+1! Tweeter to tweeter equals 1. Tweeter to ear equals 1.2.
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.
- ...
- 41 posts total
@willyht I haven't read through all the comments in this thread. So, this is based on personal experience with similar components and, of course, my opinion. My listening room (i.e. living room) is almost identical to yours, both size and shape-wise. However, acoustical properties are different. I've got the wall-to-wall carpeting and cushy furniture. However, my ceiling is 9' high and it and the walls are solid wood (i.e. log cabin). I have a pair of Revel F206 powered by a MAC integrated. The speakers are approximately 22" from the wall behind them and separated from each other by approximately 6'. More would be better. However, I am forced to deal with living space and aesthetic concerns; not to mention SWMBO (She Who Mus Be Obeyed). Listening position is approximately 8' from the speakers with about 2' of space behind that. Again, a little more would be better in this regard, if not for the aforementioned limitations. If memory serves correctly, the 228be have Beryllium tweeters. While I haven't done much seat-time with Beryllium tweeters, my sense is that having a healthy amount of empty space behind the listening position with these would be an advantage, especially with regard to listening fatigue, much in the same way as it would be with AMT tweeters. I've found that pointing my F206 straight out at the listening position is better than toeing them in and encourage you to experiment with this, if you haven't already. Off-axis performance with the F206 is about the best I've ever heard. My guess is your 228be probably excel in this regard, as well. While you can, of course, go through the bother & effort of what your friend has suggested for your equipment, my suspicion is that this will result in time & effort wasted. If you do experiment, however, please let us know what comes of it. |
The 8' triangle formula has always worked well for me; but, the room dimensions and furniture & speaker placement options always dictated that. More often than not, the listening position usually ended up being 9 - 10' away; thus, fulling the 1.2 tweeter ratio. So, I can vouch for that formula too.
I'd say the easiest and most affordable thing to do is experiment with "toe in" and/or how close or far apart your speakers are from the wall(s) and/or listening position. For a small investment, you could try adding two room divider screens (approx 6' x 6' each) behind the sofa to create a partial back wall. For a moderate investment, you could add something like the Iso Acoustic "Gaia" speaker footers (with carpet spikes) to see if that helps the overall sound quality. At least with those or the Townsend "Platforms," those come with a money back guarantee; so, nothing to lose on that option.
|
- 41 posts total