Perfect Speaker Placement - Put next to the back wall as much as possible.

Just beginning in the hobby, I can’t tell you all how helpful it is to see the lack of agreement amongst those with years of experience in the hobby.  It’s takes subject matter that is critical but confusing to impossible to comprehend.  I am also stuck with long wall placement in a 33’ x 18’ room. The one bit of value that I have gathered from this ‘discussion’ is that I am best off throwing a dart anywhere in the board and starting there.  After much (confusing) reading on the subject I have sent my dart to the golden ratio.  This allows me to manage two dimensions at once (distance from side wall and distance from front wall) as one variable.  If it does not work just throw another dart.

chilli42

Nothing will replace fun experiments with your own ears.... It takes times, it takes me 2 years to figure it out, one incremental acoustic controls or treatment , one step at a time...But we must all learn how to listen sound...Hearing sound is not listening sound...we must learn to be consciously active in listening sound...

And the method for becoming active in listening is simple: we create a modification in the room and after some listenings we decide if this is good or bad for our ears, this is called feed-back... One feed-back at a time the acoustic veiled marvel of your room reveal itself.... It is the contrary of a strip tease tough , the beautiful nude room is dressed by you one step at a time.....

How is the texture of this sound? How is his color? How is the decay? is it a flowing sound like a wave gently floating to my ears or a sound that seems a distant island? Are each instrument well placed and separated but anyway partaking the same ethereal space in my room? is the soud limited to a walk between the speakers? if so this is wrong...Etc....

All these impression will guide you to take the good choices... Experimenting is trials and errors...But any errors is only a step to a new joy...

You will be amazed someday, when listening music,you will be able to qualify the sound qualities and variations spontaneously on the spot... And the doubter simplistic mind must know that, NO, i dont have and we dont need hearing bat ears to do that....

The only rule is believing in yourself and having faith in your ears... Your room will be for your ears, not for the neighbour or for an audiophile bat omni hearing creature, but for you.... Take pleasure listening and think about the way you can change thing little by little and verify with your own measuring rod: your ears/brain/body....


I experienced the same desorientation 7 years ago as you.... I made mistakes listening to reviewers in my buying choices... No reviewers said to me that the only important factor are not the choice of costly gear, but the way we must control vibration, electrical noise level, and acoustical settings...

They all sell something and people wanted to pay without never making their homework.... But this homework is the only real joy in audiophile life It is listening experiments with low cost device to cure the 3 source of noise or of lost of S.Q. It is not only buying a beautiful new electronic design ...

It is creativity and music the never ending real joy....

Happy New Year...


« Sounds are like love, they seems illusions sometimes to some, but these illusions are the only real deal»-Anonymus

Ok, I feel like this is an extension of another post I just made in another discussion about imaging.
 I used to sell audio, I have some experience setting up different kinds of speakers. They vary dramatically in their optimal placement from walls. So no one rule works, despite acoustic treatments or DSPing being helpful. If you have a port in the back of your speaker, it behaves differently than a sealed acoustic suspension, which behaves differently than dipoles. Some are made to be against walls or made to be placed in corners (I sold Klipsch speakers). 

There has to be some type of program where you rnter your room dimensions and it will give you different speaker placement distances from the front wall in order to tackle specific dips.

Like, if you have a dip at 40hz, thats a 28 foot wavelength so at what speaker location will that wave cancel itself out at...


Room treatments are so huge in the way your setup sounds and once you get used to them theres no going back.  You just want to treat every square inch with absorption or diffusion.
I’ve been enjoying dsp as well.  Its kind of fun.  Its somewhat like changing speakers in and out without changing speakers in and out.  It allows me to still enjoy my high quality speakers but with just a different flavor of sound.

To clarify, you guys are saying that your speakers are 38% into the room and your listening seat is also 38% into the room?  This seems like it would be a nearfield setup in anything less than a 40 foot deep room...

I thought it was a good article mainly talking about small monitor speakers in a nearfield listening position with bits about larger speakers thrown in. For small speakers, I would suggest his recommendations. I have done it this way with good success. But for larger full range speakers, you need the speakers out from the wall, way out. There are many articles on speaker placement and for example the Cardas method, he states recommendations for planer speakers and for box speakers, nearfield or not, and for square vs rectangle rooms.
The Wilson duette speakers sound very good up against the wall whereas the Wilson Alexia 2’s would not.
I also agree with audio2design and many others on these forums: never listen to millercarbon. I think it’s outrageous that MC compares his low fi system with Mike Lavigne’s system, that’s an embarrassment to Mike.