Good Omni directional speakers like mbl do it best but are still limited in most rooms at home unless they can be set up just right to get levels and timing of reflected sound just right.
What affects front to back depth in room/ system?
I've been moving speakers around for a while now trying to maximize their placement for a happy balance of soundstage width, focus of center image, vocal height, instrument placements, etc. I want to get the speaker placement settled before acoustically treating the room. The room is 15x20 with 8' ceilings. Speakers are setup along the 20' wall. I'm pretty happy with most aspects of the sound, but what I can't seem to figure out is how to improve the depth. Honestly, I'm not sure if what I'm after is attainable to begin with. Is it possible to have depth that reaches the listening position in a 2.2 channel sound system? The depth behind the speakers is great, just not much in front of them- unless it's one of those songs that has a part where it has that inverted phase trick. Then it washes over me. I want that all the time. Any feedback and advice is appreciated.
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Thanks for the replies so far. I'm going to get a photo up tomorrow so you can see my room/setup. @baylinor: For 3 years, I had the system setup with speakers on the short 15' wall (rooom is 15x20). I didn't understand why at the time, so I bought new speakers thinking larger drivers (went to 10" from 8") would have improved the bass response, but it didn't. I ended up going to Acoustic Fields and did there free room consultation. Dennis suggested setting up the speakers on the long wall. I did that and boy- what a huge improvement. Everything was better- no comparison. I'm don't understand the physics behind it, but certainly can appreciate the positive difference. I think I must have had a nasty node/ cancellation in previous room configuration. For good measure, I was thinking about switching back again (at some point) just to double check. What I thing would really help at this point is to be able to hear a truly great system. I need a benchmark. It would also help me understand what is possible and not in 2 channel audio. Anyone here in SoCal have an awesome room/ system I can take a listen to? |
Soundstage can be at least as much dependent on how a recording / track was mastered (or remastered) as it might be on speaker model / placement x room. Hard characteristic to change, but as already mentioned, DSP can help. @veerossi if you find “truly great” systems to have a listen, either bring a USB stick with a few of the exact files you think have exemplary soundstage, or at least make sure the same streaming service tracks are available in a short time span. If you don’t use the same source file / master, any conclusions you make could be off-mark. |
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