Speaker positioning: why do audiophiles neglect this so much?

The listening position and speaker position are very important IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ROOM. The speakers and the room have to interact properly to achieve sota imaging and sound that is not strident. Most people have to do the best with what they have in regards to the room. Few of us have the opportunity to design rooms specifically for two channel reproduction.

I do see systems that make me scratch my head. I also see systems that make clever use of the resources at hand. I certainly think people would be better served by analyzing their situation and managing the acoustic environment than pissing money away on silly fuses. 

Another problem is that most people have no idea what they are striving for. They only know what seems to sound good to them and they have no idea what that is because they have never measured it. 

You will hear rather frequently of people complaining about sibilance thinking it is a problem with either the recording or their equipment. I would guess that 95% of this is poor control over room acoustics. 

Most systems I am invited to hear have this high frequency haze over the sound due to high frequencies bouncing all over the room. A cymbal does not come from one specific location but all over the place. You can locate the fundamental but the harmonics are spread out making the cymbal much wider than it should be. 

The best systems are going to sound dull at first. They will always play at louder volumes without strain making you think they are nowhere near as loud as they actually are. There will be little if any sibilance behind female voices and imaging will be pinpoint and holographic, instruments and voices in space not splattered against a wall. The image will not extend beyond the speakers unless the engineer is resorting to trickery. You should feel the music even at lower volumes. 

What are you listening to? Any idea? Have a graph of your system's frequency response? Group delays? The response of individual speakers? Out to sea without a compass would be the likely description.

Incredibly wrong...

Rightful room acoustic and good system NEVER sound dull...

That remark say much about your system/room than about anything else... Sorry...

The best systems are going to sound dull at first.

Wrong too ...It only reflect acoustic ignorance transformed in audiophile dogma, ignorance of two main factors in room control: listener envelopment (LEV) and sound source width (ASW) and their acoustic interrelation ...

The image will not extend beyond the speakers unless the engineer is resorting to trickery.

 

 

 

I will refer now you to this paper at the end to understand what i speak about because you demonstrated that you have no IDEA about its existence and how to create it in your room...

A clue : electronic equalization will NEVER do it... 😁😊

 

 

But you are right about something too, good system

They will always play at louder volumes without strain making you think they are nowhere near as loud as they actually are.

Yes this is true...

And:

There will be little if any sibilance behind female voices and imaging will be pinpoint and holographic

This is true...

You are not totally wrong... 😁😊

 

But dull no, no good room /system is dull EVER, in the oppposite all good System/room are astounding BECAUSE of the naturalness of timbre perception and dynamic....Simple...

And listening to only a sound " in between" the speakers No thanks keep it for you... Your system/room is, if not flawed, uncontrolled and the treatment is not very well made...Very sorry for you....Put aside your electronic equalizer manual and read some room acoustic paper... 😁😊

 

To help you this is an abstract of this paper which will explain what i spoke about because you have no clue it seems ...But beware this article is one among others that will be necessary to read  to understand how to implement Lev and ASW correct balance in a small room...

 

«EFFECTS OF EARLY REFLECTIONS ON LISTENER ENVELOPMENT

Hanyu,Toshiki; Sekiguchi, Katsuaki; Koizumi Yuki
Nihon University

ABSTRACT

It is well known that later reverberant sounds contribute to listener envelopment (LEV). On the other hand, the effect of early reflections on LEV has not sufficient ly been clarified. In this paper, listening tests were carried out in order to examine the effect s of early reflections on LEV.
As the result, it was confirmed that early reflections affected not only the auditory source width (ASW) but also LEV. In ad dition, there were some cases in which early reflections suppressed LEV, specifically when the early reflections increased ASW.

 

 

@bobbydd ,

would love to see your system, just to see how you have optimized it. What speakers do you use and in what room size. I for one love to check out rooms and get ideas not oily for sound, but also for ambience. Hope you can share a pic or two.

I can't believe that many audiophiles haven't considered speaker placement as important.

Jim Smith wrote a valuable book. I own a copy.  Great food for thought for someone making their 1st serious investment in  home audio. Provides a focus towards the fact that the room and treatment of same is important.

This issue is not loss with most of the contributors on this forum.

 

I have a small crappy room (12x11x9) with some relatively big speakers. The room is treated, and the sound is about 80% of what I could get in a better room. I will take it because it sounds good enough to make me enjoy music. If you have a perfect room, I think you are in the minority.

I also have a prefect room when I use my headphones. I am listening in my perfect room now.