How long do (did) you all spend getting your speakers placed "just right"?

Th reason I ask is because I have 2 pairs of bookshelves currently I'm rotating in my listening room. One pair was exceptionally easy to place and toe in, the other is a chore to get just right. They each performed best in differing locations/toe in- in the same room with regards to the mlp.

Since The 2 sets behave differently, it is easy to spot eachs strengths and shortfalls. One thing to note is the easy pair to set up also sound more accurate. The pair that are a chore are "sweet sounding" "audiophile-ish" speakers that are extremely transparent once placed just right. Like "there are speakers in here?" good. But they took a while.

I also noticed, as I recorded small movements in position first, then toe in, that minute changes in toe in changed the tone and texture of sounds. Especially noticable in piano and vocals. I put a scale behind the listening position and changed toe in 1" at a time. (Using a laser)

There was finally a point where everything just "locked in" and everything sounded real. (Or as real as I can imagine the performance was.)

For those interested the disc I judged instruments by was Bela Fleck- Across the Imaginary Divide.

Piano
Stand up bass
Banjo
Drums

The disc I judged vocals by was Barenaked Ladies- Gordon

After all was said and done, I kinda want to sell the audiophile ones and try something else more accurate. To compare the "accurate" ones to something else.

Pair of M3s on canuck.....

But I have already been "warned".

10 years so far. Before that I had different speakers and was working on getting *those* set up right.

Actually that's not totally correct -- the M60s seemed to be less picky than most about location, and once I learned not to toe them in as much as I was used to everything pretty much fell into place. What really mattered with them was getting the room right.

With the M40s and other smaller speakers, placement seemed to make much more of a difference and I'm still tweaking when time permits. My current theory is that the bigger Axioms spread the bass out enough (by having ports all over the place) to at least slightly average out the impact of room effects (kinda like having multiple subwoofers).

If you really want to get warned, there are a pair of AX2s and what seems to be a passive (dual voice coil) AX500 subwoofer on CAM too. I'm trying for fewer speakers at the moment, not more, but it's still tempting

Somehow I knew I would hear from you, and glad for it.

I checked out those older axioms too. Hard to beat that price for a speaker that works even. I would be killed! Lol.

Spending time doing this sort of thing has taught me the more I learn, the more I appreciate how little I know about perfecting audio. Like Golf, its one of those hobbies where getting good is easy, but getting great can take a lifetime.

I try to wring perfection out of as little $ as possible. Otherwise the hobby can get silly $ quick. More fun too!

I have a pair of pristine AX2s that I retired 3 years ago when I bought M22V3s to replace them. The last time that I looked, mine did not suffer the speaker surround rot that many have over the years.

Huge power handling & great performers especially with a sub which is the way that I used them for 20 years. They are languishing away in my garage & still on their 'Lifetime Warranty'.

Brochure (supplied to Axiom by yours truly) here:

http://www.axiomaudio.com/images/AX_Stereo.jpg

TAM

The best sound stage I've had took several hours spread over 2 weeks. I wasn't in a hurry and wow.

I've ruined it several times since, starting with the addition of an acoustically transparent screen.

A rerun of the original placement is scheduled to take place shortly. I am going to empty my room and start with a single chair again.

Maybe an hour?
Sometimes there are only so many locations or positional movements within a room that it doesn't take long.
Even then, i can't say anything is perfect.

I agree with bridgman though that the M60s were easier to place than the M22s but distance was a factor. The farther away from the sitting location, the less that speaker placement had much of a role.

Today a friend was over and I showed him the setup. I explained how painstaking it was to place the speakers and let him listen for a bit. I moved one channel 2 inches to the right and reduced the others' toe in by a half inch or so and he was amazed.

It all just fell apart. For a moment I panicked, then realised it was all recorded somewhere. He said "it sounds like 2 speakers now. The drums dont sound right."

I quickly swapped the more accurate ones in at thier predetermined optimal location, lasered them up and let him listen again. (Took all of 5 minutes to reset)

His response was "holy shit! Way better. You should keep these and sell the other ones." He is a headphones guy and described the accurate setup as a "big huge sounding pair of headphones." The bass extends about 10hz lower with the more accurate pair, an easy victory.

The dilemma is these bookshelves are ending up in the basement as surrounds. So the sooner I finish the basement HT, the sooner I'm left with an inferior 2ch rig. Lol. Now I'm tempted to move the floor standing rears out of the HT plan and have a 5.1.4 setup. But then I lose the rear surrounds.

The moral of the story is, as soon as you have options, you want to excercise them. Best to leave options off the table.

Hey brwsaw did you find the AT screen affected he 2ch soundstage in a bad way? Or more a high frequency db drop thing? I was hoping the basement setup would suit both uses.

The screen is awesome. Definitely recommend the Seymour XD if you're more than 8' from it. When I installed the screen I lowered the towers to just off the floor and have regretted it since. Voices don't line up with the video on screen like it did.
I didn't notice any SQ differences just that I couldn't leave well enough alone after the first set up mentioned above. I have issues.

We all have issues. Were here, aren't we!

I'm glad I planned ahead and grabbed a roll of XD material.My towers ended up just inside the frame, had I build the frame as per THX specs the towers would gave been right in the mid line of the frame. I built it +/- a foot smaller (from both walls) than the room width and all three are behind and it works great.

I think I will place the speakers first and go from there wrt the basement system. I'll buy the screen stuff once audio positions are set.

Here is a great podcast going over the basics to understand the importance of loudspeaker positioning in 2ch and multichannel. Fresh off the press right when most useful. . He doesn't give away the methods he uses though. $2500 a class.

But he is considered a real deal guru and teaches for CEDIA and trains installers worldwide.

It really is over the top and unecessary.
Understand some basics and then just play around with it yourself.
People will know when they hear a stereo system in good stereo and when the surround setup is doing its job. The point is that the speakers should blend together such that one speaker doesn't become obvious over any other. The reproduced sound should seem realistic like having the band in front of you or having bullets whizzing around you.

Start with some easy reading, lots online, but i try to stop short of obsession. You can spend stupid amounts of time on this subject yet never have a true a/b comparison to know if all the small tweaks are improvements or not.
Bridgman's posts on his trials demonstrate the insanity nicely.


I started with the idea of the golden ratio and went from there.
http://www.ecoustics.com/articles/stereo-speaker-placement-optimum-sound/
Lots of more complex books and mathematics if one desires.
http://www.edsavhandbook.com/Chapter%20S...Small%20Rm.html

Don't over simplify it either. My speakers blend nicely, but, given the constraints of my living room, I could never get a good sound stage out of my speakers. The only reason I know this is because of what I was exposed to during my listening sessions at Axiom pre-purchase.

I'm hoping that the new layout with unimpeded speakers will allow me to finally get the best out of my system.

I gotta ask - when you are listening in your MLP, is your head clamped in some kind of device to stop any ear movement that might (probably) degrade the sound stage?

It seems that with these painstaking minute adjustments that are made to speaker location will largely be negated by any movement of one's head. Half the time that I'm listening I end up being horizontal with my head being at 1 end of the couch or the other.

I remember reading a post from another manufacturer that placing the speaker (with a ribbon type tweeter) was critical & that sometimes a difference as little as 1 degree could make a large change in the sound stage. How could someone listen optimally with that kind of accuracy & restriction? How would that work in a HT where people are often spread across a listening area?

Not saying that one shouldn't try for the best placement; however, I limit my tweaking to the very basics because I'm lazy & I know that I won't be listening rigidly in the same spot...

TAM

I can only shake my head at the lengths some people seem to want to do to get what they are saying gives the perfect sound. What TAM has said rings a certain amount of truth, but look at it from a more scientific stance.

You have 'x' number of speakers, and in most cases a room with 6 reflective surfaces. Sound travels out in a ripple effect (like dropping a stone in a pond). When it hits another reflective surface, it changes direction and looses energy. The more distance it travels, it also looses energy.

You as the listener are going to be in some x,y,z offset from each of those sources. As you move around in your room, the sound that you hear will change as your relative position to the sound source and reflective surfaces also change.

If you change the location of the speakers from any of the reflective surfaces, the effect on the sound will also change.

If you change the composition of the room to modify the reflective properties +/- of the surfaces, the effect on the sound will also change.

What you find pleasing may not be what someone else will find pleasing. Everybody has there own taste.

Wow, response galore! people like vids.

To clarify, this saga is for my 2ch rig. The chair is a recliner. I am pretty much in the sweet spot unless I drop dead and slump over. So far so good.

However, the setup in the basement will follow 2ch protocols. Ie. The LCR soundstage will be perfectly aligned and symmetrical within a lasers width.

Today I broke down after setting up the audiophile speakers again (have to wean myself off the others) and taped out a line perpendicular to the speakers at each one. I set them up 651/2 inches from side walls and 92.75 inches apart. No toe in yet. I moved them forward and back at 1 inch increments over a 12" range. All measurenents from top center of front baffle. To my surprise at 24" off the wall the bass was weak. At 21" the bass was best and the soundstage literally opened up as drums became extremely well defined. There was a dip in bass output from 20" to about 16". At 14" to 12" the bass was strongest, but sounded misformed and without detail.

As Matt said purely unscientific. So I purchased an RTA and FFT analyser program and repeated the procedure with a 20hz-20khz mono pink noise track being fed into the stereo from the program. It verified my listening tests to within a 1/2". I was a little smug with myself.

The FFT revealed a huge bass valley in the soundstage between the woofers output and the port output. From 63hz-90hz. Must investigate and rule out the room first. If the room not much I can do. What a cool tool to have!

I dub thee Sir Speaker Nerd.

Hey, wait a minute... ok, yeah, I guess so...


Surprisingly enough that wasn't the case. What I found was that the sweet spot actually got a bit bigger as I started getting the reflections under control, to the point where the sweet spot was at least a foot in any direction. Too little damping and there's basically no sweet spot, too much and it's really small...

... but there is a "just right" (or close enough anyways) in between.


I hate to say it, but I went through all that to make the sound not suck. Once it got pretty good, I stopped. Really.

Last post cut off to run to dinner plans.

Indeed Fred.

Hey TAM

I actually think placing the speakers with symmetry and perfect alignment in mind increases the size of the sweet spot. I can move my head freely in my mlp and the images stay stable. Probably depends on many factors though re: ribbion tweeters. I really enjoy doing this. Should have done it for a living.

Matt, the "its a crapshoot" philosophy rings true in some cases. I try to employ a scientific approach where possible. I make detailed notes and my process is methodical- if not entirely experimental as I learn more.

Fwiw, all "good" ht setups I've experienced were set up employing the basic rules set out by dolby et al. But in none of them (my own prior attempts included) was there an "aha!" moment where everything was perfect. Great for sure, but not goosebump inducing.

My metric for perfection has nothing to do with preference. I want it to sound as real as possible. Not to sound like I'm removed from the movie or music recording. I am the closest I've ever been in a 2ch system. The new HT will be a whole other animal!

For what it's worth, I agree that an HT system brings even more challenges, since it's much more common to have multiple listening positions.

On the other hand you also have multiple speakers and even going from 2.0 to 3.0 makes a huge difference in the size of the sweet spot, taking it from maybe one foot wide to several feet wide.

I haven't tried treating an HT room yet -- that's something for next year -- but my guess is that (a) figuring out through experimentation what to do next is going to be even harder than it is for a stereo system, and (b) reaching "good enough" will be quicker and easier, so hopefully it will all balance out.

For the HT area I'm planning to hit the first reflection points, add some kind of bass trapping either at the sides or the roof peak, replace the Ikea bookshelf with a dedicated projector mount, and call it a day. Oh yeah, and maybe finally build a frame around my formica screen.

The room is basically the union of two square boxes cut in half by a solid reflective floor (probably what Mark's room looks like after a bottle of good whiskey) so I'm not aiming for "perfect".





The second picture needs one of those "Caution, HT equipment is not to scale" warning signs.

When it happened I knew.
I was sitting there, eyes closed, 100 %in the moment.
The soundstage literally extended beyond/outside the boundaries of the room and the musician began to move across the stage towards me (left to right). It was the coolest moment I've ever experienced. It was so real, I felt like I wasn't alone in the room. I had to open my eyes. It was incredible.
In my mind there was a form, I'd use a sun spot as an analogy (look at the sun, look away) but it was dark like a storm cloud not bright like a light.

I've had a similar experience since but never like that.

During the last Axiom anniversary celebration we had a chance to do some blind listening between two sets of speakers that turned out to be the M3 and a B&W Diamond bookshelf. It was a 'holly crap!' moment as the M3 had an incredible soundstage compared to the B&Ws. It was a real ear opener.

I have no idea how long it took the folks at Axiom to set things up, but I imagine it followed a similar process to what you are doing.

Bottom line, if you set your room up right, there is a big payoff.

I've never experienced anything close to this. The most I have noted is the center channel seeming to be on when listening in stereo only.

Bridgman, that is a superbly unique space. I was going to recommend you look at what other attic users employed, but you are on terra incognita I think. Cool.

Brwsaw, you are in the 1% who finally know exactly how it feels (not sounds) when everything falls into place. When you can almost reach out and touch it or feel it moving while you stay put. Very cool and enviable story.

Mark, a good way to get started is to listen to "lively sounding" recordings with some reverb. A good one is Badfish by Sublime. There are so many cool things going on in the mix. From the beginning where you can feel like you are in the bar, or the siren swooping forward and around the room and then the huge and enveloping guitar solo. Another is Steven Page floating around in Brian Wilson.

When tracks not employing these obvious mixing/phasing tricks start to take shapes and forms in the room you are getting there. It can get uncanny.

I actually rated the B&W higher. I found the biggest difference was the heavier bass with the M3 and after a few song flips i stated to find it distracting (i.e. less accurate sounding).

I rated the B&W slightly higher as well. For me it was the female vocals, BUT the soundstage of the M3 was outstanding and highlighted for me what I am missing in my room.

I noticed that Peter plumbed the couch cushion such that anyone sitting down would be tilted 20 degrees off angle to the left.
Had to fix that before i started the listening test.

What's really nice is when it finally comes together in a home theater to the point where there are no speakers, no hot spotting, smooth bass, believable weapons fire...when a ricochet travels through the room, I mean literally flies past, its a beautiful thing.

This is one of the reasons I tend to start over so frequently. Every time I wreck a good thing I find that little nugget of bliss. Those mere seconds in a 2 hour film make it all worth it.

I'm counting the days until I tear it apart again, I really want the image and the sound to meld a bit better. I've had both before, it didn't sound as good back then so this should be a real treat.
I should be starting in a few days.

Found the bass dip. Ran per channel log chirps (full band sweep) and found the left channel is the culprit. Its close proximity to a sofa about 1.5ft outside of it is causing the issue I think. It is only noticable with a measurement though.

My room RT60 time is between 0.5 and 0.3 seconds depending on octave. Generally, the low frequencies had a shorter decay time.

The measurement delay time from L/R channel was 12.01ms and 12.04ms respectively at peak impulse. Pretty darn close. This is directly related to distance from the mlp.

I have come to the conclusion that even "high end" reviews often dont take the care to do all demonsrated in this thread. My takeaway from this entire process is as follows:

Speaker position is incredibly dynamic. As Matt pointed out, all variables are interwoven.
System symmetry is imperative for the full performance of imaging and transparency.
Spaciousness and bass response are somehow interrelated. Distance from room boundaries are directly involved.
Acoustical measuring tools speed the process up, but reveal issues that arent neccessarily real issues.

My recommendations are: (nothing new here)

Experiment with width first from room center line (equadistant from side walls.) No toe in.
Experiment with distance from rear wall behind speakers after width is tentatively set. No toe in.
Once width and back wall distance are set try toeing speakers in. Go slowly and be as exact as possible. A difference of 1/4" at the speaker is several inches where you sit.

Match distances between speakers and boundaries as closely as possible. Make sure your mlp is exactly centered in room. This ensures refections arriving are at least in time with one another. Incredible difference in drum synergy.

Doing these things will result in a larger sweet spot. Better resolution of fine detail. Improved spaciousness. Better bass response. Improved transparency and imaging. Better envelopment.

If you just plonked your speakers down, it will likely sound like a several thousand $ upgrade to you. But likely for most of us, steps like this are the leap from good to great. Or from great to hoping for poor weather.

@brwsaw

If you are interested in seeing the changes in speaker placement, ala measurements, I can recommend Audio Tools on IOS devices. I added the LARSA plugin too. Very rebust yet intuitive. Good video demos on how to use the software without heavy jargon included. Great with the ipad.

REW is the obvious free choice if you have a laptop and Mic.

I cant wait till someone with a full range system and time to kill optimises their setup. Hope you get the speaker "presence" back!

I picked up a PC for the HT the other day. I'm hoping to hook it up and use it this go around but I like flying blind.

I will get it back, I have placement records. Thing is I still have a short list of specific changes I want to try.

These are great speakers, I'm not too worried any more.