You will not get any depth with the speakers so close to the front wall. At least this goes for most box speakers and all electrostatic speakers. I don't know much about horns, look at your owners manual.
What I have read about horns is they are less sensitive to what is behind them, which is why they are more forgiving when placed in front of windows verses other types of loudspeakers.
The two problems I see are the speakers may be too close to the front wall and the TV.
The TV is a huge reflective surface right where you want absorption or at least diffusion.
Back in the day when I had a large CRT tube screen TV I used to lay a heavy wool blanket over the TV screen, it worked wonders.
I'm not implying this changed any room modes/nodes but it helped the center stage tremendously.
Somewhere I saw an light weight fabric warped acoustic panel that was clipped to the top edge of a flat TV. The owner would clip it into place for serious listening, then remove for TV viewing, very simple cheap and effective.
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It's conventional wisdom based on easily proven methods that produce predictable results.
The stipulation I have given is I have not personally owned horns, they may be less prone to this phenomenon but my guess is they not immune.
I'm not going to provide a white paper technical description about radiation lobes, frequency cancellation from adjacent surfaces, psycho-acoustics, human ear construction and so on, but I will quote the first article I found on the general topic.
SPEAKER PLACEMENT
By Gallen Carol - Audio
SPEAKER PLACEMENT | Galen Carol Audio | Galen Carol Audio
Discovering this article is a happy event as it is not too long and not too boring and covers a lot of territory.
I suggest anyone interested in speaker placement and room acoustics read it.
I hope you agree that this is one of the better articles to start out with.
LINKS:
See the additional links provided at the bottom of that article, I've been to several of those sites before and they are good too.
One of the links was a little fought, below is an up to date one.
Audio Physic
positioning - step-by-step |
Rules about positioning
Rules about positioning |
And remember your owner's manual can be one of your best resources for speaker placement, if not then call them up and complain about it.
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Sorry, I'm not buying that, your first statement was too broad and sweeping and you've not added anything. Spacial information, including depth is in the recording, reflections off the front wall may add to the sense of depth, as will the visual cues.
I never asked you to take my word for it.
In fact I encourage you to experiment with what the posted links and articles say, and draw your own conclusion.
Like most people in the forum I have a day job, and it's your job to educate yourself.
Read the entire Gallen Carol - Audio article, I only posted a fragment, it's all explained clearly and at a layman's level.
Trust me, once you start learning about this stuff it's hard to stop, it just sort of rattles around in your head.
Why is this a sore spot with you?
Like I said I think some horn designs are exempt from this general rule (because nothing can give then any decent depth), you should look into this.
Try a forum that has a dedicated horn section.
Some smart folks over here:
Has any horn speaker overcome the horny coloration? | What's Best Audio and Video Forum. The Best High End Audio Forum on the planet!
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As others have stated, be wary of corners because that can introduce peaks that may mess with sound quality. That being said, it can also work to your advantage in certain situations if you find your speakers lacking when it comes to volume. Another important aspect besides placement is also what happens to actually be in the room as a lot of hard surfaces can introduce some really sibilant & cacophonous noise. These might help.
How to position your speakers for great sound – U-Turn Audio
Home Movie Theater Seating Ideas - Easy Home Theater
How to position your speakers for great sound – U-Turn Audio
Home Movie Theater Seating Ideas - Easy Home Theater
It's been awhile since you posted this.
While corner placement is really only recommended for speakers designed for that, Klipschorns, nobody has stated why corner placement is bad. It's simple. The speakers are in the most affected position with regards to the walls and are coupled to both of the corner walls.
If the room and everything dictates you to have the speakers towards the corners, then you can just follow the first part of the WASP method, as Wilson does favor speakers towards the corners of the short wall of the room. Just watch the video I linked in my other post. That will get you out from the walls in to the least affected area. Wilson then uses audio cues and a particular cd which is rather unobtainable. However, I think you can follow along with this:
WILSON - Speaker placement know-how | HiFiVision.com
The poster does things much as I do, so I can verify that this procedure will work with a bit of practise.
First of all, thanks for all your replies.
The front wall (4m) has been covered with a semi-soft material to minimize reflections. The material consists of 1m^2 square 2.5cm thick. I glued a cardboard back to these and then added about 5 spacers plus 4 mounting points at the corners. The squares are not installed in contact with the wall but are separated by a distance of about 2cm. The reasons for keeping this distance is to disallow acoustic waves from being transmitted into the wall and to minimize reflections.
Room restrictions are a limitation preventing me from choosing any position for the speakers. However, I have the option to move the speakers about 60cm - 90cm from the side walls.
In accordance with a reply in this thead, I aligned the speakers to face forward instead of facing the middle of the back wall. This resulted in improved sound. The acoustic treatment of the front wall also made a big noticeable difference in the acoustic properties of the room. Now, there are only a few frequencies which make the room to boom with oscillations.
I am confident with advice from this forum, I will get still better results although I am already satisfied with what has been achieved at this point.
The front wall (4m) has been covered with a semi-soft material to minimize reflections. The material consists of 1m^2 square 2.5cm thick. I glued a cardboard back to these and then added about 5 spacers plus 4 mounting points at the corners. The squares are not installed in contact with the wall but are separated by a distance of about 2cm. The reasons for keeping this distance is to disallow acoustic waves from being transmitted into the wall and to minimize reflections.
Room restrictions are a limitation preventing me from choosing any position for the speakers. However, I have the option to move the speakers about 60cm - 90cm from the side walls.
In accordance with a reply in this thead, I aligned the speakers to face forward instead of facing the middle of the back wall. This resulted in improved sound. The acoustic treatment of the front wall also made a big noticeable difference in the acoustic properties of the room. Now, there are only a few frequencies which make the room to boom with oscillations.
I am confident with advice from this forum, I will get still better results although I am already satisfied with what has been achieved at this point.
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Playing music tracks revealed there is still a low frequency at which the room resonates. I will try to discover its frequency using a sine wave track of slowly increasing frequency. With a frequency counter connected to the amplifier output I should be able to record the exact frequency at which this resonance takes place. The frequency will instruct me which parallel surfaces are the cause.
Post Scriptum:
I briefly looked at Wilson's Speaker Placement Suggestions, but it is assumed, speaker cabinets will be placed on the floor, which is something I want to avoid as I have speaker stands. The method suggested, heavily relies on the human ear, which can err, given everyone has some degree of confirmation bias. This is why I am choosing to use a pure tone (sine wave) of slowly increasing frequency.
Post Scriptum:
I briefly looked at Wilson's Speaker Placement Suggestions, but it is assumed, speaker cabinets will be placed on the floor, which is something I want to avoid as I have speaker stands. The method suggested, heavily relies on the human ear, which can err, given everyone has some degree of confirmation bias. This is why I am choosing to use a pure tone (sine wave) of slowly increasing frequency.
If the speakers have a vent, then the room becomes also more a part of the speakers.
You can change this by adding some very light stuffing in the port, so it becomes aperiodic, especially helpful for speakers in a corner.
Also very helpful is using better damping in the cabinet, like 5-10cm basotect on the inner walls, great product!
It absorbs the unwanted inner reflections that are otherwise projected in the room.
You can change this by adding some very light stuffing in the port, so it becomes aperiodic, especially helpful for speakers in a corner.
Also very helpful is using better damping in the cabinet, like 5-10cm basotect on the inner walls, great product!
It absorbs the unwanted inner reflections that are otherwise projected in the room.
Hi,
You remove the spikes from the speaker, or speaker stands, to make moving the speaker easier. You then put the spikes back in when finished.
The source of the bass note(s) makes no difference if on a recording or using a tone.
With regards the resonating, perhaps just try moving the speaker(s) a small amount, like 4-5mm's and see if that makes a difference. You are exciting a room mode, and moving the speaker a small amount usually lessens the excitation of that particular room mode.
In reading your previous post, it seems that you are not able to place the speakers far enough from the walls to decouple them from the walls. This is unfortunate and makes everything quite difficult.
I played an mp3 file containing a sine wave of increasing frequency starting at 50Hz. The objective is to determine room resonance frequencies. The ambient temperature was 26 Celcius and the air pressure 1003 hPa. I live about 80m above mean sea level.
The room resonance frequencies occur at: 83Hz, 100Hz, 111Hz, 125Hz, 143Hz.
The speed of sound is 346.6m/s according to Speed of Sound Calculator.
The wavelengths at these frequencies are: 4.17m, 3.47m, 3.12m, 2.77m, 2.42m.
The dimensions of the room are: 4m X 4m X 3.2m.
The room resonance frequencies occur at: 83Hz, 100Hz, 111Hz, 125Hz, 143Hz.
The speed of sound is 346.6m/s according to Speed of Sound Calculator.
The wavelengths at these frequencies are: 4.17m, 3.47m, 3.12m, 2.77m, 2.42m.
The dimensions of the room are: 4m X 4m X 3.2m.
Since room modes only really become significant at and below about 300Hz, 4 to 5 mm is insignificant, the wavelengths being 345/300, roughly greater than 1m.
Back in March your reported to have improved your sound after following the suggestions made to you here. Have you been able to make any further improvements?
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