Cardas Speaker placement..

Personally, I have never found the Cardas Golden Cuboid method to work well in any room I've tried it in; I actually prefer the Vandersteen placement method in most instances and it still falls woefully short in most cases. Each room is unique based on size and construction, and to properly understand what needs to be addressed, measurement is essential. I would recommend some recent Floyd E. Toole publications: the book 'Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms' is excellent, and dispels many myths about loudspeaker performance in rooms. For help with bass integration, I would recommend visiting the Harmon website, and looking for the whitepapers under the Technological Leadership section. There you will find an excellent three-part paper by Dr. Toole, discussing acoustical modes and their associated nulls and peaks. In my room, this paper was invaluable at optimizing the position of both myself and the speakers in my relatively new room. Be sure to download and use the room mode calculator as well. Good luck.

Hi Spaz,

After reading this thread I have looked at you system. It look glorious!

We just moved to a new home and in the last 3-4 months I too was looking for the bass in my new music/study room.

Firstly, since also other speakers exhibited the same behavior in your room, i.e. lack of bass, it is very likely that there is nothing wrong with your speakers. Your room "excels" at bass cancelation. Secondly, since you say that behind the speaker plane you get good bass there should be possible to find a position for the speakers that will give you good bass at the listening position. (This is also the proof that your speakers can produce good bass.)

I would suggest you the following:

1) Since your room is wide enough try placing the speakers along the long wall (so they fire perpendicular to the direction of the long wall). It is my experience that this always yields better results (not just with bass but also with imaging and soundstage) than placing the speakers along the short wall.

2) Buy a good subwoofer (or two). I recommend the top of the line RELs, e.g. Stentor or Studio. However, others have reported here very positive experiences also with other brands, e.g. Velodyne, and/or lesser RELs. There are two main advantage of adding a subwoofer: A) as you know very well by now, the speaker position in a room that yields the best midrange spectral balance and stereo image almost always is different than the positions that give the best bass, B) a subwoofer will give you full range sound also at very low listen levels.
It is an old and incorrect believe that a subwoofer is detrimental to a stereo system.

3) If step 1) fails or is impractical for whatever reason, you may want to hire a specialist (e.g. acoustic engineer) to help you get things right. Like with the addition of a subwoofer, hiring a specialist will cost a fraction of the price of your system and has the potential to elevate the performance of your system to a whole new level.

4) Be patient and no not despair! When I first placed the system in my new room , I had no bass what so ever even though I've cracked the volume of my REL half way in a room of only 4.7 x 3.7 x 2.4 meters!!!.

Good luck and keep us posted.
Paul

If you are willing to put some time into this try the Sumiko Master Set method for speaker placement. Another option is the Audio Physics method that is best used with the long wall placement suggested by Nvp. Your room appears both wide and deep enough to try this method. Of course other logistics and room configuration may prevent this, but it is well worth trying if you can.

I have used both these systems, individually and in combination with great results.

When I first moved into the house I did try it along the long wall .the results where not that good, bass was the same with a lot less soundstage depth..Though I settled in on the short wall.

Spaz, forgive my laziness I haven't read all of the posts. FWIW you are going thru something that I had to do some years ago in a slightly smaller room with similar dimensions/shape.

Have you tried moving your speakers AND your listening chair back and forth at the same time. I have a 6db null at 40 to 50hz which I could never eliminate but I was able to boost a flat 60 to 80hz frequency by 3db and that filled in the bass quite well. Perhaps it helps that my speakers were producing a strong 28/32 hz signal. I ended up with my speakers about 5ft from the wall behind them BUT with their sides closer to the side walls than usually recommended and toed in very substantially to reduce lst reflections off the side wall. The speakers are about 10ft apart and the listening seat is 4 ft from the wall behind it and 11 feet from the plane of the two speakers. FWIW