All good advice, Eandylee, every word.
I like Newbee's 10:11 ratio- I'll have to try that!
When we go into trade shows into an unfamiliar room, we first pace off the room in the following way:
With the speakers a few feet off the back wall, and a few more feet from the sidewalls, examine the distance left between the speakers' centers. Let's assume that to be 9.5 feet for example.
Place the chair (your ears) then 9.5 feet back from the midpoint of that line between the two speakers.
We call this an "equal-legged Tee" layout, and it works for our and many other direct-radiator speakers.
The speakers are likely toed-in of course, not quite looking you in the eye.
With the speakers' 3-foot distance off their wall behind, that 9.5-foot distance from that line then places you 12.5 feet back in the room. Hopefully this does not put you at the mid-point of a 25-foot room, which is where standing wave peaks and dips are most prominent. Or at the 3/4ths point, for the same whole-number-ratio reasons.
60% of the way down the room is cool, and so is just 40%.
If you are indeed at that midpoint of the room's length, consider picking up the entire listening triangle and moving it farther out into the room, perhaps just a foot, so that you are then 10% (or noticably) off-center from front to rear- no longer at the midpoint.
You could instead narrow the speakers' 9.5-foot separation by a foot, and then sit a foot closer.
Or you could widen the speakers' separation by a foot and sit back a foot farther. You would re-adjust toe-in of course.
This is not gospel, but provides an excellent starting point, whereupon you might choose to sit slightly farther back, or move the speakers up to 10% closer together. Certainly you would find that the speakers would not be farther apart than this ratio, or you'd lose the strength of the center image. Also, you would likely find that your opinion of this layout would not be altered much by the music you play or the gear you use.
We also always place 8" diameter, six foot tall ASC Tube Traps at the left and right first-reflection points, and one at the front center a foot or so behind the plane of the speakers' fronts (this "curves" the soundfield into an arc, or flattens it into a plane, without altering the perceived depth).
A large TV set or a rack of reflective stereo gear in the middle would alter any suggested ratios, and so would a coffee table between you and the speakers, or a footstool, a high-backed chair, or the wearing of eyeglasses.
Check for smooth response in the bass, using a string bass recording. We recommend Christian McBride's "Getting' To It" CD. It is also of reference quality on the drums and horns. The distance from the speakers to the wall behind them, and your "off-center position" in the room, are what you'd look at to tune the bass response, of course.
Best regards,
Roy Johnson
President/Product Designer
Green Mountain Audio
I like Newbee's 10:11 ratio- I'll have to try that!
When we go into trade shows into an unfamiliar room, we first pace off the room in the following way:
With the speakers a few feet off the back wall, and a few more feet from the sidewalls, examine the distance left between the speakers' centers. Let's assume that to be 9.5 feet for example.
Place the chair (your ears) then 9.5 feet back from the midpoint of that line between the two speakers.
We call this an "equal-legged Tee" layout, and it works for our and many other direct-radiator speakers.
The speakers are likely toed-in of course, not quite looking you in the eye.
With the speakers' 3-foot distance off their wall behind, that 9.5-foot distance from that line then places you 12.5 feet back in the room. Hopefully this does not put you at the mid-point of a 25-foot room, which is where standing wave peaks and dips are most prominent. Or at the 3/4ths point, for the same whole-number-ratio reasons.
60% of the way down the room is cool, and so is just 40%.
If you are indeed at that midpoint of the room's length, consider picking up the entire listening triangle and moving it farther out into the room, perhaps just a foot, so that you are then 10% (or noticably) off-center from front to rear- no longer at the midpoint.
You could instead narrow the speakers' 9.5-foot separation by a foot, and then sit a foot closer.
Or you could widen the speakers' separation by a foot and sit back a foot farther. You would re-adjust toe-in of course.
This is not gospel, but provides an excellent starting point, whereupon you might choose to sit slightly farther back, or move the speakers up to 10% closer together. Certainly you would find that the speakers would not be farther apart than this ratio, or you'd lose the strength of the center image. Also, you would likely find that your opinion of this layout would not be altered much by the music you play or the gear you use.
We also always place 8" diameter, six foot tall ASC Tube Traps at the left and right first-reflection points, and one at the front center a foot or so behind the plane of the speakers' fronts (this "curves" the soundfield into an arc, or flattens it into a plane, without altering the perceived depth).
A large TV set or a rack of reflective stereo gear in the middle would alter any suggested ratios, and so would a coffee table between you and the speakers, or a footstool, a high-backed chair, or the wearing of eyeglasses.
Check for smooth response in the bass, using a string bass recording. We recommend Christian McBride's "Getting' To It" CD. It is also of reference quality on the drums and horns. The distance from the speakers to the wall behind them, and your "off-center position" in the room, are what you'd look at to tune the bass response, of course.
Best regards,
Roy Johnson
President/Product Designer
Green Mountain Audio