2. tech-talk
  3. 1034995107

Where do I position 4 speakers for 3D stereo sound

My room is 22-15-8 feet. I have a pair of K-horns, and a pair of Lascalas. The K-horns are along the short wall facing outward using four foot false walls. The Lascalas are in the rear to provide a 3D effect. Both pairs are using separate Mark Levinson 334 amps. I am aware that these speakers are designed to be played loudly. However, when played at a low volume, they can create sound effortlessly, and without any distortion at all. My problem is how far back from the K-horns should the sweetspot be positioned,and where should the rear speakers be positioned
to provide the best 3D sound? If the sweetspot is ten feet from the K-horns, then all speakers will be equal distanced from the sweetspot. But is ten feet too close to the front speakers? If the sweetspot is moved back, will I be too close to the back speakers creating phase problems? In that case, should the rear speakers be reflected off the back wall, or side wall? With this in mind, the high frequencies from the tweeters will be lost? Does anybody have any ideas about this problem?
redwoodgarden
sean
6,231 posts
 
All i can say on this one is "Good luck" : ) Sean
>
ezmeralda11
303 posts
 
You didn't specify your processing. If you're just going to run two sets of stereo pairs I don't think it'll do much to achieve the effects you want. You'll need some type of processer before placement becomes an issue. Two speakers can do 3D when well placed.
pbb
1,140 posts
 
Some kind of processing is needed or else what you will wind up with is sitting between two stereo pairs playing the same thing. To get any kind of ambiance, the rear speakers have to be fed a different signal than the front ones, or else they would have to be placed somewhere across the street (maybe across town) from your front speakers. Running the same signal, you will wind up with bass cancellation problems and, like Sean said, good luck. The simplest approach would be to use a Dynaco type set-up. The best way is an ambiance synthesizer. No one really makes these anymore for various reasons, none of which have to do with how effective the better ones were. Yamaha, Sony, JVC are the most memorable makes. I have owned a JVC XP 1010 for many years. It is not presently in my system, since I decided to be more of a two channel purist a while back. I am seriously thinking about getting it back into operation though, as it does provide an added degree of realism, especially to dry recordings. If you believe that one should not be limited to two channels, you should consider multi channel SACD. The problem there is that unlike synthesizing additional channels from stereo program material, you need a brand new collection of software. SACD recordings are still not very numerous. The manner in which they are going about multi channel is also quite perplexing. Just a quick explanation of the ITU standard for the speaker array they recommend and its placement gives one pause. You are right on one score though: less is more does not apply too well when it comes to channels in an audio system, purist be damned. Good day.
tok20000's avatar
tok20000
608 posts
 
Without the right processing, 4 speakers cannot do 3d sound. Heck, without the right recording, 4 speakers cannot do 3d sound. You might get wall to wall sound or surround sound from all directions, but 3d sound??? Not really... 2 channel was created to effectively provide 3d sound. And it does it well if you have the right components.

KF
More to discover