Von Schweikert VR4JR Set Up

Maril555,
The approach I finally took was to start small and focused and expand from there. I worked with an equilateral triangle set up with the speakers six feet apart toed in to my shoulders. This worked great for centering the image. The problem was all instruments were on top of each other and no depth. From there I made the triangle larger. There were a couple of spots where the center focus completely fell apart (one of which is where I had originally placed the speakers). At about nine feet I ran out of cable and could not go further. The center image was solid, breadth was good, depth was poor. Eventually, I was down to toe-in from 0 to about 15 degrees. Trade of was center focus versus soundstage breadth. Finally, I just split it down the middle.

I think starting with the small triangle worked because it took the early reflections out of the equation. As well, I think the toe-in has a similar effect. In a properly treated room, the toe-in might not have as much of an impact. But I think the problem I was having was related more to first reflections than anything.

Depth is still an issue and I assume there is not much to unless I get the speakers further from the wall.

You need to keep the spikes off > Dont use 1K pink noise its too beammy. I use a pink noise of 100-1K Bandwith. Ive found the Ball of noise is very noticable ate 7 1/2 feet apart center to center and slightly toes in and apox 13-14 foot away. if you dont get this correct the center image will be way too dense. God it took a while to get it correct.I got it listened next dayand almost fell out of the chair on the image. Wall to wall behind spekaers and when miss crow sang she was 10 foot into the room while maitaining wall to wall instrument placing. USE TUBES im running rogue zeus with staggering dynamic range

I found that toeing in the speakers made an enormous difference. In fact, the best effect in my particular room was by pointing each speaker directly at my listening spot (didn't occur to me to try this for a long time). Using JC1 Monoblocks and Rogue Mag 99 pre-amp.

Hiend2,
Could you give me some more details about your room and speaker placement?

Could somebody clarify a pink noise frequency you using in a "ball of sound" test, please.
Also, what is your description of the "ball of sound" in the lay terms. I'm using 500 Hz test tone from Rives Audio test CD #2, and what I hear is a pretty strong center image with some depth to it, but I'm really having problem describing it as a "ball". Is it suppose to be round? Am I simply can't hear it, because my placement is off?, or it's something other than "a ball"?