Cardas Speaker placement..

Every room is different and you just have to experiment. The calculator says my speakers should be 7 feet apart and 6 feet into the room. That would never work in my room. I recommend using your ears instead of a generic formula.

Agree with Stanwal. Placement is very important, but acoustic treatments can go a long way to tighten things up. I, too, find that the Cardas formula doesn't give me enough separations and sidewall reinforcement. My room is narrow, 12', so optimal placement is only 3" closer to the sidewall than Cardas formula and that makes a very significant difference. But without bass traps, that placement sounds a bit boomy and muddy. With bass traps, just right.

It's not the amount of bass it's the lack of..I don't know if I over did it with treatments.In the corners I use the LENRD bass traps In the corners on the walls i'm using some DIY panels I made from 3" 705 rigid fiber glass framed in wood.The tops of the panels are covered with uralex metro foam..the system sounds very lean or thin in bass.No matter where I put the speakers ,no matter where I put my chair it sounds lean .Once again I tried other speakers with the same result..Only when I walk behind the speaker plane does the bass comes to life.

Stanwal, It's a delicate balance. Did you get an increase in bass or a decrease in higher frequencies?

Without treatment the reflections reinforce some of the higher frequencies and cancels others. Makes the sound seem "louder" but when you listen carefully there are things that just aren't there that you hear with treatment. I occasionally take everything but the corner ones out just to check; I leave them in as they are screwed in, the others just hanging. With the treatment music sounds "softer" but there is actually more treble if anything; just a lot more even in character. There is definitely more bass with the panels; get a lot of cancelation without them. In a smaller room reflections are a much bigger problem than in a larger one.