I recently purchased a pair of M60s, VP150, and QS8s. I'm extremely pleased with the new setup although I do have a question for the more learned souls on the board. I want to broaden the sweet spot when listening in 2 channel. Due to some room constraints I have seating spread out over a fairly wide area. As it is now, my sweet spot is about 4 feet wide. The two M60s are 8 feet apart. They are a little over a foot from the back wall and 12 feet from my usual listening position. I have them slightly toed in towards the sweet spot. I played with the positioning some but have yet to hit on the optimal placement. Any tips or tricks that I may be missing?

Thanks,
hwade

hwade,
Have you tried your fronts "straight on" versus "toed-in"? It may help widen the spot a bit. Others will provide tips, I'm sure. Good luck.

lando

hwade

i had a similar dilema
i wanted to widen my m22ti sweetspot
so i slightly widened their stance, so they aimed a little more open, and it worked, a little.

try that, you'll probably get good results.

hwade,

If you truly have a "sweet spot" that is about 4 ft wide, that's not too bad. Ideally, your best sweet spot would occur in a unilateral triangle setup. So if you are 12 ft from the speakers and they are 8 ft apart you are doing pretty good.

My personal experience with the M60s is that if you do "tow" them in somewhat (like 15 degrees or so), you really improve the soundstage depth and imaging. I would suggest that if at all possible you re-arrange your listening room to a more equilateral setup (i.e. move your listening position a bit closer to the wall the speaker are on).

You will have to experiment with straight on (perpendicular to the wall) vs "towed" in to determine the best listening setup, but I think you will find that it will ultimately be a personal choice "compromise" between a larger sweet spot and a smaller one with increased imaging and depth. (btw - when you say that your speakers are 1 ft from the wall, do you mean 1 ft from the back side of the speaker?) Getting closer to the wall can increase the bass response somewhat but if you get too close, than you can have a detrimental effect on the imaging.

There are other considerations as well (like room size, wall, ceiling, and floor materials, furniture, etc.) It really all comes down to trial and error. Try moving stuff (speakers, furniture, etc.) around (as much as possible) to get the best compromises and sound. There are really no hard and fast rules!

Good Luck!

Randyman

I posted this once before but here is the link again. Its a guideline i pulled out of an Angstrom speaker booklet and is basically a schematic of a starting point for speaker placement. I've seen similar things that have been suggested in a number of other ezines and forums. (don't mind the inconsistently slow servers, it will eventually show)
suggested speaker placement schematic

Hope it helps to add to the other suggestions.

Thanks for the info guys. I'll move some things around tonight. Currently the back of the speaker is 1 foot from the nearest wall.

I bought these thinking I would use them primarily for HT but I can't seem to quit listening to music long enough to watch a movie. My wife thinks I'm crazy when she comes home to find me staring at a blank TV sceen, a Lyle Lovett CD playing, and a stupid grin on my face.

hwade