Room size, speaker placement vs various Wilson models

[rlw3]

My room is only 13 feet wide with 8 ft ceiling but plenty of depth as it opens up to another room, 30 ft total.
Are there certain wilsons that would never reach their potential in a room like mine? I suspect I should stay with sophias especially if i crave their ability to make a fender bass sound right. nothing worse then buying the wrong speaker for a room.
All of the pictures I have seen of Wilson show them placed close to the side walls. If a room is 17 to 19 feet wide are the speakers typically placed further from the side walls? In the old days speakers were placed at least 3 feet from side walls to create a 5-6 miilisecond delay in the sound reflection which the brain cancels out. Wilson placement typically negates that method.

[Coppy]

Originally Posted by rlw3

My room is only 13 feet wide with 8 ft ceiling but plenty of depth as it opens up to another room, 30 ft total.
Are there certain wilsons that would never reach their potential in a room like mine? I suspect I should stay with sophias especially if i crave their ability to make a fender bass sound right. nothing worse then buying the wrong speaker for a room.
All of the pictures I have seen of Wilson show them placed close to the side walls. If a room is 17 to 19 feet wide are the speakers typically placed further from the side walls? In the old days speakers were placed at least 3 feet from side walls to create a 5-6 miilisecond delay in the sound reflection which the brain cancels out. Wilson placement typically negates that method.

Sophia 3s would be a big upgrade for you as would Sasha. Looks like they may have something new for you in that size range. News on the 20th.

[microstrip]

Originally Posted by rlw3

My room is only 13 feet wide with 8 ft ceiling but plenty of depth as it opens up to another room, 30 ft total.
Are there certain wilsons that would never reach their potential in a room like mine? I suspect I should stay with sophias especially if i crave their ability to make a fender bass sound right. nothing worse then buying the wrong speaker for a room.
All of the pictures I have seen of Wilson show them placed close to the side walls. If a room is 17 to 19 feet wide are the speakers typically placed further from the side walls? In the old days speakers were placed at least 3 feet from side walls to create a 5-6 miilisecond delay in the sound reflection which the brain cancels out. Wilson placement typically negates that method.

I can assure you that Wilson's can play great in similar size rooms - mine is quite similar to yours and the Alexia's create a big sound stage with plenty of energy. The room is 13 x 31 x 8 and also hosted Wilson Watt/Puppy VII with great success. As the walls are very rigid (two feet stone) I had to build a tuned bass trap to absorb the excess of bass energy around 36 Hz (second longitudinal mode of the 31 feet) that was creating a null, as my speakers are 6 feet away from the front wall.

[rlw3]

Originally Posted by microstrip

I can assure you that Wilson's can play great in similar size rooms - mine is quite similar to yours and the Alexia's create a big sound stage with plenty of energy. The room is 13 x 31 x 8 and also hosted Wilson Watt/Puppy VII with great success. As the walls are very rigid (two feet stone) I had to build a tuned bass trap to absorb the excess of bass energy around 36 Hz (second longitudinal mode of the 31 feet) that was creating a null, as my speakers are 6 feet away from the front wall.

I bet your room sounds a lot different than my wood frame room of the same size. Is the floor a slab to support the weight of the walls? I am going to get my floor joists jacked so they stiffen up a little. Id like to know more about your home given 2 ft walls. When was it built? makes me wonder what would be the best size, best built listening room if cost was no object. Always wondered what a review of same gear but in different rooms would read like. Is there a wilson that is too big for our size. my wood construction most likely makes 20 hz bass to boomy.

[Mikeoz]

Originally Posted by rlw3

All of the pictures I have seen of Wilson show them placed close to the side walls.

Are you sure about that ? My Sophias certainly sound better in open space. Given the choice you would always position them away from the side and back walls...?

[Coppy]

Originally Posted by Mikeoz

Are you sure about that ? My Sophias certainly sound better in open space. Given the choice you would always position them away from the side and back walls...?

Yes, away from the walls. Not sure what Ray is looking at and maybe hasn't had the Wilson set up done for him, but Wilson seems to design their speakers for direct field listening; meaning pointed pretty much directly at the listener. That bit of geometry requires the speakers to be farther apart than if they were set in a more traditional no toe-in but, not against the side walls, depending on the room of course. Against the side walls kills the image of space around the speakers. This needs to be balanced against the distance to the listening position which shouldn't be too much more than the distance between the speakers. The Wilson set up often ends up somewhere near the old room division 1/3, 1/3 1/3 starting process (in both directions, length and width) where you might begin. So, both speakers and listener are usually out in the room a good bit in all directions.

For example, my Sasha tweeters are centered more than three feet from the side walls and more than four feet from the back wall. They could be farther into the room from the sides but for symmetry that would put my listening chair too far into the room.

Bob

[microstrip]

Originally Posted by rlw3

I bet your room sounds a lot different than my wood frame room of the same size. Is the floor a slab to support the weight of the walls? I am going to get my floor joists jacked so they stiffen up a little. Id like to know more about your home given 2 ft walls. When was it built? makes me wonder what would be the best size, best built listening room if cost was no object. Always wondered what a review of same gear but in different rooms would read like. Is there a wilson that is too big for our size. my wood construction most likely makes 20 hz bass to boomy.

The floor of my listening space is a wood glued to a concrete slab over a mix of sand - it is a ground floor room, the house was built around 1940. IMHO boomyness will not be due to the 20Hz first longitudinal mode, but to higher order modes at higher frequencies. The only way of really knowing is carrying an waterfall or decay analysis of the room.

[rlw3]

microstrip-what equipment do you need to do a waterfall or decay analysis?
Bob all of the pics and discriptions of placement of smaller Wilson's( w/p's and sophias) have consistantly been very close to side walls as i described. I wondered if that could be done only because of the heroic work WA does with cabinet resonances. Or was it done so that in a 13 feet wide room there would still be 8 or 9 feet the speakers? Obviously if you go with 1/3,1/3,1/3 in a 13 ft room you are down to a 4 ft spread between speakers. I think my tweeters are about 28-29 inches from the side walls with the side of the speaker about 6 inches closer. If I brought the speakers closer should i experiment in 1,2 or 3 inch increments? Speakers would not be spiked which changes the sound-i hate that. Any fav cd for this type of tweeking?

[Jean-Marc jmajma]

WA didn't foresee a lower ears height than 91 cm, and mine while seated on my couch are 84 cm high.

In the owner's manual it is said you should barely see the inner face of the Alexia, in this case they are pointing just a very little bit behind the listener's head. I often heard people saying it is better they point just 1 or 2 feet in front of the head, who is right? I've checked the 2 positions and they sound different. Which one is better is difficult to say especially if you consider a long term . Right now I ended with the first solution which I feel to be the best to my ears and listening criterias.

[Mikeoz]

Originally Posted by Jean-Marc jmajma

WA didn't foresee a lower ears height than 91 cm, and mine while seated on my couch are 84 cm high.

In the owner's manual it is said you should barely see the inner face of the Alexia, in this case they are pointing just a very little bit behind the listener's head. I often heard people saying it is better they point just 1 or 2 feet in front of the head, who is right? I've checked the 2 positions and they sound different. Which one is better is difficult to say especially if you consider a long term . Right now I ended with the first solution which I feel to be the best to my ears and listening criterias.

That's how I do it