[recstar24]

Its about that time that I step away from the gear and start focusing more on my room.  I figured the best way to communicate is through pictures and descriptions.  Speakers are hornshoppe horns, augmented with cube bass augmenter, driven by moth si2a3/45 and meridian 508.24.



Basic view of setup.  due to WAF, setup is relegated to a little under 1/2 of 23 x 18 room.  The wall the horns are against is the 23 side.  Listening position is about 10 feet away.  speakers are 8 feet apart from each other.  they are placed against back wall - i find them to sound more balanced this way, as they are designed to be corner horns, but i dont like the sound of that left speaker right in the corner.  left speaker is about 1 foot away from corner.  right speaker feeds into the rest of the family room to the right.  Could bring speakers out farther as I do have the cube sub, but I like the tonal balance of the horns right where they are and it allows me to run the cube at a lower crossover point.



left speaker, untreated corner, untreated reflection point



right speaker, feeds into rest of room area.



view from other side of room - those blinds are covering the glass doors that lead out into the patio.



view of listening seat - couch is normally not there, typically use chair and pull out table to do work and listen, wife is at work currently  

What I am hearing:

1) some bass boominess and overhang

2) room is very live yet dead at same time - some points have really crazy pinging echo, other parts of the room have virtually no echo

3) bass quantity is plenty.  Good soundstage and decent imaging, probably could be assisted by bringing speakers out, but will affect tonal balance of rear back loaded horn speaker design.

4) strong center image, very transparent and open sounding midrange.  Sounds very live!

no flexibility in moving keyboard unfortunately, nor can i utilize other part of room whatsoever.  sorry guys, thats the way it is. 

sub placement options not too flexible either.  So far so good though on side wall. 

My gut instinct?  Take care of reflection point on side wall against left speaker.  bass trap in that corner, but the speakers are designed for corner loading, therefore they need that corner to operate as the rest of the mouth of the horn.  but the right speaker isn't corner loaded so i might as well treat it i think.

Would love to hear your thoughts!  I am at the point where it is useless to throw more gear at my rig, as I like the sound of rig as is, very enjoyable and musical, detailed and resolving enough.  Ultimately I know the next step in elevating my sound would be to treat my room, which is why I am here.  Thanks for the help.

[youngho]

Stupid questions: why can't the keyboard be moved at all? What does the side of the room behind the listening cough look like (in other words, what do the speakers "see"?

[recstar24]

Stupid questions: why can't the keyboard be moved at all? What does the side of the room behind the listening cough look like (in other words, what do the speakers "see"?

Sorry about that, forgot to put in a picture.  Bookshelf should help, I usually close that bathroom door to the right.

Keyboard is used for piano and voice lessons.  No area upstairs to do them.  No other area downstairs to place keyboard for lessons due to WAF.  Its unfortunate.

[Ethan Winer]

One big problem I see is lack of left-right symmetry. This should be fixed, if possible, before anything else. After that, all the usual applies - as much corner bass trapping as you can manage, and absorption at the sidewall (and ceiling) reflection points. If you can't move the speakers to be the same distance from the left and right sides, absorption equally spaced can help to "force" symmetry. That is, you'd put some panels on stands on the right to be the same distance as the panels on the left.

--Ethan

[youngho]

The speakers certainly "see" very different environments. Two easy ideas to start:

1. Facing the keyboard, put the left and right speakers relatively close to the side walls but pulled forward about 4' or so (whatever it takes to get make sure the left speaker doesn't block the door). Move the bookcase to the front wall next to the sliding glass doors. Move the keyboard to the corner of the alcove where the exercise ball is rather tenuously wedged. This would allow for some boundary gain and result in a very wide soundstage. Unfortunately, this could result in a rather headphone-like effect, depending on how far back you sit.

2. Move the speakers so they straddle the corner where the left speaker is now so that you're essentially facing that corner and the speakers have their backs to different walls but are equidistant to that corner. The main problem is that I can't tell how far apart you would be able to get the speakers, but if it's a reasonable width, you could put the keyboard into that corner.

You'll definitely need some room treatments or more furnishings, but I wonder if you might consider trying these speaker placements to see how they sound?

[recstar24]

The speakers certainly "see" very different environments. Two easy ideas to start:

1. Facing the keyboard, put the left and right speakers relatively close to the side walls but pulled forward about 4' or so (whatever it takes to get make sure the left speaker doesn't block the door). Move the bookcase to the front wall next to the sliding glass doors. Move the keyboard to the corner of the alcove where the exercise ball is rather tenuously wedged. This would allow for some boundary gain and result in a very wide soundstage. Unfortunately, this could result in a rather headphone-like effect, depending on how far back you sit.

That would look and sound great!  That wall behind the keyboard is 18 feet long - those blinds cover the patio door, which unfortunately extends all the way to that bathroom door that you see behind the couch.  Pulling the speaker about 4' so that it is not blocking the door might be an issue when people would need to use the bathroom, I would hate for someone to knock it over or run into the cone, especially since we have our nieces and nephews over a lot.  Also I don't have speaker wire long enough to accomodate that much distance, as my rack would probably have to be on one of the side walls, as I would not like to put it infront of the patio doors which you see there.  The effect would be rather headphone like as I would not be able to sit far enough back to accomodate that wide of a spacing.  But the idea is killer, for sure!  I will see what I can do, thanks for the recommendation.

2. Move the speakers so they straddle the corner where the left speaker is now so that you're essentially facing that corner and the speakers have their backs to different walls but are equidistant to that corner. The main problem is that I can't tell how far apart you would be able to get the speakers, but if it's a reasonable width, you could put the keyboard into that corner.

You'll definitely need some room treatments or more furnishings, but I wonder if you might consider trying these speaker placements to see how they sound?

Ah yes, the asymetrical placement - I may want to try that again, that is how I had it originally before the current setup.  I wouldn't be able to place the speakers that far apart, maybe 4-5 feet tops, but I would have symetrical left right wall placement.  The keyboard would be going against the wall to the right of the corner. that is where it was originally.  Rack could either go in the corner or on the side wall, not sure if I have enough placement on the side wall with the rack and keyboard for the sub however.  I may need to revisit, great ideas! Thanks.

[recstar24]

One big problem I see is lack of left-right symmetry. This should be fixed, if possible, before anything else. After that, all the usual applies - as much corner bass trapping as you can manage, and absorption at the sidewall (and ceiling) reflection points. If you can't move the speakers to be the same distance from the left and right sides, absorption equally spaced can help to "force" symmetry. That is, you'd put some panels on stands on the right to be the same distance as the panels on the left.

--Ethan

Thanks Ethan, great ideas.  The left right symmetry unfortunately is not feasible in that current setup, which I would like to maintain.  Panels on stands to the left and right of the speakers for the 1st reflection points equal distance I think I could do...i'll take a look on your website and see what you have to offer.

[youngho]

Sorry, I really can't tell distances very well from the photos. I just wanted to clarify:

#1. The speakers would be about 4-5' forward from the 18' wall with the patio door. I figured the bathroom door would be less than 3' wide, which is where I came up with 4'. The speakers would be close to the side walls, and the back outside corners of the speakers could even touch the side walls so that they could benefit from boundary gain and be harder to knock over and damage. I figured you could put your equipment where the keyboard is now, just to try it out, and maybe either borrow some speaker cable or use larger gauge zip cord from Home Depot as a place to start.

#2. I couldn't tell how much wall is left on the 18' wall after the patio door. From the picture, I had guestimated maybe 7' from the edge of the patio door to what is now the front wall of your audio setup, which would have meant that the speakers would have been nearly 10' apart when straddling that corner. 6' would still be >8' apart. I didn't realize that your patio door was more than 14' wide!

Anyway, personally I think that the current setup is highly problematic, so it's worth moving stuff around and trying it out.

[recstar24]

Anyway, personally I think that the current setup is highly problematic, so it's worth moving stuff around and trying it out.

Yeah I agree, how things are even able to sound halfway decent is beyond me  I think any other speaker that is more "normal" or "traditional" would sound horrific in my room - the rear loading in the hornshoppes lets them play into the room and offset some of the issues that I have with the room, placement, WAF, family room usage, etc. 

When I have some time I will try #1 for sure.  It may not be long term but hey can't hurt that is for sure.  I will revisit #2 as well, that is originally how I had it, I make some measurements and report back tonight, I think the corner asymetrical placement will place the speakers more like 6 feet me thinks.  The issue with my room is that basically the other half of the room has to remain static, nothing can change unfortunately.  The half that I get to play with unfortunately is problematic as well as you can see.  I'll figure it out.  Thanks a lot, I appreciate taking the time to look over my setup and offer some nice solid recommendations 

[JLM]

I don't believe that your speakers (or many others for that matter) were meant to be that close to walls/corner, contact Ed to be sure.  With the sub it should be no problem filling in below the speakers.

Looks like bass absorption is in order.

Yeah, try some assymetrical layouts that provide open space around both speakers, yet are equi-distance from the primary listening position.

[recstar24]

I don't believe that your speakers (or many others for that matter) were meant to be that close to walls/corner, contact Ed to be sure.  With the sub it should be no problem filling in below the speakers.

Looks like bass absorption is in order.

Yeah, try some assymetrical layouts that provide open space around both speakers, yet are equi-distance from the primary listening position.

Thanks JLM.  I've talked with Ed a couple of times, he seems pretty adamant that they should be pretty much corner loaded, I've seen pictures of his and for the most part they are smack dab against them.  They sound balanced that way, the loading takes place below 200 hz and without that wall it sounds thin in the power region.  I will mess around with the assymetrical layout again and will play with crossing the cube much higher than where it is at currently.

[recstar24]

With my day off today, I tried the corner asymetrical placement. 

Absolutely terrible...the positioning put me smack dam dead center of the room, and there were tons of bass frequencies that were completely nulled out.  Sound pulled to the right speaker, no center image, no music, uhg, wont do that again.

So I put it back the way it was, because at bare minimum, somehow someway it plays music.  I brought the speakers about a foot out to experiment, making the cone about 2 ft from the rear wall, and brought the left speaker about 2.5 feet in from the side wall.  Slight toe out.  Speakers are about 8 ft apart from each other, listening chair is about 1/3rd from the back wall (6 ft), placing me about 9 ft listening distance, pretty decent triangle ratio.  Ahh...much better. 







I am thinking about going with a set of GIK 242's, they come in a set of 3 and are very nicely priced, one at first side reflections, and one behind rack.  Will need to look into some corner traps as well, that one corner and the others in the room are muddy as heck.

It's not perfect, but its the best I can do with an imperfect room with very intolerable WAF

[MaxCast]

You are gonna love the traps if she will let you keep them.
If you get them I'd temporarily move the key board and put 2 of them on the left wall and one on the front wall and try that.  I'd also move the coffee table off to the side when listening.