[gerald porzio]

Touche!

[J. Royce Baron]

Thank you Laura for asking Rod about the Maggie’s your detailed description is very informative and appreciated.

JakeJ thanks go to you also for the added insight and impressions.

[BikeWNC]

Laura, I can't tell from your pictures, but are the speakers set on the long or the short wall?  Thanks.

Andy

[vinyl_guy]

Laura, I can't tell from your pictures, but are the speakers set on the long or the short wall?  Thanks.

Andy

Andy,

they are set along the short (17' wide) wall.

Laura

[vinyl_guy]

I'm happy for you, too, Laura, and as much as I'd like to hear your system, I'd like you to hear mine.  You've added a good deal more of the front end of your room into the mix with your new placement.  My room is quite a lot smaller yet reflected waveforms are arriving later.  Me and the dimensionality and instrumental realness in my recordings and room are very happy tho in your large room, perhaps not.  Listen well .

Jim,

I would like to hear your system some day. If I find myself in Houston, I will let you know. Each room is different with different furniture, room treatments or no room treatments, etc, and Rod has helped me find a speaker location in my room that is music nirvana for me and better than any previous location, either before or after I experimented with Cardas.

Laura

[Quiet Earth]

I believe that speaker placement is a compromise of many things. A compromise, not an absolute.

Remember the years before you became an audiophile and you placed your speakers up against the wall because that's where they were meant to go? That's about all your really discovering here. Re-discovering. You're unlearning the audiophile voodoo that has become the baseline for you to listen to music. You don't need a magic guy or a magic marker to do that for you.

Discover it for yourself and enjoy the hobby.

[flintstone]

I’m the only one here with dipoles interested in Master Set - the negative feedback from members with similar speakers in regards to the backwave / distance from front wall with the method is fully justifiable.

Laura... once Rod has yours dialled in can you ask him what tips he might offer placing Maggie’s/Dipoles perhaps he can eleborate on the subject of Master Set / Dipoles.   

Steve asked Rod regarding dipoles; his answer is below from a quote from Steven.

Quote ... “So I specifically asked Rod if he had done a Master Set on any of these types of speakers. And his answer was that his Third Master Set was on a pair of Martin-Logan electro stats. So, yes, Master Set does work with speakers other than forward firing cone speakers in a box.” end Quote

The Martin Logan are hybrid...a monopole cone woofer. Fullrange dipole speakers like Apogee or Maggie aren't going to sound their best when placed that close to the front wall. Why?.....because you are going to hear the front and rear wave, as a singe smeared wave (not a good thing). You could absorb the rear wave?...but that begs the question, Why did you buy fullrange dipoles?


Dave

[JakeJ]

My apologies.  I allowed myself to drop down to macrojack's level.  My bad.

[Quiet Earth]

Btw, Laura, I'm really glad that you got so much out of the experience. Your description of what took place in your room was easy to understand and totally believable. I especially liked the part about what the back wall does to embrace the sound. It mirrors my experience exactly, master set or no master set. 

I would like to expand just a little bit on this part :

If you wear glasses, it was much like the experience of being fitted for glasses where the optometrist asks you to compare lens one with lens two, then to compare the lens you selected with another adjustment until he/she gets the lens just right.

Does your optometrist ever get the process whittled down to two lenses, and then you can't decide which one you prefer? "Yes I can see the difference between those two lenses, but I can't tell you which one I prefer." Sometimes they both look right to me, just slightly different.

Speaker placement is that way for me.

[macrojack]

Very witty, Jakey - - - and instructive. In an age of instant celebrity and empty rhetoric, you've found yourself a hero who conveys the hope and promise in his orthodoxy that is absent from your otherwise drab existence.

Master Set is a catchy name and it has a celebrity hero. Is there a P.O. Box where donations can be sent? I understand that the African sub-conitinent has thousands of children starving for proper speaker placement and that there are puppies right here in the U.S. that have never enjoyed the serenity and security that just a few inches of re-adjustment from The Master might bring.

Naturally, having witnessed the actual laying on of hands, you are impatient, resentful and angry that I should make light of this miracle that you observed. The believers are always bedeviled by cynics. Who can blame you for feeling scorned? There are even a few of us left who still doubt the effectiveness of The Clever Little Clock.

 

[gerald porzio]

As Mark Twain wrote, "Faith is believing what you know isn't true."

[macrojack]

gerald - Apparently you don't know what you're up against here - Mark Twain was just a man. How many miracles can he claim?

[satfrat]

  Cardas before Set
 
after Set
 
How's this Laura for a side by side comparison? 
 
Cheers,
Robin

My comparison post has been modified to show Laura's Cardas setup verses the Master Set. I'm glad this setup works for you, and thanks for sharing. 
 
Cheers,
Robin

[jhm731]

"For those wondering about the difference in speaker location before and after the Set, the left speaker was 43.25" from the wall behind the speakers (front) and 34.5" from the side wall before the Set. The right speaker was 42.1875" from the front wall and 33.3125" from the side wall. After the set, the left speaker was 24.5" from the front wall and 20.75" from the side wall; and the right speaker was 23.375 from the front wall and 31" from the side wall. The speakers are 123.25" apart after the Set, about 18" farther apart than before the Set. The couch is approximately 166" from the speakers. My room is 25' x 17' with a cathederal ceiling (17' peak with a 9/12 slope)."

Laura,

Thanks for sharing your MS experience with us.

How did you determine your "before MS" speaker postions?

Are the speaker to side wall measurement from the side or center of the speaker cabinet?

Dan

[BikeWNC]

I wonder how Rod determined where to start the distance of first speaker, the anchor, from the side wall.  Was there much adjustment done from the side wall during the placement of the first (left) speaker? 

Andy

[vinyl_guy]

Laura,

Thanks for sharing your MS experience with us.

How did you determine your "before MS" speaker postions?

Are the speaker to side wall measurement from the side or center of the speaker cabinet?

Dan

Dan,

I initially started with a distance from the front wall (behind the speakers) that was recommended by Rives Audio after they designed the acoustic treatment package for the room. The side wall distance was determined starting with an equalateral trainge between the speakers and my listening position and then working with the toe in. After this thread started, I moved them to the Cardas calculated distance from the side walls and out into the room as far as my cables would allow. I could not get to the Cardas distance from the front wall. I lost most of the lower bass extension and moved them back to close to the Rives recommended distance, leaving them at the Cardas distance from the side walls.

The distance from the side walls in the part you quoted is from the corner of the speaker that is closest to the side wall. I measured both the front corner and back corner but only posted the back corner. The toe in is less with the Master Set position than before.

I'm happy to try to answer any other questions you might have.

Laura

[vinyl_guy]

I wonder how Rod determined where to start the distance of first speaker, the anchor, from the side wall.  Was there much adjustment done from the side wall during the placement of the first (left) speaker? 

Andy

I asked him the same question. He said the distance was an estimate based on his experience of having done more than 500 Master Sets that when the anchor speaker was set would give the widest soundstage without reinforcement from the side wall interfering in the ability to bring the vocals into the center of the soundstage. He said if he had been too close to the side wall with the anchor speaker we would have immediately known it becasue the vocals would have stayed weighted to the left. After he set the anchor speaker, all of the distance adjustments were with the right speaker, both front and back and right and left. After the right speaker was set, he made sure both speakers were level side to side and then adjusted the rake angle back. In my case it was about a bubble length on a 9" level.

Laura

[vinyl_guy]

As Mark Twain wrote, "Faith is believing what you know isn't true."

Gerald,

While I disagree with Mark Twain's definition, there was no amount of faith involved with the Master Set. Just empirical evidence of observation and sound--seeing the process and hearing the results.

Laura

[J. Royce Baron]

Laura,

At what stage pulling away from wall did Rod apply toe in to the anchor?

[jaywills]

"Naturally, having witnessed the actual laying on of hands, you are impatient, resentful and angry that I should make light of this miracle that you observed."

Just put a sock in it, Zippy.