I generally adhere to the often-recommended convention of having front L & R loudspeakers form an equilateral triangle with me, the listener, with the Center lying midway between them. A separate question is how far this front line (L C R) is from the front wall. I'm lucky enough to have free rein in a dedicated room. In my 15-foot x 14-foot room, I've generally left a distance of 2-3 feet between the front baffle of the speakers and the wall behind them (the front wall, from the listener perspective). There's no solid rationale behind that distance other than a vague idea of reducing boundary interference which creates 'comb filtering' cancellations. Lately I've been trying to get a little more science behind front line speaker positions. One reference I've found are pages on this site.
My listening seat is generally placed according to the 38% rule . So my seat is at a point 5.7 ft from the rear wall (38% of 15 ft) . I also have 4" thick , 2' x 4' absorbers on the walls between me and the front line, at the 1st reflection points, and between the L&C and C&R . My subwoofer is in a front corner, which excites maximally excites room modes, which is OK since I can then use DSP (Audyssey) to tame excessive bass frequencies.
In some high-end recording studios, speakers are mounted within the front wall so the baffles are flush with the surface (a so-called 'infinite baffle'). This eliminates front-wall boundary effects . I can't do that. Another way is to place the speakers far enough from the wall to reduce the effects to inaudibility. This distance can be calculated. For my room and loudspeakers, that would be a bit over 5 feet ....not great, since to basically places me just five feet from the front line... a true 'near field' setup, but rather claustrophobic! (Though I might try it for fun...IME actual 'near field' setups create incredible deep images at the expense of having speakers right in your face).
Another way is to position the speakers very close to the front wall, which raises the cancellation notch frequency as high as it can go, then insert 4" absorbers behind them to reduce those frequencies*. I've now tried this (adjusting the side absorber positions too, to cover the new 1st reflection points.) It has two effects. One, given that my listening position stays the same, the equilateral triangle becomes huge, and thus the soundstage too, as the speakers are >11 ft apart. Two, there seems to be a loss of image depth; the sound is spread out across the stage but it's 'flat', lacking front to back image depth. I'm not at all sure I like it, but plan to experiment more. One undeniable good thing it does is to open up more free space in the room itself.
Has anyone else experimented with front speaker /wall distance, and have impressions to report?
*Interesting to note that in the relevant room setup/treatment diagrams in Floyd Toole's book, speakers are positioned with their backs right up against the walls.
My listening seat is generally placed according to the 38% rule . So my seat is at a point 5.7 ft from the rear wall (38% of 15 ft) . I also have 4" thick , 2' x 4' absorbers on the walls between me and the front line, at the 1st reflection points, and between the L&C and C&R . My subwoofer is in a front corner, which excites maximally excites room modes, which is OK since I can then use DSP (Audyssey) to tame excessive bass frequencies.
In some high-end recording studios, speakers are mounted within the front wall so the baffles are flush with the surface (a so-called 'infinite baffle'). This eliminates front-wall boundary effects . I can't do that. Another way is to place the speakers far enough from the wall to reduce the effects to inaudibility. This distance can be calculated. For my room and loudspeakers, that would be a bit over 5 feet ....not great, since to basically places me just five feet from the front line... a true 'near field' setup, but rather claustrophobic! (Though I might try it for fun...IME actual 'near field' setups create incredible deep images at the expense of having speakers right in your face).
Another way is to position the speakers very close to the front wall, which raises the cancellation notch frequency as high as it can go, then insert 4" absorbers behind them to reduce those frequencies*. I've now tried this (adjusting the side absorber positions too, to cover the new 1st reflection points.) It has two effects. One, given that my listening position stays the same, the equilateral triangle becomes huge, and thus the soundstage too, as the speakers are >11 ft apart. Two, there seems to be a loss of image depth; the sound is spread out across the stage but it's 'flat', lacking front to back image depth. I'm not at all sure I like it, but plan to experiment more. One undeniable good thing it does is to open up more free space in the room itself.
Has anyone else experimented with front speaker /wall distance, and have impressions to report?
*Interesting to note that in the relevant room setup/treatment diagrams in Floyd Toole's book, speakers are positioned with their backs right up against the walls.
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