The level of OCD is dependant on the gear.
The less resolving gear will be more forgiving of differences in exact speaker /gear/room/electrical/vibration/conditions.
I have spent amy hours of trial and error and countless measuring sessions getting my electrostatic speakers to function at a level that I find quite pleasing.
Some speakers are much less finicky, and those are perhaps the best types of speakers for folks with OCD who can get overwhelmed with too many variables in speaker placement.
They should seek out speakers that have been reviewed to sound great just about anywhere in the room they are placed. |
Speaker placement and how it interacts with the room also depends on the type of speaker you are using.
I've messed with toe in, distance from seating position and distance from side walls and distance between speakers.
Everything matters.What sounds right one day can be bettered the next with just a few inches of movement.
I've settled on the Cardas formula for placement of planar speakers for the moment.
But I still move the listening seat forward and back trying to get to the sweet spot.
I think the folks with small two way speakers who listen in the near field have the least to worry about.
Sort of like listening to headphones, the room has less effect.
We are listening to more of the room than most of us would care to believe, and adding room treatment in an uncontrolled manner can be as detrimental to the sound as adding none.
We don't live in anechoic chambers,so speakers that measure great in those instances may not sound good in a home.Sometimes those kind of of specs can be misleading.
Perhaps we need to see a speaker manufacturer make claims about his speaker sounding great in a normal room.
Then give some specs of how the speaker reacted in several different types of room sizes without any treatment other than standard furnishings.
This way one could find a room similar to their own and see if the speaker would be a fit.
This may ruffle a few feathers,but like I said perfectly flat response specs in an anechoic chamber only relates to that room, not mine. |
Another thing I've tried is extreme toe in angles, in and out.
Also, I've experimented with placing the speakers in the corners and also placing the speakers on the diagonal,in a corner so that the centre of the two speakers is the junction of the two walls.
Which is correct?
They all sound good,but different.
In fact speaker positions can almost fool you into thinking that you're listening to a diffrernt pair of speakers.
In the end, after all the experimentation,the way the system looks plays an important role and can trump the sound improvements(diferences)of radical toe in, etc.
I think most of us settle for how the speakers sound when set up in the more conventional ways which please our eyes.
Which as I've stated ,isn't always the best.
Then we resort to whatever devices we have to tune the speakers to our liking and to make up for whatever deficiencies we may feel they have, or to fill in the gaps that our ears feel we need.
If that's wires, or EQ's or room tuning devices,you have a lot of choices to experiment with.
On second thought, maybe an anechoic room may not be so bad afterall. |
I've found pros and cons in all of the placements.
That's the puzzle, they all sound a bit different in certain areas,not one position for me was the best, so I settled for the Cardas placement for planar speakers and moved my listening seat further away from the speakers so that the 3 angled panels lock in better,so the triangle is far from equal.The speakers fire straight no toe in.
They are 73" from centre of speaker to side walls,58.09" from centre of speaker to wall behind them,95" apart(side of speaker not centre)and 160" to the listening chair.
This also is the most pleasing from a visual perspective. |
If the question is directed at me, then my answer is that I have a number of discs that I use to determine if any type of change in my system is better ,the same or no different.
In my estimation,this is all the time I need to make up my mind.It is usually a few hours of listening, but a day of settle in time for wires etc.
I tend to think that the more time spent the more one will eventually forget what the original sound was like.
What I have discovered is that there are no hard rules, and that you find things to like/hate about all changes in speaker placement.
I liked the pinpoint spot on image of the speakers toed in ,and crossing a few feet in front of me.
Until I tried the Cardas planar placement method,which changed the placement of the speakers in the room placing them further from the side walls, closer to the back wall and with no toe in.
I moved the seating position further away from the speakers, which made the focus more like toeing them in did.
I do have some modest room treatment,mostly DIY, but it's a step in the right direction, having none in such a large live room is not nice.
The old Acoustats can be very revealing,but they are also very easy to enjoy in just about any type of speaker set up.
The task is to think about the smallest adjustments,the fine tweaking,to get them to move to the next level of resolution.
Less than inch adjustments of toe in. |
Maybe it's been mentioned,but placing the audio rack between the speakers can upset all that time and effort you put into fine tuning the speaker placement.
This is especially true for planars and stats,even way back in the 70's Acoustat wrote about this in their set up instructions.Also,they said a reflective wall behind the speakers was better than a soft absorptive surface.
I have followed both of these rules with my Acoustats and they knew what they were talking about back then.
I would like to try some dispersion units behind the speakers which is more in keeping with todays views on stats. |
Your correct,soundstage suffers, width wise,but I perhaps should have said that radical toe in gives a very precise image, or clarity, at least with my speakers/room.
Wide spaced with little toe in and the image is wide, but the information is not as clearly presented, perhaps using box speakers would have a different result.
As I've stated you have a choice and who knows which way is correct,I'm thinking both could be, depending on what you value in music reproduction.
I'm more detail oriented than image oriented,so anything that detracts from image specificity is a no-no for me.
By sitting further away from the speakers(the Acoustats have 3 panels per speaker only the centre panel is not angled)all the panels come together much as multi driver speakers need some spave before the drivers align themselves properly at one's ears,that is most of the one's I am accustomed to.
Most two ways seem more seemless than multi driver systems and you can do some serious near field listening with them.
As far as getting used to a particular speaker arrangement,I seem to be able to do that without a lot of time involved.
It either comes together or it doesn't with my set up, so there's no need to ponder or nit pick. |
Enjoying the music is what the gear is for.
Great gear, set up poorly never gave me musical enjoyment.
Poor gear,set up poorly is even worse.
I've been listening and enjoying the music(and playing it)for over 40 years.
What I found out very early on, was that the level of musical enjoyment was determined by the effort I put in.
As such,the more I paricipated in the hobby, the more enjoyment, the closer I got to what it sounds like when I play live.
I disagreed with HP years ago, no system I've owned or listened to every came close to the absolute sound.
But some gear was better than others at the illusion of a live performance.
Also, those same components could get you even closer to the ideal when you tweaked them with better cables, fuses, power, racks and room tuning.
The "we all need to listen and enjoy the music more and worry less about the equipment"types I feel, don't listen or enjoy the music as much as those of us who do sweat the details.Not to say they aren't content, just saying I wouldn't be with a compromised set up of stock gear, with no power conditioning or room treatment.
All the access to all the music in the world is only as good as the gear it's played thru and how that gear is set up.
I can be pleased listening to music in my car,but I know that's not as good as it gets.
I've been spoiled.I've had friends who've enjoyed great systems and the sound of the music thru their systems was much better than mine was in those early years.
So my journey started about 40 years ago,and TAS influenced me. Had it not been for that and other mags I would be richer in the bank account but would never have had the enjoyment of listening to the music thru system that let all the music thru not just some of it.
Owning thousands of cd's, lp's,and downloaded music mean nothing if you are only hearing a fraction of what's been recorded because of compromised gear and set up.
As much as I admire the car collection of Jay Leno, he can only drive one at a time.
So best to make that drive the best one that you can.
Best to listen and enjoy that one selection of music as best it can be reproduced.
I think the trend today towards mediocrity and not perfection,is a major reason why things have gone downhill in more ways than just music.
For me,it's more about the pusuit than the end of the hunt that gives me pleasure, not pain in this hobby.No worries here,just anticipation and excitement about what's over the next audio hill and into the promised land.
If I have any worry, it's that I may not live long enough to enjoy the treasures yet to be discovered.
Everytime I've ended at where I felt it was as good as it can get, I'm over and done, and it's time to just listen to the music, I got bored shortly thereafter.
It's why the merrygoround never goes out of fashion, and dogs have so much fun chasing after their own tails.
If there was no fun in it, then both would have vanished long ago.
When the fun of this hobby is over for me,then it will be time to join the "for listeners only" club. |
Thanks for the kind words,it's always a bit humbling but also gratifying to know that what I've said makes sense to someone other than my(man)self.
Sometimes ,in the past on another site, those same sentiments about how I treat music reproduction were mostly met with disbelief,and hostility.
My only intention when I post is to inform others about some things that over the years have opened my ears to even more appreciation of what this hobby was and should still be about.
And for me until the day I give out, that's been the quest for better sound,even before the book,I had a few mentors along the way ,who bucked the accepted "wisdoms" of the day and practised what some still refer to as the stuff of fairy dust.
For me and I hope for others who may have lost their way, deluded by the now so common "it's not about the gear, but just the music" rants,it is so much more about the music when it's also about the gear, where it's used, and into what it's plugged into.
I may be just another curmudgeon who clings to the old ways,but back then, people tried to help others interested in this hobby get better sound,,and for free.
Now it seems to be the norm that anything said to bring about a change for the better in this hobby is just more fodder for the "prove it with science,double blind,perfect specs,it's all snake oil,myths perpetrated by the Evil High End"crowd.
Yes they were around back in my fomative years,but they were a bit more polite,again,my bad for being so old school.
No one is forcing anyone to buy tube traps, to run dedicated lines terminated in expensive connectors and gear decked out with designer fuses and demagnetize cd's and lp's that have been cleaned on a VPI.
Some of us are only saying that these things have helped bring more musical pleasure from the gear and music that we already own.
Proper speaker placement enhances these things even more.
Improper placement,and a lack a daisey attitude to system set up, is a recipe for the "nothing makes a difference"sentiments of discontent and jaded disillusionment.
If some folks don't want to go where I go, that's fine with me.
I'm just saying I'm glad I went down that rabbit hole way back when.And I'm all the more content with doing so.
My musical experience has been more uplifted and enjoyable.
I have no regrets about where I am in this hobby today.
I've set up a decent system in a decent room and taken care to go a few extra steps along the way.
I have no malice towards anyone who just enjoys the music system as it is out of the box and into the wall.
I would only ask to be given the same respect for my practises from those who fit the above description.
Again, I am from the old school. |
I have a wife who gave me complete freedom of the lower level of our home.
So I am one of the fortunate few who doesn't have to compromise good sound in order to have a good marriage.
I feel for the poor unfortunates who don't have this luxury and have to share a living room or family room or even worse have to settle for a combined HT/music system.
I can understand why power cords, fuses and speaker placement aren't taken seriously by them. |
