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Any ideas regarding Diagonal room set up?

For WAF reasons, I've placed our TV screen to face diagonally out of a corner of our 20' x 22' room with our sofa sitting about 9 feet away from the TV. Our speakers are on either side of the TV, spread about 6 feet apart. They are a foot out from the walls and can either be toed-in to aim at the center of the sofa or aimed straight ahead. I'm sure these angles totally disrupt all the experts' theories about reflected sound. But imaging is decent and bass is neither boomy nor lean. I'm sure many have tried this "diamond configuration" - but I saw no prior threads. Who has experienced this diagonal type of room setup? With what pros & cons? Any ideas for best 2-channel sound with music? Please don't tell me to get a different room or a divorce. Thanks!
terrysimmons
9 responses Add your response
mribob
229 posts
 
go look at my system as posted on 'Ever Evolving'...I have same situation as you describe; and I feel the sound is pretty good; with nice staging; depth and detail. Very good base response; the left side of my room is a bit brighter than the right; due to reflections from windows; but the throw pillows help. I also have pretty high quality gear, and power. I have my subwoofer hidden behind the gear, and it works well; with out too much boominess from being corner loaded.
I did need to experiment with toe in; and have my speakers turned in around 6-7 degrees from being square; and focused on the 'sweet spot' listening position...for HT use; the sweet spot is not so important; but a AV processor with room correction is...good luck
newbee
4,767 posts
 
No reason that your set up shouldn't sound great, but it might be improved if you space your speaker apart about the sme distance as it is to your sweet spot, i.e. 8 to 9ft. You might also try crossing the axis of your speakers 3 ft or so in front of the sweet spot. That will give you a much wider sweet spot on the sofa - three people will get some very good soundstage effect not just hearing the speaker closest to them. The toe in will also pretty much eliminate any residual first reflections off the adjacent side wall.

But its all trial and error - have fun.
terrysimmons OP
11 posts
 
Thanks Mribob and Newbee. After a couple of days with no one commenting on this thread, I was beginning to think that I was the only one mad enough to ever do this. You have confirmed that reasonably good sound can be had like this and your suggestions are great. I'll try what you each have suggested. I wonder what speaker designers would say about this configuration when it comes to imaging and soundstage, especially related to depth.
seikosha
218 posts
 
Actually, this is a very commonly recommended solution for square or difficult rooms. In many instances it works quite well.
racamuti's avatar
racamuti
362 posts
 
Hi Terry, If you take a look at the "DECWARE" website there is a full article about this very thing. Just hit the papers link on the home page and all of the articles will come up, very interesting read.
Good Luck, Tish
terrysimmons OP
11 posts
 
Thanks Tish, for recommending the DECWARE article. This is exactly what I was looking for! If I'm reading Steve Deckart correctly, he's saying that for some audiophiles, this room set-up is a tweak that can be far more important than cables, wires and room treatments, with little or no downside and he gives the reasons why in understandable language. (The whole DECWARE site is full of interesting articles, white papers and compelling products. Highly recommended.) Question for Seikosha: You said this tweak is "a commonly recommended solution". Can you point me to any such discussions online? Many thanks.
seikosha
218 posts
 
Hi Terrysimmons,

In addition to the Decware discussion which is very good, here are a couple of Audiogon links where the concept has been discussed:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1280365234

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ymisc&1131775933

If you do a Google search on Diagonal Speaker Setup or Diagonal Speaker Placement, you'll get more information and links that probably wouldn't be appropriate to post here.

I've had luck using the diagonal setup myself and it can greatly improve a troublesome room.
seikosha
218 posts
 
I just did an Agon search and found some more....

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1220749541&openfrom&1&4#1

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1285701706&read&keyw&zzdiagonal

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1234822139&read&keyw&zzdiagonal

Hope that helps...
terrysimmons OP
11 posts
 
Seikosha - Your search skills are clearly much better than mine. Thanks for the education. This helps a lot. Bottom line, it's good to know there is nothing inherently wrong with this room set-up. I've been thinking about upgrading my system but didn't want to start if it had built-in limitations. Back to the music. Many thanks.
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