Placement for Soliloquy speakers

I own the 5.0 monitors, but auditioned a broken in pair of 5.3's in my room which is very similar to yours. I had them out from the back wall ~4-5 feet and they sounded pretty good, not really boomy. If you have a chance at them, the 6.3's are better balanced than the 5.3's.

Chris

Mine are 3 feet from back wall, 6-7 feet apart with a 15 degree toe in or so in a 19 x 12 room with 9 foot ceiling for now ( moving this month). Carpet but some reflective surfaces with miniblinds and foyer tile floor ( small area). No complaints about the sound here. Sounds great.

In setting up speakers measure from the center of the drivers.

A rule of thumb is: many setups tend to end up with drivers located on a diagonal of the room. So it may be a good place to start. Draw an imaginary line from corner to corner of room, and notice, as you pull the speakers into the room they get closer together. Or conversly, as they move closer to the wall behind, they get further apart.

But unless the room is square, the side distance is never equal to the distance of the wall behind. This aids in spreading room modes so that fewer stack upon each other creating high pressure zone anomolies for specific frequencies.

Include the ideal critera of a unilateral triangle of 8'. That is, listener to speaker = 8', and speaker to speaker also = 8'. At least for critial listening.

However the width of my room is only 12', so to get some distance from side walls I have to use 7'. That puts the center of the drivers 30" from side walls: considered a minimum.

When the speakers are only a couple feet from side walls, try a device at the reflection location from speaker to lstener. I tape a mirror on a side wall, move it around until the image of the speaker appears in the mirror from the listening position. That is the spot. You can then use smallest possible devices since it is so accuratly located. A 2' square should suffice, and no danger of deadening the room.

Experiment with degrees of absorbtion of the device relative to the sense of space in the soundstage (use what is handy while experimenting: a pillow against the wall on a table, folded blanket, towels, a piece of clothing on a hanger, etc.). Or when there is a an abundance of absorbive pieces in the room, like much overstuffed furniture, etc., you may want to use diffusive devices instead: like a shelving unit. Anything to diffract the direct reflection from driver to listener, while not deadening the room further.

Coordinate this with toe-in of the speakers. I have found with box speakers (the worst design for room acoustics) a toe in of about 7 degrees is a good balance: avoiding exessive direct side reflections with width of soundstage (space). Pointing them directly at listener will offer the greater focus, but at the expense of space.

The issue with direct reflections of sound from side walls, floor, and ceiling, is the sound energy arrives slightly delayed than the direct sound from the drivers.

It can be more practical to treat the side walls than the floor or ceiling. However it is usually convenient to place a throw rug on floors without carpeting to aid the process.

With full range speaker, the best results in setup can be obtained by locating the woofers according to: the LINKS link at http://www.linkwitzlab.com scroll down to 'Subwoofers: Optimum number and location', then to 'Getting the bass right' sublink.

Real results can be obtained from these efforts that will far outweigh any from top end gear, or cables and tweaks (which can be marginal at best, to non existant at worst).

565 is half the speed of sound.

The formula is simplified to obtain the lowest frequency a given acoustic chamber (room) can accomodate. Therefore, dividing the longest dimension of a chamber into 1/2 the speed of sound gives that frequency.

BTW, it reflecting back completes its full wave length. You can see that a lower frequency reflecting back will not complete the length of its cycle, thereby causing acoustic anomolies in the space that distorts all other frequencies in the chamber.

So the worst thing you can for accuracy in playback is use speakers that extend bass frequencies beyond the room's capability to accomodate them. The resulting low frequency pressue zones are almost impossible to deal with without excessive room treatment devices that are very costly, and tend to deaden the room, as well as create distasteful aesthics.

See: 'Master Handbook of Acoustics' (Everet) available in paperback.

How is this formula affected by lets open french doors in a study to a larger space or a door opening into a hallway. I am interested in your comments regarding lowest frequency that a room can accomodate. I hadn't consisdered that before but at the extremes at small and big it seems a quite apparent truism-- just not sure how an 11x 10 room with doors open versus an 11x 10 room with a door closed would vary with regards to calculation of lowest frequency would accomodate considerations...

Please teach me on this... I am all ears....