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Placement of Salons to maximize soundstaging

I have a new pair of Salons and would appreciate set-up tips from Salon owners.

My initial placement has them 8.5 ft. apart (measured from tweeters) and, likewise, 8.5 ft. from my ears. They are toed in so that I can't see the inner side of either speaker, which means they are pretty much pointing directly at me and their acoustic centers "cross" a foot or so behind my head. The tweeters are 40" from the side walls and 35" from the back walls (more on the back walls in a moment). My ears are 41" off the ground. The speakers are spiked. The back wall in fact isn't a wall, properly speaking, but rather, is a pair of 3 ft. pieces of wall extending into the room from each side wall and forming the bases of an arch of wall which separates the 20'D x 15'W x 12'H living room from the 10'D x 15' W x 12H dining room (the entrance to the dining room directly behind the speakers and created by the arch is roughly 9'W x 10'D). In other words, each speaker's port has a 3 ft. piece of wall behind it and a big open space that leads to the dining room.

I'm driving the Salons with VAC 140 monoblocks through Kimber Select all-silver 3038 speaker cables, which creates lots of air (and, for the uninitiated, the VAC's a hell of a lot of slam and plenty of woofer control -- as I suspected, they do great with the Salons)

I'm getting very good soundstaging and the speakers more-or-less disappear. The bass is flat to about 30 Hz., but then falls off rapidly because the ports are not receiving much reinforcement from the small walls they fire against, but this is fine, as I'm in an apartment building and rarely listen to things like pipe organ music.

What I really like is for speakers to "disappear". Does anyone have tips in this regard?

Thank you in advance.
raquel
raquel OP
841 posts
 
Dear Rock:

Thanks for the response.

The dimensions of my room are described above. I'm pretty sure that the reason I'm not getting deep bass is because the ports don't see much of a wall (most of the space behind each speaker is an open room -- see explanation above). I had Dynaudio 3.3's before the Salons. When I put them on the long wall (i.e., there was a full, concrete wall behind them), I got solid bass down to 25 Hz. (but a nasty hump around 50 Hz.). When I put them on the arches, which is where they ended up and where the Salons have to go, the bass was even and solid (flat) to 30 Hz., but with a drop off of nearly 20 db. at 25 Hz. and below. As mentioned above, deep, deep bass is actually a liability for me because I live in an apartment building (it's old and sturdy, and we're on the top floor, but I don't want to push my luck with the neighbors).

But back to soundstaging, yes, the manual says sit farther away than the speakers are apart. I can reduce the toe-in again, but when I did, the center image suffered from the nearfield listening position, which is where I always listen. I'm a bit hamstrung by aesthetic considerations (I can't swap my listening chair and the coffee table in front of the couch, for example).

I can definitely play around with toe-in, however, so I'll give it another shot and report back.

Thanks.
rzemkoski
87 posts
 
When my Salons "disappear", its largely due to the recording. I have them 7ft into the room and 4ft from the side walls in a 20x30ft room. Like you, I listen in the nearfield, with the inside panels just visible from the "sweet spot". The soundstage is high ,deep and wide with the music portrayed from behind the Salon.

With so many drivers in your face, very large speakers have a pronounced presence in the room (acoustically and physically) which makes them a bit harder to disappear. Bookshelfs and monitors are champions of the disappearing act. But we're lucky, we've got the Salon!

Any room treatment? A large Tubetrap in the center of your dining room entrance would give you a more concentrated center image and will enhance the disappearing effect. Tubetraps are somewhat light and can be moved away when your not "engaged".

Revel in your speakers!
raquel OP
841 posts
 
Dear Rzemkoski:

Many thanks for the input. I've been fooling around with placement all morning and have them back where I started, much like your set up.

My room is a bit smaller than yours at 30' x 15', and is segregated by an archway into a 20' x 15' living room and 10' x 15' dining room. The "bases" of the arch are the "backwalls" for the Salons, but they protrude only 3 ft. from the side walls, meaning each speaker is loaded only by a small corner. As noted above, I'm pretty sure this is why I don't get much bass below 30 Hz. (bottom octave bass on this speaker derives mostly from the ports).

As far as room treatment is concerned, as much as I would love to have linear frequency response, I can't handle room treatment products and stick with draperies, carpeting and bookshelves to adjust sound, i.e., by personal choice, I live with certain frequency response anomolies that more "committed" audiophiles would address with room treatment.

The speakers, as placed, do a pretty good job of disappearing. I suppose I wanted to know if there was anything I was missing, and all of you have been most helpful in this regard.

Thanks again.
yorock
9 posts
 
Raquel, I believe the port on the Salons is tuned for 25hz not 30 hz. The disappearing problem can be helped quite a bit by the use of Zoebel networks on the speakers. Combak Enacoms or Walker Audio Hi Def Links are two that I directly compared on my Salons. They both worked great to increased the imaging allowing the speakers to be toed out more, thus allowing them to disappear more. Without knowing all of the other equipment in your system is may be more than just a room anomaly causing your lack of extreme bottom end. I had the same problem and thought it was due to the room, but in actuality it was due to associated equipment and cables. I've heard the VAC 70/70 and I know the 140 is even better than it so I agree that your problem is not there. As you stated in another post, and most eloquently I might add. The Salons produce what you provide them, they are ruthlessly revealing, and extremely neutral. It could be something upstream from the VAC. Just a thought.
Rock
raquel OP
841 posts
 
Dear Yorock:

Many thanks for your post.

My upstream components and cabling, based upon reputation, are not likely the culprits of the missing bottom octave, but I'm not an engineer who knows these products and I never say never. My components are described further up in this thread. All of my cabling and the speaker cables are Kimber Select all-silver, except for the tonearm cable (a Kimber Tak hybrid silver/copper) and for the IC running between the line stage (Hovland) and VAC monoblocks, which is a 3.5 meter Cardas Neutral Reference (Nb: the outputs on the Hovland are not shielded, and use of a long Kimber Select all-silver IC, which is likewise unshielded, combined to produce a ton of noise and hum -- I had to go with a shielded cable for that connection). All of the cables and components are reputed to be very well-behaved in the bass.

In any event, I think that my experience with the Dynaudios before the Salons strongly suggests that the problem is the fact that I don't have much of a wall behind the speakers to reinforce the ports. When I had the Dynaudios on a real wall, I had solid bass down to 25 Hz. When I moved them to the arches, however, everything below 30 Hz. pretty much disappeared. That's gotta be it.

Best wishes.
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