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Did Kharma make their 3.2 FE too short?

I hardly presume to know squat about speaker design, but since placing my speakers on 6 inch wooden blocks, they have improved immeasurably: soundstage is higher, deeper, more spacious, highs more airy and imaging better than when placed flat on the floor. The reasons for doing this are mentioned in a separate thread and are irrelevant here - what I want to know from Kharma pundits is: What is the down-side and what is lost in this elevation?
Room 21 X 16 ft with 20 ft A-frame high celing; Speakers along short wall, 8 ft apart, 3 ft from walls. Were the speakers designed for smaller rooms? Will this elevation affect measured coherence and am I hearing an artefact effect? Speaker experts please respond. No doubt I have a "new" set of better speakers with the help of 6" of solid maple. Would love to know what Kharma thinks.
springbok10
thorman
1,262 posts
 
My guess is ( being a Kharma 1.0 owner ) that the 3.2 is made for a room smaller than yours..From what I have read in the past many people buy them and love them but the ones that quickly sell them are the ones with room that are around or larger than your size room.Not because they arn't a wonderfull speaker,but because the have to be pushed to hard and asked to do something there are not bulit for ..My guess is your room has too much volume of space....
emailists
923 posts
 
If the blocks raising the speaker help, you should consider some sort of Sistrum stand. I'm not sure which one or if they would have to be a custom type job. Sistrum stands under my speakers made a huge impact. (mine were 20" models for monitors) The lower SP-1 stands under my turntable were excellent as well, so maybe they could make one of those series stands a bit higher for you.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
This is concerning. If it changes the presentation so much that you would question the speaker design then how can you be confident about the driver alignment, Xover (lobbing perhaps) or speaker dispersion. Perhaps you have hardwood floors and this made the effect more pronounced? Either it indicates something wrong with the speaker design or room acoustic issues - I prefer to think you have room acoustic issues with such a great speaker.

One of my tests of a good speaker/acoustics is consistent sound from a wide variety of positions - standing or seated - left and right - my experience is that good room acoustics and good speaker design means that you can move around without abrupt changes in response/imaging (widest sweetspot = most natural sound). Generally good balanced sound should be achievable anywhere in the room (standing or seating) provided you are at least 3 feet away from a wall and 6 feet from the speakers - image will be most precise in the sweetspot, of course.
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