1st Post Intro & Ramblings


Hi all, I have been a member for about 10 years and never posted anything although I do read a lot. Figured at some point I would, 10+ years later......

 Profession, Audio Visual Tech 22 years. I mostly work in house corporate, conventions and trade shows. Spent some time building clubs, worked a few concerts and home audio has been more of a hobby for a very long time and I have designed and built a few very high end setups years ago. I always hated working professionally on home audio, the customers and sales people are either to cheap or knee deep in marketing and cannot take advice from professionals. My experience has led me to be more aware of the budget, a vast majority cannot spend $10-20k on a stereo and yet some of us spend that on a just 1 component. 
I think that will suffice as an introduction, next I will post some of what I have learned along the way. Keep in mind, most of my recommendations come with a budget mindset instead of $$$ all out performance $$$.
kreapin
Timing will be "aligned" as long as the two speakers are equal distance to the ears. There really is no other alignment. Most of it is a balancing act between direct/reflected, and shadowing function of the head to the other ear. The first heavily impacted by speaker and room, the second by speaker, and angle.

This is correct. More people should know this. Save a huge amount of time. Unbelievable amount of time. One particularly clueless individual thinks there is just no way speakers can be set up in 10 minutes.  

Reality check. Those who follow my posts will know this. I'm at CES, yes the Consumer Electronics Show. Vendor pass, Talon Audio room. They are just not getting the sound they want. Full hour at least tweaking this way, tweaking that. Sounds good but the image just isn't "locked in". Was my first time there so trying to fly on the wall it until it gets to where they are out of ideas and ready for anything from anyone.

Do you have a tape measure? Yes. Do you have a string or something we can use for a straight line? Yes. So we stretch the string, put the speakers on that line, measure to the middle of the string, run another one at 90 degrees, double-check speakers are equidistant from that point. Done. Not even 10 minutes. Beautiful imaging. Everyone happy.

Done it many times, many different systems, many different rooms. It just ain't that hard folks.  
Wow. I think someone should let the speaker manufacturers know the information in there instruction manual is false 
What? All of them? Can you name even one with instructions that conflict with this? No. You can't. You just thought it would be smart to act like you know something, when you don't.  

Listen, I know a lot of people still haven't figured this out. Its not news to me. Nor is it new that people continue to believe BS simply because a lot of other people believe the same BS. Its why we have the word sheeple. 

Figure it out. Until you do, enjoy your status, #28.
Here you go, quoted from the manufacturer.

Anthony Gallo
Depending on décor considerations you may wish to position your Nucleus Reference3’s within a just a few inches of the wall behind them, but the sound will be more "open" when the speakers are 12 to 36 inches out into the room. The Nucleus Reference3’s can fire straight ahead, OR angled in, towards the listening position. Stereo imaging will be more specific when angled in, and upper bass will be more prominent and "faster sounding.

Focal
The loudspeakers should be positioned symmetrically, facing the listening area, ideally forming an equilateral triangle with it. It is, however, possible to change these distances to reach the ideal compromise for any particular conditions (fig. C). The loudspeakers should be positioned at the same height, in the same horizontal plane. Ideally, the tweeter should be positioned at the same height as the listener's ear when listening normally (fig. D).
Do not position your loudspeakers too close to a corner of the room and do not place them too close to a wall. If they are positioned close to a wall or a corner this has the effect of exciting certain resonances within the room and artificially increasing the bass. Conversely, if the bass level is judged to be insufficient, you could try moving the loudspeakers nearer a wall to re-balance the bass level (fig. E).