Question on Speaker Placement
Based on the shape and content of my listening room, I have one speaker with a back wall directly behind it ( roughly 2') while the other speaker is backed by the open entrance into another room. What are the sonic implications of this arrangement? I'm limited in my ability to test alternative positions, although by widening the distance between the speaker by about 2', I can back the 2nd speaker with a wall. This would be about a 13 ' distance between the speakers. The speakers are PSB Imagine X2T. Hope this makes sense and thanks.
How does it sound to you? I make no claims of expertise on this subject, but I would certainly THINK that one speaker would sound louder than the other (and I would THINK that would be the one with a wall behind it) and thus I would think that the sonic presentation, sound stage if you will, would be unbalanced.
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’What are the sonic implications of this arrangement?’ Impossible to give you some valuable advise, as I am not in the room to listen and hear. And I do not see the room. What tells the room to your ears/brain when listening to music? What are the actual room reflexions doing to the sound? Are you happy whith the sound quality? If not, you might want to read/listen to the follwing. For me, tutorial no 1 was very, very helpful (@maxwave +1 👍) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNdhDCv4mzc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55rajMHwEJg&t=30s This one goes very deep into the matter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx8b9zxJt4k Dennis Foley from Acoustic fields has as well very good tutorials regarding speaker placement which helped me a lot. For example this ones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-dOSD1KoNU&t=51s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50SeBjyGjKQ&t=179s There are a lot more tutorials from Dennis. For me, it was worth to invest some time. Cheers
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The back wall is important because sound will bounce off the wall back to the listener. You want symmetry in your room because now, 1 of your speakers will get reinforcement from the back wall and the other speaker won’t. If it’s for casual listening who cares but in a more critical listening environment, you want both speakers the same distance from the back wall, the side walls, and from the listener position. |
Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions. One common question, and rightly so, was "Do you like the sound? or "How does it sound to you?" I've been generally pleased with the sound in the room as is, but like many concerned citizens, I'm always seeking improvement, the cheaper, the better. Keep them cards and letters coming! |
The only thing that matters is how it sounds to you. From your description you will likely get more lower frequency SPL from the speaker in front of the wall while the speaker that is floating won't be able to match the others SPL. The only way to really discover what they're doing is measure the speaker's responses. The free REW software is a great tool to sort out difficult rooms. Keep in mind that when speakers get more than 9ft apart it gets more and more difficult to get good imaging. Good luck and cheers. |
Many years ago John Rutan at Audio Connections in Verona, NJ had a listening room configured with the speakers along a diagonal of the room, rather than parallel to a wall. It sounded great with all the speakers I heard, probably four pair. For the past couple of years, I’ve finally had a room that’s amenable to such a setup, and it works out really well. Now, I’m using dipole speakers, but none of the speakers John played for me were dipoles, and they all sounded good in that configuration, so it’s probably worth a try if you have an appropriate room. And using a real time analyzer app, I seem to be getting pretty flat response, although I can’t compare it to the response in prior rooms with parallel configurations because I only discovered app after moving to my present house. |
Find a track you really like that has full dynamic range. Place tape on the floor where your speakers are. Move them all around, each time listen to that song. Place tape where you think things work, repeat till you find the "sweet spot" When you figure out what sounds best, leave the speakers there. |
I recently listened to a person's system that looks like it would sound terrible. One speaker close against a glass side wall and the other sidewall open to the room as you describe. It sounded glorious. So sometimes the rules are not as written in stone, although I agree there was luck involved with excellent system building. Just got to try it. |
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My experience for monopoles is the distance to the back wall in conjunction with listening distance most affects approximately the 40-400Hz range. I use inexpensive acoustic measurement setup to more efficiently figure out placement, especially with the two variables. I start with the Jim Smith .83 ratio for speaker width to listening distance and experiment with that by ear before adjusting toe in. I totally agree with marking each placement as you go. Speaker placement is cheap but can take hours and hours of work, especially in the beginning. People learn as they experiment. |
If you measured the frequency response of each speaker independently at your listening position they would show huge differences, mainly in the bass to midrange regions. It may sound ok, but each speaker is broadcasting a very different tonal balance. Listen to one at a time to hear the difference. The good news is that a wider spread can sound great, in fact that is what I prefer. Based on the recommendation of a local dealer who sells speakers that like to be near the corners I tried a wide spread and now cannot live without it, kind of like an IMAX sound stage. My ratio is 1.18 to one, meaning if your speakers are 13 feet apart, make sure your ears are about 11 feet from left ear to left speaker, right to right etc. To make sure you don't have any holes in the center stage image, play a mono recording and adjust the toe angle of each speaker so that the center image vocals sound full and even with a well defined image. Enjoy! |
Echo others I’d think you’d hear a volume imbalance given the reinforcement from the wall in the one speaker, but apparently it’s not affecting you. You might consider trying some sound absorption behind that speaker just to see if you get an improvement. To me, 13’ between speakers is really wide. Best of luck. |
