[stvnharr]

I think there are different types of reproduction in a listening room. You can have an open sound that fills the room and recreates the experience of actually sitting in the venue or you can have a more focused more detailed sound that draws you into a recording but sounds like you are listening to a recording. I think speaker placement is the major factor in determining which one of these you experience.
 

Sorry, but I think this doesn't make any sense.
The sound of music in a venue is the sound of music as it is played in real time. How do you get more focused and detailed than that?  Now if you want to say that your listening room is better than any venue, then........
that's another matter entirely.

[Browntrout]

Well, sitting in a venue often does not yield the detail provided by listening to a recording.

[stvnharr]

Well, sitting in a venue often does not yield the detail provided by listening to a recording.

Well, then I guess that would depend on the venue then.
Sure, I understand what you are getting at in your comment. 
But at any venue the sound does move around the room with you, if you move around the room, or happen to take a different seat after intermission or at the next concert. Your perspective to the sound may change if you change location, but the sound does not.
It's really difficult to get speakers set up and have the music like that.

[J. Royce Baron]

Would love to have a go at the method somewhat apprehensive how it might fare with the Maggies though.

Maggies spiked 'Anchor Stands' don’t readily encourage the time consuming effort involved.

Certainly worth experimenting I suppose, isn’t this the sort of thing that audiophiles engage in?

Anyone with Planars have any success?   

[jimdgoulding]

J. Royce-  Hi.  I see you use absorption panels behind your Mag's.  How's that working for you?  Some guys favor diffusion devices with planars.  Just curious.

[bmckenney]

Would love to have a go at the method somewhat apprehensive how it might fare with the Maggies though.

Maggies spiked 'Anchor Stands' don’t readily encourage the time consuming effort involved.

Certainly worth experimenting I suppose, isn’t this the sort of thing that audiophiles engage in?

Anyone with Planars have any success?

Which method do you want to try?  Cardas or Master Set?  Since you have dipoles, I really don't think you should even bother with Master Set.  That back wave needs lots of space hehind the speaker becuase of the reflection and timing back to your ears.  Cardas has a specific dipole equation and my experience is it works perfectly.  I can't tell from your picture how far your maggies are out in to the room, or the dimension of your room including ceiling height, but it looks to me like they are not far enough out in to the room.

However you seem to have absorption behind the Maggies.  But they look like bass trap LF absorbers so maybe they don't absorb the backwave mids and highs.  If they are high frequency absorbers, you're probably killing the back wave, negating the spacial ambiance of the dipole effect, so maybe you can try Master Set.

If you're not in to moving the speaker around a lot because of the spikes, you can just go with Cardas dipole placement, do the calculation, place the speakers once, fine tune toe in a bit, and you should be done.  You should not have to move them a lot like you would with Master Set.  But you need a nice rectangular room to use Cardas dipole placement.  If your room is square'ish, I think you're going to have to do a trial and error approach.

Bryan

[stvnharr]

Would love to have a go at the method somewhat apprehensive how it might fare with the Maggies though.

Maggies spiked 'Anchor Stands' don’t readily encourage the time consuming effort involved.

Certainly worth experimenting I suppose, isn’t this the sort of thing that audiophiles engage in?

Anyone with Planars have any success?

If you wish to move your spiked footed speakers around, may I suggest you go to the hardware store and get a set of furniture sliders to put under the spikes.  You will then be able to move the speakers around a little bit, as needed.
My take of setting speakers is nothing ventured nothing gained.  You can always go back to where you were.  I'm a big fan of Master Set as I think it yields the best results.  You'll never know if it works with your Maggies until you try it.

[J. Royce Baron]

The space is an irregular 27x28x7.5 with a five foot wide concrete support to ceiling in center of room that challenges the Almighty Himself.

LF absorbers throughout the entire space are a must here, the other end of the room is the HT for good measure which makes for a double whammy.

The Cardas if memory serves places left speaker at 7’.6” from side wall / 4’7” from front wall, the distance from side wall would put me at the concrete support, definitely not an option.

Maggie’s at present are 4’ from front wall and 3’ from side wall.

I’ve experimented without LF absorbers in front wall with speakers out to 5’ from front wall; difference been minute at best while forcing a near field listening position which I don’t appreciate.

Front wall is still a work in progress and it may still end up with a combination of absorbers and diffusion.

As is, the stage is wide and highly focused low level information is conveyed clearly and once in a while some recordings still offer a surprise or two.   
           
Now, if the ‘Masterset’ was capable of expanding the sweet spot sans issues with the Maggie’s this would be a real bonus.

Certainly be nice if someone would chime in with dipole impressions.   

Furniture sliders are a good idea, will eventually give this a whirl on a good day 

[flintstone]

The space is an irregular 27x28x7.5 with a five foot wide concrete support to ceiling in center of room that challenges the Almighty Himself.

LF absorbers throughout the entire space are a must here, the other end of the room is the HT for good measure which makes for a double whammy.

The Cardas if memory serves places left speaker at 7’.6” from side wall / 4’7” from front wall, the distance from side wall would put me at the concrete support, definitely not an option.

Maggie’s at present are 4’ from front wall and 3’ from side wall.

I’ve experimented without LF absorbers in front wall with speakers out to 5’ from front wall; difference been minute at best while forcing a near field listening position which I don’t appreciate.

Front wall is still a work in progress and it may still end up with a combination of absorbers and diffusion.

As is, the stage is wide and highly focused low level information is conveyed clearly and once in a while some recordings still offer a surprise or two.   
           
Now, if the ‘Masterset’ was capable of expanding the sweet spot sans issues with the Maggie’s this would be a real bonus.

Certainly be nice if someone would chime in with dipole impressions.   

Furniture sliders are a good idea, will eventually give this a whirl on a good day 

The "Masterset" setup "is not" for dipoles which require setup well away from the wall, and really should not require any toe-in (or at least very little) if placed in a large enough room.

The rear wave from your maggies is your friend...no need to absorb it, if you can get your speakers far enough out into the room...mine are at (5 ft) as per CARDAS setup guide.

The furniture sliders work well, and thats exactly how I moved my heavy Apogees around when I was tweaking 






Dave

[dcstep]

...
I used to work with Rodney years ago and he was certainly the least audiophile of any of us. In fact, character that he is, he used to laugh at us for our concerns and suggest off road motorcycling which is what he was very good at.
He's an entertainer at the level of Seinfeld or Leno and a world class salesman. And he knows enough to sell whatever people are dumb enough to buy.

There's an interesting element of truth in macrojack's statement. Rod does indeed enjoy his motorcycles and does admit to being somewhat cynical in his past career in audio sales. He tells me about the futility he felt, selling "good" equipment that sounded bad when installed. He shares how frustrating it was that "good" equipment didn't even sound good in the demo room.

He is indeed a good salesman, but he's become a believer in MS and that is real. If he's a charlatan in that regard, then he wouldn't be able to demonstrate how effective it is in anyone's room with their current system. He's done it for me and a handful of others that I know of personally. Go listen in his room if you like. If you want what you hear in your own room then have Rod do a Master Set with your existing system. He doesn't have to sell new equipment. He does want to build a happy customer relationship.

Steve has done amazingly well as a DIY MSer. Readers here may want to try for themselves. IME, arbitrary ruler based placement technics fail because they cannot possible consider all the irregularities in the typcial listening room.

Elsewhere in this thread there's disbelief about moving the speakers near to the back wall. Remember, it's not done willy-nilly or randomly, but it’s only a starting point which is  invariably nasty, boosting the bass too much and covering the mids. The set moves the speaker out in very small increments, revealing nodes and voids, but the goal of balanced bass with smooth mids and transparent highs can be reached with the speakers much closer to the wall than most of us would have guessed.


Dave

[vinyl_guy]

Rod Tomson from Soundings in Denver is coming to Spokane Feb 12-13 to set my speakers using the Master Set technique. If any of you are in the area or are interested in watching/listening as Rod sets the speakers, send me a PM and I'll tell you how to find my house. I will, of course, report back and give you my impressions.

Laura

[stvnharr]

Rod Tomson from Soundings in Denver is coming to Spokane Feb 12-13 to set my speakers using the Master Set technique. If any of you are in the area or are interested in watching/listening as Rod sets the speakers, send me a PM and I'll tell you how to find my house. I will, of course, report back and give you my impressions.

Laura

Looking forward to your report

[JLM]

Sorry, been away so missed your thread.

Yes I fully subscribe to the Cardas geometric recipes.  My room follows in equations (8 ft x 13 ft x 21 ft) and the layout follows his nearfield setup recommendations.  My equipment/rack are rather minimal (good for not messing with the soundstage) and my speakers are single driver designs (for the utmost in coherency and imaging) in mass loaded transmission lines (that go low with slow roll off balancing off with the room gain).  I use digital equalization to even out speaker/room response and also have six GIK 244 high density fiberglass absorption panels located at the front corners and front/side wall first reflection points).  Sitting in the chair is magical, even for the uninitiated.

[stvnharr]

Sorry, been away so missed your thread.

Yes I fully subscribe to the Cardas geometric recipes.  My room follows in equations (8 ft x 13 ft x 21 ft) and the layout follows his nearfield setup recommendations.  My equipment/rack are rather minimal (good for not messing with the soundstage) and my speakers are single driver designs (for the utmost in coherency and imaging) in mass loaded transmission lines (that go low with slow roll off balancing off with the room gain).  I use digital equalization to even out speaker/room response and also have six GIK 244 high density fiberglass absorption panels located at the front corners and front/side wall first reflection points).  Sitting in the chair is magical, even for the uninitiated.

If you sit in a nearfield listening position, and sit in the middle at the point of the triangle with the speakers, will get pretty good sound, Cardas advices or not. Having the speakers closer to the wall behind them will get a more precise stereo image, while having the speakers more out into the room will have the stereo image a bit more diffuse, but the sound will seem to be larger. 
If you want some flexibility in where you sit to listen, Master Set will give you that as you can sit most anywhere.  Master Set will also remove the speaker induced distortion that you didn't know was there, until you don't have it any more.

[jimdgoulding]

Stevie-  Oh, man, you're slaying me . . what speaker distortion would that be?  And you hiding or obscuring it, or removing it?  Do you know?  And you can do the same thing you're sayin in sentence three by just moving your seat (if you have your speakers in a symmetrical and neutral position to begin with)!  Right, not everybody can do that.  Stereo image . . that what it's all about?   Nah, just an over simplification, right?  You can do better than that  . 

[jhm731]

Stevie-  Oh, man, you're slaying me . . what speaker distortion would that me?  And you hiding or obscuring it, or removing it?  Do you know?  And you can do the same thing you're sayin in sentence three by just moving your seat (if you have your speakers in a symmetrical and neutral position to begin with)!  Right, not everybody can do that.  Stereo image . . that what it's all about?   Nah, just an over simplification, right?  You can do better than that  .

Jim-

When I read this earlier today, I also thought what the hell is "speaker induced distortion?"

Aloha,

Dan

[jimdgoulding]

Aloha yourself, D.  How's paradise? 

[dcstep]

I the primary distortion that the Master Set handles is intermodulation distortion caused by the speakers' interaction with each other. It also takes into account the frequency response as impacted by the proximity to rear and side walls. Depending on the room, it may require some absorbtion at the first reflection to manage comb effects, but that's true of any method.

[stvnharr]

Dear J and J,
Remember back to when I asked Laura if Rod turned the sound way up and then had a conversation with regular voice?  That's what this is "speaker induced distortion" is about, or I should say the lack of speaker induced distortion.
And remember Laura's response too.

This is all new to most people.  Try not to get too upset about it. 

BTW, intermodulation distortion is a well known amplifier artifact, and can be measured. What I call "speaker induced distortion", is similar to IM as it's produced in much the same way though it's not really the exact same thing.
But call it what you will, or disbelieve it if you will.  You will be able to understand it better once you experience it's removal.
And there I go again, you have to hear it to believe it.  Oh me oh my.....

Steve

[jimdgoulding]

Ok, Steve, nicely put.

Laura-  Hi.  Have a conversation with Rod in the manner described where your speakers are presently, then, in the same place as you two were sitting before, have it again once Rod has set your speakers.  I think Steve is saying that you can't do that or not as easily.  I imagine Steve wouldn't be saying that if he hadn't already done this himself more than once.  It sounds like it would be relevant to the clarity of the music, but is it really I'm wondering.