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Uneven soundstage help, please.

I've got a pair of ATC SCM40 v2's driven by a Musical Fidelity A308 (plenty of power) and overall I'm happy with this combination, given my budget, wife, and listening habits. My system is in an incredibly complex large room, with all sorts of variables in terms of reflection, absorption, etc. And these aren't exactly the same from one speaker to another. I have no choice about speaker placement, given the room configuration.
There's a phenomenon that concerns me, though, that I haven't been able to resolve. In order to get the center centered, I need to position the speakers and listening chair in such a way that the soundstage extends all the way to one speaker, but only three-quarters of the way to the other. It doesn't sound out of whack. It's just a narrower field than I had with my older KEF References, and I wonder if it would sound even better if this was resolved.
Has anyone else faced and solved this? What factors are driving it? I've been living with it comfortably, but I wonder.
Thanks ahead of time for any replies.
m
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m669326's avatar
m669326 OP
326 posts
 
I'm still hoping someone has ideas about how to adjust for unequal hearing. I guess I was trying to that when I toed-in the less prominent side.
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
I just tried sitting backwards. Bingo!
What can I do if it's my ears?
It could be earwax but most likely its just permanent hearing loss due to age. Nothing can be done. Hearing loss is incurable as you know. You could use a balance control with EQ. Thats the best you can do
m669326's avatar
m669326 OP
326 posts
 
How much do you have to spend to get an EQ with balance that doesn't mess the sound up? If I go that route, I won't want spend a lot.
erik_squires
15,877 posts
 
Hey,

Look, at the point where your placement is so bad that you can't get a decent center stage, I promise you that a decent EQ will be the least of your worries.

If you want to be a purist, get a better room, with treatment.  If you can't do that an EQ is going to be a huge huge improvement by comparison.  I mean, do you want to spend years not listening to a great sounding system because you were worried about tone controls??

Honestly too, EQ's and tone controls are superbly better than they were in the past, so the benefits far outweigh the risks.

The issue you are having, as you point out, is that you need to treat both channels separately, and that's what ARC or a miniDSP will let you do.
erik_squires
15,877 posts
 
I should point out that while an EQ will be better than not in the situation of uneven speaker placement, you still are going to have issues with uneven reflections. 

Controlling the room acoustics is always the best solution, but if you cannot do that, you are getting the second best approach.
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