Speaker Help Required


I have a 12'x14' living room with a cathedral ceiling.

My 2-channel audio system is along the 12' back wall. I have a 6.5' audio / video rack which houses all my audio gear (mostly Linn) with a bookshelf speaker (Linn Katan) at each side of this rack (roughly 7.5' apart) sitting on stands (Linn Katan stands). The left speaker is about 3' from the side wall and 2' from the back wall with a powered subwoofer (Linn Sizmik 10.25) between the left speaker and the side wall in the corner. The right speaker is also 2' from the back wall but no side wall since it is an opening to my hallway.

Because of this setup, I’m hearing more of the left speaker than the right speaker. I tried different amounts of toe-in, which seems to help a little but I’m still not 100% satisfied. Some people have suggested that since the Katan are very small speakers, the subwoofer is not only providing the added bass but may be participating in some midrange too which is why I’m hearing more of the left channel.

Since I cannot move things around in my living room nor add a door to the hallway opening, I’m looking for a pair of “full range” floorstanding speakers to replace my bookshelves / subwoofer combo in hopes of rectifying this problem. Also, my wife is totally opposed to any “room insulation / sound proofing” idea since we use this room for entertaining friends and family and the décor is her territory.

What floorstanding speakers would you recommend for a $2000-$2500 budget that will help with my issue?
agiaccio

Showing 2 responses by agiaccio

I finally got around to doing some more tests with my "left" imaging issue.

It turns out that my subwoofer's Internal Low Pass Frequency was set to 120Hz. The three possible settings are: 50Hz, 80Hz and 120Hz. I've changed the value to 80Hz since my bookshelves are rated at 60Hz-20kHz +/- 3dB (Aktiv configuration). After this change the imaging was more centered but still not perfect. Next I moved the subwoofer from the left corner (facing forward) to the left side wall at about 4' from the back wall (facing right). This has resulted in a perfectly centered image (using a Test CD from Stereophile) however the subwoofer placement has resulted in reconfiguring my sofas in a non-ideal setup.

Therefore, I'm still interested in upgrading my bookshelves / sub combo to a pair of floorstanding speakers.
All, thanks for all the great feedback / suggestions!

I did some quick tests last night, based on some of your recommendations, and below are my findings.

When playing music as is, the image seems to be coming from the left side of the room. That is, I hear more of the left speaker than the right. So as a quick test, I disconnected my subwoofer (which is in the left corner of the room) and as soon as I did the imaging was dead center. Therefore, it does look like the subwoofer is contributing to some of the midrange, which causes the image to shift to the left. Unfortunately, the sound seems a little “thin” without the subwoofer.

So now my project for the weekend will be to first experiment with subwoofer settings. If that does not work, I will see if I can move the subwoofer to a different location (maybe next to the right speaker). If I cannot find a suitable location for the subwoofer to get the imaging right, I may go back to my original idea of trading my bookshelves / subwoofer combo to a pair of floorstanding (full range) loudspeakers.

If I do decide to go with the floorstanding speakers, what would you recommend in the $2000 - $2500 price range?