Raise your acoustic panels or die


Hi everyone,
I just had an interesting result while waiting on new panels from GIK. I've been pretty lazy in setting them up, nothing is hanging.  Everything is just placed on the floor around the speakers.  On the wall behind the speakers I have 2 Soffit Traps and 2 standalone panels inside them. Kind of like this:
(ST) (P) --------- (P) (ST)
With the traps standing up vertically. Last night I decided to put the panels directly on top of the soffit traps, giving me near floor to ceiling coverage in that corner. Lo and behold it raised the stereo image by a good 15-20 degrees or so. Orchestral instruments now appear above my tweets. 

So, if you have been leaving all your panels on the floor for convenience sake I strongly encourage you to raise them so they are more centered around the speaker, instead of at and below it.
erik_squires
since Erik is so full of knowledge and is always suggesting members do this or that, surprised he didn’t do this sooner
Riley:

Experience comes from making mistakes and experimentation. I’ve often said that if your imagine is lacking, improve your room acoustics in the dimension of the issue. Image too narrow? Go wide with treatment. Lack depth? consder the wall behind and in front of you. More technically knowledgeable acousticians than I have said similar things.


What I did not expect however was that vertically adjusting panels by a few feet would be so noticeable, or affect imaging this much. I expected my changes to improve the bass, not the image.