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Placement of Salons to maximize soundstaging

I have a new pair of Salons and would appreciate set-up tips from Salon owners.

My initial placement has them 8.5 ft. apart (measured from tweeters) and, likewise, 8.5 ft. from my ears. They are toed in so that I can't see the inner side of either speaker, which means they are pretty much pointing directly at me and their acoustic centers "cross" a foot or so behind my head. The tweeters are 40" from the side walls and 35" from the back walls (more on the back walls in a moment). My ears are 41" off the ground. The speakers are spiked. The back wall in fact isn't a wall, properly speaking, but rather, is a pair of 3 ft. pieces of wall extending into the room from each side wall and forming the bases of an arch of wall which separates the 20'D x 15'W x 12'H living room from the 10'D x 15' W x 12H dining room (the entrance to the dining room directly behind the speakers and created by the arch is roughly 9'W x 10'D). In other words, each speaker's port has a 3 ft. piece of wall behind it and a big open space that leads to the dining room.

I'm driving the Salons with VAC 140 monoblocks through Kimber Select all-silver 3038 speaker cables, which creates lots of air (and, for the uninitiated, the VAC's a hell of a lot of slam and plenty of woofer control -- as I suspected, they do great with the Salons)

I'm getting very good soundstaging and the speakers more-or-less disappear. The bass is flat to about 30 Hz., but then falls off rapidly because the ports are not receiving much reinforcement from the small walls they fire against, but this is fine, as I'm in an apartment building and rarely listen to things like pipe organ music.

What I really like is for speakers to "disappear". Does anyone have tips in this regard?

Thank you in advance.
raquel

Showing 2 responses by yorock

yorock
9 posts
 
Raquel, my Salons only have about 10 degrees of toe in and I have an incredible center image. I found that by using less toe in it made the speakers completely disappear. However my room is much different than yours. My Salons are 3 1/2 feet from the rear wall, 4 feet from the side wall, 9 1/2 feet apart, and I sit almost 12 feet away. Revel recommends the seating distance to be greater than the width of the speakers. Also my bass is rock solid down to almost 20hz. What is the length of your room? This could also be a factor. Good luck and happy listening!
Rock
yorock
9 posts
 
Raquel, I believe the port on the Salons is tuned for 25hz not 30 hz. The disappearing problem can be helped quite a bit by the use of Zoebel networks on the speakers. Combak Enacoms or Walker Audio Hi Def Links are two that I directly compared on my Salons. They both worked great to increased the imaging allowing the speakers to be toed out more, thus allowing them to disappear more. Without knowing all of the other equipment in your system is may be more than just a room anomaly causing your lack of extreme bottom end. I had the same problem and thought it was due to the room, but in actuality it was due to associated equipment and cables. I've heard the VAC 70/70 and I know the 140 is even better than it so I agree that your problem is not there. As you stated in another post, and most eloquently I might add. The Salons produce what you provide them, they are ruthlessly revealing, and extremely neutral. It could be something upstream from the VAC. Just a thought.
Rock
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