Quadraphonic setups, speaker placement etc?

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I am curious how many Surround Master users use the Surround Sound setup similar to the Wendy Carlos setup, or how many use the setup recommended in the Surround Master manual as shown here:

View attachment 71261

I realize some may just use the home theatre setup since they are also doing movies and may have various home theatre speaker setups, 5.1, 7.1, Atmos, etc.., and may not want to move the speakers, but how many actually like the home theatre speaker setup better than the S.M. setup, or do most prefer the S.M. speaker placement when using the S.M.?

Thanks for all opinions!
With speakers placed like that they sound best when placed closer together. Speakers too far apart produces hole in the middle type stereo, and poor side imaging. Quad in a vehicle can sound very good due to the close speaker placement. A typical living room or rec room is different. The Wendy Carlos setup would be better, although I think that the front speakers should be pulled farther apart.
Currently my living room is set up much as Sonic suggested because the wife insisted on rearranging the furniture. It still sounds good but there is a big disconnect between the front and rear speakers. No chair is placed in the centre as that would be impractical although I do sometimes sit there when auditioning a new DV disc.
 
Unfortunately I didn't have enough money to get into quad when I was young, so I am kind of late to the game. I would be interested to know how the original mix engineers monitored the quad mix, and therefore what they intended the speaker placement to be in order to get the intended sound of the mix when played back. Was there a standard? There seems to be a lot of speaker placement opinions. Speakers forming square equal distance, Square with speakers toed in, 5.1 placement, etc. I guess maybe I need a basic Quad 101 course! :)

I am really enjoying the DV releases, may need futher experimentation with placement.
 
With speakers placed like that they sound best when placed closer together. Speakers too far apart produces hole in the middle type stereo, and poor side imaging. Quad in a vehicle can sound very good due to the close speaker placement. A typical living room or rec room is different. The Wendy Carlos setup would be better, although I think that the front speakers should be pulled farther apart.
Currently my living room is set up much as Sonic suggested because the wife insisted on rearranging the furniture. It still sounds good but there is a big disconnect between the front and rear speakers. No chair is placed in the centre as that would be impractical although I do sometimes sit there when auditioning a new DV disc.

This thread seems deja vu to me, RE: similar posts in the SMv3 teaser thread. Or is it the other way around?

Hey Ken, in your Show Us Your Gear post you refereed to your big speakers being in your Man Cave. Are they really in your living room set up?
One of the reasons I have my speakers set up in a square is I'm a bit fanatical with keeping arrival time as close as possible. I meticulously measure everything out and use a mic stand at audio epicenter with a T square & laser pointer to get the toe in exact on each speaker. In fact I have a string with a knot at the end attached to the mic stand & when all is positioned properly I can extend that string's knot & it will barely touch each mid-range as I circle it around the room. Arrival time is a funny thing... like phase relationships it's percent difference is dependent on frequency/wave length. So it's not going to be perfect, I just try to get it as close as I can. My Anthem has distance/delay settings in its menu for this but my first goal is get it set up as right as I can & try to avoid band aids.

After all my decades in audio & surround, where did this term cogging evolve from? At any rate I guess it refers to speaker accentuation or holes in the middle of speaker pairs. In regards to the former, if an artist wants a screaming guitar to be in left front, by god that's where it should be. As for center side imaging it is not as good as center front but to me represents a rather extended range of sound front to back but still strongly off to the left or right. I can live with that in preference to rear speakers being more to the sides to reduce it. And interestingly when I do that 'ol Sansui Synth 270 deg pan around it moves quite smoothly around with out any jumping.

My main listening position is indeed in the middle with a folding chair that can easily be moved. The 2nd more casual position is on the couch right between the rear speakers. My set up looks like this:

ROOM FRONT SMALL.jpg


ROOM BACK.jpg


Not very fancy compared to other set ups on QQ but it's my Happy Place. Anyway, when sitting on the couch in the middle this position gives a very strong 180 deg soundfield with excellent left/right side imaging. So using real sound sources do work. But the front width now is quite contracted & there's nothing I can do about that. If you look to the very rear of the room there are 2 BIC speakers for my work station by the monitor. I have a switch that connects them to the rear speakers for a L-R and R-L decoding. I now have depth behind the couch & it sounds pretty darn good! As @J. PUPSTER says we all have different set ups to make the most out of what we have to work with. And sometimes that means even with in the same room.
 
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This thread seems deja vu to me, RE: similar posts in the SMv3 teaser thread. Or is it the other way around?

Hey Ken, in your Show Us Your Gear post you refereed to your big speakers being in your Man Cave. Are they really in your living room set up?
One of the reasons I have my speakers set up in a square is I'm a bit fanatical with keeping arrival time as close as possible. I meticulously measure everything out and use a mic stand at audio epicenter with a T square & laser pointer to get the toe in exact on each speaker. In fact I have a string with a knot at the end attached to the mic stand & when all is positioned properly I can extend that string's knot & it will barely touch each mid-range as I circle it around the room. Arrival time is a funny thing... like phase relationships it's percent difference is dependent on frequency/wave length. So it's not going to be perfect, I just try to get it as close as I can. My Anthem has distance/delay settings in its menu for this but my first goal is get it set up as right as I can & try to avoid band aids.

After all my decades in audio & surround, where did this term cogging evolve from? At any rate I guess it refers to speaker accentuation or holes in the middle of speaker pairs. In regards to the former, if an artist wants a screaming guitar to be in left front, by god that's where it should be. As for center side imaging it is not as good as center front but to me represents a rather extended range of sound front to back but still strongly off to the left or right. I can live with that in preference to rear speakers being more to the sides to reduce it. And interestingly when I do that 'ol Sansui Synth 270 deg pan around it moves quite smoothly around with out any jumping.

My main listening position is indeed in the middle with a folding chair that can easily be moved. The 2nd more casual position is on the couch right between the rear speakers. My set up looks like this:

View attachment 71266

View attachment 71267

Not very fancy compared to other set ups on QQ but it's my Happy Place. Anyway, when sitting on the couch in the middle this position gives a very strong 180 deg soundfield with excellent left/right side imaging. So using real sound sources do work. But the front width now is quite contacted & there's nothing I can do about that. If you look to the very rear of the room there are 2 BIC speakers for my work station by the monitor. I have a switch that connects them to the rear speakers for a L-R and R-L decoding. I now have depth behind the couch & it sounds pretty darn good! As @J. PUPSTER says we all have different set ups to make the most out of what we have to work with. And sometimes that means even with in the same room.

That's a comfy place, SW. And of course, doggie prefers the couch.

BTW, the moveable folding chair makes for easy correction of albums like A Space in Time without having to rip it and rearrange the channels.
 
This thread seems deja vu to me, RE: similar posts in the SMv3 teaser thread. Or is it the other way around?

Hey Ken, in your Show Us Your Gear post you refereed to your big speakers being in your Man Cave. Are they really in your living room set up?
One of the reasons I have my speakers set up in a square is I'm a bit fanatical with keeping arrival time as close as possible. I meticulously measure everything out and use a mic stand at audio epicenter with a T square & laser pointer to get the toe in exact on each speaker. In fact I have a string with a knot at the end attached to the mic stand & when all is positioned properly I can extend that string's knot & it will barely touch each mid-range as I circle it around the room. Arrival time is a funny thing... like phase relationships it's percent difference is dependent on frequency/wave length. So it's not going to be perfect, I just try to get it as close as I can. My Anthem has distance/delay settings in its menu for this but my first goal is get it set up as right as I can & try to avoid band aids.

After all my decades in audio & surround, where did this term cogging evolve from? At any rate I guess it refers to speaker accentuation or holes in the middle of speaker pairs. In regards to the former, if an artist wants a screaming guitar to be in left front, by god that's where it should be. As for center side imaging it is not as good as center front but to me represents a rather extended range of sound front to back but still strongly off to the left or right. I can live with that in preference to rear speakers being more to the sides to reduce it. And interestingly when I do that 'ol Sansui Synth 270 deg pan around it moves quite smoothly around with out any jumping.

My main listening position is indeed in the middle with a folding chair that can easily be moved. The 2nd more casual position is on the couch right between the rear speakers. My set up looks like this:

View attachment 71266

View attachment 71267

Not very fancy compared to other set ups on QQ but it's my Happy Place. Anyway, when sitting on the couch in the middle this position gives a very strong 180 deg soundfield with excellent left/right side imaging. So using real sound sources do work. But the front width now is quite contracted & there's nothing I can do about that. If you look to the very rear of the room there are 2 BIC speakers for my work station by the monitor. I have a switch that connects them to the rear speakers for a L-R and R-L decoding. I now have depth behind the couch & it sounds pretty darn good! As @J. PUPSTER says we all have different set ups to make the most out of what we have to work with. And sometimes that means even with in the same room.
I have large speakers in my living room setup as well, I'll get around to showing them at some point. To improve sound at your casual listening position I would pull the rear speakers apart a bit and toe them in toward the couch. Adding additional dyna connected speakers farther to the rear is a novel idea, I don't think that i would of bothered though. But if it sounds good who am I to judge. And I'm not saying that being in the middle of the speakers can't sound good, just that it's often impractical.

Many keep going on and on about side imaging, yes it doesn't work well or work at all with speakers that are far apart. Midi and his constant rants about side imaging has sparked much of this exchange. Does adding time delays help, possibly but I currently have no interest in straying from my nearly pure analog system.

Speakers placed more to the sides image much like headphones so that panned sounds seem to come more from behind and a bit above, still 360° sound. That combined with good stereo imaging from the front plus the interplay between each pair of speakers and wow, I just can't be satisfied with regular stereo.

Yes try to keep the speakers equal distance from your sweet spot but that's not always possible. adjusting the front to rear balance can fix most of that. My Oppo has settings for speaker distance but I haven't noticed any real difference with it set up.
 
As much as I respect Carlos and totally understand how her arrangement is based on human stereo perception being narrower in the back, I'm in the camp that rear speakers have to be totally behind the listener, not somewhat flanked or even on the same baseline as the listener's head. I've gone as far as arranging my speakers in the proposed Soviet ABC matrix fashion and to me all these flanked arrangements give way too much precedence over rear material. Kind of like watching a live concert all the way against the back wall.

abc_vs.gif
 
In one of my rooms I'm stuck with the rears out to the sides. Now I want to hang a center speaker, so I have the option to play 5.1 there too.

In my other room I have the rears behind me: I'd like to move them further apart but am limited in space. I have experienced exactly what Wendy was talking about though: poor separation & lack of details in the rears.

I"m actually considering hanging the 4x speakers up in the corners, is that a bad idea? Would sure free up some space!
 
As much as I respect Carlos and totally understand how her arrangement is based on human stereo perception being narrower in the back, I'm in the camp that rear speakers have to be totally behind the listener, not somewhat flanked or even on the same baseline as the listener's head. I've gone as far as arranging my speakers in the proposed Soviet ABC matrix fashion and to me all these flanked arrangements give way too much precedence over rear material. Kind of like watching a live concert all the way against the back wall.

View attachment 71879
When listening to discreet quad you may have to tip the balance toward the front, with the speakers to the sides, also try angling them toward the front a bit if necessary.. For stereo enhancement or playback of modern 5.1 mixes a bit of extra sound from the rear is often welcome.
 
When listening to discreet quad you may have to tip the balance toward the front, with the speakers to the sides, also try angling them toward the front a bit if necessary.. For stereo enhancement or playback of modern 5.1 mixes a bit of extra sound from the rear is often welcome.
I think you nailed it, @par4ken . With my conversion to a 7.1.4 spacial setup, I reduced the angle of the surrounds about 10 degrees. I now find that the presentation of quad material is more skewed towards the rear than before. However, 5.1 material sounds more balanced. (So much for all that work I did to my rips using Audacity to boost the rears. :rolleyes: )
 
I've been happiest with this 5.1 setup shown in the diagram. But my front speakers are spread out a bit more...perhaps 35 degrees instead of 30 as shown in the diagram. The surrounds are at 120 degrees.

View attachment 56323

I find that it gives me the best compromise for both 5.1 and quad material. My listening position is more towards the front third of the room for various reasons. YMMV [EDIT: I need to clarify that my seating position is in the center of the circle shown in the diagram, not the front third of that circle.]

(I also have 7.1 rear speakers, but I only use them with synthesizing 7.1 with Logic7. The vast majority (>95%) of my surround sound listening is 5.1 or quad.)
Your layout conforms to the ITU standard for 5.1:
5.1 ITU-R-BS775-1.png
 
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