Mark, having just gone through speaker placement in my small room, I can say that using an SPL meter helped me tremendously.
Also, dont be afraid to try speaker positions that may not make sense (visually or logically).
I cannot believe how much better my speakers sound now and the setup I ended up would be something I never would have imagined before. My speakers are not very close the sidewalls, pointed straight ahead.
Help with speaker placement in my real life room
Hello all, I just set up a pair of Wilson Sophia 2's in my living room. They are on wheels at the moment so I can tweak the position. Can you give me a bit of advice on placement with the limitations of my room? I tried the Wilson Audio Setup Procedure, but as I was on my own, it was very challenging. I plan to do this again when I have a helper. I then went the route of getting the speakers as far as I could from the back wall, and varied distance between speakers and toe-in degrees.
What I settled on for now is sounding very good, but perhaps still not perfect, hard to say. The thing is, the triangle is far from equilateral, as you can see from my drawing. I tried to get it close to equilateral, but that would require the right speaker being very close to the side wall. When I did this, it sounded far worse. Do you think this is ok, or by the book, to have a listening distance to speaker distance ratio like the drawing is indicating? I want to know of there is some rule that I am missing that may be holding me back.
The right speaker’s tweeter is 51” from the back wall, and 37” from the side wall
Here is a link to my updated schematic drawing of my room and speaker placement.
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5421#&gid=1&pid=6
Thanks!
Mark
What I settled on for now is sounding very good, but perhaps still not perfect, hard to say. The thing is, the triangle is far from equilateral, as you can see from my drawing. I tried to get it close to equilateral, but that would require the right speaker being very close to the side wall. When I did this, it sounded far worse. Do you think this is ok, or by the book, to have a listening distance to speaker distance ratio like the drawing is indicating? I want to know of there is some rule that I am missing that may be holding me back.
The right speaker’s tweeter is 51” from the back wall, and 37” from the side wall
Here is a link to my updated schematic drawing of my room and speaker placement.
https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5421#&gid=1&pid=6
Thanks!
Mark
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- 15 posts total
tboooe, how exactly did you use the meter? Did you play some sort of test tone? I have old school tube gear, not a home theater rig or anything like that. Can I make use of a meter such as this in my system? I see that there is a SPL meter app for iPhone, I wonder if it's any good, or if the iPhone mic is up to the challenge. thoughts? https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/spl-meter/id309206756?mt=8 |
Mark, I dont have a home theater set up either, just plan ol 2-channel with a sub. All you need are some test tones (I bought a test tones cd from Rives audio ages ago) and an SPL meter. I dont know how good the iphone is but I used a Radio Shack one. Another relatively cheap method is to use free room analysis software Room EQ Wizard (REW) and get a usb mic from minidsp for $75. http://www.roomeqwizard.com/ https://www.minidsp.com/products/acoustic-measurement/umik-1 Everybody has different preferences but I normally start with the bass and midbass region. I try to get the region from 20-1000hz as flat as possible in my room. This is important to me because I listen mainly to acoustic music and I really tend to focus on the vocals more than anything else. In my room, the freq response from 20-1000hz is +- 2db except for a -4db dip at 200hz and +4dp hump at 40hz. Still not perfect but this is the best I could do in my little room. Once I got this region dialed in I messed around with toe-in. The end result was much different than how I previously had my speakers positioned. Remember to move in small the speakers in small increments. I wouldnt try to do speaker setup all in one session. It takes a lot of patience and creativity. I am still amazed at how good my system sounds now. Let me know if I can help in any way. |
Mark, I will send some pics shortly. In a nutshell, my speakers are very close to the sidewalls (> 1') with zero toe in. I sit in an equilateral triangle. In fact, toe in created dips at 630 and 315hz. It should be noted that I have bass traps in the corners and panels at the first reflection points on the side walls and ceiling. I am sure those helped a bit too. |
- 15 posts total