Jimbos Audio ramblings

[Macca]

I find them useful for avoiding paying over the odds for stuff.
And for choosing loudspeakers - although the final judgement is listening.

[Jimbo]

The only trouble with using measurements to evaluate your room and subsequently position your speakers is that you may find them in the middle of the room which maybe ideal for sound quality but impractical for domestic living!

Compromises always have to be made and this is where the fun starts although a little room treatment can go a long way to addressing problems and allow you to position speakers where you would like them.

[AJSki2fly]

The only trouble with using measurements to evaluate your room and subsequently position your speakers is that you may find them in the middle of the room which maybe ideal for sound quality but impractical for domestic living!

Compromises always have to be made and this is where the fun starts although a little room treatment can go a long way to addressing problems and allow you to position speakers where you would like them.

In general I have found if you use rule of 1/3rds for speaker position or as close as possible or have front face at least 1.2m out from the rear wall(if you can1.5m) and try and keep centre of speakers at least 60cm from side walls. Then sit in a triangle position no more than 1.2 times how far the speakers are apart, then listen to and tweak toe in until you hit the sweet spot.

The above can be challenging in a lounge and with limited space so compromise is often needed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Gazjam]

I found this video quite useful.

[Jimbo]

Now Christmas has gone a little bit quiet I had chance to get back to the vinyl again last night and assess further the speaker / room set up again using some well known tracks.

Just to recap for anyone who is interested, I left my speakers in their original position which was 90cm (3 feet)from front wall to speaker front baffle and 75cm(2.4 feet) from side wall to tweeter. Speakers were 2.10m (6.8 feet) apart and listening position is now 3m(9.8 feet) from speakers. Toe-in is very shallow angle. Listening position was previously 2.6m (8.5 feet)

Room dimensions are 6.5m(21.4 feet) x 3.6m.( 12 feet) So listening position is approx I/3 into the room with rear wall 2m( 6.5 feet) behind listening position.

I had to take a couple of minutes to consider the new listening experience having had a few days away but once again the improvement was there. Trying to analyse in words what you hear is always difficult especially when we are talking about sound but I will have another go.


Apart from all the observations I made in my previous post and I won't repeat them, I now found other subtle aspects to the sound that were truly amazing. I have mentioned that the soundstage and everything within had become deeper but not just in one direction, it had in fact stretched out towards me too so I was listening to a much more 3D type of soundstage. I would imagine this would be similar to using a VR headset to watch a film rather than simply watching in 2D. I use this analogy as it simply the best way I could describe the soundstage overall. However there were other aspects in the sound which were also fascinating.


Listening to Agnes Obel Philharmonics album was revelatory. I know this album intimately and some of the improvements I heard were stunning. Not only could I heard very clearly what she was singing ie the words but also her voice was fuller and even more ethereal. Her construction of her recording playing the piano and her voice are quite something. She is obsessed with sound herself so I know she labours over getting the sound of everything perfect. Her vocals almost take on an outer body experience and this became even more pronounced with the vocals stretching far right through the wall and completely free of the speakers. Her piano became even more vivid and the harmonics of each key and the weight of each note was more definite. The whole recording seemed to have more body, more flesh and blood.


Again I have tried to work out why this improvement has happened since adjusting toe-in and moving listening position further back and all I can come up with is that the whole frequency range from the speakers is now being reconstructed much more accurately without too much negative room interaction.


What I had uncovered by accident was the Sweet Spot for my speaker/room set up.

[Macca]

I wish you would give dimensions in feet and inches - I have to translate to be able to visualise!

[Jimbo]

I wish you would give dimensions in feet and inches - I have to translate to be able to visualise!

I forgot most of us are from the prehistoric world I will pop the translation to feet and inches onto my post.

[Gazjam]

I wish you would give dimensions in feet and inches - I have to translate to be able to visualise!

Ah… an Imperialist.

down with that sort of ‘ting!

[Macca]

I forgot most of us are from the prehistoric world I will pop the translation to feet and inches onto my post.

Thanks!

[struth]

I wish you would give dimensions in feet and inches - I have to translate to be able to visualise!

im same. was educated in imperial and although i worked in metric a lot i always had to convert so i could see it in my mind and was happy that the size wasnt an error