Question for either Mark or John:
Both in John's man cave and in the pictures above the Eddies were set up in near-field listening positions - at least it appears to be near-field in the pics. Is it that the Eddies sound best in near-field, or is it that both rooms suited near-field better? [Okay, I know John's setup is deliberately near-field.]
How do the Eddies fare at 8 and 11 foot distances?
Regards,
Michael
Hello, Michael -
John loves a near-field situation which is very similar to the position an audio mixer uses in a recording studio. This would be a 1:1 ratio - i.e. Speakers 6 feet apart and the distance 6 feet to him - toe'd in as a direct sight line.
If EDDIE is 6 feet apart and you are 9 feet away, that's a 1:1.5 ratio - very similar to the mixing console position for a feature film... The other typical position is 2:1 which is the furthest for a laid back staging sound.
Now - each person has personal taste. I enjoy near-field very much, but my personal preference is 1:1.5 In any case - whether you like front row, mid or back of a concert hall, attention should play a role in your listening room. As in John's room, the deadness keeps the room from interfering with the sound of the speaker. Recording studios often have hinged panels on the wall to change the characteristic from absorptive to reflective. A studio style is LEDE (live end dead end)... So simply, a floor is carpeted and the ceiling is hard, two walls are bare, two are absorptive. That's not entirely how it goes - but a good example.
I have several rooms. I have a dead room to truly check the speaker. John's "Cocoon" is even better for that. I also have a very typical room that has issues so I can see how speakers perform in the real world. EDDIE has midrange and tweeter level controls so you can fine tune to your environment. For example, my room is pretty normal so the controls are at noon/12 o'clock... In John's absorptive room, they are almost at 3 o'clock... In the room at THE Show, we had the speakers dialed back to 10 o'clock...
So if you have the speakers say, 6 feet apart and you are 8 - 11 feet away you are going to get a very nice sound stage. You can also play with having the speakers with and without toe in, or varying degrees of toe in. There is no exact formula - every room is different as is your personal taste. Yes there are guidelines and if you need - we can go into more detail. A sketch of your room or photo would help.
Bottom line, if a speaker is phase coherent - which EDDIE is - you have a revealing speaker that when positioned right in your room will create a sound stage with amazing imaging - height, depth and sound beyond the left and right of the speakers.
That's a lot of stuff I talked about... Hope this opens the conversation and I'm here to address any other new questions this may bring up...
Thanks, Mark