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Speaker Placement

Hi
I just finished my Audio Room and need help regarding speaker placement. The room is 20ft long by 16ft wide with ceiling height 8ft 9 inches. This is located in a basement all poured concrete. The front half of the room is carpeted while the back is wooden floor. If I sit facing the speakers the right wall is all uneven stonework and on the left I have placed some DIY panels at the first reflection points. Behind the speakers I have placed 2 DIY corner traps. So far the ceiling is bare and I have no panels behind the speakers. I have placed the speakers 3ft from the side wall and 4ft from the front wall all measured at the centre of the drivers. While the sound is very good (no bass bloat ect.) I am unable to get a good sound stage.  The seating position is about 3ft from the back wall. 
My 2 Ch. equipment is as follows. 
Speakers B&W 800D (Not Diamonds)
Power Amp Krell KRS 200 Mono Blocks
Pre Krell KRC 3
Sources Cambridge Audio Stream Magic V1 and Clear Audio DC Performance with Dynavector D17.
Phono is Project Tube Box DS. 

I just want input if this sounds right as far as the placement goes. Should I try and move the speakers closer together? 

Thanks
srafi
pops
2,272 posts
 
Congrats on your room, nothing like a dedicated room for 2 or multi channel!  You mention your ceiling, what is it?  Finished? Flat or are joists exposed?  I find the floor and particularly the ceiling are the biggest problem with reflective sound.  

And what are you missing in the sound stage?  Specificity of imaging?  or instrument separation?  holography?  Generally the more space between your speakers the more of these characteristics are enhanced.  Closer the speakers the narrower the stage but it can give a more rich presentation and stronger image. 

Yogi is right about speaker placement - if you have not spent many hours moving them around you will never find the sweetest spot.  Sounds like you have plenty of room to experiment.  Personally, I am more about the tone and balance than soundstaging qualities.

Good luck - now get to work moving those B&W's around! 

smctigue1
53 posts
 
Try the Cardas calculator. It will put the speakers much further into the room but I bet you will get a much improved soundstage.
ejr1953
895 posts
 
Can't agree more with the comments posted by yogiboy & pops.  I moved my system from our living room to a much larger family room, and found that small adjustments in speaker positioning sometimes made significant changes to the soundstage.  After getting a pair of sub woofers, had to outfit the room with a lot of bass traps and spent more time moving the subs and the main speakers around.  When I thought I had it as good as I could, just for grins I moved the side speakers forward about 2" and the soundstage improved dramatically!
soix
8,729 posts
 
Agree that there's no substitute for playing with placement, but the good news is that, unlike most things in this world, it's free.  I'm very into the 3D holographic imaging thing, and my room is similar to yours except 3' more narrow.  In case it's helpful as a starting point, after many hours of fiddling with placement my speakers ended up 5' 3" from the front wall and 5' 3" apart both measured from the front center of the speakers and speakers toed in so they aim toward my shoulders.  Obviously many many variables here so your results may vary, but I'm getting very good imaging and soundstaging with this positioning so maybe this could be a good starting point.  Hope this helps and best of luck. 

newbee
4,751 posts
 
I like Pop's response. Believe it or not everyone has a slightly different perception of what constitutes a good sound stage. FWIW I started with the Cardas recommendations and after a long time I ended up with my speakers 9' apart, 5.5 ft off the back wall, my chair 9 ft from the plane of the speakers and about 4' off the wall behind the chair, slightly off an equilateral triangle. I toed the speaker in so their axis crossed in front of my hear to avoid sidewall reflections. What I get is a very clean clear precise imaging between the speakers with substantial depth. What I don't get is out of phase sounds outside the boundaries of the speakers that is not in the recording itself, unlike many panel and bipolar speakers make and a lot of folks seem to love. 
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