Best speakers positioning and their sound

Absolutely, playing around with placement of your speakers (even down to half an inch or smaller) will have a big impact on the soundstage of this song or how you experience it.

 

Totally agree! I find the sax placement is usually a bit more toward the right speaker, but this morning I moved my couch back to get the listening position triangle to 83” apart (measured at center of driver) and 124” from the listening position (the 1.5x method) and found the sax moved to match more where the infographic places it. My speakers’ manufacturer recommends toe-in pointed 12” behind listening position, but I like it pointed about 24” behind my head.

 

In fact, this whole album of her 'famous blue raincoat' is a perfect album to do a good speaker setup. 1st song and 3rd song will sound horrible when played at really loud volume and speakers are not placed right, in a position where they don't pressurize the room. Some albums always sound good to a variable degree, no matter what. THIS album however, and more specifically certain songs on it, can sound either awfull or pretty perfect which makes it a very good album to tune your speakers/system. Get the 3rd song (titletrack 'famous blue raincoat') to sound very good at loud volume with a full bodied sax, voice and soundstage....and you're done !

 

I use the Cardas 80% triangle method plus fine tuning when done.
Front plate is 5' from the back wall, 12' apart, 16' to listening position.
Big speakers seem to need a bit more room to breath.

 

Should have mentioned, built a custom sound absorber for the TV.

 

I suspect the answer here is simply what we each think is best in our own listening room. I get pleasure from sitting in different places, even though my preferred sweet spot seems to correspond with what others have described as the equilateral triangle, with the speakers toed in.

The best soundstage effect I experienced was years ago when I switched from one Quad 405 power amplifier to mono Quad 405s. Suddenly an extra couple of feet of sound appeared to the far left and right of the speakers. Their typical "BBC" character enhanced it and it was like being half way back in an auditorium . Nowadays I'm not so interested in soundstage though, the production in most modern rock music seems to have little intention of creating an image of performance.

 

that’s interesting. when i had my YG Acoustic Carmel’s and Vienna Acoustics The Kiss’s more recently and even my old B&W Silver Signatures I could never got them to sound right using his method. i get the logic know George is extremely bright but i never could never get a good balanced sound. Maybe it was the speaker itself and perhaps the room over the method.

 

The Silver Signatures nice
I had the Signature 30's, wish I had kept them. They were very hard to place though, tried them in several rooms without great success.

 

I had an interesting speaker placement "epiphany" this afternoon. While I had already given my speakers plenty of distance from the front and sidewalls, and also used the standard equilateral triangle geometry, I learned today just how much of an impact the distance between your speakers can make. Mine had been ~7 feet apart and I moved them to 8 feet apart (tweeter to tweeter). I maintained my listening position geometry and used 8 feet as well from the speakers. I was completely caught off-guard by how much the soundstage just blossomed; the bass also got bigger and tighter, and so did the musical detail...simply by adding an extra foot between the speakers. I now feel somewhat moronic for not experimenting more in the past with that element of positioning. I had been more obsessed in the past with toe-in and distance from front & sidewalls. Just thought I'd share in case others haven't been paying as much attention to this dimension like me.

 

Wow, nice system (whichever one you're referring to!). Hmmmm ... I'll have to try this with my modest Titus monitors, I too have them ... 6.3' apart and set up a la Cardas (equilateral triangle, etc.). OK my room isn't symmetrical on the LH side but I used the RH side as the measurement one ... actually sounds good to me.

Possibly you moved the speakers/you into a different nodal position in the room which sounds better and gives better soundstage? Win-Win !!!

BTW, I saw the quote made by the OP about 'Really good sound stage is projected in front of the speaker' ... nahhh, I don't agree. Some things come forward a little with some recordings, but mainly my speakers disappear and there's just a 'soundstage' in front of ME. That seems best to me ...

OOPS! I said that before in this thread, need to read it all again. Great thread!

 

I totally agree with this. It may not be just the imaging improvement due to the speakers being farther apart but also the way they interact with the entire room just as you're suggesting.

I got the idea to experiment today after reading this article about the Devore O/93's https://theaudiobeatnik.com/devore-orangutan-093s-apes-can-really-sing/ and thought it was worth tweaking my O/96's to see if they'd benefit as well from widening the distance. This section of the article got me thinking.

When I finally found the place where they sounded their very best, it was wider apart than most speakers in my room. They were eight feet apart measured from tweeter to tweeter. I have over the years found where my listening chair should be for best bass response, which is about six feet from the wall behind it. So, the next thing to do was to find out how far from the listening chair they sounded best. This ended up being ten and a half feet, with them toed in such that they were aimed just outside my shoulders. In this position, the center of the front panel was 45 inches from the wall behind the speakers and 27 inches from the side walls. I should mention that their distance from each other had more effect on the quality of the bass than the distance from the wall behind the speakers. This is probably the most overlooked part of speaker placement. For some reason, we always think first about the distance from the rear and side walls.

I think my speakers may have also benefited from getting slightly closer to the sidewalls. I experimented a ton again with toe-in today and kept the drivers on axis with the sweet spot just like I had previously. I also gave my speakers a few more inches breathing room from the front wall (now at 40 inches) and that helped a bit too...but the extra foot between the speakers was the real winner today. Coincidentally, just like the author of the article, my speakers are also now 27 inches from the sidewalls. Free tweaks are the best!