1992 Stereophile on speaker placement should be required reading

🤔 I avoided required reading in school…

I think a lot of people even on this forum leave a lot of their SQ on the table simply by having poor speaker placement. How many plop their speakers in a triangle with the base starting at the mfg recommended distance from the wall? I know I did for quite a while. For a long time I was happy with it as it sounded better than anything I had heard before. After a bit I became unhappy with it however and was thinking equipment change, speaker change. It just didn't sound as good as I thought it should. Luckily, I didn't have a pile of extra money on hand, so I started experimenting with speaker positioning. When I spent the time to use the Sumiko method it paid off in spades. My upper bass and mids blossomed; my imaging and soundstage got exponentially better. Are they in the perfect, ultimate spot now? Maybe, maybe not, but all it cost me is time

Wow, back when Robert Harley had some reviewer credibility. I don’t blame those who find the current TAS beneath contempt, but Dick Olsher and Steven Stone---two close friends and proteges of J. Gordon Holt---remain on staff. And Robert E. Greene does good work, his review of the Eminent Technology LFT-8b planar-magnetic loudspeaker in TAS being an excellent example.

Once again I yap about the benefit of Level Controls for ANY speaker in ANY room (L-Pads, not POTs)

from the article, emphasis mine"

"The first change was to use a more powerful amplifier. Better stability and control, as well as a superior overall tonal balance, was found using the much more powerful Krell KSA-250 (its output impedance is no slouch either, being 0.13 ohms at 20Hz). Connected to this powerhouse, the Type Bs were smoother, less hard, more open, and totally effortless. This is no surprise—the KSA-250 can put out close to 1000Wpc into the speaker’s impedance minima of 2.7 ohms (tweeter-level control set to maximum). As JA had mentioned to me, the KSA-250 imposes an "iron grip" on the Type B’s drivers, making it an excellent choice for this loudspeaker in my listening barn—er, room.

Second, a careful adjustment of the tweeter-level control greatly helped me adjust the tonal balance. I found that boosting the treble slightly by turning the level control from 12 to 2 o’clock allowed the speaker to "open up" without becoming shrill.

Third, I changed the speaker’s position, moving them 1’ farther out from the back wall. This move proved very important. Fourth, I found that the Type Bs produced the widest, deepest soundstage and best tonal balance when set up with bi-wired speaker cables."

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Today, inexpensive sound pressure meters combined with test cd with individual frequencies are easy for anyone to see what is actually happening: ANY SPEAKER IN ANY ROOM

Any variations from different speaker poisitioning/listener chair positioning can be seen with meter/test cd.

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Regarding item 1 above: more power in reserve:

My friend just bought a McIntosh MC7270, with BIG Meters! 270 wpc, then McIntosh Power Guard steps in to prevent clipping.

JSE Infinite Slope, Model 2,Speaker’s efficiency over 90, I cannot remember specifically).

We played something dynamic, loud, in large space:

power used: avg 2.7 watts; shoot up to 27 wpc frequently; occasionally shot up to 200 wpc used, and sometimes Power Guard was engaged indicating the full 270 wpc was exceeded.

He visited a big McIntosh dealer, they had a pair of Mono Blocks, 2000 wpc driving very tall McIntosh speakers. Meters indicated avg 20 wpc, occasional spikes.

Happily my 16 ohm horn speakers are very efficient, sensitivity definitely over 100, perhaps 103+. I used 30 wpc tubes for many years (without meters). Now 45 wpc. I feel better having more in reserve, but that’s the most heat I want, everything is a balanced decision.

I do not understand thinking low power, i,e, 8 wpc is a good idea, unless small room, only low volume listening because dynamic peaks do need instantaneous reserves, relative to volume desired.

Tone controls, good ones, are the highest value/dollar feature of any stereo. Not all are perfectly transparent but we are much better off now than we were decades ago. That audiophiles consistently ignore them and instead pick the most exotic and expensive, low return solutions instead drives me a little bonkers.

So many will swap out speakers and cables forever instead of turning the treble up/down a notch.  😁