Severe Imaging Problem

The more resolution you hear, the more you want to hear. At some point, you do have to tweak in other ways, besides placement. Beleive me, you have not done everything you can do with treatment.

David - Where od your sit in relation to the loudspeakers and the room. One thing you could try to help you determine if you have an equipment problem is so set yourself and speakers up for very close nearfield listening, which is another way of getting rid of room effects. I did this for a while while I familiarized myself w/ a new room and system (though I've sinced followed Carl's advice and gone for sound treatment at the first reflection points, etc). In nearfield, you should still get correct imaging if there is nothin wrong w/ your speakers. The actual set up is simple - the proverbial equilateral triangle, but a fairly small one (4-6 feet on each "leg") and basically in the center of your room. If you e-mail me (cedeno.a.1@pg.com) you room dimensions, listening seat height, distance from floor to woofer and number of woofers per speaker etc. I can run them thru the RPG Room Optimizer software and give you a rough set up to try. will also calculate all the first refeflection points

David, it sounds like you've tried this already but it sounds to me like a phase problem. I have an inverting preamp so I swap the leads at the speakers. I have experimented both ways with the speaker cables and on some recordings it makes a huge difference, images way outside and in front of the speaks, and on others it makes no difference. Be careful with the source material you are using, some recordings are not in absolute phase. The phase is often changed many times during recording, mixing, pressing, etc. That's one reason some recordings sound unbelievable in regard to imaging and some sound like crap. That's when most audiophiles like myself get out of the chair and start moving speakers around. Big mistake. Make sure your speakers are connected to your amp in correct phase with each other. Lastly, side wall reflections aren't causing the severe problems you've mentioned although they are the most important to dampen in my opinion. Your image may pull to one side or the other but not like you've mentioned. Hey, you are no doubt in audio hell but rest assured there is a way out. Good luck.

hi david, if i understand ewe correctly, reversing the interconnects leaves the same imaging problema at the left speaker, & the right speaker is still ok, even tho the channels have been reversed? i guess it *is* possible that the asymmetric location of your window alcove could be doing this, but w/proper room treatment, i'd be surprized that it's such a noticeable problem. are your speakers mirror-imaged, or can you switch 'em? assuming ewe are *sure* you've addressed *all* the proper-phase issues, and wall-treatment issues (try a sound-panel in front of the left-side opening of the alcove to mimic the right-side wall?), i'd try switching the speakers themselves... good luck, doug

One thing that the xlo disk helps with is checking every possility of phase probs, along with the solutions. If that doesn't seem to be the difficulty concerning l and r imaging, then you might want to consider hiring an acoustician. The guy will come in there with all the expensive equipment and properly install treatments. I just think for a really complex room situation, that that is a reasonable solution.