2. misc-audio
  3. 189928-188928

Listening Room

Hello to all,

I think this is a situation many audiophiles find themselves in: That being your listening room is NOT a dedicated room that your expensive audio system resides in. You do NOT have a chair that is perfectly positioned in between speakers to optimize your listening enjoyment. Why? The room simply cannot accommodate a chair in the center or, most likely, your wife and/or significant other will not allow you to place a chair where it's supposed to be when listening.

Having said that, you listen to music from everywhere in the room. How does one go about speaker placement? How do you increase the sound stage? Are some speaker brands better than others when you do not have a dedicated listening room? Thanks for your input.

lovehifi22

Showing 2 responses by asctim

asctim
507 posts
 

If you don't have to worry about that sweet spot, it may be a great blessing. As far as I'm concerned, the sweet spot with just two speakers ain't so sweet. That's right where comb filtering of center panned sounds is the worst, ruining tone. It never sounds right to me. I went through the first 20 years of my life listening to music and enjoying myself immensely with no concept of the sweet spot. As a kid I was moving around the room all the time, sort of playing and dancing, letting the music romance me and take me on adventures. That stupid sweet spot is a nightmare. I've now got a super complex and unorthodox two channel system all built around trying to get that sweet spot to sound right. 

asctim
507 posts
 

@12many

I have enjoyed listening to my system in various asymmetric settings over the years, and found my favorite listening positions were often nowhere close to the center. I wasn’t paying much attention to imaging. I never used to think about it much but somewhere along the way got pulled in to trying to get perfect imaging at that perfect spot. It can be quite impressive, but too much focus on it can ruin one’s ability to just sit back and enjoy the tunes. I’ve got what I think is a very good sounding sweet spot now, but I have to laugh at myself just a little when I consider what I’ve gone through to make it work for me.

When I’m at trade shows, I preferentially sit off to the side. If there's ever a demo of something like BACCH or multi channel with a center speaker I'll give the sweet spot a try to see if they've got it working any better than I do.

 

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