[Lkdog]

Setting up my system again on other side of a room that is 25' by 17' feet with a stairwell on one side. Ceiling is 7'6" high and there is a duct section that reduces the ceiling in the middle down to 6'4".
Bathroom in corner.

My listening position is in middle of room about 13' back. 
Right now I have the setup in roughly a 10' triangle of speakers and main listening spot.
Speakers baffles are about 40" from back of wall and 48" from sides.
I don't have my new furniture yet which will add a more absorption.
As you can see I have ATS Acoustic Absorber panels in corners. I might raise them??
I also have smaller ones on each of room sides for first reflection.

System is Odyssey Kismets/VAC preamp/OPP 105D/ ACI Jaguar monitors/ACI LFM dual subwoofers.

Any ideas welcome. It has been awhile since I worked on setup and we just redid the whole basement.
Hoping JLM and other experts chime in.

System sounds very good. Kismets still breaking in (on about 100 hours). Vocals are a bit recessed and not present is only real complaint.
I think my placement and subsequently imaging is off a little.

Thanks for help.

[jriggy]

I’d get your triangle way farther from the front wall. Can you get em 5ft out or so? Im sure someone will come in and suggest ratios and/or formulas for ya. But with a room that length get those speaker well away from that wall and don’t be married to that listening position spot either... Maybe start out with the rule of thirds?

[mresseguie]

Pulllllll those puppies out! Ditto what jriggy said. Have you considered adding diffusion to the front wall?

I'll bet your system sounds pretty darned nice with those speakers powered by those amps. 

[Early B.]

Yes, pull the speakers out 2 ft. and move your listening position closer by 2 ft. OR move your speakers out 4 feet.

[Lkdog]

LOL. So have the front baffle of speakers 5 feet into the room???

May require some major negotiating with the wife. 

Educate me here. What is the effect of pulling speakers into the room? 
The monitor speakers do have a port in back and that is plugged. They go down to 35hz without the plug. I think it is 45hz with the plug.
The crossover of the Subs is at 45hz. The subs each have two 10" speakers and are very fast.
I have the Phase on them set at 90 degrees. I have no idea why. I need to research that also. Hahaha.

So they are If I pull them out maybe a foot will that help?? They are  3 ft 4" out now for no particular reason other than we have to get furniture in here. She will not notice maybe a foot more too much. 
I can adjust my seating when doing serious listening, but the "Triangle" seems pretty small.

One issue is we will use this for a home theater setup sometimes.
The VAC has a HT bypass and two sets of main outs and I use the ACI's and the subs for L/R in that mode when watching movies.

When doing two channel I go straight from the OPPO to the VAC and the HT receiver is turned off.
It's mostly 2 channel system though. 

Let me play around with pulling them out and report back. 

[JLM]

Congrats on the renovation.  Hopefully you did a good job of insulating.  A friend with an elaborate but long/narrow basement HT room suffered a flood and redid the room (couldn't change the shape).  The main ductwork runs the length of the house along the long wall and rattles like crazy, mostly because he didn't insulate that long wall and used ordinary doors.  Too bad you couldn't have more headroom, 10ft would have been nice.  Are your complaints/observations of recessed vocals/imaging based on previous room/amp?  Did you have any chance of listening before changing one or both?  Are these the only variables to have changed? 

Yes, most would recommend avoiding near equal distance between loudspeakers and front/side walls.  Cardas for instance uses the Golden Ratio, so something like 5ft from front wall and 3.1ft from side walls to minimize reinforcement of the same frequencies.  But do play around with setup.  In my 8ft x 13ft x 21ft audio room the loudspeakers have ended up 5.5ft from front wall, 1.5ft from side walls, heavily toed-in (crossing 1.5ft in front of the listening position), 10ft apart, and 6.5ft from the listening position.  The odd setup allows for maximum soundstage size. 

I have ten 2ft x 4ft GIK 244 panels in my room, so your room looks quite bare.  Six of my panels are at first reflection points (two on front wall, two on back wall, and one on each side wall.  They are the full range version.  The other four are the bass trap version that straddle the front corners.  Also have three tall/narrow bookcases on side walls to provide a degree of diffusion.  The front of my room is dedicated to audio, the back is my office so the only soft furniture is my chair/ottoman.  By the way, my room shape/dimensions closely mimics Earl Geddes' (respected acoustician) due to following the same physics.

Recommend Floyd Toole's "Sound Reproduction" 3rd edition as the consummate audiophile primer for learning how loudspeakers/subwoofers behave in-room and how he developed measurement methods that actually can predict real world performance as well as how he also relied on double blind comparative testing using trained listeners.  The book also relates how he dealt with acoustics at home (most of his personal rooms had lots of glass to take advantage of wonderful views).  He recommends better speakers first then primarily bass traps versus wide-band absorption or diffusion.  Toole worked for the National (Canadian) Research Center for decades before retiring from Harmon International.

Toole promotes use of multiple subs located in room corners or mid-wall to deal with inherent room bass peaks/dips, which can be +/- 30 dB.  As humans we easily acclimate to these gross distortions.  Sorry, but staking the main loudspeakers/subwoofers as you have is much less than ideal.  Looks great and the subwoofers do double duty as loudspeaker stands, but in the long dimension of the room they double up the room peaks/dips.  I have 3 subwoofers, two staggered distances from the front corners, and one near mid-way along a side wall.  Earl Geddes pushed me into multiple subwoofers.

I also use Dirac room measurement/correction software.  But as Earl recommended apply multiple subwoofers and room treatments (physical means to solve physical issues) first.  Dirac and the like should only be used to tweak as their effects are "artificial".  But it can be useful to see how your room/loudspeakers/subwoofers are behaving.  Again season to taste, you don't have to take Dirac's advice as sacred.  With your low ceiling and ductwork running across the middle of the room, front left to right I assume, I'd be sorely tempted to add absorption in front of it (between loudspeakers and the ductwork enclosure). 

So as you can see I'm a big believer in the importance of the room.  In my opinion it's by far the most neglected aspect of at home sound reproduction.  Again in my opinion the recording is paramount, loudspeakers/subwoofers are second, and the room is third.  The rest in a modern/digital system is nearly inconsequential.  (Spoken like a true "speaker guy".)

Have fun and do play around.

[Lkdog]

Hey JLM-

Thanks for chiming in. I think I saw somewhere that you spent time at Steve Deckert's shop in Peoria at his listening room.
I had the pleasure of doing so many years ago and listened to his turntable setup. Amazing. Nice guy.

In answer to your Questions:
1) Room insulation is good. Ductwork framing was redone. New drywall on all walls and ceiling and we blew foam behind walls that faced the ground foundation behind the stereo. All new electrical. Have Alan Maher EMI filters in outlets.
2) Stereo used to be setup on opposite side of room. Same system with an older version of Odyssey amp. Vocals were good. Room had a ton of absorption before.
3) System overall sounds better now with new Odyssey Kismet amps by a large margin. Great instrument separation, wider soundstage, better clarity.
4) Amps still breaking in. Klaus claims at least 200 hours. Not there yet.
5) I had not heard the CARDAS rule. I need to check that as I move the speakers around.
6) Yes, room is bare right now. No furniture in front. Will be couch, loveseat, and chair and ottoman. Leather covered. Also a few larger thicker area rugs.
7) Back end of room actually has a large desk area, and separate recording studio mixing monitors setup. Some good diffusion actually and then it has carpeted stairs on right. (see picture below)
8  ) I have two subs (LFMs) each with two 10" drivers as you can see in picture below under the monitors.
9) I agree that the recording material is critical. I pretty much agree with your hierarchy of what is most important.

I think I need to get some diffusion on front wall as noted, and also side walls. I did raise up the acoustic panels in corners.
I need to work on speaker placement and toe in. I did pull them out further and toed them in as a start about 20 degrees. I realized that the speakers are now equidistant (50") from the front and side walls which you discourage  (see new picture).
   It did improve the sound clarity, reduced bass boom, and improved imaging it seems.


Question #1- Can speakers be pulled out a little wider here? They are 10 feet apart right now. That would address the equidistant from front/side wall issue.
Question #2 - Any value in adding more absorber sponge foam or blanket or something behind the panels in front corners?  In my old setup I had big boxes in corners filled with the paper they blow for insulation as bass traps. LOL.
Question #3- Any suggestion for diffusion on front wall that might be attractive and satisfy the WAF?  If we hang pictures or paintings it is just more hard surfaces. Maybe some hanging plants or something??    I also realize that having the plasma Tv in middle is not ideal, but it doubles as HT setup.


Thanks to all for ideas. It is already better with your suggestions. I am sure with the amps breaking in, and furniture and thicker area rugs which are supposed to show up next month it will get better. Right now just have carpet remnants with no padding on floor.
It is a "hard" room right now.

[Letitroll98]

Any man who let's a woman decide where the speakers are placed should have to surrender his system and audiophile card.  J/K, even when I lived with just a female roommate for several years I was still told where the speakers could be.   Here's some links to help you in speaker placement.  The second link is Master Set which usually ends up with the speakers closer to the front wall, that might work out better for you.  However it does take about 3 or 4 hours to complete and a second person is helpful.  I too am setting up a system in a new room and tried a strategy posted here and for the life of me can't find where it was posted.  Anyway, with it you place the speakers between the 1/3 and 1/4 distance from the side walls right next to your listening position using tape to mark a little highway back to the front wall.  Then move back toward the front wall in one foot increments until the soundfield locks in.  You'll know it when you hear it.  That's as much as I remember, there was stuff about fine tuning and toe in that I can't recall.  If anyone remembers where that post is it would be most appreciated.  You should try this for illustrative purposes even if you don't ultimately use it.  You'll never, ever know what a real stereo soundfield is unless you do.

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=87093.0

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=163879.0

[JLM]

Yep, attended the first DecFest that Steve hosted.  (There was one the year before in Kentucky I attended too.)  So had a chance to sit in his chair in his room, but frankly couldn't stand the vinyl surface noise.  He had dual Imperial horns with two 15 inch woofers in his garage where most of the listening occurred.  But he/others kept turning them down.  His location was the only place I've heard dirty power (after 11PM local factories shut down for the weekend and made a noticeable improvement).  Finally gave up on mad science Decware designs that were too low powered for "full range" speakers I was after. 

I haven't bothered moving my 2ft x 4ft panels off the floor.  To be honest in this "ideally" shaped room the panels offer little benefit no matter where I placed them but they've made instant and significant improvements in two other less than ideal rooms.  To clarify my previous comment about adding absorption in front of your ductwork, I was thinking about adding it to the ceiling. 

Yes the Cardas site has lots of advice for room dimensions and setup, mostly based on the ancient Greek "Golden Ratio" (5: which is also known as the Fibonacci Ratios.  That advice fits nicely into what Toole recommends for a range of ideal room shapes (he was/still is perhaps the world's leading acoustician). 

Sorry but although I was an ACI fan your stacked loudspeaker/subwoofer setup doesn't cut the mustard with Toole (and neither does any full range loudspeaker).  Ideal location for mid/treble in-room reproduction doesn't coincide with the ideal location for bass in-room reproduction (even if the tweeter height matches your ear height).  Subwoofers belong along the walls/in the corners.  This knowledge precedes Toole.  Play around and see what you think.

Question #1  Again play around.  My setup certainly isn't text book.  But avoiding equal distance between front and side walls should help.  You've got lots of room for adjustments.  I'd try moving the subwoofers to the walls/corners first. 

Question #2  Shop for absorption by the numbers.  The ear acclimates easily (to a fault) to room anomalies - thus the value in REW/Dirac sort of room measurement.  Most treatment vendors don't provide any data which should give you great pause.  Can't pick by visuals or intuition.  Random DIY ideas don't work.  Suggest going to the GIK site.  They have some of the best numbers and base their products on using Owens Corning 703 high density fiberglass.  They also offer unlimited artwork options to keep wifey happy. 

Question #3  Toole recommends picking speakers first, then adding carefully placed multiple subs, then possible absorptive bass traps.  He's not big on diffusion.  Note that the laws of physics say that only higher frequencies can be diffused (1100 Hz and above for 7.5 inch deep panels to account for wave size) and that quadratic depth variations in both vertical and horizontal directions are best.  Look here for a good but heavy DIY recipe which you could paint in different colors:  prerecords.com/Diffusor.cfm

[Lkdog]

Any man who let's a woman decide where the speakers are placed should have to surrender his system and audiophile card.  J/K, even when I lived with just a female roommate for several years I was still told where the speakers could be.   Here's some links to help you in speaker placement.  The second link is Master Set which usually ends up with the speakers closer to the front wall, that might work out better for you.  However it does take about 3 or 4 hours to complete and a second person is helpful.  I too am setting up a system in a new room and tried a strategy posted here and for the life of me can't find where it was posted.  Anyway, with it you place the speakers between the 1/3 and 1/4 distance from the side walls right next to your listening position using tape to mark a little highway back to the front wall.  Then move back toward the front wall in one foot increments until the soundfield locks in.  You'll know it when you hear it.  That's as much as I remember, there was stuff about fine tuning and toe in that I can't recall.  If anyone remembers where that post is it would be most appreciated.  You should try this for illustrative purposes even if you don't ultimately use it.  You'll never, ever know what a real stereo soundfield is unless you do.

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=87093.0

https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=163879.0

Thanks. Will check out these links.

[toocool4]

Moving the speakers away from the room boundaries to minimise room interactions, will create wider and deeper soundstage.

My speakers sit over 2 meters into the room, if I had more space they would be further into the room.

Why do you not have a pre-amp in your 2 channel setup? Most people don’t realise the importance of a pre-amp, give it a try and hear how much everything will improve.
Like you said before the big TV with it’s reflective hard screen in the middle must be ruining  the image, the TV should go.
With regard to your room treatment, the more the better what you have in there so far I would guess it’s doing not much. When it comes to room treatment, quantity is king.

[Lkdog]

Yep, attended the first DecFest that Steve hosted.  (There was one the year before in Kentucky I attended too.)  So had a chance to sit in his chair in his room, but frankly couldn't stand the vinyl surface noise.  He had dual Imperial horns with two 15 inch woofers in his garage where most of the listening occurred.  But he/others kept turning them down.  His location was the only place I've heard dirty power (after 11PM local factories shut down for the weekend and made a noticeable improvement).  Finally gave up on mad science Decware designs that were too low powered for "full range" speakers I was after. 

I haven't bothered moving my 2ft x 4ft panels off the floor.  To be honest in this "ideally" shaped room the panels offer little benefit no matter where I placed them but they've made instant and significant improvements in two other less than ideal rooms.  To clarify my previous comment about adding absorption in front of your ductwork, I was thinking about adding it to the ceiling. 

Yes the Cardas site has lots of advice for room dimensions and setup, mostly based on the ancient Greek "Golden Ratio" (5: which is also known as the Fibonacci Ratios.  That advice fits nicely into what Toole recommends for a range of ideal room shapes (he was/still is perhaps the world's leading acoustician). 

Sorry but although I was an ACI fan your stacked loudspeaker/subwoofer setup doesn't cut the mustard with Toole (and neither does any full range loudspeaker).  Ideal location for mid/treble in-room reproduction doesn't coincide with the ideal location for bass in-room reproduction (even if the tweeter height matches your ear height).  Subwoofers belong along the walls/in the corners.  This knowledge precedes Toole.  Play around and see what you think.

Question #1  Again play around.  My setup certainly isn't text book.  But avoiding equal distance between front and side walls should help.  You've got lots of room for adjustments.  I'd try moving the subwoofers to the walls/corners first. 

Question #2  Shop for absorption by the numbers.  The ear acclimates easily (to a fault) to room anomalies - thus the value in REW/Dirac sort of room measurement.  Most treatment vendors don't provide any data which should give you great pause.  Can't pick by visuals or intuition.  Random DIY ideas don't work.  Suggest going to the GIK site.  They have some of the best numbers and base their products on using Owens Corning 703 high density fiberglass.  They also offer unlimited artwork options to keep wifey happy. 

Question #3  Toole recommends picking speakers first, then adding carefully placed multiple subs, then possible absorptive bass traps.  He's not big on diffusion.  Note that the laws of physics say that only higher frequencies can be diffused (1100 Hz and above for 7.5 inch deep panels to account for wave size) and that quadratic depth variations in both vertical and horizontal directions are best.  Look here for a good but heavy DIY recipe which you could paint in different colors:  prerecords.com/Diffusor.cfm

When I was in Decware listening room it was in the wharehouse district building, but the room was his idealized version of room treatment and his low powered designed system. The imaging was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I agree, the low watt systems are not for me, but he knows what he is doing.

I am going to say the subs are not going to get moved.    Mike Dzurko designed them this way for better or worse. I think Wilson watt puppy has a similar design.

I hear what you are saying. I used to have two ACI Titan subs which I placed separate in the room from the monitors I had following your thoughts of moving subs placement around.

I will play with speaker placement and toe in from here and adding some diffusion behind.
Will see what it all sounds like after the amps break in more and I get furniture and rugs in here.

Thanks!!

[Lkdog]

Moving the speakers away from the room boundaries to minimise room interactions, will create wider and deeper soundstage.

My speakers sit over 2 meters into the room, if I had more space they would be further into the room.

Why do you not have a pre-amp in your 2 channel setup? Most people don’t realise the importance of a pre-amp, give it a try and hear how much everything will improve.
Like you said before the big TV with it’s reflective hard screen in the middle must be ruining  the image, the TV should go.
With regard to your room treatment, the more the better what you have in there so far I would guess it’s doing not much. When it comes to room treatment, quantity is king.

I do have a preamp. Its an earlier version of this VAC preamp and has a phono stage and HT bypass:





TV isn't going anywhere. I do realize I have to make a few compromises in the real world. 

I agree with you and think I will add more bass trapping in corners, and hopefully the furniture will create absorption.

[toocool4]

Okay Lkdog I missed the pre-amp.

The corners are not your main problem, but more of the other larger surface areas you need to cover. I don’t like the words “bass trap”, you can’t really trap bass but you can minimise the effect. Don’t waste your money getting more so-called corner bass traps, look more into your front / sides walls your back wall is far enough away to not have to worry about them too much. Your ceiling is low enough to give you concern, so should be looked at.

[timind]

Pull the speakers out to get the front baffles at least 5 feet into the room and you'll understand. Now, if the wife is truly against the idea, don't try it as it will be an itch you can't scratch.

My basement room is 24x28x8. I basically use one corner of the room for my 2 channel system. Speakers are 6 feet into the room with plenty of room on the sides, and I sit 9-10 feet from the speaker plane. Soundstage and imaging are fantastic with this setup. And the most important aspect is getting lots of room around the speakers.

[Lkdog]

Okay Lkdog I missed the pre-amp.

The corners are not your main problem, but more of the other larger surface areas you need to cover. I don’t like the words “bass trap”, you can’t really trap bass but you can minimise the effect. Don’t waste your money getting more so-called corner bass traps, look more into your front / sides walls your back wall is far enough away to not have to worry about them too much. Your ceiling is low enough to give you concern, so should be looked at.

Would you be wanting diffusion or absorption on front wall and side walls??

[toocool4]

Would you be wanting diffusion or absorption on front wall and side walls??

Lkdog I am no acoustics expert and guessing at solutions is a recipe for wasted money.

To get things done properly you need to contact people that do this for a living, they will ask things like your room dimensions, shape, wall material etc and can then calculate what will work for you.

But generalising diffusion on front / back walls as long as you are far enough away from those surfaces for them to work. Absorptions on side walls. Like I said this is generalising, as we all know there are exceptions to every rule. So better to talk to people who know what they are doing to calculate what you need. 

[JLM]

Didn't think you'd like my advice about separating the main loudspeakers from the subwoofers.   

Most folks with two subwoofers make the mistake of placing them side by side (and in line with the main loudspeakers).  That just reinforces the bass peak/dips created by the front to back wall reflections.  And that's exactly what Dzurko has done with this design. 

Toole had a good analogy in his 1st edition of his "Sound Reproduction".  Think of a bathtub with 4 inches of water and moving your hand in the water from end to end.  The waves created will travel until they hit the end of the tub, then bounce back.  When they reach the next wave, the two waves will either double up, cancel out, or something in between.  So it is with in-room bass.  This phenomena is listening location and frequency dependent. 

Sound travels at 1130 ft per second (fps).  With your room dimensions that means your first peaks/dips will be at 44 Hz and 64 Hz (1130fps/25ft and 1130 fps/17ft).  Unfortunately because of the room dimensions they'll double up at around 130 Hz (multiples of both of the first peak/dip frequencies) and at the multiple of that (260 Hz) within the bass range (roughly <300 Hz, the room dependent transition frequency where sound behavior changes from waves to rays).

This helps support the reason why subwoofers are typical found placed in corners and along walls while main loudspeakers are placed into the room.

[Tyson]

For box speakers, JLM's advice is spot on - listen to him.

[Lkdog]

For box speakers, JLM's advice is spot on - listen to him.

I know there is an ideal approach to all of this. I am trying to find a happy medium in the real world of a multi purpose room.
FWIW- the system sounds very good with the new amps. The best it has ever sounded by a fair margin as they break in.

Pulling the speakers into the room farther has made a nice difference in many ways.
They are now 5' into the room and 3 1/2 feet from side walls. With toe in they are about 10 feet apart still.

It's all a work in progress..............