Seating distance to Magnepan 3.6r's?

Think of placement this way.....The Maggies send sound waves in both directions forward and backward...what you are seeking is the blending of the two....just as if there was a piano or a quartet in your room....they don't go against the wall....and they don't go in the center....I have found that for some reason...and I cannot tell you why...a distance of 12 inch multiples off the back wall works great for the Tympani 1Ds as well as the 20.1s...

As for the side walls...I have never had a rule to follow other than a triangulation as mentioned in one of your responses...good luck.

The rear sound wave should be delayed from the front sound wave...not blended. You need at least 10 milliseconds of delay....(so, at least 5ft. out).

The 1/3 rule, should be called the 1/3-1/4 rule. As you move the speakers between these two grid points...bass will increase, and decrease. The speakers bass will sound best, at...or, somewhere between these two grid points.

Dave

Philjolet, It's too bad I have to share this room as a living room, otherwise I'd turn it into a dedicated room. A room this size in Los Angeles is a true luxury.
Thanks Jafo, I'll try 12 inch increments like you suggested.
Sogood51, Won't 25% out in the room create MORE bass then 33% out in the room? Since it is not a dedicated room, the distance probably will never get out to 8 or 9 feet. But I will definitely try It to hear how it sounds compared to 4 to 5 feet.
Thanks again for all your input.

"Sogood51, Won't 25% out in the room create MORE bass then 33% out in the room?"

Exactly...and thats the point. Somewhere between the 1/4-1/3 point you will find a nice balance.

Nothing is exact, and you don't know going in, if you need "more bass"...or "less bass" until you measure and listen...it's truly a game of inches.

The CARDAS setup guide, is simply an attempt to reduce peaks and nulls in any given room....it won't work in every room.

Funny, I didn't know about the CARDAS setup guide, when I set my speakers up years back (maybe it didn't exist?)

I used variations of the 1/3-1/4 rule, until I was blue in the face from moving 150 lbs around for hours on end. I did finally find a great spot, where everything sounded outstanding.

That spot, it turns out a few years latter...was within inches of the CARDAS location. (I could have saved myself a lot of time, and work).

Regardless of how you set them up...all rooms are different, some amount of tweaking by ear, is always needed...even,if for no other reason than taste.

Dave

My three front MG1.6 fill the room with sound that is remarkably uniform throughout the room. Volume and soundstage are unaffected as you move around the room. The Maggies are usually about 4 feet out when in serious use, and I push them back when not in use. The room is very irrugular in shape and quite large with stairway and large hall openings, and perhaps this is why my speaker placement is non-critical.

Over many years of playing around with Maggies I have noted some interesting things about placement.

Ideal results are obtained in a very large room (like a gym) with high ceiling with the Maggies about 40% of the way into the room (almost in the center) and best of all hung from the ceiling.

Sit directly in between two Maggies, so that you are listening "edge on". Sounds like a headset. There has also been some discussion of an unconventional placement with the edges directed towards the listener and the front and back waves reflected (Bose-like) from the front and side walls.

Outdoors they are useless.