Sweet Spot for Triangle Speakers

First, if your Zerius are anything like the Celius, then you will need to play em in for about 200 hours. NO JOKE! There are physical reasons for this, not some brain adjustment course as is sometimes the case.

You WILL need to be in the sweet spot to gain the best imaging and soundstaging from these, and most, speakers.

These are compared to electrostatics more for their speed, dynamcis and how they deal with transients, not so much how they image (which they do rather well).

Be sure to set them up properly, and if you do not know how room nodes affect the sound, then by all means educate yourself on this most important component (the room itself).

Some will argue that it is best to listen with you head as close to the rear wall as possible (no more than a foot or two); this way your brain will ignore the reflections as they are too close to the main sound wave.

Others prefer a Live-End Dead-End configuration, but that requires very deliberate set-up and usually involves numerous tools such as echo busters for absorption.

Make sure that you diffract the primary reflections (straight line between the angle from the tweeter to the side wall to you). This is very critical.

What is the size and shape of your room, and what were the speakers in the old system?

Finally, I have not heard of the Outlaw Receiver? Is this a low-power tube unit or SS? Link?

The Outlaw 1050 is a HT receiver...has a small cult following on the internet. For the money ($499) it is one of the better units.

My old setup included PSB Golds, Hafler 500 and a CJ PV-2A. I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. I need to play with the placement/room (24X24).

Again, thanks.

The best description for speaker placement that I have read is on the audiophysic web page:
http://www.audiophysic.de/produkte/aufstellung/aufstellung_e2.html
have a read and see if it works for you. I also like the cardas placement method. I have never heard good imaging with speakers close to side or rear walls. I also like nearfield listening.

Seandtaylor99 will definetly check the site out.

I have the Triangle Antals and had a similar problem until I did the following:

1. Since the Antals are used for music and home theater they have a 65" Rear Projection TV between them. I inferred by the fact that you have these hooked up to a home theater receiver that you may have a TV between them. If possible, move them out so the front of the speaker is in front of your TV or cabinet (still on the sides but further out). This will help image focus.

2. Play with toe-in. Toeing them in will focus the image, firing straight ahead will widen the soundstage. I find my Antals sound best fired straight ahead with no toe-in.

3. Try different cables. This made a huge difference. I switched from Kimber 4TC to Mapleshade Golden Helix and it made a huge difference.

4. Use a room tuning device. I use Echobusters behind each speaker. There are also a bunch of DIY recipes (check www.audioasylum.com) for similar

As mentioned I use the Antals for 2 channel as well as home theater. I'm using a Rotel 1066 processor and 985 Amp (5 channel)with MIT interconnects and Mapleshade speaker cables. These brands go very well with Triangle gear (I've tried everything). Good luck.

Patriot, your room dimension is a nightmare - a perfect square is the LAST thing one wants to deal with in setting up speakers. DO check out the Cardas website, and also search the Stereophile site for the Room Tunes articles from a few years ago - I forget who wrote them, but they are there and very good. You more than likely have standing waves all over the place, reinforcing a host of lower pitches, so I would imagine that you will need as another poster pointed out some DIY absorbtion devices. These will be the most imp upgrade you can make barring none, esp given the dimensions of your room.

Mules thank you for your input and Goyescas and Sendtaylor99 thanks again. I appreciate the help and feedback. Have a great weekend.

The sweet spot with my Zerius speakers got wider and wider as they broke in.
Also, my experiments with toe-in surprised me: the image snapped into better focus and the sweet spot got wider when I toed them in way more than seemed logical. Right now, they aim at a point that's about 2 meters in front of the listening spot. It works great.
Who knows, this might be specific to my room, but the lesson is don't be afraid to experiment with placements simply because they don't make sense to you.