Soundlab owners - room placement question


Next week I am getting some newly updated M3's from Soundlab. This is the first time I have tried an ESL and I am looking for some advice.

Where should I start for room placement? I understand it will take some time to move them around from this starting point for best results, but love to hear what other Soundlab owners are doing.

My room;

18.5 feet wide
24 feet long
8 foot ceilings
Carpet over concrete floor
No window to deal with
My room so anything goes!
Not open to any other room
300 watt SS amps combined with tube preamp
Listening position is flexible - again my room!
No sub right now - that could change if needed

Appreciate your thoughts.
grannyring
Hello ,

Starting position:

Set the speakers up 11-12 feet from the back wall and 2 feet from the side walls.. Set your listening chair on the back wall and move forward until you have a lock on your soundstage (usually 2-3 feet from back wall) or were it works best for you...

You can move the speakers in until the focus in the middle is optimized with just a slight toe in for focus, room treatment will be a must with some diffusion necessary...

This setup will work very well with your Soundlabs !
Grannyring good to hear you are about to get them;My m2's are 3 ft off the backwall,8ft apart inside edge to inside edge,slight toe in, and I listen 10 ft from the halfway point between the panels.
I think Duke is correct with getting the panels off of the backwall by 3.5 or more is even better than what I have.
Duke also mentioned the ficus tree to diffuse the rear wave or using a sallie;I asked a question a long while ago on which should be used Diffusion or Adsorption and Rives Audio responded to use Diffusion;and I agree 100% on this issue as I tried both.
I think most important is to not rush the process in the setup procedure;your ears will tell you when it is right.
On using a sub I think your M3's will surprise you with the accurate bass reproduction they are capable of.
Hey Grannyring, this is Booboo's den saying sorry for the late response. I have the Sound lab M1s and love them!My room is very simular to yours in layout. It is 24 x 17 feet in dimensions and 7.5 feet tall. The speakers are on the long wall. They are about 5 feet from the back wall and 5 feet from the sides. You can see pictures on the virtual systems section on the all out asault page. My handle is BooBoo's den.The toe is about 25 degrees.From the center of the panel to my ears is about 7 feet.This is a nearfield setup but it is NOT in your face because this is a nice thing about the Sound Labs, never in your face.Diffusors will make them sound very open and make use of the rear energy without compeeting with the center image.The M1's are the 90 degree faced panels. I hope this gives you some new options!
Hi,

I've got a room that's smaller than yours and I'm using A-1 PX panels in it. It measures 18' x 13' x 8' with a bulkhead around the upper edge to break-up the bass. The speakers are within 1" of the bulkhead. Bass traps in the rear corner, diffusion on the sides and absorption and diffusion on the back 1/3 of the room. RIVES did the room and it works very well.

I've tried the speakers out into the room with the speakers sitting at around 6' and the listening position at about 3'-6" from the front and rear walls respectively. They were 9" from the side walls. The toe in is pretty much center of the panel to each ear and measured very closely.

Now, recently I've moved the speakers back to 3'-6" on the advice of RIVES and the listening position forward to 6'. I moved the speaker away from the side walls to about 13". This really improved the sound dramatically for me but I think the major shift was in swapping the listening position with the speaker position. I tried 3'-6" for both listening and speaker and that didn't work as well. For those that are counting I think these are the 1/3 and 1/5th points in the room.

I've ordered a pair of SALLIE diffusers for behind the speakers as I'm told by RIVES that some diffusion behind the speaker regardless of position is desirable. I can't use the RPG diffusers because of a fireplace on the rear wall so the SALLIE is a good solution for me. It will also allow me to move around the rear diffusors to experiment.

It pays to play around with them and keep moving them. They are really easy to move on the carpet glides and you can switch to cones if you like, once you have them dialed in. It's pretty hard to go wrong in that, from my experience, Soundlabs sound fantastic wherever you place them however, some moves make them sound even better!