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I finally get speaker placement

Jim H B

Jim H B

Well-Known Member
I've been interesting in hi-fi gear since high school, approx 50 years ago, and have owned a variety of pretty good gear (h/k, NAD, Pioneer, etc). But for all the time I've spent on other aspects of my systems, I've never really appreciated speaker placement. I never thought it was that important, and certainly it is largely dictated by your particular listening space.

But after moving to a new house, I set up a new listening space. The new space has a lot of flexibility in speaker placement. I also got out my JBL S38 speakers, which have distinct left and right speakers (non-symetrical). After reading through the S38 manual, I decided to do some measuring.

I measured so that my listening spot, and the two speakers made an equilateral triangle (ie, distance between my listening spot and each speaker, and the distance between the two speakers are equal.) I also then played with the toe-in on the speakers (purely subjective on this one - whatever gives the best soundstage).

Wow - big difference. Great sound stage and really makes the music engaging.

I'm probably preaching to the choir for a lot of you, but for those who haven't played much with your speaker placement - a little effort might bring big benefits.
 

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Every room is different and speaker locations can make quite a difference. In frequency response below 150 hz is quite noticeable. What you are describing is something that is very hard to measure, but can be easily heard if you are a critical listener. Just getting the right balance between direct sound and reflective sound is as important as the frequency response or the dynamic range of. system, for me. I use a modified line arrays so rooms have less interference. I don't like to sit close to speakers, just like I don't like to sit close to performers. I want ambience in my listening experience. Not to much, but I'll take a little to much over to little. . Enjoy the good sounds. I am happy for you!
 
Congrats! Not only is symmetry, but sufficient clearance from cabinets, furniture, walls, etc. that introduce diffraction.

Speakers need to breathe for optimum results.
 
Yeah, sometimes the speaker/room interface is critical, and sometimes not so much. With my double advents in the HT rig I can play with placement a bit, but imaging is not too critical for movies. The Mirage OM-10s in the living room are very picky, since they are dipoles. They will fill the room for casual listening when close to the wall, but they really shine about four feet into the room. The ESS-7s in the den are where they have to be due to WAF, but they still sound great.
 
Great comments, thanks. I have a few speaker stands, at different heights, so I was able to get the S38's tweeters right at ear level when listening - that helps too.
 
I'm constantly amazed on how much of a difference minor speaker placements can make. Recently one of my best placement successes was from forgoing the notion of perfect visual symmetry .. as mentioned in the YouTube video below .. 2:47 minute mark.

 
Speaker placement makes such a huge difference in some setups, it can be jarring. I spent so much time at my place moving the speakers around, but I'm so glad I did. I have very picky/extremely unforgiving acoustics in the room here so speaker placement, along with some EQing(very handy 5 band EQ that's on my integrated) was crucial.

Now I get such a nice sound quality out of my mid-fi setup, plenty of people have commented how impressed they are with the great sound and can't believe I'm getting that SQ with that gear. That's because people are often exposed to improperly setup listening rooms in homes :) so the gear they hear is rarely used to it's potential
 
I agree with silentnet. After buying a pair of Magnepan MG-1's in 1976 I quickly found out how critical speaker placement can be. I'm still using dipoles.
 
Congratulations, you have reached the first stage,:) there still may be more improvement to be had. I recommend marking with tape on the floor the location were your speakers are now.
Then try moving the "triangle" around the room because the location of the triangle in the room makes a huge difference. IMHO :music:
My room is small so this works for my 9x16' room.

http://www.cardas.com/room_setup_main.php

room_setup_diagram_b.jpg
 
Denten said:
Congratulations, you have reached the first stage,:) there still may be more improvement to be had. I recommend marking with tape on the floor the location were your speakers are now.
Then try moving the "triangle" around the room because the location of the triangle in the room makes a huge difference. IMHO :music:
My room is small so this works for my 9x16' room.

http://www.cardas.com/room_setup_main.php

room_setup_diagram_b.jpg
Click to expand...
Looking forward to testing out different placements!
 
Yes to the "mark emplacement of speakers with some tape on floor" bit! I absolutely do this too.

I'd be so mad at myself if the gf moved the speaker for cleaning and I hadn't marked the spot :rflmao:
 
Because the speakers are left and right hand, they are symmetrical ( to the room). Other models, like ARs or Dynacos have tweeters off to the same side for both the left and right speaker and they will never be symmetrical to the room. New speaker designs align the drivers so there are no left and right hand (or all left hand, or all right hand) driver orientation. Makes speaker positioning easier.
 
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