Gallo 3.5 vs Merlin VSM-MXe

Here are the general rules I followed to find a good location for my monitors in the 12 X 12 room.

1) Determine primary listening position
2) locate speakers to distribute sound evenly from left to right across the room. Dispersion pattern of the design is a big factor in determining what works best. Locations closer to side walls may work best.
3) Avoid exact symetrical placement of any kind relative to teh room walls
4) Best results for soundstage and imaging together may require tweeters firing to left and right of listening position and not beaming at listener. This will depend on room acoustics and tonal balance of speakers as well.
5) For best soundstage and bass results together, rear or bottom ported designs may need to come out several feet from rear wall. Front ported or sealed designs may go closer to rear wall.
6) Small changes in placement and/or orientation relative to the listening position can have big effects. Liten carefully with a variety of music over time and fine tune as needed.

Let me also add that, reading articles such as, "How to set up a dedicated listening room without fancy treatments", was a tremendous help.

It is written by Steve Deckert, where he discusses at length, the benefits of a diagonal set up.

http://www.decware.com/paper14.htm

Enjoy.

David

if you think about it, you are horn loading your system.
no 90 degree surfaces to reflect energy as in a square or rectangular room.
and you can propagate a longer bass wavelength down the diagonal that any other dimension in the room with the speakers anchored to the floor.
if you set it up with a door as a bass vent behind you, now you can even micro tune the room.
some of the very best sound i have every heard came from these types of set-ups.
on day 1 of the sf show i was the only one set up this way and by the end of the show there were 9 rooms like this. news spread quickly.
b

Very interesting indeed.

"ome of the very best sound i have every heard came from these types of set-ups"

In my home, I run setups in 5 different rooms. The small 12X12 room set up this way is by far the best overall and hard to fault IMHO even with no special room treatments used.

The only problem I have in there is the room is still relatively small. Smaller scale ensemble recordings appropriate for a room that size and pop/rock type music leaves little to want. Larger scale ensemble recordings (classical symphony, big band, etc.) where there is more going on on a larger scale tend to benefit in a larger room where there is more room for everything to breathe. But the bigger room is more a matter of quantity, not quality. I use much larger speakers there and its L shaped configuration requires a much different setup there in order to be able to make good use of the size of the room.