Location...location...location

I've got a small, acoutically treated listening room (13x14) and have always tended to put my speakers in place using the Cadas method, or pretty close to it. In the past, my ears always agreed with this and even without measuring distances from walls, the speakers ended up pretty close to it.

I last had in my room the Acoustic Technologies Classic One speakers (single 3" dirver towers) and it was kind of difficult to get them to sound right. I danced them all over my room. And where they ended up sounding the best was about 4' from the front wall and about a foot from the side walls, aimed at about my shoulders.

At that spot, they sounded full and robust with an excellent sense of imaging. 

And then I thought, "Huh, I wonder how the Acoustic Zen Adagios will sound there" and brought the AZs in and placed them alongside the other towers. And surprisingly, they sounded better than they had in this small room. 

I always placed even the AZs where I normally put speakers in the room and they never sounded great. Good, but not like I thought they could sound. I always figured they needed a much larger room to sound their best. 

But they sounded pretty darn good there. I then removed the Classic Ones and slid the AZs even further apart and closer to the side walls (pretty much replacing the location of the COs). I couldn't believe how good the speakers sounded!

The soundstage almost fills the room, coming to my shoulders and even further behind me on certain recordings. It's a bit weird. The soundstage washes over me now. And still the center image is solid and stable, stage depth is there and I'm able to pick out where the instruments are located within the stage probably better than I've ever been able to do.

In my mind, where the speakers are located shouldn't sound very good, but it does! 

And to think, I was trying to sell these speakers for a long time. I now wonder how the Vandy 3A Sigs I sold last year would have sounded at my current speaker's location. 

For those out there like me with a preconceived notion of where speakers "sound best", I'd suggest you move 'em all around. You just might be surprised.

Cheers.