Tweaking Your Speaker Placement

@ghdprentice 

"the sound can literally snap into focus."

Funny you should mention this.

Yesterday I pulled everything apart to put subwoofer and rear speaker cables under my carpet and when I moved my speakers back in place, I put them 6" closer to the front wall and a little closer together.

I put on "Friday Night in San Francisco" with Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin and was shocked by the change in sound quality. Imaging was suddenly sharp and focused, while the soundstage was wider and the tonal balance was better. The only thing that was off was that everything was "lower" than it should be, which I assume means increasing the rake angle of the speakers.

The question now is whether I just sit back and enjoy things or do I try to tweak things and get that extra 2% more. 

Can dumb luck actually work in one's favour?

@rubicon15 

Watching Bob was part of the reason this discussion started. I watched this same video and was wondering how I would implement what he was asking us to do.

@thecarpathian 

Yes, I to use the stick with numbers, but as Maria Muldaur once said. "It ain't the meat, it's the motion."

@gregm 

That's just it. I don't think it is a figure of speech for a lot of people. Why else would so many people use such small increments when they reference the process?

@zlone 

Will definitely be picking up a proper laser measure. Why I can spend thousands of dollars on new components and balk at spending $50 to get accurate measurements, is one of life's little mysteries.

@baylinor 

I actually have a couple of walnut slabs that would work for this, but I have resisted this method because once everything is dialled in, then you still need to remove the slab or butcher block, which might spoil all the previous effort.

@onhwy61 

"An 1/8 of an inch -- does that mean you have to keep your head in a vice?"

I wondered about this at first as well, but the reality is speaker placement tunes their placement within the listening space. Where your head is located is almost irrelevant.

@mulveling 

To make things more frustrating with the Gaia's, I also have the carpet disks underneath them. Perhaps I just have to bite the bullet and put a slab of wood or granite under each speaker and trade convenience for aesthetics.

@jeffreyw 

No such luck. Speakers are on a large rug. Nothing is sliding on it.

@rubicon15 

Thanks. Rake angle is next.

I have also begun measuring my room with Room EQ Wizard and the initial readings seem to be reasonably decent, which was nice to see.

@asvjerry 

"Where did you find a head restraint that didn't feel like a 3D clamp in 4D space?"

I am glad it doesn't work that way. Luckily the tweaking is fine tuning the speakers within the room's acoustic space and isn't reliant on one's head position per se.

@wrm57 

My rug has a symmetrical pattern which allowed me to position it dead centre to the centre line of my speakers. Now I can match the left and right speaker positions fairly easily. I will never buy a berber carpet again.

@thecarpathian 

My iPad survived, but now I can't see it.