If you go on the Cardas site you can plug in your room width and it will give you the exact position from the front wall and the side wall to put your speakers I did that and the sound stage just opened up beautifully.
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.
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Doing it all wrong. I have found it best to start with a few glencairn and a bottle of nice scotch or bourbon, your pick. Have a friend over and do major moves before breaking the neck of the bottle. From there, you can toe in, toe out and move front to back in inches. You would be amazed at what you discover. I have spent hours doing this with some intense discussion as to who has best found the sweet spot. You can really mess with it by wedging the front or back of the speaker. If a decision is still pending, open another bottle. |
@vthokie83 I suggest you try the speaker front baffles about 6.5 feet from the front wall. If you can add some diffusion on that front wall it will deepen and expand the soundstage. Do not put any absorption on the wall behind the speakers, Open baffle need to breath from what I have researched. But you can just pull them out with a "bare" front wall to test it. If I am right your soundstage will be enormous. Now how about the Aric Audio ML XL report? |
Fred, Sorry that will take a bit, I've got to completely redo my audio rack because the Motherlode XL is a "two box" configuration to isolate the power source from the signal components......connected by an umbilical. I can tell you that it is one of the most beautiful pieces of tube gear I have ever laid eyes on.....mine is finished in maple. |
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