‘Front’ corners are a good thing in rectangular rooms.
Any advice/predictions for moving my speakers to a corner as depicted in the picture? Worth the work to move?
The top left corner of picture consists of half wall of tile/fireplace, though speakers would point – at an angle – to wall left and right of the fireplace. PROPOSED position.
Fine sound in CURRENT position. Room layout good now (ie, couch, chairs, tables, etc). Entry ways on bottom left and top right. Placing speakers along left, right, or bottom wall will not work.
Interesting proposal!
First off, do you already have any kind of acoustical room treatment and what gain are you expecting from the transition?
Imo, your proposal is looking good regarding preventing direct reflections from all (except the fireplace: diffuse) walls. You still may need to do some tuning, but probably less extensive. Don’t know about the overall dampening characteristics of your room.
Speaker left front center to right front center, 78 in
Straight line from inside front of speaker to wall behind, 46 in.
Outside speaker front to side wall, 35 inches
Ears, 90 inches from each speaker
Fireplace wall 45º from left and right walls
ceiling, 9 feet
(all measurements approximate)
Wall to wall carpet, large room area to right of photo, amp etc stack just to right of pic (hence, long speaker wires), subwoofer to right of this stack
Hey akro…your proposed speaker placement on either side of your fireplace
would seem to enable a better developed sound stage as speakers would be
symmetrically balances with better angles with respect to rear wall and side
walls…
Floyd Toole wrote a thesis and book on speaker placement…
If not exactly placed/measured this way at the moment, try moving the speakers so the distance between the tweeters is 2/3 of the distance from your ears.
A good rule of thumb for getting decent center channel lock and a nice sound stage…
Like any other rule, it’s made to be broken; so let your ears be the final arbiter.
I’d try increasing a little bit the distance from walls, even if it implies reducing the distance between the two speakers and/or from your listening chair. Pushing the speakers away from walls and coming closer to your chair you gain a little bit of width in soundstage.
If possible a diffusor panel in front of the fireplace would help a lot, IMO.
Driver centers are 38 inches from side wall, room widens rapidly in front of speakers because walls are 45 degree angle to fireplace wall, driver centers 56 inches to fireplace
A good place to start, but IME it depends on the speakers (and the room of course). I was surprised when my Von Scweikerts sounded better when the speaker to speaker distance was greater than my distance to either speaker. When I spoke to the VSA boys about this, they were not surprised. They confirmed that almost all the folks using the same speakers (when room permits) have them spaced further apart relative to the listening chair.
I completely broke that rule, with speakers slightly further apart than the listening spot to speaker dimension. I would call it “close enough” to an equalateral triangle, even though it doesn’t look like it.
That said, it has proven to be much more useful to me than the oft-cited equilateral triangle. I have never really liked the sound in my rooms over the years when the three points were basically equidistant.
The other “must have” for me now is adequate distance from the front wall. I am sure other speakers, which I have not owned, sound good up close to the front wall, but I have learned to prefer the sound with the speakers out into the room.
Not always practical, but worth trying if you have the appropriate environment…
Aren’t you experiencing a wider soundstage keeping the speakers closer to your listening position instead of closer to each other? In my old set up, If I follow the 2/3 rule (2 = tweeter to tweeter, 3 = tweeters to ears) the soundstage width significantly decreases and the sound acquires a bigger strength at a level maybe less pleasant. After room refurbishment didn’t yet tested, so it worth the try again.
Which distance in meters/feet do you have from walls/speakers/ears?
My tweeter on the right channel is about about 4 feet from the side wall and 5 feet from the front wall. The left speaker is the same distance from the front wall but there is an open hallway on the left side of my listening space. The tweeters are about 10 feet from my ears when seated. The first reflection points of both channels are treated with Auralex absorption panels though and there does not seem to be an unbalanced sense of energy even though there is no wall on the left.
