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My soundstage is terrible. i need help bad.

Ok i have the following pieces. Pioneer 39tx a/v reciever. I have Psb stratus silver i speakers, allantis biwire speaker cables. Tara labs vector 2 i/c. And a large subsonic 5 subwoofer. rarely used. I have little to no soundstage at all. almost sounds like a 5yrs old boom box. i dont understand which direction to go. I am going to be getting some psb stratus gold speakers here in the next 2 weeks from a buddy and im trying to get things straightened out before the new arrivals. do you think going to the better speakers will help or is it that i have everything setup wrong in the house. Cathedral ceiling home. Equipment set up on the highest wall. 26ft. and the seating postions at the lowest around 12ft about 4ft from the back wall. Im just confused on wehere to strart. My kitchen has to open doors to the right if ur sitting in my seating postion. I dont think the room is ever going to be able to give me what i want at any price. I just need some help on setup. lmk what you think i should do first. aprreciate all the info guys. this site rules. Kevin
flyin2jz

Showing 2 responses by johnnyb53

johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
Going from Stratus Silver to Stratus Gold will mostly make a difference in bass extension and ability to fill the space. If you put them where you have the Silvers, they'll pretty much image the same way. With this big a listening area, you need the speakers out more like 4' out from the wall behind them. And the Stratus Gold's extra bass extension will make proximity to walls more likely for the bass to overwhelm the tonal balance.

Is your Pioneer Elite a rear projection TV? Nothing kills a stereo image quite like filling the area between the speakers with a big flat surface.

Instead of getting Stratus Golds, maybe you should spend the money on a plasma or LCD display (I've even seen 65" 1080p LCD for as low as $2500) and hang it on the wall behind and between the speakers.
johnnyb53
3,510 posts
 
Hey, Stringreen! Did you change orchestras, or are you doing something different in AZ? You're a violinist, right? My brother is a cellist in Atlanta, who teaches a lot and plays in a string quartet. I grew up listening to a lot of cello! He studied under Lynn Harrell for a year.

I can weigh in on your room acclimatization experience. I just got a pair of Mirage OMD-15 forward-biased omnidirectional floorstanding speakers and I've been spending the last two weeks breaking them in and dialing them into the room as well. Being nearly omnidirectional, the user manual has many suggestions on speaker placement and what are desirable and undesirable wall surfaces. One that it particularly mentioned was that uncovered glass would produce too much sonic glare and brightness.

Behind each of my speakers is a tall narrow window. Typically, they're covered by both a pleated cloth shade *and* a pair of drapes--not heavy, but not sheer either. In attempting to dial in a fuller soundstage, I pulled back the curtains and raised the shade. The change was subtle, but it took awhile to get a handle on it. After a couple days I decided it brightened the sound a bit too much, so I pulled down the pleated shades again, but left the curtains open, and *voila!* The tonal balance fell into place and the imaging focus sharpened up.
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