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Imaging Problem: Blinding Flash of the Obvious

I've lived in my current house for two years now. I've always had problems with the imaging being consistently off-center to the right. I have tried speaker placement until the cows come home.

Tonight, I had a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious): my ceiling is sloped from left (10' height at the left wall) to right (8' height at right wall). Duh!

So here's my problem. I live in military housing, so I can't level out the ceiling. I could use room treatments, but since I'll move next year or so I'd like not to spend large sums of money on room treatments that may or may not be helpful to me after the next 14 months or so.

I could *try* moving the whole setup (both 2-channel and HT) to the long wall, but 1) my wife may not like it; and 2) the long wall has our windows on it, so dust would blow on the components when I open the windows, not to mention the light problems for watching TV during the day.

Any ideas on how to fix this imaging problem cheaply?
aggielaw
rhljazz
1,253 posts
 
Not likely your problem. My ceiling height is 8 ft on the left side and 11.5 ft on the right and I have a perfect center image. A bigger detriment would be if you have an opening on one side wall and not the other. If all connections are correct, I would suspect you have a channel level imbalance. Try swapping channels and speakers and see if it shifts to the other side.
rlwainwright
1,904 posts
 
>> Any ideas on how to fix this imaging problem cheaply? <<

Uhhh, I know this sounds kind of obvious, but why don't you adjust the balance to the left until it sounds right to you? That's about as cheap as you can get...

-RW-
eddaytona
216 posts
 
Any ideas on how to fix this imaging problem cheaply?

Uhhh, how about moving you listening position to the middle of the image?
aggielaw OP
267 posts
 
Good points and ideas by all.

RHL, I hadn't thought of the open wall issue, but it's important here because the right wall runs the length of the room (the exterior wall of the house), while the left wall is only 5 feet long before it opens into the dining room area. The drivers sit four feet from the back wall, so the left speaker only has a foot of side wall in front of it.

I think the first thing I'll try (if I understood Greg's advice correctly) is to push the left speaker back a foot and see what happens.

Any other ideas based on the lack of a left side wall are greatly appreciated!
sean
6,231 posts
 
Here's where a cheap electronic room correction device like a Behringer, etc... can work wonders. You can either install it into the system permanently and let it do its' thing OR use it to take readings and then adjust the speakers to minimize the amount of correction needed. If you don't notice the sonic effects of having the Behringer hooked up in the system, there's no sense in removing it and having to perform more manual labor. In a case like this i.e. where both the ceiling and side walls are quite different, you might find that the sonic intrusion of leaving the Behringer operating all the time outweighs the drawbacks. That's because you may never be able to correct for the room's odd acoustics even with fully optimized speaker placement and / or changes in your seated listening position. The fact that you can take the Behringer ( or similar device ) with you wherever you move to and that they can be found at quite reasonable prices is far more advantageous than trying to treat a room / listening area that is far less than a permanent residence. Hope this helps... Sean
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