more than two meters to the sides
Interesting regarding distance from rear wall . I have perhaps misunderstood.I thought we were talking metric from sides and rear .I have set up 30cm from rear wall ,more distance is not a problem,so is optimum 34inches …85cm…
There is no hard and fast rule as every room is different in terms of speaker interaction, and of course your own preferences of how music should sound. I would experiment for yourself, move close to the wall, listen, move a lot further out say 3 feet, and then refine it down to a position that sounds right to you.
I found there is a distance that is optimum - play bass purcussive music as a test and when you get the right spot it is clean and tight with no overhang. If I find my notes I will post what I had settled on - a search back a few years and I posted it then.
It was around 35 cm away from rear wall.
I slid the speakers on their Fraim chips on a hard smooth wood floor so it was not too difficult to experiment and it took about 30 mins to find the spot where it all gelled.
Then try side-to-side with each speaker a cm at a time until if gives a cohesive presentation with good timing and sounds ‘together’ and interesting.
Finally the very slight toe-in to get the compromise between best full-dynamic sound when they face parallel with no toe-in and image when they are slightly toed-in.
And then final-final check the speaker feet all have about same pressure by seeing if you can rotate any Fraim chip under the spike easier than the one the other side at front - and adjust until they are the same - I found that easy to hear and worth doing.
DB.
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Optimum for me is 35cm from rear wall with 2.5 m each side. Toe in of 8mm.
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I found my notes - for S600, I had mine about 34.2cm from rear wall.
- amended my previous post - but experiment!
With S800 they needed more - I have them 85cm into room from rear wall - but that was too far for the S600 which preferred (in my room) the closer to wall position.
DB
As said by others, not one position will be the right answer, nice to have other users guidelines, but thats all they are.
You have to do your own homework on these things and find what you like best
If I remember correctly you also advocated some toe-in.
It was very small: 0.3cm as measued from rear of speaker distances from wall.
More than that spoiled their dynamics and made them go too analytical for me.
So when I said ‘slight’ toe-in I mean very little.
DB.
Thanks so much for all the insight and advice so far.
A few compications im working around , Firstly my room is carpeted , a groty stained covered carpet(inherited from last owner and not being replaced until next year as part of our refurb) so i have had to come up with a way of sliding speakers… which i have ,(simply using the supplied castors is not feasable due to the speakers ending up at stupid angles due to uneven floor )But once i get into the ballpark area out will come the Stanley knife .