Speaker Width?

That actually makes things look a little better. I think the pano made things look worse than they are. The cushion of the chaise part of the sofa is in the way a little but looks like it just blocks the woofer and not the mid and tweeter. I have a couch corner that does the same thing. I’ve pulled the couch out of the way and it did not make an appreciable difference so I don’t worry about it. I can still see all drivers from my sitting position.

It also looks like you could move them in to be closer together and slightly in front of the cabinet and then put them back when you’re done with serious listening as mentioned above. It looks like that could knock a good 6’ off the total distance between them. Even a set of furniture sliders would make that easier and not cost a lot....and probably wouldn’t affect SQ either........

Here’s another angle of my room for you all to see what I’m working with. In this picture the speakers are as wide as the first post but don’t look as wide because of the side angle.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CozyPlaces/comments/alifpz/just_finished_my_dream_apartment_in_downtown_san/?st=JSKWEWXR&sh=b4ca09d0

Definitely not Hahahha 

I imagine ditching the girlfriend is not in the cards.

Thanks! Yeah a lot of those boxes and what not were just out while I was cleaning and moving everything around.

the picture is cockeyed because I had to use pano mode to get the whole room in the view but things are equally spaced and placed.

theres definitely no getting rid of the TV stand as this is a mixed use living room and my girlfriend likes the stand.

and bookshelves wouldn’t work we normally have a 75” TV up there and bookshelf’s on top of the TV stand would cover up part of the TV. 

Fortunately these are front ported and not rear ported to allow for more flexibility with rear wall placement.

i could put acosutic panels behind the speakers what are thoughts on that as well?

I hate to break up the party but getting back to cold hard reality for a second, as it turns out, generally speaking, speakers should be a lot closer together rather than a lot farther apart. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “but the soundstage will be wider when the speakers are far apart.”

You're getting a lot of good help from everyone already. As you just found even seemingly small moves can make a big improvement, especially when starting from such a low level. 

A couple more seemingly small ideas that should help a lot- that plastic tote box sitting on the right on the coffee table? Even small stuff like that is a surface that reflects sound that ruins imaging. Even that green sofa cushion or whatever it is on the left. If you can't move these maybe play with trying to at least get the stuff ruining the sound to be the same on each side.

Speaking of symmetry, maybe its the photo and maybe that's not the sweet spot but it sure looks cockeyed to me. If it really is as bad as it looks then your biggest bang by far will be to tweak the speakers and the listening spot into as close to perfect symmetry as you can possibly manage.

As others have said some work best pointed right at you, some in a little more, others out a little more. But regardless of whatever that is they all work best when pointed exactly the same and at exactly the same distance. Exactly means exactly. Measure carefully and tweak the speakers until they are pointed as close to perfect symmetry as you can get. Within 1/8" is a good goal. It looks like you are at least a foot off center so this should make a huge difference.

In case you're wondering, all this tweaking will pay big dividends when looking for that new home. Its almost impossible to teach someone what to look for. But once you do it you just know.

That cabinet is killing any chance of good imaging and soundstaging. 
Start by using the Herbies Gliders and move the speakers away from the side wall and closer to the console. Then pull the speaks forward with possible toe-in.

Your TT may need to be moved due to acoustic reverberation from the speaker cabinet. 

This is experimentation, it may not be your final positioning.

You know, IMHO, it's not hte speakers, it's the cabinet.

If you could get a simple single-width rack, all your problems get solved.

I agree that getting the speakers away from the wall is important, but I also think that how far is probably dependent on the specific speaker including where its bass port is located.

In my situation I can only get them about 2 feet from the sidewalls and maybe 2 feet from the back wall. There is simply no practical way around that.

But when I really set out to get them positioned correctly they actually sound better a little closer to both the side and back wall (the back wall is actually bookshelves...which may be acoustically damping with all the books??).

My point is that once you get them in the ballpark then spend some time fine tuning and leave them where ever they sound best regardless of how that fits with the general rules.

Mine are about 8 feet apart, slightly toed in with tweeters pointed straight at me at eye level. But my seat is 15 feet away which is slightly too far. If I’m really serious about listening I’ll pull my chair into the room about 3 feet and it makes a difference.

What a bunch of weirdos we are. ;-)

Um, honestly, you may be much better off with bookshelf speakers that are horn loaed or use a D'appolito configuration. That way you can put them on the furniture, next to the TV bracket.

Twoleftears....+1

buy the Jim Smith book - get better sound

Thanks for the tip on the gliders! I may have to give that a go, I moved them closer together and they're about 8.5-9' and I moved them out about 5" and that already made a very big difference.

And trust me I know they need to breathe but we live in a small-ish san francisco apartment, the plan is to buy a house in 2-3 years and we agreed to wait until we can find one that is also very speaker placement friendly :) 

+1.  Herbie's gliders are excellent.  You don't necessarily need the giant fat ones.  The regular ones work very well on wood or tile floors. 

Hi bclark, If you put something on the bottom of your speakers so that you could pull them out for listening and push them back when not, maybe your girlfriend would be OK with that! I installed -Herbie's Lab- "Giant Fat Gliders" on my speakers so I could do just that.Good Luck, Tish

Oh man you are just killing those speakers having them jammed up against the wall like that.  There are only two or three speciality makes designed specifically for that kind of placement.  With all that furniture in the way, I'd try and move them closer to each other and listen from a bit closer also.  This last can be achieved by moving them out from the wall.  They need air to breathe. 

So it's not that I'm not aware of those aspects, its that I can't pull them any further into the room because my girlfriend doesn't like how that would look. (maybe a couple inches which I'll figure after I figure whch width). Just looking for advice on closer to the cabinet or closer to the walls which is most likely to give the best effects for being in a room that is wider than it is deep (best I can work with)

So one principle you are not aware of is avoiding early reflections. You have the speakers too close to the rear wall and the cabinet. The rear wall will make them boomy. The wall and cabinet will mess with the frequency response and imaging. Usually about 2’ out from the rear wall is a good starting distance, and far from side walls. That’s one reason room treatments help. They can reduce these early reflections, and give you more placement flexibility, as can thick blackout curtains.

Your speakers are probably too far to produce a good image, but moving them in further with that cabinet is also not optimal because you are getting closer to those reflective surfaces. This is why I'm recommending you find out, at least as an experiment, how good your speakers can sound. The blanket is a test. Listen to my suggestions, see how good you can get it, and then that will help you decide what to fix.

Oh man. Oh man.


So you have Be tweeter speakers, and you have then up against a bare wall and ..... << sigh >>


There’s so much here.


You space and turn the speakers for the best image. That is, you have the illusion of specific instrument and vocalist locations being in specific places. The image should be precise at the extremes, center and all points in between.


I’d start by spacing your speaker about half the distance they are now and in front of that cabinet. Throw a blanket across it. Move them as wide as you can before you sacrifice the center image. Also experiment with toe-in. Sometimes they like to fire straight, sometimes at you, sometimes cross in front of you.  Pay attention to the imaging between the center and sides. Sometimes you get a Left, Center and Right image, and nothing else. That's also not good.


Talk to GIK acoustics. They will give you great advice and have inexpensive and very good products to tune your room.