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Moving from mid-fi to hi-fi -- Imaging questions

Hi. I am in the processing fine tuning the placement of my Magnepan 3.6's. I am new to the kind of detailed imaging these magnificent speakers provide. A few questions arise ...

What does it mean when I have excellent imaging but the instruments are in the wrong place? For example, I can pinpoint the high-hat cymbals and the snare drum but they are like 6 feet apart. I know from playing drums that that is just not possible. Also on drums, the distance when between tom toms is unrealistic -- like on the out edges of all the other instruments.

Sometimes voices are right on top of each other when I feel sure one is actually standing on the left and one on the right. Other times, the voices are clearly side by side.

I have a wide variety of cds, many considered audiophile grade. I am wondering if these are differences in the way the recording and or mixing is done. Overall, the music sounds great and imaging is exquisite but I want to get the most these speakers offer. Do I need to keep working my placement or am I reaching the limit of the source material?

As a side question: Is there any difference in the quality of manufactured CDs? I read once that some cds (BMG for example) were lower quality. I always buy my music used. Is there any difference in brands of cds? And down side to buying used cds?

Thanks all.
mcmanus
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Your current listening triangle by conventional standards is overly broad (speakers, or at least tweeters, 11' apart, you only 8' away from a tweeter, which means you're even closer to the hypotenuse). This will tend to work against natural perspective and imaging. I would experiment with a layout that describes an equilateral triangle at most, or even more typically with your listening position being a bit farther away from the imaginary line connecting the speakers than the speakers are spread apart from each other. If you can manage it, I would also try to place the speakers along the wall at the low end of the vaulted ceiling, so the ceiling slopes upward in the direction of your seating position. (Plus what Mthieme said about placing the tweeters to the inside if you aren't.)
aball
2,016 posts
 
The Stereophile test CD 2 is my personal favorite because the booklet that accompanies it has pictures of the performers on location, as viewed by the microphones. This way you can listen and compare with the pictures to see if your imaging is indeed good. They used minimal mics so that you don't have to account for mixing and they tell you about the room so you know how much reverb to expect. Really cool. Arthur
sean
6,231 posts
 
Somewhere in the archives, i've posted several times on how to optimally place any speaker in any room. This is not to say that all speakers are suited for all rooms, but this approach will allow them to work as best possible given the specific conditions that you're working with. You do have to have a mono setting on your preamp though. I'm not that thrilled with Agon's search engines, but those posts are in there somewhere.

Other than that, you don't want the speakers the same distance from the rear wall as they are from the side walls. In terms of the imaging that you're achieving, Newbee was right on the money. You're hearing the imaging effects introduced into the recording via a recording engineer, not poor speaker performance. Sean
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zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Sean: Is the speaker placement rule about maintaining different spacing from sidewalls and frontwall (and floor for that matter) really very relevent to line-source dipoles, which radiate at a range of distances from the floor and have nulls to the sides? To me the most important things with Maggies is giving them some room to breathe to the rear and making sure they are toed-in perpendicular to the listening axes.
mcmanus OP
82 posts
 
Zaikesman -- thanks for your comments. I started with a listening position that was 2X the distance between the speakers. The closer I got, the better the imaging. I had a problem with the right side being dominant and when I move back, that problem comes back. I'll try the equal distance traingle. I've tried having the tweeters on the inside and on the outside. The outside is to be best for this room. From the postings here, most Maggie owners place them on the outside except in smaller rooms.
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