My speakers don't "dissapear"

22 posts in one day! wow.

I read thru all the posts and a few of them stood out:

1. Yes I have the speakers on either side of a plasta TV, but the speakers are about a foot in front of the TV stand.

2. Yes, I have a coffee table. A big one too. Rug under it, tile floor everywhere else. No wall treatments (we rent).

3. PS Audio P500 regenerator for DVD Standard. Balanced power transformer for KAV-400xi (1000VA).

4. Nordost Shiva PC's. Quattro fil balanced IC's. Red Dawn speaker cables.

5. 9 foot ceilings, stereo and tv is diagonally set up. Speakers are firing into an open space. Non parallel walls.

6. Speaker phase is correct. System sounds fantastic, but the speakers don't quite dissapear.

7. Speakers toed in at the moment. Will listen to them aimed straight and with slight toe in.

I'll start with speaker placement and more burn in time. The speakers sounded great in the showroom (Sound by Singer, NYC), but in my house (I live in Cyprus, 3rd largest island in the Mediterranean) it seems a little off. The living room is rather "live" so I should probably look into room treatments as well.

The way my house is built is rather unconventional. The living area is open to the dining area, but in a diagonal fashion. So the way it is set up now, there is no rear wall. The speakers are about a foot and a half away from the side walls. The side walls taper out away from where the system is set up. And yes, the house is all block and plaster.

Before I begin to rearrange again, I'm going to try these two suggestions. First, move the speakers out another foot to aleviate any interaction from the television screen. Second, fire the speakers straight ahead instead of toed in and hopefully, this will minimize any reflections from our coffee table.

As far as speaker cables are concerened, I'm upgrading from a 3M set of revision I red dawn cables to a 2M set of Revision II Red Dawn cables. Before receiving my quattro fil XLR's, I was using "the best" radio shack RCA's (they were temporary, don't flame) and it was a huge improvement moving up to the quattro fil balanced IC's.

Well, here is what I did. I tried most all suggestions, but the three that worked best for me were these:

1. Move speakers more forward, away from the plasma TV. Coffee table has magazines and other objects on it already to diffuse any reflections.

2. Fire the speakers with less toe in. They are firing almost straight ahead with good results.

3. Move the speakers closer to each other. I had them about 8 or 9 feet apart, and now they are closer to 6~7 feet apart. My listening position is about 7 feet away.

The third change made the biggest difference. I was anticipating a soundstage width collapse, but the exact opposite occured! Even the lowest of the bass improved and the overall bass to midbass range smoothed out significantly.

I moved a lounge chair into one corner as well and I think that also contributed to a smoother lower end.

All in all, it's a huge improvement than before. Certain recordings "dissapear" more than others now. It's at the point where it's approaching what I heard at the dealer. I'm hoping that some more burn in will settle things down a bit more.

With all the suggestions I received, my system is getting dialed in just right. I am starting to notice a few things here and there though, but really, I'm nit picking now.

When auditioning equipment at the dealer, all my listening was done on a chair that was a hair too high for the specific speaker stand / speaker combo. For the most part I was leaning forward to lower my ears. Yesterday, when listening at home, I leaned forward to grab a cd from the coffee table and there it was. The sound was almost exactly what I heard at the dealer. As I leaned back, the highs muted a bit and there was a very slight loss of coherency. It's like I auditioned the speakers in a "near field" set-up. I'll be experimenting with moving the speakers closer to my listening position, but as of now, I really like what I hear when I get closer to the speakers.

Another thing I noticed was driver integration. During a guitar solo, as the guitarist made a run up the neck, the soundstage rose slightly as the notes went higher. I'm assuming it was because the music being played was near the crossover point and revealed the transition from mid to tweet. The speakers are firing level with the tweets about 3 inches higher than ear level. My stands are adjustable and I'm thinking that adding some forward tilt will help things out.

I'm starting to really enjoy the system and all my CD's.

Since my first set of Red Dawn cables were damaged I had another set on order. In the meantime (for most of this thread) I was unsing DIY cables and finally, this morning, I replaced them with red dawn revision II, 2 meter cables.

All I can say is WOW! I'm glad I optimized my set-up with the DIY cables. The muted highs are muted no more! Bass is smoother than ever and quite tight. Overall coherency is spot on. All other aspects like stage width remained the same. The ONLY drawback, and it's a minor one, I noticed was in the midrange. Before, vocalists were up front and center and in your face. Now, it's like they took a couple steps back. Not too much of a drawback, but enough to take notice although the improvement in the frequency extremes makes the presentation much more enjoyable to me so I'll gladly live with it.

I really have to thank you guys for all the tips in seting up and optimizing my system. It's very enjoyable and the music just flows. Thanks again guys, I really appreciate it. Trust me, I'll be back when I decide to try some tweaks like bass traps and room treatments. In the meantime, I have like 100 cd's I need to listen to...