Impressions of Coincident Speakers

@bradf, one final comment.  I encourage you to use the free Room Equalization Wizard software for optimizing speaker placement and establishing the best listening position.  It takes some effort to get up to speed on using the software, but it really isn't all that difficult.  There is a forum where you can go to ask questions, and there are a number of people on this forum that can also offer assistance in getting started including me and @hilde45.  I can tell you that I would never have gotten my room to where it is now had I not used REW.  None of the various guidelines, including the Cardas method, are able to really able to anticipate the peculiarities of side firing woofers.  REW can also help if your room is anything less than perfectly symmetrical.  

I've helped others set up a room optimally in as little as 3 hours.  My own room took a good bit longer, because I was still learning about room acoustics and how to get the most out of REW while I was optimizing.  

One problem is that when trying to optimize using critical listening, at least for me, is that my ability to listen critically wanes after an hour or two.  Memory between sessions isn't exact.  Any change in one position will offer improvement at one frequency and compromise another.  REW allows you to study in depth the impact a given change in position has on the entire frequency range, as well as issues with  excessive decay times,  You can even use it to locate points that may be compromising imaging.  

Well worth the effort, regardless of which speaker you ultimately end up buying. 

@bradf, I might also mention that I was not able to get the SVIIs work near field.  My listening position is about 13 ft from the front baffle.  At that distance, the SVIIs presentation is pretty much like a single driver.  At 7-8 ft, you can, as I recall, discern between the sound coming from the mid and the tweeter.   

Thanks again Bill

I'm sure I'll check into REW software.  Sounds like a practical and more accurate means of speaker placement . I may also want to research room correction hardware

Depending on how far the speakers are from the front wall, I sit between 10 and 12.

I think currently Im sitting about 10' with the front of the speakers out 5 feet (approx) front baffle to front wall.  One limiting factor is I really can't move my seating any further aft, due to a division in wood and carpet flooring. The aft legs of the sofa are near the edge of the carpet.

Thanks again

Brad

@bradf 

My woofers face inward in my current setup, yielding a much better in room response (via listening and measurement), than facing outward.  Room is approximately 14.5 feet wide by 21 feet long, suspended wood-frame structure (I still miss my old cement floored room).  I have tried placement on both long and short walls and have oriented the woofers in both directions in both configurations. I wound up on the short wall where the speakers are around 9' apart, and close to 4 feet from the rear wall, with some toe-in.  I would say I listen in 'mid-field'; I don't use the stock spikes - Isoacoustics Gaia I footers made a huge improvement.   Experimentation is certainly necessary to achieve correct  placement with side-firing woofers; perhaps more so than typical front-firing woofers.  Happy listening.  

@bradf Depending on how far the speakers are from the front wall, I sit between 10 and 12.

I think currently Im sitting about 10' with the front of the speakers out 5 feet (approx) front baffle to front wall.  One limiting factor is I really can't move my seating any further aft, due to a division in wood and carpet flooring. The aft legs of the sofa are near the edge of the carpet.

Hi Brad,

I really suspect that 10 to 12' sitting distance will be fine for you. Although the Total Eclipse II are not identical to the Super Victory III, they share 1st order crossover design and Coincident similarities. Israel Blume does insist on certain philosophical and implementation ideas  that I believe apply to all of his speakers. 

I sit 10 ' from my speakers and the vast majority of the time I cannot place the music on the face of the speakers.  In other words the music seems to be everywhere but the speaker location. Now of course this varies depending on the recordings in use.  My point is that the speakers effectively disappear in the listening room with good placement and totally affected only by the. recording limitations. 

Just have this experience last Night. The musicians were either in my room or I was seated in their recording venue (Again it varies on the recording). Bill's suggestion of using a software program is an excellent idea. I did not but I just got lucky with my room😊. Brad thanks for your kind comments above and I wish you the best in this endeavor. 

Charles