As might be deduced from all postings and references cited above, I think it very much depends on the speaker design itself - some cannot work at all well on or anywhere near a hard rear wall (e.g. ESL or magneto-planars, OB dipoles, omnis such as Ohm F, etc) and some are predicated on them ( numerous Bose).
From 45yrs of personal experience I'd opine that quite often the shape of room, or conditions in front of the speakers in a "normal" domestic situation presents at least as much of an acoustics problem as the enclosures' proximity to boundaries.
An interesting poll would be - how many of us are able to dedicate anything close to an "ideal" space/ treatments to our listening rooms? I'd wager well under 20%.
edit: PS
Billshurv, yes NHT would not be alone in a long list of name brands who've morphed by changing times / perceived market demands ( chicken & egg?), or been absorbed by consolidation to the point of almost disappearing.
From 45yrs of personal experience I'd opine that quite often the shape of room, or conditions in front of the speakers in a "normal" domestic situation presents at least as much of an acoustics problem as the enclosures' proximity to boundaries.
An interesting poll would be - how many of us are able to dedicate anything close to an "ideal" space/ treatments to our listening rooms? I'd wager well under 20%.
edit: PS
Billshurv, yes NHT would not be alone in a long list of name brands who've morphed by changing times / perceived market demands ( chicken & egg?), or been absorbed by consolidation to the point of almost disappearing.
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I could say the exact same thing this way:
Locating a speaker that has been designed to be used away from the wall at the wall will cause major frequency response irregulaties in the midbass and higher.
I agree with the post above by chrisb, that any given commercial speaker is designed to be used at some location and should be used there for best effect.
The point I was trying to make is that the interaction with the room that you get when have loudspeakers that are meant to be, and are placed, out from the walls somewhat can be sonically better than any loudspeaker placed at or in the wall. This is because the addition of the reflections from the rear and side walls increases the perception of the image of the soundfield that our brains are tricked into when we listen to a stereo recording through two loudspeakers. There is some interaction with all the walls, floor, and ceiling of a room, however as long as the sound radiating in all directions from the loudspeaker has about the same tonal balance compared to the direct sound then all of that kind of evens out when you consider multiple reflections and multiple pathlengths. If you consider a single path to the rear wall and the dips and peaks formed by it you are really looking at too simplistic a picture of the room's interaction with the loudspeaker.
I mentioned it because it was a good case of the designer approaching the problem (people put speakers in the wrong place) from a different and IMO very sensible angle. I was very impressed by it when I heard them back in the 90s but was not in the market at the time.
I was piqued to check the website. Very refreshingly honest 'about-us'. The Classic 4 looks similar to old-skool NHT. Glad you are all still in business.
What is interesting if you look at the 'pics of your system' pages here is that an awful lot of people push speakers back to the wall. Possibly SWMBO factor or the demographic of the type who would post pics.. dunno
Confession. I run speakers that don't like small rooms in a small and difficult room. I am stubborn that way, plus wife wanted the mini monitors in the kitchen 🙂
Wow, what an article. In my apparently sheltered audio reading, I've never run into that before. A philosophy I can get behind, there - enough of the "absolute" puritanism, already. Cudos to Brodsky, 15 yrs ahead of me on that.
which makes me wonder-- why is no one working on a software dsp media center to go in that direction? (For any here that might scoff at any mentioon of anything involving "digital", my apologies. You'll have to be left out of this plan). A critical point in the proposal is that the adjustments (or "corruptions" if you prefer) need to be applied and stored and recalled automatically on a per-track basis. Hence, the ideal source situation would be digial media center. And as most of the desired effects aren't well researched or understood yet (or maybe ever), the adjustment set would need to be expandable, and so, open-source.
I'm thinking of a Linux based application (perhaps via Raspberry Pi, which is what my current media center Kodi uses), along with an Android based remote for graphical control (easily added buttons and sliders, also opewn source required), like Yatse but without all the video crapola and with the sound adjustment controls. (Maybe I need to learn moreon Linux and Android programming - my Windows/Delpohi chops are mybe reaching the end of their usefulness?)
Does anyone else think this is worth pursuing? Maybe a new thread should be started about this concept. (or is there one already that I've also missed?)
I think the problem is that, bar the cello Palette tone controls were given a bad name by the flat earthers in the 80s and never recovered. Now pretty much any multichannel receiver has a pile of EQ/room correction built in now so I think in general people are ready to accept it.
I have a miniDSP (not yet installed) but once I have will enjoy playing with this. Certainly I think a thread on 'how to EQ ' would be be great to try (and hope it doesn't fly down the rabbit hole).
I have a miniDSP (not yet installed) but once I have will enjoy playing with this. Certainly I think a thread on 'how to EQ ' would be be great to try (and hope it doesn't fly down the rabbit hole).
True, but an interface that presents controls that are more relatable to sound, ike "height"' "depth", "width" etc. Not many relate well to "X dB at Y Hz with a Q of Z" or "X% crosstalk inverted above Y kHz".
And nothing keeps automatic track of what changes you decided on for each track or albums.
And nothing keeps automatic track of what changes you decided on for each track or albums.
In the end though, pretty much most room / speaker setups are far from flat, even if you try and eq it to be so. It really is the point where you just have to listen and tinker until it sounds good to you, for your own source material choices...
Personally for speakers in a room, as opposed to headphones, I like to listen in the far field, not near field - more like a live performance. But we're all different.
Personally for speakers in a room, as opposed to headphones, I like to listen in the far field, not near field - more like a live performance. But we're all different.
And some of us aren't lucky enough to be able to get into the far field
(note for me far field is >3m from speakers. Opinions do vary on where far field starts)
(note for me far field is >3m from speakers. Opinions do vary on where far field starts)
Did we meet when I was a Benician? I used to see Jack and Gordon pretty regularly. I'm still using the 3.3s, multiamped with a variation of the mods Jack suggested. Against the back wall, FWIW.😀
A good speaker should be designed for a specific position in the room, a specific listening distance, a specfic listening position, and a specific acoustic. Too many speakers are designed for no romm at all...
By that logic a REALLY good speaker should be designed not to interact with the room or be adjustable to cope.
Aha, I didn't recognize you in your Dude disguise. It was great having you as neighbors, though my wife is still unhappy about the concrete-filled speakers. 😀
Absolutely right about the lack of Gundry dip in the LS 3/5a, it really is very flat in the early ones. Alan Shaw states that the Gundry dip was to ameliorate the fatigue which studio staff suffered when in very close field, (1.5'), and by lowering the presence level the image moved back and lessened the fatigue.
Huh.....my impressions also! 😎
Bill,
By that logic a really good speaker should be designed right where it’s going to be used.
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My seemingly mad post 37 was in reference to post 10 about corner positioning, but there was such a flurry of posts that it became very displaced.
