[jimdgoulding]

Here's another that rocks my world (think I know what a listener would be getting as it's near to what speaker placement abides in my room tho on a smaller scale, no doubt):

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=71466.0

I sit at the apex of an equilateral triangle, however.  It appears in the photo this is more isosceles.

[bmckenney]

I imagine a guy like him has the best speaker setup for his room.  But it doesn't look like he used Cardas because the speakers appear to be quite close to the front wall.  And the room looks like a nice rectangle which would be perfect for Cardas.  It is perplexing to me.

[jimdgoulding]

Could come down to what you said in your first sentence.

[James Romeyn]

Housteau
Is the Audio Physics setup similar or identical to Allen Perkins' Immedia?  IIRC Allen is the ex-importer for AP.

[Housteau]

Your room is awesome!  Nice job with the DIY room treatment too.  Those coverings look really, really good in that room.  I have no idea about placement for multi cabinets but I'm familiar with the AP method.  I used it to great affect when I had some direct radiator monitors placed on the long wall in a pseudo nearfield configuration.  Great dynamics and a very, very wide and seamless wall of sound, but over the long haul I found it too in my face.  And it was too wide but not deep enough, too exaggerated from a recording space dimensions point of view. It doesn't look like your setup is really nearfield at all and I am surprised that the AP method works in that room but since you have multiple cabinets all bets are off!  Once again, very nice looking room.

Thank you.  It has been in transition for a while now.  Unfortunately when I built it I did not know a lot about acoustics at the time, forums such as this did not exist and mistakes were made.  Not too many had computers and the internet was in its infancy.  Although the dimensions are good I have a cathedral ceiling that I would not do today.  It is that ceiling that gave few options but to use the Audio Physics Method.  It has given me some grief, but it is all under control now.  It is only in the last few years that the room started to release its full potential.  All of my treatments along with the method and theory of placement came from the insights gained in this forum.  I have found it to be a valuable resource.

I sit just slightly further from my speakers then they are from each other.  It is very close to that recomended ratio by Jim Smith.  It actually is more of a nearfield environment than anything else.  I understand your statement about being too wide and not enough depth.  I had that issue for some time. 

The solution to the lack of depth came when I constructed very large and thick bass traps running up the center of the wall behind the speakers.  This was originally done for help with a bass suck-out, but also found that it really helped to extend the depth of the presentation.

The width is one of those variables that I can actually adjust with these speakers.  They are dipole from about 280 Hz on up and their dipole nature is adjustable by the means of a foam wedge inside of the rear facing horn.  I have actually removed that wedge completely and use instead 6' 12" round tube traps.  Their position behind that rear facing horn design, as well as the placement of the artificial plants around them helps greatly in sculpuring the sound I want.

[Housteau]

Housteau
Is the Audio Physics setup similar or identical to Allen Perkins' Immedia?  IIRC Allen is the ex-importer for AP.

I was not familiar with this other set-up by name, but after taking a brief look, it does seem very similar highlighting the same issues using similar solutions.  Since I have two speakers per channel I didn't follow the exact numbers referenced.  I used them more for coarse initial placements of both speakers and listener.  From there I took a lot of bass measurements to dial in and place the low bass towers.  A Checky test CD helped a lot with placing the upper range units for best imaging.  However, those units also carry the mid-bass drivers and so bass measurements also aided in that.  There are always compromises.

After my last big change in room treatments I needed to remeasure everything and my positions all needed changed to get the best balance of everything once again.  It all works together and no doubt they will change again.  I find that each change in treatments brings an improvement to the room itself which affords less compromise setting up the listener interface.

[bmckenney]

They are dipole from about 280 Hz on up and their dipole nature is adjustable by the means of a foam wedge inside of the rear facing horn.  I have actually removed that wedge completely and use instead 6' 12" round tube traps.  Their position behind that rear facing horn design, as well as the placement of the artificial plants around them helps greatly in sculpuring the sound I want.

Are those the ASC tube traps with the adjustable deflector?  I hear that diffusers are supposed to be great on the front wall with dipoles.  A deflector might be good too, and the ASC's do absorption too which should be a bonus.   I have been experimenting with the front wall because of the nature of dipoles.  I have found that absorption on the front wall, but bass traps not HF absorbers, dull detail and shrink soundstage depth by a surprising amount.  I was thinking of trying a deflector like a piece of plywood too.  My front wall is pretty much all horizontal venetian coverings over big windows (the other reason I am working on this area next).  I never did notice much difference adjusting the blinds before introducing my first batch of room treatments but now I can hear what those blinds are doing.  All the way down and closed turns them in to a nasty reflector and the sounds is hard up top and fatiguing.  I tried a couple of other things too like the blinds all the way up to expose the glass and other variations but I didn't like anything.  Then I read a post here about angling the blinds down to bounce the HF down to the carpet where it would be attenuated, and that works well.  And even though a blind is probably a less effective diffuser than a book case, when it is partially open it is doing something diffusion-like because I can hear differences in soundstage.  So my next room tooning adventure will be with QRDs on the front wall directly behind the dipoles.

[Housteau]

Are those the ASC tube traps with the adjustable deflector? 

Yes.  One half of them has a surface just under the covering that can reflect higher frequencies.  They can be rotated to get the right mix that you need.

I hear that diffusers are supposed to be great on the front wall with dipoles.  A deflector might be good too, and the ASC's do absorption too which should be a bonus.

I think so, but this is a controversial topic.  Many still believe more in the live-end / dead-end approach where the 1/3 of the room starting at the speaker end is dead and fully absorbing, even with dipoles, or should I say especially with dipoles.  It is felt that this is the only way to experience what is actually on the recording by not adding in too much room sound to the mix.  Often measurements taken will indeed show a smoother response with the higher frequencies this way.

The other side of the spectrum believes the opposite that the speaker end should be more live, reflective and diffusive.  Most of Rives Audio designs are this way.  Many show a curved wooden panel on the wall between the speakers.  This acts as a direct reflector to the high frequencies to spread them out in all directions.

I guess I fall somewhere in the middle with allowing my dipoles to breath and reflect their rear energy, yet controlling it with absorption and diffusion here and there to present the perspective that I feel is most natural.  I enjoy the soundstage that can present.  Is the room adding to the recording?  Sure, at least I would assume so, but don't all venues alter the performances in some way anyway?  This may be heretical to some, but I feel we work so hard to prevent our rooms from harming the sound, that when they actually begin to add something we see as positive, why not enjoy it.

[bmckenney]

I have heard the controversy.  I don't think I'll ever take room treatment as far as trying much experimentation with LE/DE.  Right now I am of the mind that perfect speaker placement along with some basic treatment like bass absorption and a couple of effective, not harmful, front and back wall treatments and side wall if necessary, should be quite satisfactory... especially for someone coming from an untreated room.

[jimdgoulding]

My speaks are in the live end.  The room behind my seat is partly open and partly diffuse as described above.   My speaks are front firing radiators.  Ok, I did the Cardas rule of thirds layout.   My room is 12"x15" so you can imagine how small of a triangle this gives me.  Things I hadn't imagined happened.  First, I could hear that my room was clearly less of the equation.   Things were less bloomy than before.  My speaks and presentation were benefiting from being less near the side walls, I expect.  Center stage images became smaller but more tactile and, to my astonishment, recessed.  With less bloominess, instruments were laid bare and there were dividends in extended detail but there was less warmth.  I ultimately corrupted my triangle to get back some romance but hang on to the good I have gotten.  Wound up with the front center point of my cabinets 54" from the back wall, not much greater than before, but 44" from the side walls, much less of a spread than previously, and moved my chair forward accordingly.  Looking at the speaks from my new and their new positions, ya might think I wouldn't be getting much in room width and that you couldn't help but hear them as sources.  That would be mostly incorrect.  There may be a little less width at the plane of the speakers or the near field, but space expands and deepens very nicely beyond.  And close your eyes and the speakers are not present as sources, not even a little, neither is the room.  I'm enjoying things a lot and I've been listening to classical and choral stuff, good stuff, and some small group and large group jazz with vocals by Carol Kidd and Mark Murphy (even tossed in Marianne Faithful's Broken English).  Murphy's voice goes low but stays focused.  And things are warm again and detailed and not bloomy.  Orchestra seems beautifully better balanced with these changes.  Good for me!

Tube traps behind planers like Magnepan can definitely change the sound and for the better in my experience.

[bmckenney]

Ok, I did the Cardas rule of thirds layout. 

Jim, did you use the Cardas calculator?  Or did you use the distances I mentioned, which was based  on Cardas? 

The reason I ask is the Cardas is not the rule of thirds that you mentioned.  If you did the thirds, then you're going to have to do it all over again!   

I'd like to comment on your findings but I'd like to know what you used first.

[jimdgoulding]

I started with the rule of thirds which is what I remember Cardas to be but wound up with something different.  A mistake, I gather.  No, I don't have a freakin Cardas calculator.  How's about you, dear friend, take the dimensions of my room and size of my speaks and from their center point front give me your advice?  Just to add to my comments above, where things are now my stage has moved back behind my speakers appreciably.  My speakers now stand there like two mute guardians of a portal to another universe.  Thanks in advance.

[bmckenney]

That calculator is down at the bottom of this page, Jim.  Just enter your room width and it will give you back both distances.

http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=26&pagestring=Room+Setup

[jimdgoulding]

Thank you.  I hadn't realized it was an online calculator.  Well, it did occur to me it was likely something like that but I had already posted.  I'll visit tomorrow.   

[mjosef]

Interesting that my current placement are close to the Cardas measurements.
However I cannot move the speakers closer to the side walls, its right up against objects located between speaker and wall.
My RM1s are a long discontinued model.

[stvnharr]

Though my room is somewhat rectangular, its hardly typical, methods that tie placements to a set formulae does not apply in my case.
MasterSet which does not require rigid measurements, works for me because its works with the room you have...

I've heard of the Masterset placement method and was intrigued by it because a lot of all the reports of great results.

Bryan

Hello,
I caught this thread in a Sunday morning browse thru of the forums.  I don't think I've ever posted in this one, being mostly on the Aspen Circle.

I've used just about every method of setting speakers in a room.  Methods such as Audio Physic and Cardas are stricky mathmatical.  AP does at least try to offer an explanation, while Cardas just throws out the numbers with nothing really. I've used both methods. Both will give you a small narrow sweet spot of listening, and if you either move yourself or the speaker just a little bit, the sound changes.

As I've read many of the posts here I read the term "better" a lot, without any kind of reference to what better is. My own experience has shown that every little speaker move will change the sound you hear. If you tweak the positioning of the speakers and constantly hear "different" sound, what is your reference for "better". I think most all folks don't really have a reference, instead it's all just a guess as to what seems to sound best.

I'm a big Master Set fan, have taught myself to do it, and can do it reasonably well.
Master Set is based on the principal that the sound you hear from loudspeakers is based on the amount of sound pressure the speaker puts into the room, rather than the distance you, the listener, sit from the speakers.
In order to accomplish the above, each speaker must sit in a position to be in perfect and equal phase with regards to the other speaker so that the two speakers act as one sound source into the room.
Once you hear a well done Master Set, you never want to listen to a set up any other way.
Well, at least that's the way it was for me.

[Housteau]

As I've read many of the posts here I read the term "better" a lot, without any kind of reference to what better is. My own experience has shown that every little speaker move will change the sound you hear. If you tweak the positioning of the speakers and constantly hear "different" sound, what is your reference for "better".

That is a good point.  For me getting the bass better means to have the fullest extension, weight and tightness that was recorded.  I think of it like this.  No, I was not at the original recording, but the better those mentioned attributes get, the better the bass response. 

Well recorded bass can easily be made to sound thin, fat, one note etc., by having less than an ideal set-up.  When you start to move in the other directions things are getting better.  Not all recordings have excellent bass and so even the best set-up will only allow them to improve so far.  If deep bass was not recorded you will not be able to reproduce it, but what is there can still be maxed out as long as it remains in balance with everything else.  That is why I prefer to use some better known material and look for specific notes. 

For the higher frequencies I like to use different test disks, like from Chesky, that guide you with soundstage, imaging and basically the entire presentation.  I also don't claim to have those 'golden ears'.  I wish I did.  I often value the thoughts and impressions of others to see if they agree with the changes I have made.

I have read good things about the Master Set method.

[bmckenney]

Hello,
I caught this thread in a Sunday morning browse thru of the forums.  I don't think I've ever posted in this one, being mostly on the Aspen Circle.

I've used just about every method of setting speakers in a room.  Methods such as Audio Physic and Cardas are stricky mathmatical.  AP does at least try to offer an explanation, while Cardas just throws out the numbers with nothing really. I've used both methods. Both will give you a small narrow sweet spot of listening, and if you either move yourself or the speaker just a little bit, the sound changes.

As I've read many of the posts here I read the term "better" a lot, without any kind of reference to what better is. My own experience has shown that every little speaker move will change the sound you hear. If you tweak the positioning of the speakers and constantly hear "different" sound, what is your reference for "better". I think most all folks don't really have a reference, instead it's all just a guess as to what seems to sound best.

I'm a big Master Set fan, have taught myself to do it, and can do it reasonably well.
Master Set is based on the principal that the sound you hear from loudspeakers is based on the amount of sound pressure the speaker puts into the room, rather than the distance you, the listener, sit from the speakers.
In order to accomplish the above, each speaker must sit in a position to be in perfect and equal phase with regards to the other speaker so that the two speakers act as one sound source into the room.
Once you hear a well done Master Set, you never want to listen to a set up any other way.
Well, at least that's the way it was for me.

Cardas using math is a bad thing?  Well, I don' agree.  I'd like to see some math.   This is the acoustic board and acoustics is very much about math.  And the Cardas theory that goes with the math is not just throwing numbers out there.  His theory is based on room acoustics from what I read on his website on the Insights Room Setup page.  The room and the speaker.  What more could one want, really? 

And I don't agree that the Cardas placement method is what is responsible for a narrow sweet spot.  I believe it is related to the speaker design and the room and what is happening at reflection points.  I use the Cardas method and I have planars that have tight dispersion and I don't have that tight of a sweet spot.  When I listen from over on one side of the room I get pretty decent sound with a realistic 3D stage and imaging and energy.  Heck, it sounds great from outside the room.

As for quantifying the term "better".  I'll share again what I mean by getting better sounds from speaker placement.  Others have also shared what "better" means in this thread too, like Jim who changed his speaker positioning yesterday and reported back on the changes.  I'd like to hear you explain how Master Set provides better sound too.  You mentioned that you are a big believer in it, but you don't say how its better.

First of all, distance to side walls.  When I use the distance that Cardas math results in, I get the best tonal balance.  The bass response is the first obvious thing that is noticeably right.  And it sounds right from the bass to the midrange as well.  The other thing I notice is dynamics and room energy.  If the distance is not right dynamics are basically non existent.  The sound is weak.

As for distance from the front wall, here's an interesting it's "better" observation.  Prior to adding room treatment I used the normal speaker placement Cardas math.  I did a lot of changes with distance from side walls which allowed me to confirm that the Cardas math did result in the best sound.  And I experimented with distance from the front wall as well and found the Cardas math worked better than a few inches plus or minus, but the differences were not as dramatic as side wall distance changes I was making at the time.  I used the regular, non dipole distance instead of the dipole distance because it kept my dipole speakers less out in to the room.  Not that 5.3 feet out is close to the wall, but it was a compromise that kept my wife somewhat happy.  And I thought the sound was pretty darn good.  Nice staging, imaging, tone, dynamics.  Then I added bass traps.  First 4 traps, then down to 3, then up to 7.  There was a wonderful improvement.  Then late last week I decided to push the speakers out another 8 inches to the Cardas dipole distance of 6 feet.  This change was mind altering.  It resulted in a soundstage that went from decent front to back and width to this huge cube of sound with big improvement in height, width and depth.  It is like there is a space in front of me that is isn't just a medium sized replication of the recording like it was before, but a huge 3-D, X/Y/Z replication.  And the speakers reveal themselves far less than before, to the point they define the audiophile often used term disappear.  I don't doubt this is because they are dipole speakers and are now in their proper location from the front wall.  It is pretty impressive that the Cardas speaker placement math accounts for dipole and direct radiators.  I don't know of any speaker placement method that does that.  Master Set doesn't as far as I can tell.  The other improvement is room energy.  This is a better location from a frequency response, room modes or nodes or nulls point of view.  It is not as dramatic a change as the soundstaging, 3D improvement because the previous location was based on the other Cardas math which was good in its own right.  But I can still hear the difference in dynamics and tone.  No doubt the 7 bass traps really help highlight the differences too.

I don't doubt that Master Set is a good method.  I've heard too often that it works.  The benefit you say it results in, the one sound  source in the room affect, is exactly what Cardas can provide too.  It's what I hear.  What I like about the Cardas method is how much easier it seems to be to setup compared to Master Set.  Master Set is a lot of work.  Cardas really takes a short time to setup.  Place the room width and/or height in to a calculator and out comes the locations.

Bryan

[jimdgoulding]

"In order to accomplish the above, each speaker must sit in a position to be in perfect and equal phase with regards to the other speaker so that the two speakers act as one sound source into the room".

Couldn't find any info online with just the words Master Set.  Suggestions?  In a rectangle room, how could speakers be out of phase if they were positioned exactly the same with no large objects obstructing their radiation?  Thanks, I don't understand this statement.

Bryan, at the Cardas site, I could only see that it asks for the width of the room.  And, yes, the measurements you posted for your room would be for my room, also.  What surprises me is that it didn't ask for the length.  Am I missing something?  Thanks.   

[bmckenney]

stvnharr, what are the dimensions of the room and location of your speakers?  I am curious if the position is the same as the Cardas approach.  The original purpose of the thread was to get some feedback on how far people locating their speakers out in to the room.