The M60s
As you probably have been able to tell from all the previous "room" photos, I'm pretty limited in my locations for the M60s. By "pretty", I mean, of course "very". If I want to keep the M60s equidistant from the DLP and center channel, they can really only go in the general placement where they are.
Unfortunately, I would like to spread them a little further apart for a wider soundstage, but I really don't want the issues that I'll get with moving the right speaker closer to the right wall, and the left speaker would need to be moved in front of the equipment rack.
As some of you may have read in a recent thread, I have tested the M60s in regard to their proximity to the rear wall, and found that they do, indeed, sound better and "plot" a little better when given some room behind.
Despite the limited positioning, the M60s, as others have said, image great. Especially during testing, when I have frequently reset and changed settings on the receiver, I really
do have to walk up to the center channel to ensure that it's not on along with the M60s.
As for settings on my receiver, I've preferred to set them as "large" with a 100Hz crossover. A 100Hz crossover would not ordinarily be my first choice with these speakers, but I've found that the VP150 and, especially, the QS-8s need to be crossed at 100Hz in my room to avoid a little hole in response that I would get if crossed over even at 80Hz. With the sub in a "forward" position in the room, alongside the M60s, I find that there is no sub localization with the M60s set to "large". Besides, they just sound a little fuller on large. It seems to me as though, in my setup, they image better on Large as well.
The M60s have very respectable bass…more than I expected from the dual 6.5" woofers. That being said, I still prefer them with a sub as opposed to on their own. I'm finding that I
do prefer a full, heavy sound with much of my music. Movies, of course, are a little more hit and miss for the bass…Ahnold generally benefiting a bit more with this "extra bass" sound than Hugh Grant!
I'm not sure if I ever bought into the idea of different speakers sounding better with different types of music, but if it ever were true, I don't find it to be the case with the M60s. I have literally listened to everything from heavier stuff such as Bad Brains/Nine Inch Nails/Rage Against The Machine/Ice Cube through contemporary Blues (Stevie Ray Vaughan/Jonny Lang/Shemika Copeland) to light rock (Sarah McLaughlin/John Mayer/Eagles/Sting/Jewel) to electric and acoustic Jazz (Michael hedges/Diane Schuur/Billy Cobham/Chick Corea Acoustic Trio/Flim and the BBs) to some classical (I'm not gonna look up the performances!) and the M60s sound great with any type of well-recorded music. They can crank Metallica and then sound delicate with George Winston…..
The system while playing Electric Ladyland, Side Three……
The VP150
There have been a few posts in this forum regarding the VP150 not being as stellar in comparison to the other speakers, and I'd agree by default. It's not that there's anything wrong with the 150, it's just that the 60s and QS8s are just so outstanding, the 150 being "very good" makes it pale a bit in comparison.
I was very limited to my mounting position with my 150, and never tested it closer and further from the wall as I had planned to. I
did, however, do a fair amount of listening to it by itself. As I had done with my QS-8s. I connected the VP150 to the "Main Left" or "Main Right" speaker outputs on my Denon receiver, allowing me to audition a good amount of music on the VP150 alone. I auditioned it with both male and female vocals and wide-ranging material and thought it did fine. Again, it wasn't an M60 (who would expect it to be?) but outside of a fairly steep drop off at about 80Hz, I found it served my needs nicely!
Finding a place to put it was a different story, but I'll write about that in a moment!
The QS8s
Despite reading it over and over again here, I was still surprised how good the QS8s were. I know that generally direct-radiating speakers are recommended for "rears" with multi-channel music, but I really find that my QS8s are doing just fine, thank you very much!
They somehow have the ability to sound completely diffused with movie soundtracks, yet I think they are "localized" fine for music. When I tested mine, I found each had a peak centered at around 320Hz that made them sound very slightly "nasally" and a tad heavy with male voices, but I only heard that when listening to them by themselves when they were being fed "Main" signals for testing. A touch of EQ from the Denon at 250Hz and 500Hz took care of that with no problem.
The diffuse nature of these speakers really would allow for some flexibility in mounting I'm sure. To be honest, I never tested them in different locations; I just followed the rough guidelines for putting them "above your head, a little forward or a little behind" of your listening position. In my case, I went "behind" as I expected to gain a little reflection off the back wall. Unlike the M60s and VP150, the QS8s aren't really designed for banana plugs, but it never concerned me. To me, the advantages of banana plugs are speed and convenience in swapping out speakers. With a speaker that's attached to the wall, it doesn't make any difference.
As I said earlier, the QS8 is smaller than I thought it would be, despite poring over it's measurements (and everything else) prior to purchase. I really think that if the correct finish is chosen, the QS8 will either look small and not at all obtrusive in a living room environment, or, if in contrast, you
want it to be visible in a theater-like environment, it will give that professional "dipole" type of look with it's angled cabinet as well.
EP350 sub
I wasn't sure of the 350 sub for the first few weeks.
I had placed it in the spot in my room that produces the least bass falsely thinking that "least" necessarily meant "cleanest and tightest". I routinely had it's knob at the 11, 12, or even 1 O'clock positions and had previously expected it to be set lower in my smallish room. I had heard some sounds that I could maybe describe as "chuffing" while I watched it's cone move wildly trying to reproduce a frequency in DSOTM.
Well, I've since discovered that I was a bass-head, and an ignorant one at that!
For starters, I learned that some of the "humps" in my frequency response plots were
not because of positioning in the room… I had those humps in every available position. (they correspond, by the way, to the mathematical calculations that
predict
humps based upon the room size). So I put the sub in the corner and that increased it's gain by about 10db. Metering the response also taught me that I was listening to the sub very "hot" in comparison to the rest of the system. I was now able to turn the subs' knob down to the 9 O'clock position…. Not much above the minimum. Hmmm… I thought for awhile I didn't have "enough" sub, now I'm wondering if I have too much!
I haven't gone back to check DSOTM though, and listen for that one spot. My guess, though, is that now that the sub is turned down substantially from where I started, it won't be a problem any more.
I do have an uneven bass response, with a huge "hill" at around 44Hz-50Hz, that I wholly attribute to the room. I'm going to try an experiment in the near future that I had heard about in a forum such as this: I'm going to load a corner of my room with a bunch of towels and loose blankets to experiment with something akin to a homemade bass trap. Luckily, the corner behind the sectional is not only hidden from visitors, but it's also in the diagonal corner from the sub if that matters.
Right now, when I walk around the coffee table in the room, the bass tones from my test CD increase dramatically and, not infrequently, disappear completely as I enter a "null" in the sound. This was with the M60s set to "small" and testing the sub by itself. I'd like to test this again with the M-60s set to Large so I can see if having three sources of bass can smooth out some of the room's irregularities. The problem with metering in the traditional sense is that if you move the meter a foot or even a couple of inches, the readings can sometimes change dramatically. I have to think it's better to have a "pretty good" response throughout most of the room (though we really don't entertain much) than to have almost perfect bass in one seat position only!
I might also purchase a Behringer Feedback Destroyer to try to tame the big bass hump. If I can get that hump flattened, I'll be able to turn the sub up as a whole, increasing my output on the bottom end as well. I think the 350 needs a little more on the bottom end. Maybe it's because I've been reading about all these monster subs, but my room doesn't shake, and I don't "feel" the bass. Again, I think if I get rid of that big hump, I can actually turn
up the gain, thereby increasing the bottom end.
If you haven't figured it out yet, I think like the sub a lot. It's my room I don't like!
