With the long weekend, I decided to not be so lazy and finally deal with some room issues that had been bugging me--namely the ugly monster of boomy bass. My first order of business was to finish putting up some acoustic treatments. I already had the corner traps in place and added some wall seams and an extra ceiling pad along the front and back wall--the latter for more coverage. An added benefit of the rear wall seams is to help hide the QS8 wires. Here's some pics:
Rear wall. Before there was only one pad, now there is two for more coverage.
Front wall. Lotsa bare space. Picture hanging is still in progress.
Rear left. Acoustic treatment/cable management. It ain't pretty, but it works.
Rear right. More of the same.
Another issue was bare wall space. As you can see, the front wall is still in progress. I haven't decided what I want to hang yet. Also, I still need to get another picture, so it can wait a bit.
I found an unexpected assistant to help me hang! Need to be careful where I put my fingers
After a whole day of listening, things still weren't quite right. Bass was still bloated and not as defined as I knew it could get. Also, separation in the soundstage wasn't there. Everything was a bit jumbled. Well, my first thought was that if I wanted more separation I should just push the speakers farther apart. You know, it actually worked. Despite some obvious concerns--my left speaker just an inch away from the bookshelf, and the right one directly in line of the doorknob--I think this is where they will stay. Took care of the doorknob fear with one of those little hinge stopper things. Also, another concern is now my speakers are behind the TV stand. So far, imaging seems to be holding up. I can try moving the whole unit back, but I like having the space available for cable access.
Movement evidence.
More up-close movement evidence. This is the right speaker.
Bird's eye view. Better idea of speakers in relation to TV stand.
Ugh. Next project will be cable management. Having this crawl space is awesome, though. I'm constantly adding, subtracting, changing, moving, etc. and I can easily get to everything without having to do some interesting circus contortions.
I am continually amazed by the effects of speaker placement and room acoustics. Sometimes small moves can have big dividends. What threw me for a loop is that I tried moving my speakers farther out into the room and away from the walls, but the boominess just got worse. Pushing them farther back into the corner and closer to the wall seemed to tame the overhang. Weird. My biggest regret is that I didn't bust out the SPL meter and take before and after measurements as proof of sound changes. Oh well. To my ears everything sounds better. In the end, that's really what matters.
When I get motivated again I'll move the speakers to the original positions and measure just to see what the differences are. Until then, I've got some music to listen to!
