Can you get good quality sound on the short wall axis of a room??


We know or have read that in most living room, speakers should be placed on the long axis of a room.  However, I am forced to change the set-up my living room.  The room is approximately 14 X12 and opens into a similar sized dining/kitchen area  . My speakers are currently placed on the long axis separated by about 6 ft and my components are racked in the middle.  I sit approx. 9ft from the tweeters of each speaker.

I would like to use the short axis for many reasons, mainly to provide more walking space in the room so family members don't trip on speaker cables and cable risers.  On the short axis, I can move speakers out at about  30 inches from the  back wall,  and still have at least 8ft from the front of the speaker plane to my ears sitting straight up. I would like to move the component  rack to the same wall, and prefer using a solid table or small entertainment center so as  get better access to the components for cleaning. If that does not work, I will have to go back to an integrated amp and sell my separates.  Bookcases can be repositioned and one is going to the trash room. 

What screws up the long axis wall is a door that opens to the balcony and takes away 33-36 inches of wall space.  BTW, the speakers are Golden Ear Technology 7's  which I am going to eventually sell, so as to upgrade to a better speaker.  


All comments and advice welcomed

Thank you,

S.J.

 

sunnyjim

Showing 1 response by bsimpson

It depends.   The Maggies and ribbon speakers (Newform Research is the one I remember) prefer a very wide room in my experience, the short-axis wall placement that you mentioned.

Traditional box speakers, ribbon-tweeter only speakers (Coincident Victory, Legacy, Red Rose Music M1, vintage Infinity, for example) and horns sound better to me with typical concert hall (shoe box) placement.

I do not know about eletro-static much since (an Quad that DOA on me, and an pair of Martin Logan low end HT speakers that was so HT ... that's all I owned), ... would be nice to hear someone sharing their experience.

If you have a choice to do either placement strategy, consider yourself very blessed.