Where to place - need some hand holding please

I am with your wife on the money spent. Depending on your musical preferences, a good move might be to sell the sub, cables and power conditioner and take her away for a long weekend.

Your speakers and room are going to have the biggest impact on sound quality. Unless they wish to feel the "oomph" from bass many listeners prefer not to experience driving the room modes at high levels. From your photos your room looks fairly lively and aggressive room equalization stands little chance of producing a reasonably natural sound over the bass range.

My advice, for what it is worth, would be to read about room acoustics and what recording studios have done to improve the sound of their rooms. Even though you may be unable to apply many of the techniques changes of +/- 20dB in response may help put modifications in perspective.

Try putting your sub in back of your just behind your chairs, I have a floor fire HSU Research sub and I like it back there best, also your rears are in cabinets, could wife let you put some dampening in behind those, it wont be that visible, maybe also pull your mains out a bit more into the room.

Wow. What a rig, what a room! Lovely woodwork. Tricky room acoustically.

There are many threads on speaker placement here at the 'gon, definitely give them a read. Also, contact Sonus Faber with a description and measurements of your room (include all your posted system pictures as well) and see what they suggest.

Experimenting with speaker placement can be quite fun. One key is to keep your attempted placements documented (measurements from back and side walls) so you know where you’ve been and what’s happening at each location. I typically start without any toe-in. Since you have a great sub, try finding a placement that yields great imaging and worry less about the bass response. When you are happy with the imaging, then start playing with toe-in, thinking of it as fine tuning.

Personally, I would move the Cremona out at least 3' off the back wall and at least 6' apart as a good starting point. Sub behind the seats is a great suggestion for your layout.

Remember to be patient and have fun while experimenting (I've fiddled around for weeks at a time to find the sweet spot). Good luck and happy listening.

If you want it in front, simply use the sub as a center speaker stand.

You may have to add a bit of "mass" to keep reasonace down, but it should work fine.

I really appreciate your responses. I am hoping for some handholding. Like I mentioned I have no experience and usually can hear no differences when playing with the placement. Frankly, no matter where I place them, the music sounds nothing like the auditioning rooms I had originally listened to them in.
I have done some research in speaker placement in this forum and found much of the opinions too difficult for me to understand. But based on my research I plan on taking the following steps, I would appreciate if someone can correct me if I am going about this wrong:
1) Play all the test tones on my test CD
2) Use my Radio Shack SPL meter in my sweat spot to ensure that they all read 75db.
3) Here is where I get confused. Lets say the 30hz test tone reads 79db, now what? I keep moving the speakers/subwoofer until I get the 75db response? Ok fine, now lets say that somewhere along the line I discover that say the 300hz test tone would get the 75db response when I place the speakers back at the original position. Now what? Do I have to choose which freq is more important to get the 75db response? Look for a compromise between the two freqs?

Thanks again in advance for any help,
David

This is posted in "tech talk" maybe it will help you

Radio Shack SPL Meter mods corrections
I know that others here were interested in the specs to correct the non-linearities of the factory stock RS SPL meter. The figures below are to be either added to (+) or subtracted from (-) the readings that you obtain from your factory stock meter. In other words, the meter in stock form is EXTREMELY deficient when it comes to taking low frequency measurements. Keep in mind that these corrections are only valid under the following conditions. The meter must be set to C weighting, using 1/3 octave pink noise (easily available from various CDs), with the mic pointed at the speaker. These measurements were verified on both the RS analogue and digital meters using laboratory grade test equipment. Baseline testing was done using the 80 dB scale for reference purposes. While on the low side, this should give you a good baseline as to what your actually getting out of your system. Needless to say, if you had BIG peaks in the bass region with the stock meter and you weren't calculating in these correction figures, you're in even worse shape than you thought.

10Hz +20.5
12.5Hz +16.5
16Hz +11.5
20Hz +7.5
25Hz +5
31.5Hz +3
40Hz +2.5
50Hz +1.5
63Hz +1.5
80Hz +1.5
100Hz +2
125Hz +0.5
160Hz -0.5
200Hz -0.5
250Hz +0.5
315Hz -0.5
400Hz 0
500Hz -0.5
630Hz 0
800Hz 0
1KHz 0
1.25Khz 0
1.6KHz -0.5
2Khz -1.5
2.5Khz -1.5
3.15Khz -1.5
4KHz -2
5KHz -2
6.3KHz -2
8KHz -2
10Khz -1
12.5KHz +0.5
16KHz 0
20KHz +1

Capt,

I went back and read a couple of your previous threads. Glad to hear you are sticking it out, as you have put together an execelent system.

Ok here are my sugestions.

1) The loveseat and recliner. I would remove the recliner from the room and center the loveseat on the center channel. Sorry but I feel that you can create a better listening environment this way.

2) Take your rear speakers off of the shelves and put on stands (the tweeters should be about 1 foot above the listeners head) and locate per the dolby.com website.

3) For the fronts. Pull them straight out from the corners more into the room. Measure the distance between the speakers. Then measure off the inside edge of each speaker creating an equalateral triangle. Place the love seat at that distance from the speakers. Near field listening.

4) Use a 2 chanel source and a CD you are familiar with. Start with your front speakers facing forward. Using just your ears as you are familiar with your system now. Work with toeing in the speakers and see how that affects your soundstage and tone. You can also move one speaker forwards or backwards about an inch at a time and hear how that affects your soundstage and tone. Sitting in the nearfield should help with unwanted reflections.

5) Put the sub behind the loveseat and forget about it. IMHO this is the only logical place.

You can also google "Speaker Placement"

Good luck and keep us posted.

Artizen65,
I appreciate your response. Truth be told, I have read many articles on speaker placement. There are many opinions, some of which even contradict each other. Also, I do not feel comfortable to trust my ears just yet.
The goal of my thread is to solicit someone with experience’s first guess and work from there. A starting point, if you will. I have many issues with my room that I think would require someone who has experience. I have the cabinets angled in the front corners. How do I angle the front speakers? How far out from the cabinets. Plus I have the issue of usable width. Even though the listening room is 11'2", I have only about 8' that usable. I have bookshelves on the entire right side and a fireplace on the left.
Regarding the loveseat & recliner: Since, usually I am the only that uses the listening room I move them around. I place the loveseat behind the recliner when I do my normal listening. Do you still think I have get rid of it? Of coarse doing this would interfere with placing the sub behind the listener. I would love to place it here between the fire place and the front cabinet? Do you suppose that would be ok?
Also, no one got back to me regarding point #3 in my previous thread. I am unsure how to resolve.

Thank you in advance,
David

David- try the following (slightly asymmetrical placem't).
1st mark where your spkrs are now (so oyu can go back if necessary).
2. Pull the spkrs out ~3' fm the corner cabinets (back centre of spkr to middle flat surface of cab -- the one that's 1" further out)
3. Place left spkr ~3' or more fm side wall (ignore the matter of the fireplace)-- that's measuring fm woof centre to wall.
3. Remove podium for now.
4. Move right speaker ~2-3' away fm the b/shelf.
5. Listen with spkrs firing ahead.
6. Toe in spkrs to around 60-70 degree, pivoting left front (left spkr) right front (right spkr) -- listening for better 3D imaging while retaining soundstage.

You have to gauge the full sound now, not individual frequency check. Note which "sounds" are still lacking.

Place yr subwoof behind the seat if possible. Since there is only one sub, I see no other placement in yr photos.

Hope for the best!

Gregm,
I tried to place the speakers closer together and further away from the sidewall as you suggested. It just did not sound right. When I closed my eyes the music just did not sound like there was a stage. Perhaps, you did not take my room's width into account? Placing the FR speaker 3' away from the cabinet which is already 1' out and the FL 3' out makes the speakers a little more than 4' apart. My room is 11'2"W. 11'2" - (3'+ 3' + 1') = 4'2" apart. I guessI will try to just move them futrther out from the front cabinets.

Yes, move them forward and keep the distance fm side walls Asymmetrical. I would guess the right spkr closer to b/shelf than left spkr to wall. In gauging the distances measure fm woofer cone to whatever you're measuring.