Speaker Postitioning

[Pyro]

Well today at work I was looking through the "Show us your Mcintosh" thread and came across a post by STILLONE about how the PMC Speakers displayed in the photos were positioned close to a wall.

Levi and couple other forum members made similiar comments.

My speakers were 6 inched from the back wall and I thought they sounded good. I moved them to 9 inches but didn't like the sound so I moved them back to 7.5 inches.

Well today I moved them out to 16 inches from the wall with a little toe-in.

OMG what an improvement.

[jdandy]

Rob.......I would love to be able to try this with my PMC EB1i's, but do not have the square footage or furniture placement options to allow it. Bass traps, and seven well placed acoustic panels have improved my living room sound to the level of very good. The only way I'll ever get it any better is to move the entire system into a dedicated sound room.

I am glad to hear you found some audible improvement.

[two dot]

or get a MEN200???

[PHC1]

Originally Posted by two dot

or get a MEN200???

[Masterlu]

Both my Strad's & XRT2K's are about 12" off the back wall. I will be putting 16" half round bass traps behind them (color coordinated) and no taller than the speaker.

[jdandy]

Ivan.......It may require two traps behind each Strad due to the shape created by the equipment cabinet. Time will tell.

[Masterlu]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Ivan.......It may require two traps behind each Strad due to the shape created by the equipment cabinet. Time will tell.

The 2-Channel room sounds awfully good for a brand new room, but I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to make it even better.

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by Pyro

Well today at work I was looking through the "Show us your Mcintosh" thread and came across a post by STILLONE about how the PMC Speakers displayed in the photos were positioned close to a wall.

Levi and couple other forum members made similiar comments.

My speakers were 6 inched from the back wall and I thought they sounded good. I moved them to 9 inches but didn't like the sound so I moved them back to 7.5 inches.

Well today I moved them out to 16 inches from the wall with a little toe-in.

OMG what an improvement.

People who are fortunate enough to have large rooms and no WAF to deal with will find that their speakers probably sound best about 1/3 of the way into the room.

Glad you continue to tweak and adjust.
Jim

[Pyro]

Originally Posted by jdandy

Rob.......I would love to be able to try this with my PMC EB1i's, but do not have the square footage or furniture placement options to allow it. Bass traps, and seven well placed acountic panels have improved my living room sound to the level of very good. The only way I'll ever get it any better is to move the entire system into a dedicated sound room.

I am glad to hear you found some audible improvement.

Now I will need to revisit the silver jumpers and the pending tube roll.

[schaefer11]

Your choice of speaker, related to how it is going to be positioned in the room, is the most important decision you have IMO. People, including myself, have spent a lot of money correcting and upgrading their system for problems that would have been better corrected simply by fine tuning speaker position, or actually replacing your speaker with one designed to be placed where you can place it.

I can't tell you how many photos I've seen of systems with speakers that I know are designed for a certain type of placement, placed completely the opposite. Then the owner spends countless time and money on amps, cables, interconnects etc. to correct what could be easily corrected with speakers designed to be placed where they have the space for them.

Luckily, Pyro had the flexibility to experiment and learn this for himself.

Jdandy, have you owned speakers designed for near wall placement, such as some of those made by Totem? If the bass performance of your PMC's is as robust as I have read, the 6db of gain from floor/near wall placement may have been problematic for you.

Besides Paul Klipsch, who designed all of his speakers for placement on the floor and in the corner for maximum output and minimal distortion, I think Roy Allison may have done the best job of considering room placement in his speaker designs. He had speakers designed specifically for corner, wall and book shelf placement.