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Question - speaker placement - B & W 805

I am curious to how others place these speakers. I have read countless articles on speaker placement and everytime I try the standard nearfield formula, I get less than ideal performance. For me, the only way these speakers sound right to me is to have them about 7 feet out from the rear wall and I have to listen to them extremely close, almost even with them, about 4 or 5 feet away from them. Any further away and the room gets too involved with the sound. It seems like they are very finicky or I am very finicky and unless the room is perfect acoustically, they need to be very close to the listener. Has anyone else experienced this with speaker placement. I love the sound of them but I wish they would allow closer placement to the rear wall so I could experience a little more weight. I get too much glare and the instruments sound too close together when place near the rear wall.
tzh21y
6 responses Add your response
stanwal's avatar
stanwal
3,147 posts
 
I have a pair and haven't had this problem, I used them as my main speaker when I had an apartment in DC a few years ago and my wife currently uses them sitting on top of a chest of drawers in her craft room, not ideal but still sounds good. I had them fairly close to a back wall driven by Meridian 605s in a moderate sized room and they sounded quite good.
analoganimal555
25 posts
 
I have also owned 805's and had no difficulty placing them. Maybe its not placement but room treatment that is needed
Post removed 
cmach
195 posts
 
I running the Sig 805's in a small room. 12x12 on a good day.
I have mine about 3 feet from the back wall and I'm less than
5 feet away from the speakers. While its less than and ideal
setup I'm pretty satisfied. A few suggestions.

Are you stands filled with sand or other damping material? This will make a big difference.

Try adjusting the toe-in of the speakers. I have mine nearly
pointing straight ahead with almost no toe-in. I found this
increased the sound stage size and cleaned up some bass issues too.

Try throwing some pillows in the corners and see if that helps.

Small rooms tend to be very unforgiving so small changes can
make big differences.

Good luck
ryder
1,690 posts
 
Is your room dedicated? Do you have side walls on both sides of the speakers? Glare is usually associated with the room apart from electronics. If you want to minimize glare with close placement to room boundaries, try some diffusors and place them on the wall behind(or beside) the speakers. The sound will be more uniformly distributed producing a more natural and 3-dimensional sound.
tzh21y OP
1,654 posts
 
My room is dedicated. 15x19. I like the weight of the music when they are close to the rear wall but the instruments sound too close together. When I move them out into the room,the soundstage gets huge. I do have my 805's pointed straight out into the room as well. That works for me also. I do get glare when they are close to the rear wall. It will be either a voice or an instrument like an oboe and then I go "yikes", and out into the room they go.
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