[bmckenney]

After using the Cardas calculator, I discovered that I had moved my speaks actually closer together at 44" from my side walls (56" apart) and I came back to this.  I have positioned both my chair and my speaks 54" off the front and back walls.  This is all from center to center and includes the toe in (less than before) of my speaks.  Orchestras are behind my speaks and spread out independent of speaker placement and my room's walls, it seems.  Depth is excellent.  Close your eyes, and yer there!  Close miked music is more in the room.  So, my experience from reading this and using Cardas as a starting point has made my speakers more transparent to the event.  I'm less aware of them and my room and more aware of the venue and what's happening, clearly.  Tone is just fine to the limits of my speaks and things are more convincingly real.  This thread done good here.  Happy trails and thanks for the upgrade.

If anyone wants to know, my room is actually (re-measuring) 14'x12'x8'.

Lastly, and after much listening, I only thought my former speaker placement was energizing my room.  Wow.  Now, the whole front end of the place is palpably vibrant with life.  This is a throwback to my days of club and concert hall visits.  Just wow.

Jim, I looked at your gallery and it looks like you have some absorbers on the side wall reflection points but no corner bass traps.  That can make a very nice difference too.  Might be something to think about.

Bryan

[jimdgoulding]

And I shall, indeed.  Any suggestions for the biggest return on investment (smaller the better)?  Thanks.  I will say that bass response is audibly flatter now.  I have an acoustic bass disc I use for that.  -3db point is 37Hz according to the literature.

[bmckenney]

And I shall, indeed.  Any suggestions for the biggest return on investment (smaller the better)?  Thanks.  I will say that bass response is audibly flatter now.  I have an acoustic bass disc I use for that.  -3db point is 37Hz according to the literature.

I was really impressed with the bass trapping I did and you can really notice it with good speaker placement, so you should really like it.  Really cleans up the frequency response of the system, letting a lot of detail you didn't know about come thru.

There is the Real Traps Mega traps.  And the GIK Tri Trap.  Both are triangular corner bass traps.  The GIK's are more affordable and I believe smaller.  And the Mega's would require 2 per corner to get 4 feet of height.  I recently picked up 4 of the GIK's in off white and they are nice looking and might be suitable for you.

[stvnharr]

Steve,
Sorry, the comment was not meant to set you up as the spokesperson to defend Master Set.  I have read about Master Set on the different forums and sites, I fully understand the trial and error methodology.  It?s organized, but it trial and error.  And there is nothing wrong about that.  T&E can be the most productive, least asset method of doing a lot of R&D.

So I return to the statement, it would be interesting to see if there is any spatial relationship between the speaker placement and the room when the Master Set methods are used.

I like to write comments on Master Set, if I feel I can contribute anything to a discussion.  Master Set is a different way of looking at speaker set up in a room, and a difficult concept for people to understand.
It's interesting that you've used the term "defend".  There's nothing to defend!  This is setting up speakers in a room for music listening.  There's no "ego" to defend, at least from me.

As to your statement about any spatial relationship......
There most certainly is!  However it mostly has to do with the relationship of the two speakers to each other more than the room. However, the speakers cannot just be anywhere in the room and then simply adjusted.  small area for things to work. The shape and size of the room determines where the bass nodes are, how the speaker pressurizes the air, and where the two speakers must be positioned in order to have equal pressurization and make a single sound source.
I'd say that if someone really wanted to investigate this, and had the proper test equipment and methodology, this could be verified in that way.  It's just that at present, nobody has wanted to do that, AFAIK.

[jimdgoulding]

I swear my room is perceptively gone now.  The combination of my room and where I've positioned my speaks is freakin destroying the difference between my time and space and what I'm hearing from whenever and wherever!  There IS more ledgibility of things and bass has smoothed out nicely.  I think I've arrived at ground zero and it's something profound.  Hope you do, too.  Life is a trip.  Thanks.

[bmckenney]

Very poetic Jim!  I think I know what you mean though.  It's a SEAMLESS 3D wall of sound from side to side and front to back that has no perceivable speaker source and no boundaries.  IMO that comes from speaker placement, not room treatment.

[jimdgoulding]

Very poetic Jim!  I think I know what you mean though.  It's a SEAMLESS 3D wall of sound from side to side and front to back that has no perceivable speaker source and no boundaries.  IMO that comes from speaker placement, not room treatment.

Well said and correct, IME.  I would just add to include where you put your listening seat, too, in relation your speaks and walls.  I've put my head the same distance from my asymetrical back wall to where the front of my speaks are from the symetrical wall behing them.

[bmckenney]

Jim, I'm curious if you noticed an increase in soundstage height too.  I really did, but I know my speakers will do that when setup right because they are 5' high planar panels.  But I'm curious if direct radiator speakers like yours give more height too, when well placed.

[jimdgoulding]

Jim, I'm curious if you noticed an increase in soundstage height too.  I really did, but I know my speakers will do that when setup right because they are 5' high planar panels.  But I'm curious if direct radiator speakers like yours give more height too, when well placed.

Yes, Brother Kenny, and seamlessly, is the answer to your question.  They are direct radiators only 40" tall to include their stands.  The WHOLE front end of my room seems to envelope where I sit.  On a Mapleshade CD I dig with unbridled dynamics the horn players are freakin standing.  I tacked a comment bout listening distances from my seated position onto the previous post.

[Housteau]

Very poetic Jim!  I think I know what you mean though.  It's a SEAMLESS 3D wall of sound from side to side and front to back that has no perceivable speaker source and no boundaries.  IMO that comes from speaker placement, not room treatment.

In my situation I would say it is a combination of both that create the spacial presentation that I enjoy.  When it comes to bass reproduction once again I say it is both.  Room treatments have a major impact on the best your room and set-up will be able to do, but so does the speaker placement.

[bmckenney]

Very poetic Jim!  I think I know what you mean though.  It's a SEAMLESS 3D wall of sound from side to side and front to back that has no perceivable speaker source and no boundaries.  IMO that comes from speaker placement, not room treatment.

In my situation I would say it is a combination of both that create the spacial presentation that I enjoy.  When it comes to bass reproduction once again I say it is both.  Room treatments have a major impact on the best your room and set-up will be able to do, but so does the speaker placement.

I don't mean that room treatment isn't important.  I agree they are both important.  What i meant was that seamless 3D wall of sound only comes from speaker placement, not room treatment.  The benefits of room treatment are different, and not related to the 3D'ness we're talking about.  Room treatment such as bass trapping in my limited experience results in better room frequency response allowing a lot of previously missing detail to come out.  Add to that the 3D wall of sound from speaker placement and the combination is superb stuff.  Thats just my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong. 

[Housteau]

Thats just my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong.

No.  I don't think you are wrong at all.  One could indeed have the finest listening space and not have what you describe if the speaker and listener interface is wrong.  However, high frequency treatment will fine tune that wall of sound to make it even better.

[max190]

Yes, and a little more...
My room is 12'6"W x 15'4"L x 7'8"H
My Dynaudio 3.4's are setup using the rule-of-thirds which placed them a little further away from the sidewalls (50") measuring inside spkr-to-spkr than the Cardas method, but spot on distance (61") from the front wall measuring from the front center of my spkrs.

Setting them up this way gave me more coherent bass, better envelopement,  depth increased, and made the Dyns' disappear.  Right now I am using no toe-in since adding and additional (2) 244 GIK bass traps on the wall behind the LP.  Today I am listening and adjusting my LP from the rear wall.

Here is my setup today...














My room is

[jimdgoulding]

Room synergy.  Think that begins with placement and is more finely tuned with treatment as needed.  That sound about right?  Does to me at this time in my circumstances.  I have a friend who has a big rectangular room, 17x27 with a three sided cathedral ceiling.  He has expensive and acclaimed equipment with laser precision of detail but somethin is missing.  I've decided to call it Life Force.  His speakers are in the asymmetrical part of his room that opens on to a stair well on one side.  Thinking of asking him to switch out his speakers with the other end of his room which is symmetrical.  Then, and with me, to fool around with placement.  His system as is produces sharp and extended highs and deep bass tho his bass sounds uneven.  His larger speakers deliver more bandwidth and scale than mine but sound thin in the midband.  I'm thinkin we can fix that and his bass uneveness.  As an experiment, I'm gonna apply my new quasi Cardas placement of my speaks and seat, if he will let me, and see what happens. 

[vinyl_guy]

I promised to report back after I did some more experimenting with speaker positioning. I earlier posted about the unbelievable improvement in sound when I moved my speakers from 44" from the side walls to the Cardas calcualtor distance of 56.25" My system has never sounded this good. As Jim reported, the speakers completely disappear from the room. I have greater soundstage depth and more detail and articluation thorughout the frequency range, especially in the bass.

Since my last post I moved the speakers as far out into the room that my cables would allow, 80" (Cardas distance would have been 91"). After listening to some familiar music at both 80" and the distance calculated by Rives Audio (68" to 74"), I didn't hear a lot of difference. If anything, the bass seemed to thin a bit. I moved the speakers back to 71" forward and liked the overall sound better--more coherent and seamless.

I also experimented with the distance from the sidewalls and ended up with the Cardas distance on my left speaker (56.25") and 57.75" with the right speaker. All of my equipment is along the right wall along with a Boltz CD rack. The equipment racks are directly in front of the side wall absorption panels. By moving the speaker a little farther out from the right sidewall the imaging is more focused.

After tweaking the toe in, I have found a speaker position in combination with my room treatments that gives me music nirvana. Yesterday I listened to U2's The Joshua Tree and The Unforgetable Fire both remasterd editions; Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon 30th Anniversary edition; Procol Harum's Live: In Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, all on vinyl and Jefferson Airplane's Woodstock performance on CD. Every time I closed my eyes I could picture the performers in my room. It was easy to follow the different instruments.

Bryan, thanks again for starting this thread.  I learned a lot from reading everyone's posts and my system has never sounded better.

Laura

[bmckenney]

That's great Laura.  Glad to hear that a bit of dialoging in a thread resulted in people trying some speaker placement tweaking that resulted in not just small improvements but really significant ones.  1 thread, 50 odd posts, and at least two people went home happy!  Well make that three because I'm very happy with mine too.  I was listening to some Deftones which was quite hard on the ears before, but it's not any more.  And I was listening quite loud!!!!

Bryan

[bmckenney]

Max bit of a tough room since it's almost square.  I imagine the rule of thirds works well, probably better than Cardas.  And all that bass trapping is probably doing a lot of good things.  Must sound really fantastic.

Bryan

[TooManyToys]

So, with these happy, happy Cardas set people......  Has anyone then tried the Master Set method and came away:

1 - at the same location?

2 - with improved sound?

One can always put a little blue painters masking tape on the floor/carpet/rug to come back to the position they are in now.  I'd be trying it but my ear has been ringing ever since I entered this thread.

[vinyl_guy]

So, with these happy, happy Cardas set people......  Has anyone then tried the Master Set method and came away:

1 - at the same location?

2 - with improved sound?

One can always put a little blue painters masking tape on the floor/carpet/rug to come back to the position they are in now.  I'd be trying it but my ear has been ringing ever since I entered this thread.

I have not. Based on what I've read here and on other forums, Master Set is performed by someone who has been trained by Sumiko (correct me if I'm wrong). I have Googled Master Set and I find articles about it, but nothing more than descriptions about the difference it made.

[JackD201]

Laura, sorry for going off topic but where did you score the U2 reissues? Those are my favorite U2 LPs off all time. Pleeaaaase!!!!!