Cardas Speaker placement..

From what you told me so far I am quite sure the lack of bass you experience in your room is due to destructive interference. Before building a new ceiling (which will not guaranty better bass) I would place the speakers against each of the 4 walls. Just use some normal extension chords. (I would also talk with a acoustic specialist before doing any work on the ceiling).

Good luck!

Hi Spaz,

After reading this thread I have looked at you system. It look glorious!

We just moved to a new home and in the last 3-4 months I too was looking for the bass in my new music/study room.

Firstly, since also other speakers exhibited the same behavior in your room, i.e. lack of bass, it is very likely that there is nothing wrong with your speakers. Your room "excels" at bass cancelation. Secondly, since you say that behind the speaker plane you get good bass there should be possible to find a position for the speakers that will give you good bass at the listening position. (This is also the proof that your speakers can produce good bass.)

I would suggest you the following:

1) Since your room is wide enough try placing the speakers along the long wall (so they fire perpendicular to the direction of the long wall). It is my experience that this always yields better results (not just with bass but also with imaging and soundstage) than placing the speakers along the short wall.

2) Buy a good subwoofer (or two). I recommend the top of the line RELs, e.g. Stentor or Studio. However, others have reported here very positive experiences also with other brands, e.g. Velodyne, and/or lesser RELs. There are two main advantage of adding a subwoofer: A) as you know very well by now, the speaker position in a room that yields the best midrange spectral balance and stereo image almost always is different than the positions that give the best bass, B) a subwoofer will give you full range sound also at very low listen levels.
It is an old and incorrect believe that a subwoofer is detrimental to a stereo system.

3) If step 1) fails or is impractical for whatever reason, you may want to hire a specialist (e.g. acoustic engineer) to help you get things right. Like with the addition of a subwoofer, hiring a specialist will cost a fraction of the price of your system and has the potential to elevate the performance of your system to a whole new level.

4) Be patient and no not despair! When I first placed the system in my new room , I had no bass what so ever even though I've cracked the volume of my REL half way in a room of only 4.7 x 3.7 x 2.4 meters!!!.

Good luck and keep us posted.
Paul

Spaz, be also aware that the two parallel walls of a rectangular room are often not equivalent. That is, placing the speakers close to the right wall or the left wall will often give you very different results. Thus, you might also want to rotate everything with 180 degrees. Regarding your comments about placing the speakers along the long wall I am a bit surprised to hear your findings about the stereo image but ... everything is possible. Nonetheless, it is definitively worth while to read the "Audio Physics" set-up procedure (at least about mapping of your room) has suggested by Clio. Google for it.

Clio, from what I read on other forums when applying the "Sumiko procedure" one goals is to match as close as possible the response of the two speakers in ones room. This is exactly what my Accuphase DG-38 digital voicing equalizer is doing. (Unfortunately, the DG-38 does not find the ideal place for the speakers). Is this procedure described anywhere on the Sumiko site? Thanks!

Clio, thank you very much for the two links. I've found the first link myself but did not find the explanations very clear. The second link you sent me gives a better description of the procedure (IMO). I will study the procedure closely and give it a try next week.

Spaz, it is unfortunate that you are unable to move the speakers against a different wall. If the speakers are indeed position against the "wrong" wall you may never be able to get decent bass in your room. Even if you would add a subwoofer (2 might solve the problem but one can never be sure)! As mentioned in my first post, the bass was almost inexistent in my room even though the volume of my REL was half way up (this was for the arrangement depicted in the plan shown on my system page). I have place the speakers against all 4 walls and the amount and quality of the bass varied very significantly from one configuration to another, i.e. from inexistent to too much (when the speakers where placed against the short wall), and from decent to very good (when the speakers were against the long wall).

Regarding your question about the ceiling, fake walls never count. Consequently, your room is larger. It is hard to say whether or not this is causing the lack of bass you currently experience. However, I would say that your speaker are large enough to not get lost in in your room (they should be able to move enough air).

Finally, do you get more bass if you play the music at larger volumes?

Spaz, I understood you would prefer to keep the speakers in the current position. I was merely suggesting to probe the room bass response before rebuilding the ceiling. It is very difficult to predict how the low frequencies will interact in a room. This is because bass waves have absolutely no problems to pass through walls and often standing waves are formed between the walls of different rooms. Consequently, it is best to experiment, i.e. just move the speakers against each wall.

Another alternative, that, in fact, will allow you to verify weather or not you can get good bass in the current configuration is to loan a good subwoofer and place it at your listening position (I recommend a REL Stentor or Studio). You can find more details about this set up procedure in my fist post in the thread "Are the JL Fathom subs really that good...." here on audiogon (see link below).

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1219437689&openusid&zzNvp&4&5#Nvp