[Wind Chaser]

An interesting coincidence... I position my speakers by ear. I don't refer to anything like the Cardas formula or anyone else's guide to loudspeaker set up. I have enough confidence in my own judgement that I know when something sounds right. 

So here's what I've got; my speakers are almost 12' apart and there is almost 8' between them and my ears. Here's a scaled illustration of what that arrangement looks like...

           

With the speakers that far apart, some might suspect that there'd be a whole in the middle, or at the very least  there'd be poor center fill, but I can assure you that's not the case. This arrangement provides a large sound stage and facilitates the best imaging I have ever heard. This is due in part to the speakers themselves which have a wave guide, so room interaction is kept to a minimum

[Wind Chaser]

I explained the mechanics behind it, but you refused to read

I didn't ask for the mechanical explanation. A simple question deserves a simple answer.

- instead wanting to be spoonfed the information - which explains why you suddenly get it, when someone actually spoonfed you. Then, in a not so subtle way, you have either refused, or you are incapable of drawing a logical line from A to B to C.

You didn't explain the A to B to C part. Maybe if you had put a little more effort into explaining yourself...

SNIP

I hope you've learned something. Now, do us both a favor and stay away from me, unless you can draw a little diplomacy from your passive/aggressive tendencies.

You need to work on your communication skills. 

[EVOLVIST]

First, I believe I figured out what was making me feel all wiggy when listening to music. I was sitting in a highback chair, where the back of my head was totally covered by the back of the chair. Moreover, the back of the chair is concave, rounded inward, so all of these sounds were just pooling around my head, along with whatever funkiness is going on in my room.

I switched chairs. Bam! Instant gratification.

But I also took a page from Timind's playbook. It's not exactly 45 degrees in the room; nevertheless, I'm not battling a square, either. In fact, I flipped the room where my back is now to the windows.

Even cooler, I'm using the two alcoves in my room as the "front wall," basically eliminating the front wall, because now there is no wall behind my speakers. The ports are aimed into a hallway and the kitchen. At least it's cool to me, because now the bass sounds more natural than it ever has with these Dynaudio 340s.

The only problem is - I don't know - it might be a trick of the brain, but I'm still trying to get a stable center image. It's nearly there; it's only a matter of inches (or centimeters) this way or that way. It's just weird, for I'm used to looking at a center in space, on a flat wall, to serve as an imaging guide, but now my seat and the speakers are off-center in the room, so getting a fixed point is a little more difficult, if that makes sense.

Another neat part of this trick is that this arrangement gives me more physical space. Granted, the space is dictated by keeping my speakers within the boundaries of the alcoves, but now I can squeeze a 9' x 9' x 9' equilateral triangle out of this space if I wanted to. Right now everything is about 8.5ft, which is good, because the speakers I ordered are a little bigger.

Here is a little quick view of the room. Obviously acoustic room treatment is in the cards. Any thoughts?

[timind]

First off, so glad to see you aren't flooded or in any danger from Harvey. Whew.

The low back chair was a brilliant move. My chair is nothing to look at, but has a very low back and is surprisingly comfy.

During my journey with the diagonal set up I was constantly questioning my alignment. It's hard to keep that paranoia at bay. My solution was to measure as mentioned in my previous post. I also measured the point to center my chair on the speakers. Here's a pic which shows the string:


Dang, these pics get fuzzy when resized to fit.

[JWL.GIK]

Evolvist, I send you most of this as an email.     But I do have some thoughts on this:

Excellent. Yes I can definitely see a concave, high-backed chair causing weirdness. And, the open doorways in the corners are almost like bass traps, because the bass goes out the corners and doesn't come back. So.... well done!  And, there are arguments for never being in the middle of any of the 3 dimensions of the room, including left/right, because you will be sitting in a modal null point for the frequencies related to the width (quarter wavelength, half wavelength, etc).

The cost of a non-symmetrical setup, however, is the suboptimal imaging/soundstage. The way to regain this is to get the reflection point absorbers up on the side walls and ceiling. By eliminating these early reflections, it will re-assert some acoustic symmetry, and the imaging/soundstage will improve.

I would also treat the walls behind you, especially if they are aiming reflections back to your ears. From the drawing, it looks likely, though you can also check them with the "mirror trick." For these panels on the 3 angled rear walls, I'd consider using Scatter Plates inside the panels, or if you prefer the look Alpha or Impression series with the plates outside the cloth.

I'd still recommend making all the panels as thick as possible, so it helps level out the differences between low & high end in the room.

Once you have maximized the sound potential of the room with the best possible setup, you can really take things next-level with treatments.

[EVOLVIST]

I've gotten some pretty good imaging now, after fiddling with it some more. Using a different chair didn't didn't do the whole trick, but it helped.

Now on to working out the room treatment.