Setting up Quad 988 right

With my 989s in a larger room, I discovered that the soundstage (SS) got bigger the farther from the front wall they are; mine are now SEVEN feet from the wall in my 19-feet-deep room. And I too sit fairly close to the plane of the speakers altho mine are farther apart in my 21-feet-wide room.

Quads are NOT tall speakers and the drivers are POINT-, not line-source. Many owners of the '63s and now the 988s find the image and SS height too low. Some kind of stand about a foot high would help. Gradient made an apparently-fine-sounding dipole subwoofer built so that the '63s stood on them; you might investigate those. I see that Sound Anchors does not list a stand for the 988.

I sure love my 989s, altho I confess I just ordered a pair of ET LFT-8s.
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Mr, if you intend to space the 5 equally about the circle, I think you'll find that the L- and R-fronts are too far apart. The ITU 5-speaker setup, for which virtually all multichannel recordings are made, has the 3 fronts spaced fairly narrowly--say, at 10:30, 12, and 1:30--while the 2 surrounds are spaced fairly widely--say at 4 and 8--so that they're as much sides as rears.

I suggest you experiment with your 5 988s on the floor before you attach them to your ceiling. Do observe the space to the rears of all of them, too.

Sure ought to sound great when you get them aligned!

How big is your room?
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