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Speaker Placement - When it's perfect!

So many audiophiles have commented that when your room treatment is completed, your electronics set up and tweaked and most importantly, your speakers are set up in your listening space correctly that you'll know it because everything just sounds so "right" and natural.  I just accomplished that feat in the last two weeks.  I say two weeks because I needed to play a wide variety of recordings to be sure that I'm there.  It is so great to have finally hit just the right set up.

I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that it has taken me well over a year of experimentation to get to this point.  It's not that other placements yielded poor quality sound its just that now everything sounds like a live event (as much as any of our systems can).

I would really appreciate hearing about your journey to the promised land of audiophile/music lover bliss.  How long did it take, what were the most difficult aspects of the journey?  And if you have yet to get there, what do  you think is the "brick in your wall"?
128x128hifiman5
toddverrone's avatar
toddverrone
840 posts
 
@willemj - hey, thanks. I’m aware that bass management methods are far different than simple higher frequency scattering/absorption, but I appreciate the feedback, especially delivered in a friendly recommendation.

I’m trying to decide between bass panels or slack membrane absorbers. Any recommendations?

Funnily enough, @geoffkait , I recently moved an orange tree back into my listening room after it was outside all summer. I’ve been having boomy bass issues and have some measurements showing me the frequencies that are not decaying fast enough. After I moved the orange tree inside, the bass issues are reduced by a significant amount. Decay times and volumes of spikes are greatly reduced.

Plant power! This tree is helping my sound...
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
toddverrone, that’s nice but how does it sound? you might be the exception that proves the rule. :-) or you could be a plant. :-)
tomcarr
1,587 posts
 
@hifiman5 , 

I am fortunate to have a dedicated listening room with acoustic treatment on all walls including ceiling. The perceived soundstage is actually deeper and bigger now than it was when the speakers were further from the front wall but without any room treatment.
Michael Fremer made a comment that acoustic treatment can make the walls disappear. It did in my case. Best improvement in SQ for me.

Tom
willemj
1,036 posts
 
A few days ago a posted a link to a BBC handbook on control room design that had extensive discussion of the diferent ways to treat a room. I don't seem able to find it now.
ejr1953
921 posts
 
I feel everyone's pain, been there, done that, have the t-shirt with speaker positioning.
In my case I struggled integrating a new pair of speakers into a 24 x 26' room with pretty awful acoustics.  I got the speakers sounding really "dialed in", then had to start all over, after adding a pair of sub woofers.
The room added a single bass tone (no matter what notes the bass players were playing) that was about as loud as the sub woofers.  As I got the bass under control, eventually placing 10 bass traps around the room (with the help of REW and a calibration mic), I had to re position the main speakers to once-again get that "performer in the room" sound stage.
I eventually "got it" and have left well alone since then.
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