I spent a couple of years dealing with exactly what you're talking about. Treating first reflections can help a lot here. It's going to be super system and personality dependent. If you use something like a bass trap, treating the first reflection can make things sound really dry. It's almost as if you're just listening to the speaker. It's honestly not my favorite way to do it. You can also treat first reflections with diffusion. I would only do this if you can do it on both sides because when one speaker is treated with diffusion and the other isn't things will also sound weird. One speaker will sound further away than the other so you start messing with speaker position to compensate until your soundstage doesn't really make sense anymore. In the end, after messing around for about a year I just decided to rearrange the room for the best symmetry. It required some painting and some furniture modifications but it was totally worth it.
My prob is the centre imagine is off to one side, liked it’s panned a bit to the right. The speaker closer to left wall is softer than right one which is further away from its wall. Drives me nuts. Lol. Gotta reposition the speakers again to settle that imbalance. Room is also too small to do the 1.2/0.8 ratio. Speakers will end up like 4’ apart (tweeter to tweeter). Oh well … back to the drawing board.
Is that imbalance also evident with mono recordings? What I do is play a good mono recording and tinker with the speakers until all the instruments and voices are centered as well as humanly possible from my preferred seating position. It's never perfect, as even moving my head an inch or two might throw the cymbals a bit to the left or right, that kind of thing, but if I get it close enough, I declare victory and go home.
@bgiliberti … it’s the room. Sometimes when I mess about with placement, it’s all good, then my hands get itchy. I use an audio test track for the LCR. What you say is true, when speakers are a little close, moving the head and inch or two will throw things off but my problem is not because of the lack of a head clamp.
Funny story, for years, it seemed to me like voices were left of center. Then, I got my hearing checked, and guess what, I had significant HF loss in the LEFT ear, not the right ear, which surprised me, since the voices seemed left-centered. The Doc explained that it was probably because my brain had been compensating too much. Well, that was 15 years ago, and guess what? Now everything is centered again. Why? Not something I did with my speakers, amp, or room. The Doc said that with age, my right ear has a bit more HF loss, while the left has been stable. Sort of like a wheel alignment, I guess.
I should have treatments installed this spring/summer. I'm going to have to figure out how best to implement them first. I guess the extra toe-in for one speaker might be a temporary thing (if it works). Then, once I have some treatments installed, I may not need to do that. I'm probably going to put some absorption behind me. On both side walls, that's what I'm not sure of yet. I was thinking absorption on both. But, early reflections are more of an issue for the right speaker. So, considering it some more, maybe that just means I need extra absorption on the right side (more panels installed there and less on the left side). Or maybe diffusion is the way to go on both walls. But on the surface, it does seem to me that the right side needs to be treated more aggressively, whatever I use. I know Vicoustic has a product that does both absorption and diffusion...not sure how effective it is.
Also have to correct what I said a couple of days ago. I clearly didn't measure correctly. I was already at Jim Smith's 0.83 ratio. When I moved my chair back, that put me at about 0.77. So I moved my chair back to the original position of 0.83, and things sound better in this spot. I think any gains from here will be as a result of dialing in toe-in and room treatments, though I will probably still play around with my seating position a bit more.
I think it’s time I go and get my hearing checked. When doing the LCR test, the left speaker seems to sound louder than the right but centre is offset to the right. Oh well …
After messing about with speaker placement using the 1.2/0.83 ratio, it’s not working in my room. The room is just too small for it. Found out that the lopsided phantom centre is due to placement. So now I just push speakers back to its original placement and it’s all better. Time to let sleeping dogs lie. Hehehe …
It's all about best placement in your own room, everything else is just suggestion, trial and error. When it's right it's right.
I don’t mind trial and error at all if it were a level floor! I really hate parquet flooring. At my last apartment it’s a very level tile finish. I can spend time trying out different placement without the need to keep on leveling the speakers.
For sure and its time well spent. Try some rugs! Not free but [unless moved over from other rooms ] but they will make a difference to a straight hard floor.
I had all line of Harbeths in my condo and no matter what I did, I could not make them to work. They were very slow, veiled, recessed, far from engaging. I spoke with Alan Shaw about it and turned out that Harbeths are much better choice for "European" houses made out of concrete and live acoustics. In my plywood condo that is probably slightly over-damped, Harbeths were no-go for sure. Always check gear in your environment, NOT at the dealer...
The reason asked is that I have the same situation in my room, and it gave me some problems with getting the tonal balance correct due to the differential bass response from the lack of a nearby wall on one side only. You don't mention this problem, but FWIW if anything crops up, the advice I received from the US importer, Fidelis, was to toe in the non-wall speaker quite a lot more. It looked a bit "cross-eyed," but the image and balance really snapped into place.