As with anything else, it will depend on the room and the system.
I visited someone local to me from the other forum who had a long and narrow listening room with the speakers positioned on the long wall, firing across the short width. They were massive floor standers, I don’t remember the make and model. They were so close that I couldn’t see them both when sat on the sofa between them. The sound was superb and the sound stage was wide, deep and well separated without a hole in the middle…
The reason for this performance is simple enough. Trial and error, painstaking system building and the careful selection of components that worked in the listening space available. I’ve heard tiny speakers in huge rooms filling the space and doing real bass. You won’t know until you get the speakers in the room and optimise the set up.
I was going to suggest a restart if you didn’t.
I read an article at one point written by a guy who is really into near-field listening. He had room size issues, but from what he wrote it wouldn’t have mattered how big his room was, he would have spaced the speakers out, and almost sat between them anyway.
They were bookshelf speakers on stands and he sat about 3 feet back from the front line of the speakers, and the speakers were six or seven feet apart.
He said it was like wearing a huge pair of headphones, without having the dead spot in the centre. He also said that the soundstage was wonderful and very immersive.
I actually tried it after reading the article, and although it was effective, I personally prefer to sit back from the speakers in the traditional way, and watch the band or orchestra.
Hope this helps.
The speakers are 2m apart, I sit in the centre of the sofa exactly midway between the 2 metres. My ears are 1.9M away from this centre point, creating almost an equal length triangle. I used to have the speakers 40cm from the wall and the sound was flat and bass bloomed a bit. I reached out in another thread for advice on placement of these big Ovators and other members advised anything further than 0.5m. After spending several long hours and after using a base distance that DB had given me I found the most pleasing position was for them to be 66cm from the back wall.
The sound stage is incredible, the detail is immense, the bass is tight and precise. I’m hearing stuff in recordings that I’ve never head before and I’ve listened to these tracks hundreds of times. I would never have believed that this position would be so revelatory.
Why use such big speakers? Because they sound fantastic and they are effortless. If they sounded better further away I’d place them there. I didn’t even consider ‘near- field listening’ when I moved them
PS: I had Ovator S600s before these and the BMR kept blowing after 10 months or so. They Couldn’t keep up with being pounded by Slipknot I’m afraid - these big fellas don’t break into a sweat.
Your system and enjoyment go against theories. Such big speakers in a 20 m2 room, not acoustically treated ( ?), with a very short listening position , should give bad results.
But apparently not. I am glad to hear that, because some here would think that you need acoustic panels on all walls, corners, and roof, in order to allow such speakers to sing.
But personal experience is stronger than long theories.
FWIW I have an equilateral triangle with each side being just 2.6 m, in a room with rather large volume (approx 45 sqm in an L shape, with 3.3 m ceiling height), but which is rather narrow (8 by 4.5) in the larger part of the room. The speakers are at the long wall, speaker front is 1m from wall, so given the narrow width I cannot sit farther away. And to my ears it works very well with a wide sound stage extending far outside of the speakers and no hole at all in the center
If the speakers didn’t work and sound amazing then why would I be sitting listening hour after hour to them. There is no visible acoustic treatment just the selves of Vinyl CDs books and other paraphernalia in the room. However, it is a completely isolated room with 30cm of acoustic paneling on the walls and ceiling plus a concrete floor with a layer of acoustic treatment and then wooden flooring.
I understand why people would question the layout and speaker size but I’m afraid you’ll just have to believe that it works. This kit is expensive and each part has been auditioned and considered before purchase it’s taken decades to build. None of it would be here if it sounded awful, it’s a system to listen to music, not impress, and it works beautifully.
I should add that I managed to place the listening position so that the smaller part of the L opens up behind it. It is not symmetrical, but at least I am not sitting right before the back wall. Behind the listening position on the left, the smaller L part opens up, on the right there is still the wall of the larger L part, but it is nearly a meter away.
I have no special treatment, but most walls have book and LP shelves in uneven configuration, etc, and the (many and large) windows have curtains. The ceiling is also not even (at the outer perimeter it is 3.1, and in the center is a recessed rectangle where it is 3.3). Floor is concrete with parquet
When moving in I was worried about the narrow width and large windows, but there were other big advantages as first of all it is a fantastic apartment to live in, neighbors are quite well isolated and removed, and there is only the basement garage below me.
It took some playing around, but I think despite the weird shape the advantage is that there are few large areas that have a completely constant distance between opposing walls and floor to ceiling
Thanks Thomas. One there’s the cost of swapping over. Two, the active system for me brings a lot more detail, presence and dynamics to the presentation. Even in such a close range as this the sound stage is massive, almost quadrophonic with sound appearing behind and above - it’s quite trippy. Having three amps working three separate sets of frequencies gives more control and grip. I think that an active 500 system would match even surpass a passive Statement. Now ‘Active’ statement would be another thing all together - that’s not going to happen
