Speaker positioning: why do audiophiles neglect this so much?

 

@mahgister said:

I am not a gear fetichist but a student of experimental acoustic IN MY ROOM ....

My wife puts up with acoustic panels on walls and I have autonomy in speaker and listening position - but don’t think I’d get away with the experimental room tuning you’ve got going on:

https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8221

There are lot of crystals, beads, pyramids, copper foil wrapped gizmos, and bottle resonators in that room. Even beads against cables and copper discs on power connectors.

It conveys a sense of the arcane.

I do not think I would run the scheme by the Haus boss.

The speaker-room interface is the most important aspect in getting good sound from one's audio system. It is really the first thing that needs to be attended to when setting up an audio system. 

Here are some links to the best places to start on this:

1. The Wilson Audio Setup Procedure (W.A.S.P.) - YouTube

This video from the late David A. Wilson gives some good background information in the first 5 minutes of the 20 minute video. The actual procedure is not something one can do on one's own, so forget that.

2. Sumiko master set-up process - AudioAficionado.org

The Sumiko/Master Set procedure is an outgrowth from the research by Sterling Trayle when he owned Sumiko Importers in Berkley California. This is pretty DIY friendly that anyone can do by following the steps in Post #2 in the thread. The most difficult part may be obtaining the setup disc/files. But the setup song does work really well for doing this. Better than anything else.

3. Master Set & Rational Speaker Placement How To For GREAT SOUNDSTAGE - YouTube

This is a really long video of one person's experience in setting up his speakers. It is quite helpful.

4. And then there is full on DSP, such as DEQX.

The optimal placement, aka "points of the living sound" where it all jumps to another level, requires a dedicated room in most cases. There you can place it to a millimetre exactly where it should be, and often it's about 1/3 from the back wall and well away from the side walls.  It is simply unrealistic in a family living room with its' furniture, TV sets, kids and your better half. 

The optimal placement question is the most complex to evaluate because there is 2 method to do so...

One with the help of a microphone and an electronical equalizer...

Another way is instead of using a precise tested frequency response, to use instead a large bandwidth response like a singer voice timbre for example and replace a microphone by your ears and replace the electronical equalizer by an Helmholtz mechanical equalizer made of many bottles or tubes which will act like resonators and diffusers at different locations in the room ....

The two methods are complementary, the E.Q. adress the speaker response to the  unmodified room with a microphone an a single tested frequency , the other the M.E. adress the  modified room response to the speakers with your timbre perceiving tuning ears...

The E.Q. equalization will ask for a MILLIMETER exact location for golden spot...

The M.E. tuning process will give a larger spot for location in inches for golden spot...

it is better to use the two methods... But it take a dedicated room...

I will add that yes speakers positioning is the most important factor to adress first BUT this matter is not so much the straigth forward RECIPE many people think it must be...

It is relative to many factors: speakers type yes, but also the acoustical state of the room and the PRECISE relation between a chosen type and the way the room must be organiszed to answer for the speakers needs...

In my room 13 feet square with 8 feet 6 inches high... I enjoy TWO sweet spot : one at 3 feet and another one at 8 feet from the speakers...

One spot is slightly more clear and detailed like headphone and rival any headphone ...The other sound more natural with a more encompassing bass...The two positions give me an englobing soundscape encompassing the listener with, relatively to the recording, even a sound almost coming from behind my head sometimes...The two positions give me an intimacy like with an headphone but out of my head with an astounding depth imaging in near listening and with a sound filling the room and around me in 8 feet listening position, according to the acoustical cues of the playing recording for sure...

Impossible to prefer one position to the other.... I listen half time in each one... 😁😊

Then there may be many sweet spots, at least two , not only one in a controlled room...

And in small room any change in the room is audible even at three feet from the speakers... Then those who claim near listening eliminate the need for room treatment and room control are completely wrong... But to know it, someone must EXPERIMENT it and dispose his room to experience it to begin with...

There is many myth in popular audio acoustic threads...One is near listening eliminate the need for room treatment and control...

Another myth is about speaker position, any bad position CAN BE to some extent compensated by acoustic mechanical control over the pressure zones of the room by modifying them ...For example one of my speaker is pressed into a corner of the wall , the other speaker is not...Is it not bad enough? It is... it take me one year of acoustic control experiments to compensate acoustically to a great degree for this bad positioning...my soundscape is almost the same now coming from the two speakers without imbalance...

Then reading that a speaker in a corner is bad means something in a non controlled room and dont work the same in a controlled room...And for sure it is relative to the speakers type, mine is a box two way speakers with a port hole in the front... Acoustic is not a list of ready made recipes to blindly apply  but a list of priciples to experiment with...

I am not an acoustician at all only a "nut" experimenting with a dedicated room for 2 years non stop....I only know a few things but i learned them in listening experiments ...