Room placement for Vandersteen Treo CT


I  am considering Vandersteen Treo CT's for purchase. In doing some research on them I read they are very sensitive to room placement in order to achieve their best performance.  I've some limitations on where I could place them in my listening room. My listening room is approximately 13'x22' with a cathedral ceiling roughly 16' high from the floor in the center of the room. eight foot high where it meets the front and rear walls.. The speakers will be located on the front long wall equally spaced from the center of that wall. There are a fair amount of furnishings in the room, furniture, built in bookshelves, a library table etc. 

My first questions is, what is the closest I could place the Treo's from the wall, I think "Johnny from AudioConnections" said, you might be able to place them as close as "seven to fourteen inches" from the wall, but I can't find the reference. Somebody else said wall placement was okay as it would reinforce the bass output, which the Treo would benefit from. I thought you were supposed to not put ported speakers near a wall, but these being bottom ported  maybe it doesn't matter.

The second question is, what would you guess to be the minimum distance they need to be from one another?  I have a four foot wide flat screen television centered on the front wall. I would love to be able to place the Treo's on either side of the flat screen, with the outside edges of the Treo's being seven feet apart, but am afraid this might be too close together.  I could place them another two feet or so apart, but the speaker on the right side would then partially block the view of a built-in in 120 gallon aquarium which would not be ideal, but doable.

What do you think?  I would appreciate your experience and guidance here. Thanks

Michael

skyscraper

Showing 12 responses by skyscraper

Joey54, thanks for suggesting the manual download. I figured out the answer between it and the site FAQ section. Mr. Vandersteen said the speakers were designed to go within 12" of the wall, and it appears no closer than 1/3rd of the distance between the side walls if I understood correctly.

Mental and hifiman51, appreciate your quick input and help in solving this issue.  

Mike
stringreen, thanks for your advice. I've got to place whatever speaker I decide on close as possible to the wall behind it. Wish I had three feet to play with. 

jackd, thank you for the advice.

gdnrbob, your placement sounds similar to what I need to do along my 22' long wall. The closeness to that wall I need might well rule out the Vandersteens as a possible choice for me. They are fairly deep speakers compared to something like the shallower Magico A3's that I could place ten inches from the wall per Magico. 

Mike
Johnny, thank you for responding.  That is closer than the manual on the Vandersteen Treos recommended, and it's interesting  they could sound good placed that close to the wall in spite of their being ported. I'll make a point of going and hearing them demoed when I head up towards DC to audition the Magico A3's, and a couple others which remain on my short list. 

Mike
Tomic60, Richard Vandersteen came over your house to check out your Vandersteen’s speaker placement? I can’t even get the local audio store dealers to do adequate demos of their own equipmment in their own stores. You are the one.

I’ll check out your pictures in "virtual systems". Is that located on site somewhere? I was wondering why you couldn’t post pictures along with your written posts. One of the woodworking machines sites I frequent is always insisting on pictures along with posts when relevant. Thanks for your advice

Wcfeil2, you are no doubt correct there.

Mike


Thanks Bob.  

Tomic601, I looked at your pictures. I especially enjoyed the ocean views. Nice setting for listening to music. Nice looking Vandersteens too. 

Mike
Well, Tomic601, if you and Richard have airplanes, and I do choose Vandersteens, you two might as well fly on out to Roanoke and help set up my speakers.

By the way, and nothing to do with anything, the Beach Boys "Surfin USA" was the first album I ever owned. My mother had won a $35.00 gift certificate at a local record store. My sister got "Meet the Beatles" the same day.. Our first stereo was a piece of luggage that had the turntable in the bottom half when you opened it, and stereo speakers in the top half. It was low, as opposed to hi-fidelity, but completely enjoyable at age twelve and started me down this path. Take it easy and enjoy the surf.

Mike
Tomic601, I will definitely be auditioning the Vandersteen Treo CT, hopefully next week, at a showroom I've located in northern Virginia.

Sounds like you have had an interesting occupation building planes and hi-tech equipment. Richard sounds pretty interesting too, from your description and his applying aircraft technology to speakers. I appreciate people who know how to do things. 

I do have Pet Sounds and am listening to it right now at your suggestion. ("Wouldn't It Be Nice" at the moment)  Great album. Got their follow-up to Pet Sounds, the reconstructed Smile album, not long ago. 

Mike
Ctsooner, glad to hear your Treo's sounded good that close to the wall.

 I'll probably do my speakers in black to blend in with all the black audio components, computer, TV etc on the same wall and not compete with the Federal style mahogany furniture in the rest of the room. Outside chance I could go with the same mahogany though. Haven't completely made up my mind. 

Doni, I've been wondering about the Treo's bass output and will be listening carefully during the demos. Thanks for writing in. 

Mike
That's good advice to differentiate between quantity and quality of bass. I'll keep it in mind when I'm listening to speaker demos this week, hopefully. I've got to organize all these good tips I've been getting. Maybe cutting and pasting a cheat sheet to carry with me. Thanks again,

Mike
Ctsooner, I did control the volume at both dealerships I auditioned speakers at today. Mostly because the owner/staffpersons there handed the remote to me at the beginning of each audition. I did raing and lowering the volume and listening bot inside and outside the listening room.

It seems some speakers address phase coherence electronically within the crossovers, such as the Magicos, while others like the Vandersteen do it by speaker placement/arrangement within the cabinet design, I asked about that today having read a reference to that in one review.

Audionoobie, I'll have to run that Ray Brown down. It must be good, having earned multiple recommendations here.
Good luck on your placement fine tuning ctsooner. If you lived nearby I'd give you a hand with moving those speakers around. 

Mike