Salk speakers and placemnet strategies. What do you do and how far do you go?

nyc_paramedic · « **on:** 3 Jul 2009, 12:10 am »

If there is anything that I learned over the years in regards to being an audiophile is just (besides having adequate and proper room treatment) what a dramatic difference speaker placement can make. I've found out that through meticulous inch by inch positioning the music experience can go from "good sound", to hair raising musicality.

So, I'd like to hear comments from all Salk owners who do have some kind of dedicated listening space and have had the ability to try out different placement techniques. What do you prefer and why? Cardas? Audio Physique's? The standard equilateral triangle? How long does it take you to "lock in" you speakers. Any techniques or tools to make the job easier?

Do you believe in room treatment? What do you prefer and why? Real Traps? Echo buster? Others?

I'd like to hear from Jim and Denis as well. Do they feel their designs work better in some fashion or other? Nearfiled vs. other setups? How do they perform their testing? Do they use room treatments when finalizing on a design? What value do they place on a treated room?

DMurphy · « **Reply #1 on:** 3 Jul 2009, 01:30 am »

I have two listening areas--one upstairs in the living room for my own pleasure, and a second in a basement family room for comparative listening using designs under development or examples of the competition. Neither has any room treatments, although I did install heavy curtains upstairs to cut down on reflections from the large picture window behind the speakers. That only made a marginal difference. If my rooms were more problematic, I might have experimented more with treatments. As for distance, it shouldn't make too much difference for MTM designs, assuming you are listening on the tweeter axis. (And if you're not--do something, because that's the only correct listening position.) For 3-ways, my design distance is 3.5 meters (tweeter axis), although anything from 2.5 meters to infinity will not make a drastic difference. If you get closer than that, driver integration will suffer.

nyc_paramedic · « **Reply #2 on:** 3 Jul 2009, 01:43 am »

Quote from: DMurphy on 3 Jul 2009, 01:30 am

I have two listening areas--one upstairs in the living room for my own pleasure, and a second in a basement family room for comparative listening using designs under development or examples of the competition. Neither has any room treatments, although I did install heavy curtains upstairs to cut down on reflections from the large picture window behind the speakers. That only made a marginal difference. If my rooms were more problematic, I might have experimented more with treatments. As for distance, it shouldn't make too much difference for MTM designs, assuming you are listening on the tweeter axis. (And if you're not--do something, because that's the only correct listening position.) For 3-ways, my design distance is 3.5 meters (tweeter axis), although anything from 2.5 meters to infinity will not make a drastic difference. If you get closer than that, driver integration will suffer.

Dennis,

Can you spell out in layman's terms what it means to be on tweeter axis?

DMurphy · « **Reply #3 on:** 3 Jul 2009, 03:12 pm »

That just means your ears are on the same level as the center of the tweeter. For MTM's, if you're above or below that point, the arrival times of the two woofers will be different and they will start to cancel out in the midrange. Check out the last graph at the bottom of this link. http://murphyblaster.com/content.php?f=gem_mod.html

Nuance · « **Reply #4 on:** 3 Jul 2009, 10:46 pm »

Just out of curiosity (since we've been talking about tweeter axis in two threads), what's the +/- window that your ears need to be in order to prevent lobing with an MTM desgin (the ST's for example)? In other words, how much higher and lower do your ears need to be (regarding tweeter level) before issues occurs? Are we talking 1 inch here, or more leeway?

rydenfan · « **Reply #5 on:** 4 Jul 2009, 04:23 am »

Room treatments have made a profound impact on my system and every system I have ever heard with them. I cannot imagine a room without them.

robinje · « **Reply #6 on:** 4 Jul 2009, 04:46 am »

I have a total of 6 RealTraps products in my small (~12'x15') room. These consist of two MiniTraps on stands in the front corners behind my SongTower RT's, two RFZ panels on stands at the first reflection points (determined with a mirror), and a single HF MiniTrap mounted horizontally on the wall ~3' behind my head. I also have a spare RFZ panel that I put on the floor in a rear corner. This one has a dent in the frame from shipping damage. RealTraps promptly sent me a replacement, and never asked for the damaged one to be returned... BONUS! They are a great company and provide excellent advice. I may add some Corner Traps one day, but so far the configuration I have has made a tremendous difference in smoothing out the bass response and and imaging in my room. I can honestly say that the easily audible improvement is well worth the money spent.

Big Red Machine · « **Reply #7 on:** 4 Jul 2009, 01:41 pm »

Quote from: Nuance on 3 Jul 2009, 10:46 pm

Just out of curiosity (since we've been talking about tweeter axis in two threads), what's the +/- window that your ears need to be in order to prevent lobing with an MTM desgin (the ST's for example)? In other words, how much higher and lower do your ears need to be (regarding tweeter level) before issues occurs? Are we talking 1 inch here, or more leeway?

That's weird, I thought of the exact same question yesterday but was too busy to post it. Inquiring minds want to know.

Big Red Machine · « **Reply #8 on:** 4 Jul 2009, 01:43 pm »

Quote from: robinje on 4 Jul 2009, 04:46 am

I have a total of 6 RealTraps products in my small (~12'x15') room. These consist of two MiniTraps on stands in the front corners behind my SongTower RT's, two RFZ panels on stands at the first reflection points (determined with a mirror), and a single HF MiniTrap mounted horizontally on the wall ~3' behind my head. I also have a spare RFZ panel that I put on the floor in a rear corner. This one has a dent in the frame from shipping damage. RealTraps promptly sent me a replacement, and never asked for the damaged one to be returned... BONUS! They are a great company and provide excellent advice. I may add some Corner Traps one day, but so far the configuration I have has made a tremendous difference in smoothing out the bass response and and imaging in my room. I can honestly say that the easily audible improvement is well worth the money spent.

Did you find that there was boominess in the room or that it was too lively at first? I've never had my room untreated so it's making my mind question what I have although Bryan and Glenn both said it was just about what it needed to be for treatments.

zybar · « **Reply #9 on:** 4 Jul 2009, 02:05 pm »

Quote from: rydenfan on 4 Jul 2009, 04:23 am

Room treatments have made a profound impact on my system and every system I have ever heard with them. I cannot imagine a room without them.

+1!!!

In my dedicated space I have the following room treatments from Realtraps:

(2) Mondo corner traps
(6) Tri-corner traps
(

Mini-traps
(2) RFZ panels
(3) Diffusors
(2) Micro-traps

Not only can I hear a difference, but I can measure it as well.

I can't imagine going back to an untreated room.

George

DMurphy · « **Reply #10 on:** 4 Jul 2009, 02:42 pm »

Quote from: Nuance on 3 Jul 2009, 10:46 pm

Just out of curiosity (since we've been talking about tweeter axis in two threads), what's the +/- window that your ears need to be in order to prevent lobing with an MTM desgin (the ST's for example)? In other words, how much higher and lower do your ears need to be (regarding tweeter level) before issues occurs? Are we talking 1 inch here, or more leeway?

That all depends on the listening distance. At infinity, it won't make any difference. 6" from the speaker, it will happen very quickly, as any of those ancient Greek dudes will be happy to diagram for you. At 8-10 feet, the ST's will sound pretty good standing up. But as you gradually sit down, you will notice the lower highs and upper mids starting to focus and move forward. It's a pretty easy experiment for you to do yourself. This will also happen with an MT as you move off of the design axis vertically. But it's a little less noticeable because the mid is closer to the tweet than the two woofers are to each other in an MTM, and the cancellation will only occur at the crossover frequency, which is usually higher than the area affected by MTM comb filtering.

TJHUB · « **Reply #11 on:** 4 Jul 2009, 03:42 pm »

I'm very interested in this subject as well, but my experiences are different than those who've posted thus far.

My room measures approximately 18'x25', but is attached to my foyer and it has a large opening to my dining room with 14' high cathedral ceiling. I have my speakers setup on the 25' wall and my seating position is right up against the opposing wall.

My speakers are about 12' apart and about 13.5' from my listening position. The speaker's baffles are 38" from the front wall (the rear of the speaker is 19" from the front wall). They are toed in to aim at a point about 5' behind my listening position.

I didn't use any particular technique to position my speakers. I first position them for aesthetics and move on from there. I wrestle with subwoofer placement more than anything, having it on the outside of the main speakers or on the inside of them (currently on the inside). This again is mostly for aesthetic reasons as the subwoofer performs very similarly in either position.

For my current speakers, and two previous pairs prior, I don't find that fine positioning them really changes things much. I use REW with a Behringer ECM8000 mic for all in-room measuring. Moving the speakers closer or farther away from the front wall affects mostly frequencies centered around 150Hz. Toe-in affects frequencies around 16kHz and up. In either case, I have been hard pressed to hear the differences. I don't think the changes centered around 150Hz are really audible, and the toe-in affects imaging so much, it hides any frequency response changes.

I've dabbled with room treatments behind my speakers, but the audible changes were just not there so they are gone. I couldn't really discern any change in sound whatsoever. However, I do think my room sounds very good without any treatments. I attribute most of this to the fact that my room and setup have minimal first reflections. On the left side is my brick fireplace that has some level of depth into the room and on the right is my front door about 15' away. There is also a pair of french doors that are on a 45 degree angled wall. The cathedral ceiling is also fairly steep and all these features combined are minimizing reflections to my listening position.

The one major issue I've found is that having my listening position tight to the rear wall is not good. While it's not all that bad, simply moving the listening position about 12" more off the rear wall really solidifies the imaging from the speakers. The sound is overall more airy and defined. It measures slightly different, but the change in sound is not coming from volume at particular frequencies, but more from the scrambled reflections of the rear wall (if this makes sense

). Nonetheless, I'm currently trying to figure out a way to move my couch 12" off the rear wall without it looking out of place...

K Shep · « **Reply #12 on:** 5 Jul 2009, 09:43 pm »

Attached here are two photos of my listening room (attic). One photo is taken from the listening position, the other photo is taken from the front of the room behind the speakers. The riser is built over recessed can lights for the room below. Fortunately my ear elevation is at tweeter level. I have 14 Auralex panels placed in reflective points and other locations in the room. I also have 4 Auralex bass traps in the room.

My concern is the right speaker tucked in the corner...I have moved it around a bit but the current location in the photo sounds best to my ear. I have two of the bass traps stacked in the corner behind the right speaker, which makes an audible difference to my ear. I say to my ear because I don't own, nor have available to me measuring equipment. The room is 10 feet wide where the speakers sit.

Nuance · « **Reply #13 on:** 6 Jul 2009, 05:09 am »

Those pics looks familiar!

Looks good, K Shep. The only thing that matters is how it sounds to your ears, so using them to find the proper placement and what not was the right thing to do. I am happy you're liking your new RT's. They are gorgeous!

K Shep · « **Reply #14 on:** 6 Jul 2009, 01:40 pm »

Thanks Brandon,

Here is a photo of my gear. I am planning to move the shelf back about 24" so that I may move the speakers forward, which will give the right speaker room to breathe. My concern is the location of the acoustic panels that I have attached to the wall. I need to make sure the panels are in the first reflective points.

My next step regarding acoustics is DIY panels. 2' x 4' Owens Corning 703 wrapped in fabric, with one by material for a frame. I will move the Auralex panels to the ceiling and place the DIY panels on the wall.

robinje · « **Reply #15 on:** 6 Jul 2009, 07:18 pm »

Nice electronics... tube preamp and mondo solid state amp. Me likey!

K Shep · « **Reply #16 on:** 6 Jul 2009, 07:46 pm »

Thanks Robin...I am definitely hooked on 2 channel.

I see your a vinyl guy, I would love to hear a quality vinyl recording through your system with the tube gear and the ribbon tweeters. I am afraid too even consider getting a turn table, my current addiction would probaly become worse.

Nuance · « **Reply #17 on:** 6 Jul 2009, 08:06 pm »

Quote from: K Shep on 6 Jul 2009, 07:46 pm

I am afraid too even consider getting a turn table, my current addiction would probaly become worse.

Unless you have kids you're still supporting financially or have a wife who hates that you spend money on A/V, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

I agree with robinje, though - me likey!

mathgeek97 · « **Reply #18 on:** 6 Jul 2009, 10:54 pm »

Quote from: Nuance on 6 Jul 2009, 08:06 pm

Unless you have kids you're still supporting financially or have a wife who hates that you spend money on A/V, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Check and check.

K Shep · « **Reply #19 on:** 14 Jul 2009, 11:59 pm »

I built acoustic panels (owens corning 703 wrapped in acoustic fabric) and moved my gear away from the speakers to allow for more breathing room behind the right speaker, by moving the speakers forward also. I am fine tuning, to the best of my ability, the speaker placement. I will post my impressions later. The added panels have made for a quieter room. Check out the photos attached.

Kirk