Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Front speaker placement question

The general consensus seems to be that the front two speakers should form an equalateral triangle with the primary viewing position. I have a ten foot wide room and with the speakers set one foot in from the wall, they are eight feet apart. I sit about 15 feet back so I am much more isosceles than equalateral.

With M22Ti's, what is the optimal distance they should be from one another assuming an enclosed room? By that I mean each speaker will basically be 1 foot from a wall on the back and a side as opposed to placed say twelve feet apart but in a room 50' x 50'.

I see many pics where speakers are spaced as close as mine but I can't help think the sound would be better if they were 12' apart as opposed to 8.

Greg

Hi Greg,

I don't think that an equilateral triangle is necessarily optimal. You might check out this thread from a while back that talks about the Golden Ratio and a bunch of other stuff I lack the will to implement in my real-life living room.

So much of the experience depends upon things you can't easily change (the room dimensions and openings, etc.), about the only thing you can/should do is experiment with different placements and find one that suits your fancy. I don't think there is an absolute answer to your question.

Especially if you have a couch blocking your mains....

Ok, inside joke.

Randy, now stop that!

Stop what? I don't get it. Randy made a very valid point in my opinion. Don't go and jinx him now

You guys lack the will to resist. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Here is a diagram I was thinking of earlier; I don't know if it is in that other thread or not, but I do remember Jack linking us to it at some point in the past. I don't really want to initiate another discussion about Cardas or cables or that genre, but I do think the calculator is handy. Personally, I can't imagine being able to give up that many square feet of living space BEHIND my speakers.

HTH.

Greg, the equilateral triangle idea is a good one and it's what I always use, with the speakers slightly toed-in to point at the ears. Since except in your hypothetical example you can't make your room wider, if possible sit a few feet closer. Another point is not to have the woofer cones an identical distance from the nearest three room surfaces(i.e. floor and two nearest walls); if they're about a foot from the side wall, make the floor and back wall distances different from that, to the extent it's practical. This helps with smoothness in the upper bass area.

In reply to:

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Personally, I can't imagine being able to give up that many square feet of living space BEHIND my speakers.

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I agree Tom, according to this calculator I would have to place my two fronts almost seven feet from the back wall and this only reassures the results from another speaker placement calculator I found a couple of weeks back on another site. I thought the thing was broke, 7 feet? No way I thought.

I don't know about your neck of the woods but giving up 98 sq. ft. of usable real estate in south Florida adds to $28,000 worth of unused space! I suppose I *could* go ahead and place the speakers that far forward and then brag and boast about my $29,240 front speakers.....hmmm.

Seven feet wasn't such a big deal in the days when TVs had picture tubes. A couple or few feet for the TV, a couple of feet behind the TV stand so you can play with the wires, and mains a foot or so in front of the TV to keep them the same distance from the listener as the center... you're pretty close to 6 feet already.

John that reminds me of a Sony 32" or 35" XBR tube TV my wife and I owned just long enough to decide that by the time the TV was placed in the room, about 4 or 5' of viewing distance just wasn't what we wanted. The TV took up an ungodly amount of space and weighed a ton, I remember the wife and I wrestling with that thing trying to get it in the room and then right back out of the room...what a chore.