Listening position/speaker position
I had a friend visit this weekend for some extended listening. I generally trust some of his suggestions, and his hearing may be better than mine, but I am 61 and don't have any hearing "issues." Also, in the interest of full disclosure, my friend and I are competitive with each other so there is always the possibility that he is busting on me.
I am very happy with my setup and my sound----the room is quiet, the system is quiet and I have low distortion, plenty of punch and volume, without sacrificing any detail. I have Revel 228be speakers, a McIntosh MC312 amp, C53 preamp, Pass XP-17 phono stage, Technics SL1200G TT run with an AT-art9xi MCC.
Anyway, my listening room is approximately 26' x 15' with less than 8-foot ceilings, plaster walls, wall to wall carpeting, lots of cushy furniture, and it's perfectly rectangular. I have my Revel 228's positioned on the narrow end of the room, a couple feet from the side wall and about 2-1/2 feet from the back wall. The listening position is about 10 feet from the speakers, or just shy of the midpoint of the room. My critical friend was suggesting that by having the speakers at one end of the room, I am asking them to "fill" a 26-foot room, despite the listening position being near midpoint depth. He suggested that I put the speakers in the middle of the room and move the listening position against the wall, so that the speakers are only tasked with filling half of the room. He also implied that I was under-powered with the MC312 which doesn't sound valid..
Obviously, the only way to know if I would get sound improvement would be to swap sides in the room, but his suggestion sounded so odd that I thought some of you with more experience might have an opinion.
The Cardas speaker calculator would have your speakers about 6.5 ft from the front wall and 4ft from the side wall. Not for a living space. If you have the dedicated room, possibly noticeable sonic upgrade. Speaker Placement | Cardas Audio Scroll to the bottom of the page |
Without getting in to details, I will say your friend gave you a terrible advise. My room is the same width and length as yours. My speaker placement is very much the same as yours. Placing your listening chair against the back wall is a very bad idea! I cannot comment on your amp being under powered or not. If you want to play with the speaker placement, may be pull your speakers another 6-12" from the front wall. Trust your ears. |
I recently repositioned my Cornwall IV's from toed in and only a foot or so out from the front wall to straight out in roughly the same position. When I tried this 2 years ago and a few times since then. The straight out (and I've always tilted them up 10° since day one never sounded right. Recently, I tried it again. I was amazed. The phantom center never got out of focus and the soundstage widened as did imaging. Room treatment was the major factor as was how some of my Amplification has also changed. In my living room, I can bring out small Speakers on stands, 3ft.- 4ft. max. away from the front wall (along with skinny towers) but the big bulky Cornwall's have to go in the corners by design. |
