Speaker Placement

Soundlab speakers produce nearly as much output from the rear as the front, making the distance from the back wall far more critical than the sides. The distance from the rear wall is determined by a number of factors, including toe in, wall treatments, and ceiling height. I keep my U-1's about 5 feet from the rear wall, even with RPG panels and Tube Traps in place. The single most important and overlooked adjustment on Soundlabs is the vertical alignment. From the factory, they tend to lean backwards (especially the U-1). This destroys the focus of the high frequencies, sending the highs well above the normal listening height. This effects not only tonal balance, depth and soundstage, but the voice and instrument imaging as well. With the original factory feet, the U-1 is out of plumb nearly two and a fourth inches. Floor level must be considered at this point as well, an out of plumb floor by only one fourth of an inch, when multiplied out to the top of a seven foot speaker, produces huge errors. After the vertical is right, it is fairly painless to set the toe in. Simply sight thorough the speaker from the rear, aiming for the center listening position. Use the fourth cell, counting from the wall side of the frame. Sight with a horizontal rib that closely matches your head height in the listening chair. More than half the time, this gets the toe in dead on, leaving only the wall distance as a final tweak.

Redkiwi, great thread. You beat me to the punch... I am interested in the responses from esl owners as I am now mating my *new* Kinergetics SW800 subs with my ML CLS1's.

I had the CLS's 5' from the front wall, 9' apart (center panel to center panel) with 4" toe in, 5' from the side walls and 10' to where my ass resides.

With the subs I have moved the CLS's in to a position that is 8'4" center panel to center panel. Everything else is the same except toe in is 3.5". SW800's (five 10" drivers in each 58" tall enclosure) are 1.5" from the outside of each CLS and aimed in exactly the same direction as the CLS's.

It's been one week so this is only a starting point.

CLS people (and other esl folks) ... what say you????

Albert, I have had the same experience regarding back tilt with my CLS's as you have described with your U-1's. Verticle alignment appears to be critical in most esl's. Certainly in my case.

My CLS/SW800 combo is so good despite limited time for set up. But... get me a taller ceiling and I'll glomm on to a pair of A1's. The best speaker I've ever heard in the flesh.

But, I'm *not* suffering. Life is good.

Great idea Redkiwi, I've been experimenting with this for years. I currently own Thiel 3.6's. I have tried the Cardas rule but just usually experiment to dial in because my room is a little odd. It's a partially finished basement and measures 14.5W by 45L by 8H. My front wall is approx. 6 ft wide with 2 cavities on either side approx 5ft and 3 ft wide. My son's closet is on the other side and makes this identation into the room. It would be hard to dial in a rear firing speaker. Right now I have the speakers 48" off the front wall about 8.5ft apart which leaves my around 4 and 3 ft from side walls. I sit about 9 ft in front. Thiels have a wide dispersion so I don't usually toe-in although I play around with this it seems all the time - I can never be completely satisfied. I use a wool horse banket on the wall between the speakers and 2 on the side for damping, this seems to help imaging. Other than that damping material like foam seems to deaden the sound too much. My ceiling is unfinished - wood joists above me - don't know if this is good or bad or indifferent. Maybe defraction. Let me finish with a horror story, if you're quezy at all do not read on. Just yesterday I was fooling around and accidentally knocked over a sheet of drywall that was leaning up against an unfinished frame(STUPID IDIOT!) It fell into my speaker, tipped it over(GULP) it landed on my amp, fortunately on the face plate of my Classe, knocked the amp off the stand on its side, the speaker then rolled to a stop. Put a half inch gouge in the top right on the corner of the speaker (LOOKS REAL NICE). The place looked like a crime scene, cables everywhere - man. Well everything works or I would have crawled up on the roof to jump. Ever see the movie Jaws and Quin said the scariest moment of his life was waiting his turn to be pulled from the shark infested water, well mine was booting up waiting for the tubes to come on in the preamp to see if I could still produce music!

JD: Very nice post in a nutshell, which I made a hard copy of. I have a lense cleaning disc (that I have been afraid to use) that has white as well as pink noise tracks. Though I don't have a wide range of options as far as permanent placement of the speakers goes, it will be fun to play around with it (the white noise) as far as minor adjustments. Hopefully this will improve the sound in the casual listening area. If this shows positive results and doesn't drive me nuts I will then spring for the test disc that you refer to. I used pink noise generators years ago when setting up equalizers, but don't ever recall using or listening to white noise, other than when a television station went off the air.