I have owned ML's for over 10 years, and currently own ML Ascents. My current room treatment is a combination of four 2'x4'x1" acoustic panels and two ASC Tube Traps. The speakers are 50" from the rear wall, 26" from the side wall and toed-in about 15 degrees. The corner tube traps have the diffuser facing the speakers, with one acoustic panel mounted behind each speaker, but 24" from the side wall so they do not completely absorb the back wave. I then mounted one acoustic panel to absorb the reflection from the back wall. Since the panels are curved and slightly toed-in, side wall reflections from the back wall and the tube trap diffuser will confuse and brighten the image. The results are a very stable image, beautiful detail, but very relaxed with the speakers all but disappearing. Hope this helps.
Taming/Damping Electrostat Backwave
In my understanding of the physics of the situation, the signal coming off the back of an electrostat panel is the same signal that comes off the front though in opposite phase. If there are reflections off a back wall, they cannot be a better signal than the one off the front of the panel. It strikes me that in a strict sense, if one could COMPLETELY eliminate the backwave on electrostatic speakers (a giant silent sound vacuum, sucking in the sound off the back of the dipole), this would be, in the words of the once famous and now infamous [:)] Martha Stewart, 'a good thing'. Am I missing something? Is there any argument to support not trying to eliminate the backwave through all means possible?
My Martin Logan SL3s sound reasonably intolerable when too close to the back wall, great when a certain distance away, and in my limited, ad hoc, distinctly non-scientific (not to mention bad WAF) experiments, even better when I put a variety of dampening material between the panel and the back wall (even when the wall is 6ft back).
Does anyone have a view or experience on the "complete backwave elimination" strategy? Do you try to eliminate it entirely? Do you leave some backwave in for 'flavor'? How do you deal with it? Put shag carpeting on the wall? Hire tall sheepdogs to sit on stools calmly for hours on end a la Fay Ray? I would love to know how other people deal with the backwave issue...
My Martin Logan SL3s sound reasonably intolerable when too close to the back wall, great when a certain distance away, and in my limited, ad hoc, distinctly non-scientific (not to mention bad WAF) experiments, even better when I put a variety of dampening material between the panel and the back wall (even when the wall is 6ft back).
Does anyone have a view or experience on the "complete backwave elimination" strategy? Do you try to eliminate it entirely? Do you leave some backwave in for 'flavor'? How do you deal with it? Put shag carpeting on the wall? Hire tall sheepdogs to sit on stools calmly for hours on end a la Fay Ray? I would love to know how other people deal with the backwave issue...