What do you think? Speaker placement advice

Interesting. We’re about to get some new furniture and I’ve been thinking about getting the speakers wider apart for a triangle. So now, I’m going to look at this ratio and get the tape measure out.

Wow, Bart, can you tell me about the shell-like sculpture on your wall? I love it. :+1:

I don’t have much to add to the acoustics conversation beyond the existing comments, but I noticed the hard surfaces of the wood floor and glass coffee table. A rug and, for example, some books on the table may help break up and soften things before you start drilling holes in walls.

Update, I’m at 3.1m out with speakers 1.8 m apart, so 0.58/1.00. I need to get the speakers further apart to 2.48 m, which I sort of know as the sweet spot is a metre in front of the seating position. Being a lounge, I can’t get the speaker closer to the sofa. Same as Bart, room is open to either side, so no sound wave containment.

Hi Tobyjug. I have my speakers placed according to Cardas calculator and am finding it sounds quite good. I find speakerplacement really difficult in my room. I find it strange that the calculator doesn´t regard length of room as a parameter though? One problem I´ve realised is that if something is recorded in one of the channels, so to speak, they appear to come from the speaker while everything else comes from behind, between and behind on the outsides of the speakers. That can sound really strange sometimes. Other than that soundstage, airiness and frequency respons sounds fairly balanced.

I’m at .666 to 1. :smiling_imp:

Pretty good, only 0.1% diabolic!

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And I am at 0,5. The worst one so far. I know I should be about 75 cm closer but no possibility. Between the tweeters 2,25 m and 4,5 to my listening position.

Unfortunately - I don’t THINK there is a chance of doing that. We own art that came down from behind the couch when the room was painted, and it needs to go back up. It’s an original from an Aboriginal artist - my wife collects Australian Aboriginal (indigenous) art. Art like that vs. fabric panel…real art is going to win every time. I think that the best I can do is some panels for occasional use.

If/when (when) we move house, can think about a hi fi room that is more conducive to hi fi issues. She loves the music and the hi fi, so all is far from lost!

Could look at using Room correction in Roon for your digital end to see if it improves things. Home Audio Fidelity are very good apparently at creating filters from readings in REW. I am about to embark on this myself.

Two thoughts: one is to have the real art scanned to have a fabric cover printed with it - obviously not the same, but the same image, and you could store the original or maybe put it up somewhere else,
The other is to ask GIK what would be the effect if you had the panel on the wall (coloured the same as the wall), with the picture(s) hanging in in front. Maybe still significantly beneficial if the art is canvas, but not if on wood, which am guessing may be the case…

Incidentally, if relevant I gathered from GIK that to some extent at least they can customise the size of panels, though of course at an extra cost.

Thanks! Our art tends to be Australian aboriginal, and ceramics. You see some of the ceramics in the photos. That piece is by an artist from New York named Jeff Shapiro. The two-piece ceramic on the facing wall is by a Scandinavian artist…named Michael Jackson.

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The other potential to consider - only you will be able to determine if practicable - would be a complete rearrangement of the room so you don’t sit with close to the rear wall. I.e. at right angles to your current layout, or even arranged i na more diagonal manner. Takes more effort to try, and no guarantee it will be better, though of course costs nothing.

By the way, I found REW excellent for helping assess - change positions, and in just a a few minutes you can see what has change with the acoustics, very quickly moving and retrying until you find something (or 2 or 3 options) that look best, which is where you put in the time listening and doing smaller tweaks. I ende up completely re-orientating my current room, the first layout struggling to get even tolerable, and it would have taken very much longer without REw.

Incidentally, there is one approach to listening position no-one has mentioned yet, which can be practical if you have at least one long dimension (even if part of that is a different functional area). That is, to sit 38% of the room length between front and rear walls, with second best position 38% from rear wall. It is based on minimising reinforcements and cancellations from standing waves. I found it a good starting point in my own room.

Yes - the consultant I spoke with said that if we changed things 90 degrees, he’d have more to work with.

But the room this way makes sense to us for a bunch of other reasons, so we’ll live with its impact on hi fi and just do our best! The good news is that we already enjoy the music immensely, and I spend zero time or energy when listening on any deficiencies. I find it fun and interesting to know the possibilities of what might make it “better.” We can then decide on balance what is “worth it!”

Whilst room correction can fix minor peaks and troughs, it can do nothing at all about HF reflections and their adverse effect on sound quality, which is the problem with hard surfaces and sitting right up against the rear wall. And, whatever you do, do NOT use boost to try to correct nulls caused by cancellation, as that way lies speaker destruction…

Much better to fix the room as far as is possible first, then use room correction software to try to iron out unevenness that remains, if significant.

I think I have pretty much the same room dimensions as Bart, with almost similar central fireplace area and I have my speakers in such a diagonal arrangement within the space between the surround to wall. The most distance I can get is .666.
Bart’s A3s are monsters against my little 3As, so that wouldn’t be a possibility.
Although I have never felt that I could do with some room treatment contraption behind my head.

Yes I understand that but its worth trying after hes done all else he can. I’d imagine that glass table doesn’t help in Barts room doesn’t help with reflection either.

Agreed - though not available with ND555 playing his own music collection.

(I have two speaker/listening positions for mine, one optimised, and one normal room use, compatible with other things. The optimised position needs no room correction, the other has some significant peaks/troughs, which I reduce with DSP: my capability is through my active crossover (tri-amping), which is digital, and has some spare DSP capacity. Sound is best in the optimised position, which is how I set up for “serious listening”, but the other set up is how the system spends 90% of the time - which would have been unacceptable without the correction.)

have you tried a heavy carpet between your speakers. It can give softer sound. You have not a lot of absorbing material in your room, which is however very nice.

Our dog takes over with a carpet there. He is 13, and too old to stop that behavior. Definitely a nice carpet would do well for the room decor AND the hi fi. But an expensive carpet would be ruined by the dog, who you’ve seen in some of my other photos here.

We used to just get inexpensive carpets and throw them away after a year. In theory that’s still a possibility, and surely would help the sound.

However, the dog might help with the sound, providing some degree f absorption. The bigger and shaggier-haired the dog, the better. And a second one even better, trained to lie on the floor at the first reflection points your ears are roughly level with the mid/tweeter units, then one dog each side midway between speaker and listening position…

Actually, a really massive dog might also make a good bass absorber, useful in room corners, so a whole menagerie…

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