[AllanS]

Mine are behind and about a foot outside the speakers.

Sorry if I missed the details in a previous post, but how do you have them setup?  Are they sitting flat, directly on floor, tipped back, or on stands?

[Letitroll98]

I’d place them on the floor, directly behind the speaker, firing upwards and slightly angled back.  I’d also limit the signal so that they only produce about 500hz and up.

I had forgotten that LeJeune coined late ceiling splash as the term for his design that we've been calling presence speakers here.  From memory they were placed directly behind your tower speakers pointing straight up.  If using bookshelf speakers with stands you need to install a panel behind the stands to isolate the LCS speakers from projecting forward.  And as Tyson posts here you're suppose to limit the extension.  There was something about wiring to the speakers that I've forgotten.  Instructions used to be listed in the Audiokinesis site, maybe they still are.

[Early B.]

There was something about wiring to the speakers that I've forgotten.

They were supposed to be wired out of phase. I tried that when I had a pair of LCS, but they sounded slightly better when wired in-phase. The version of Audiokinesis LCS speakers I purchased were huge!!! They had dual 6" drivers and a horn tweeter and produced plenty of bass. I also originally placed a plexiglass panel in front of the speakers to prevent them from projecting forward, but they were ineffective.

[opnly bafld]

I think of speakers placed high and serving a different purpose when someone uses the term presence speakers.

[Early B.]

I think of speakers placed high and serving a different purpose when someone uses the term presence speakers.

How about ACers coining a new term: SAMs -- "stereo ambient monitors"

Yes, SAMs are inspired by the Audiokinesis LCS in terms of ceiling bounce, but SAMs are much more experimental. We take old bookshelf speakers and repurpose them or use powered speakers or incorporate amps, attenuators, and capacitors to tweak the frequency response. We also play around with angles and placement somewhere behind the main speakers, including off the floor (i.e., stands, shelves, or place a full-range or coaxial driver on top of the mains). Regardless, the goal is the same -- increase spatial cues without sacrificing the sonic goodness of your mains. It's similar to adding aftermarket supertweeters to your setup. Don't overthink it. However, there are a few technical considerations that have already been mentioned such as impedance load and sensitivity matching.

My suggestion is to connect your SAMs to an amp with volume control because it provides more flexibility and largely eliminates impedance and sensitivity issues. You can also turn the amp on and off to easily determine the contribution of the SAMs.     

 

[opnly bafld]

SAM is already taken on AC.
https://omegaloudspeakers.com/collections/monitor-speakers/products/super-alnico-monitor?variant=32172390412

[Early B.]

SAM is already taken on AC.
https://omegaloudspeakers.com/collections/monitor-speakers/products/super-alnico-monitor?variant=32172390412

That's not a conflict. In fact, that speaker would make a nice SAM!

[VinceT]

I have been using an AVR in multichannel stereo mode to accomplish this type of set up. I have presence speakers on top of my towers that point at a 45 inward and double as height speakers in HT. Also have rear speakers that do the same. The nice thing about an AVR is the eq, delay, dsp, and volume control per channel.. I have seen some multichannel dacs in the market, are there any other preamps that can be recommended to implement this?

[Tyson]

Looks like GR Research is also playing around with the idea of an ambience driver in their LGK 2.4 model.  I heard a rumor that they are working on a bookshelf model with an ambience driver, too.  Not out yet but should be interesting.

[Early B.]

Looks like GR Research is also playing around with the idea of an ambience driver in their LGK 2.4 model.  I heard a rumor that they are working on a bookshelf model with an ambience driver, too.  Not out yet but should be interesting.

Interesting. My first GR Research speaker was an O3 which was a 2-way floorstander with an upward-firing midrange. I believe it was the precursor to the X-Omni. Those tiny speakers smoked the coffin-sized VMPS speakers they replaced. Anyway, I learned early on to refrain from limiting myself to conventional speakers.

 

[Tyson]

Interesting. My first GR Research speaker was an O3 which was a 2-way floorstander with an upward-firing midrange. I believe it was the precursor to the X-Omni. Those tiny speakers smoked the coffin-sized VMPS speakers they replaced. Anyway, I learned early on to refrain from limiting myself to conventional speakers.

Funny, the VMPS RM40's were my first foray into going fully active with a speaker.  I liked the stock speaker but it seemed like the stock crossover was not optimal.  After disconnecting the passive crossover and hooking up amps to every driver and measuring them, it was clear the mid-panels were being run far too low.  Brian had them at 180hz crossing to the 10 inch midbass driver.  But that driver really should have been limited to 400hz.  They sounded a lot better after correcting that, plus a few other mistakes, like the stock crossover using 1st order slope on drivers that really needed 2nd order filters. 

It was only after living with those big towers for a while that I realized that a box speaker would never work in my room with uneven acoustics, even when using a very sophisticated approach to bass management and EQ.  Once I built out a full OB speaker it solved in 30 seconds the bass issues that had plagued me for 5 years. 

[AllanS]

Some may find the Schiit SYS useful.
https://www.schiit.com/products/sys

[gvernon]

New member here, working on my first few introductory posts.

I am an open baffle owner, and believe that these bring you closer to a ‘live sound’ than a box speaker can.

When open baffles are positioned properly, the results can be startlingly good.

IMHO YMMV.

Thanks, and great to be a member now.

Geno

[Zuman]

Well, this is harder than I expected...
With my wife out of town for a few days, I decided to use some leftover mahogany from my main tower speaker project and build an experimental pair of presence speakers. I also had some nice drivers on the shelf (CSS LDW7 mids and CSS LD25X-XBL^2 tweeters) and some crossover parts.
I set a low cutoff of 500 Hz for the mids and ran them up to 2500 Hz, and let the tweeters run from 2 kHz up. I positioned the drivers to point upward and 15 degrees to the rear, and I powered them with a 100-watt mini amp I have, which took its feed from the pre-out of my Modwright KWH 225i.
Yeah. It's going to take some more work.
When I have the presence system turned on, music definitely doesn't sound as good tonally and the stereo image also loses a lot of definition. There is a greater sense that the room is "full," but I don't like what it's full of. Yet.
I do need to play around more with positioning the presence speakers, and I think that I need to pay a lot more attention to aiming them more thoughtfully at the ceiling and front wall. At the moment I think they're just smearing the main speaker output, rather than providing a secondary delayed sound to enhance the sense of space.
I'm not discouraged yet.

[Early B.]

Well, this is harder than I expected...
With my wife out of town for a few days, I decided to use some leftover mahogany from my main tower speaker project and build an experimental pair of presence speakers. I also had some nice drivers on the shelf (CSS LDW7 mids and CSS LD25X-XBL^2 tweeters) and some crossover parts.
I set a low cutoff of 500 Hz for the mids and ran them up to 2500 Hz, and let the tweeters run from 2 kHz up.

Those look badass! I have three questions:
 
1. How do the presence speakers sound playing by themselves?   
2. Why set a low cutoff of 500 Hz?
3. Do your presence speakers match the sensitivity of your main speakers?

[Zuman]

Those look badass! <Thanks!> I have three questions:
 
1. How do the presence speakers sound playing by themselves?   
    -They sound clean but thin, which reflects their frequency range. Just to convince myself that my build was fine, I did remove the 500 Hz high pass restriction temporarily and they sounded good.
2. Why set a low cutoff of 500 Hz?
    -I think I remember reading that only mids and highs should be used for ceiling reflections. Also, Tyson recommended 500 Hz.
3. Do your presence speakers match the sensitivity of your main speakers?
    -Yes, quite closely. Also, the amp I'm powering the presence speakers with has a volume control.

[Early B.]

Try them without the 500Hz cutoff. Set the volume low -- they should be barely playing. Placement is essential, so experiment.

[Tyson]

Mine was just a suggestion.  If it doesn’t sound good then remove it.

[AllanS]

Well, this is harder than I expected...
With my wife out of town for a few days, I decided to use some leftover mahogany from my main tower speaker project and build an experimental pair of presence speakers. I also had some nice drivers on the shelf (CSS LDW7 mids and CSS LD25X-XBL^2 tweeters) and some crossover parts.

If this is what you have laying around and what you do with it, I’d love to get a tour of your work space.  Nicely done.  For all the effort I hope you can get it dialed in.