Speaker setup experts please?

Go to the Cardas website and see their Room Setup guide. It gives you the formula to use to setup your speakers in your room.

The Cardas is a good start, also there are the rules of 1/3 and 1/5 which minimize modal contributions. We have quite a bit of information on our site, including a link to a pretty neat simulator. There is the RPG optimizer (which we also sell). It works well for rectangular rooms, but if you have a strange shaped room then the Cara software (we also sell) is a better choice.

For Wilson MAXX-2's, you should have a Wilson dealer set them up for you. Wilson has a specific methodology for setting up their speakers for which all dealers are trained.

there are a million rules, the Cardas works very well IMO
TAS's HP likes the rules of thirds, for instance if your room is 15 x 21 put the speakers 5 feet apart and 7 feet out into the room - 5 is 1/3 the width and 7 is 1/3 the length. This worked very well when I had Maggie 1.6s but they were so far out it was not practicle.

Rules of thumb are general guidelines. Your own trial and error experiments will prove what works and what doesn't. Proportional rules only help at specific frequencies so that no matter what you do, there will always be other frequencies harmed.

An approach I've found more beneficial is to take care of first reflections. Most all speakers need "breathing room"—3-5 feet from the front wall, and at least 2-3 feet from the side walls. This space helps sufficiently delay the first reflections. Psychoacoustic mechanisms of the brain can then separate the direct sound from the reflected sound. Delaying these reflections also reduce their volume, often doing more good than random room treatments. It should improve imaging, clarity, and usually give you a more dimensional soundstage.

If you can afford Wilsons you can afford to have them set up by a dealer.

If you can afford Wilsons you can afford to have them set up by a dealer.

Kind of harsh. Maybe the budget was stretched to get the Maxx's, maybe he lives far away from a deal and it will cost thousands to get someone out, or maybe he just doesn't want to sepnd the money even if he can afford it.

In any event, the room placement suggestions are all good and all follow the same lines as Wilson's setup guide. but what you really want to do is set them up by Wilson's method if possible, and DIY if you can. How to go about this? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm??????

OK, Ta Dahhh!!!

Wilson Setup Guide

Enjoy and let us know how it turns out. I set up some spare B&W towers in a large empty room in my house and the lack of wall reflections made them sing. I really want to use this setup guide when I move my main system to a dedicated room.

I was really trying to discern whether there are any constants as it relates to speaker set-up. For example; Speakers placed further apart have a wider soundstage(Not sure if that is true). I have had the Wilson dealer out to set them up on more than one occasion as equipment and furniture was changed in the room. I had the speakers set up for the third time last week after I had the room treated by an acoustics consultant. I noticed that he had them more on axis than they were before, and also further into the room. I was just curious as to what to listen for sonically, as well as what I might change if there was something I didn't like. Due to an unforseen conflict I was not able to make it back to the house before they finished the set-up, and I regret that. I'm not sure you can be confident that you have the best set-up if you are not there as it is being finalized. Fortunately, they will be back for something else and we may tweak it one last time. I am aware of the Wilson system, but not the others that were mentioned. Thanks for the links.

Read through teh Wilson set up guide. If I remember correctly, it should answer many of your questions. For example, placement distance into the room is dictaed by how far you need to be away from the walls to avoid the first reflection.

Go here and see "avoid first reflections..." and
go here for excellent tips on coupling your speakers' response to your room.

Here is a very simple rule that works well for a good tonal balance (for me anyway).
Measure these three dimensions: distance from the side walls, distance from the wall behind speakers and the distance of the center point of the woofers to the floor. Call the dimensions a,b,c where A>B>C, A=biggest, C=smallest. Then set-up the speakers such that B^2 = A*C (B squared = A times C)