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Listening position/speaker position

I had a friend visit this weekend for some extended listening. I generally trust some of his suggestions, and his hearing may be better than mine, but I am 61 and don't have any hearing "issues." Also, in the interest of full disclosure, my friend and I are competitive with each other so there is always the possibility that he is busting on me.

 

I am very happy with my setup and my sound----the room is quiet, the system is quiet and I have low distortion, plenty of punch and volume, without sacrificing any detail. I have Revel 228be speakers, a McIntosh MC312 amp, C53 preamp, Pass XP-17 phono stage, Technics SL1200G TT run with an AT-art9xi MCC.

 

Anyway, my listening room is approximately 26' x 15' with less than 8-foot ceilings, plaster walls, wall to wall carpeting, lots of cushy furniture, and it's perfectly rectangular. I have my Revel 228's positioned on the narrow end of the room, a couple feet from the side wall and about 2-1/2 feet from the back wall. The listening position is about 10 feet from the speakers, or just shy of the midpoint of the room. My critical friend was suggesting that by having the speakers at one end of the room, I am asking them to "fill" a 26-foot room, despite the listening position being near midpoint depth. He suggested that I put the speakers in the middle of the room and move the listening position against the wall, so that the speakers are only tasked with filling half of the room. He also implied that I was under-powered with the MC312 which doesn't sound valid..

 

Obviously, the only way to know if I would get sound improvement would be to swap sides in the room, but his suggestion sounded so odd that I thought some of you with more experience might have an opinion.

willyht
mitchagain
414 posts
 

The 8' triangle formula has always worked well for me; but, the room dimensions and furniture & speaker placement options always dictated that. More often than not, the listening position usually ended up being 9 - 10' away; thus, fulling the 1.2 tweeter ratio. So, I can vouch for that formula too.

 

I'd say the easiest and most affordable thing to do is experiment with "toe in" and/or how close or far apart your speakers are from the wall(s) and/or listening position.

For a small investment, you could try adding two room divider screens (approx 6' x 6' each) behind the sofa to create a partial back wall. 

For a moderate investment, you could add something like the Iso Acoustic "Gaia" speaker footers (with carpet spikes) to see if that helps the overall sound quality. At least with those or the Townsend "Platforms," those come with a money back guarantee; so, nothing to lose on that option.

 

grislybutter
2,293 posts
 

you would have to have vibration issues to need speaker footers, I would think of it as very low priority

tony1954's avatar
tony1954
897 posts
 

"He suggested that I put the speakers in the middle of the room and move the listening position against the wall"

Are you sure this guy is actually a friend?

Maybe he was joking with you.

crwilli57
10 posts
 

Jim Smith would tell you to first find the location in the room where your listening position has the most even bass.   Then set your speakers according to his rule of thumb of 83%.  The overall best setup in your room will likely be within a foot of that starting point.

mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,221 posts
 

@willyht your friend is FOS. Putting the listening position against a wall is the worst thing you can do.  You have it right. Now you should find all the first reflection points and deaden them. You may want to try moving the listening position forward or backwards a little till you find the best bass balance. In the future you should consider two or more subwoofers. Two 15" subs would be the minimum. If you really want to give your system a huge leap into the future, replace the Mac preamp with a DEQX Pre 4 then add passive subwoofers. 

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