Speaker position

[ballymenaman]

My room is 5m square. I have my floorstanding speakers in 2 corners, each angled roughly towards the centre of the room. Is this going to give me the best stereo reproduction or should the speakers sit perpendicular to the wall? My concern with the latter is that the sound would bounce off the side walls, causing distortion?

[MikeMusic]

I would imagine that's not a good place

Speakers have different needs so we need to know what they are

Some need to be flat against the wall (Kans, Saras Isobariks), some need to be on the open

I've been playing recently with speakers and my position and if you can move yours easily go for 6-8 feet apart, flat against the wall with you 6-8 feet back
Listen to a track you know before moving and see which you prefer

Then try them into the room by a dew feet

[agk]

Yep, just have a play and see what sounds best. The only hard and fast rule for me is to be no closer to the speakers than they are to each other.
The following diagram gives a fair idea although as said, some speakers don't conform to the norm.
http://www.hometheatersound.com/features/cinemacynergy/pics/20001_diagram.gif

[Reffc]

You're going to get standing wave issues in a square shaped room no-matter what but there are a few things you can do to avoid issues with boom etc.

1. Always place your speakers an UNequal distance from rear and side walls. Better usually to be well clear of side walls.
2. If low frequency overhang or boom is an issue, fit corner bass traps if possible. If it isn't an issue, don't worry.
3. Each speaker design will differ so there are no hard and fast generalised rules to toe-in. The amount you may need depends on off-axis performance and few speakers manage well much beyond 30 degrees off axis in the mid and lower mid range, so slight toe-in may be beneficial.
4. Seating position s often best when an equal distance from the speakers as the speakers are apart;
5. Try not to clutter the space between you and the speakers or between the speakers as this is detrimental to best stereo imaging.

Other than that, you need to experiment to find what's best for your speakers/room.

[Rothchild]

To add to Paul's 4, the middle of a square room is generally the worst listening point. Depending on the optimum positioning for your speakers (in relation to the wall behind them) you should adjust how close they are together so that your listening position is at approx 38% of the depth of the room (rule of thirds).

[nat8808]

I like this arrangement as it gives good stereo even in my approximation of it:

http://www.roleaudio.com/images/stereosetup/s2-3.jpg

This is the page the image is from:

http://www.roleaudio.com/stereo-placement

And here more explainatory .PDF

http://www.immediasound.com/Speaker%20set-up%202009.pdf

[nat8808]

As a complete aside, I've often wondered what effect room treatment would have if it were around the speaker preventing the sound getting to the walls cleanly anyway.

So you perhaps have curved diffusers around the speaker with a narrow gap allowing direct sound to go straight to the listener.

[Reffc]

As a complete aside, I've often wondered what effect room treatment would have if it were around the speaker preventing the sound getting to the walls cleanly anyway.

So you perhaps have curved diffusers around the speaker with a narrow gap allowing direct sound to go straight to the listener.

It would mess up imaging and likely ruin off axis response. Not a great thing to do ;)

[nat8808]

It would mess up imaging and likely ruin off axis response. Not a great thing to do ;)

How come (genuine question)? Isn't the ideal for imaging that direct sound get's to you a certain way ahead of any reflected sound?

Dispersed sound dispersed nearer the source (rather than waiting for it to get to the wall boundaries before dispersion) would be just as good wouldn't it?

Or is it that the sound will the disperse, hit the boundary walls and reflect back at you within the brain's weak timeframe anyway but now with a wierd unnatural sound which the brain can't work out?

You could have it so that the immediately reflected/dispersed sound is directed toward some kind of absorption say behind the speaker.

[agk]

To my mind this is one of those "if you have to ask you probably won't get it" questions.

The idea is for the output from the two speakers to meet in the middle and form an "image". If the speaker is baffled in the fashion you describe then the exact opposite would happen. The sound would be confined to the area of the speakers and would not form this "image".
Some speakers do it better than others (Kans) but this is probably the Holy Grail of HiFi.

[Reffc]

To my mind this is one of those "if you have to ask you probably won't get it" questions.

The idea is for the output from the two speakers to meet in the middle and form an "image". If the speaker is baffled in the fashion you describe then the exact opposite would happen. The sound would be confined to the area of the speakers and would not form this "image".
Some speakers do it better than others (Kans) but this is probably the Holy Grail of HiFi.


Off axis performance is very important for imaging. By introducing baffles the sound will beam so the "sweet spot" will be very narrow indeed. You will still get reflected sound nat8808 as the baffles describe won't absorb, they'll act as a barrier but the sound energy will still be present within the room as diffused reflections. The brain takes the sound output from left and right channels and completes the illusion of music across a stage (and a stage with depth too) in front of you. If you can imagine the limitations of speakers which for arguments' sake only work on axis and the sound disappears at 1 degree off axis, it's not hard to understand that you will only hear music (in stereo) when the speakers are pointed directly at you. For any other condition, you will only hear reflected sounds (loads of phase distortion) and omni-directional bass notes. This is precisely why off-axis performance is so important. Peter Snell was very concerned about this as he knew that achieving the same off axis response over a wide area as on-axis meant that even reflected sounds, whilst having a degree of phase distortion, were less damaging to stereo imaging than having off axis performance at way lower output than on-axis. This is one reason why some Snell (and later Audionote) speakers can be used close to side walls.

[ballymenaman]

I've moved the speakers away from the corners. Big difference!