[sethwas]

Ok,

They are better than before by far with one exception: phantom center doesn't work.


Let me explain:


Skipping my whole room history, I'll just go from last config to current.

Both are 2.1 setup.


Last config:

wood flooring in condo, floor rug covering entire floor between speakers/display and listener.

Listener sits 9' away.

plasma flat on wall, speakers 6" away from the r and l sides of screen (towers on floor).

Under plasma is a cabinet that goes about a foot off the ground, there is almost a foot gap between the bottom of the cabinet and the screen.

Flanking the 2 speakers which flank the plasma are two narrow bookcases.

Electronics in bookcase.

The speakers are flush (actually sticking out a touch) from the face of the bookcases which have closed doors (not open shelving). Speakers aren't toed.

There is nothing on the wall and nothing above the bookcases/plasma.

Microfiber armchairs at first reflection points.


Advantages to this setup? crazy tight phantom center. Otherwise the rest is awful, and what I aimed to fix with the current config.


Current config:

electronics were placed on the cabinet under the plasma.

The two bookcases were removed entirely from the floor.

Now they are placed horizontally a foot below the ceiling and about a foot above the plasma.

The speakers are now, toed to the listener, about 1.5 feet away from the edges of the screen.

No change to anything else.


Advantages to this setup? Crazy large soundstage. Speakers are impossible to pinpoint. Depth of sound is tremendous.

Disadvantages to this setup? I guess echo? Now that there is a flat wall facing the listener (with that 'ledge' above the plasma acting to direct sound too?) dialogue is hard to discern.

I can't physically treat the room at all except for the wall the plasma is on.

(left wall is a window for 70% of the room, the other 30% is doorway).

(there is no right wall of the room, it goes into the dining room and then kitchen)

(behind listener are boocases/shelving flanking the couch and a mirror on the wall immediately behind)

The couch is about 1.5' from the rear wall.


How can I tighten the phantom center without buying a center channel?(albeit 2-3 room panels depending on brand can cost the same as a center so the idea is in the back of my mind).

I've messed with the toe and it hasn't helped the image focus.


Thanks,


Seth

 

[Ethan Winer]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sethwas /forum/post/14245929


I can't physically treat the room at all except for the wall the plasma is on.

Then good imaging will remain elusive for you. You really need absorption at the first reflection points.


--Ethan

 

[sethwas]

Hmm,

I was hoping I could do something with either absorbtion or diffusion along the wall where the speakers/plasma are because it is the front back sound bouncing that is the only symmetrical part of the room. I have no other surfaces on the sides that are parallel to cause trouble.


Seth

 

[sethwas]

By the way,

I did spread the speakers a bit farther this evening. Now they are 9' tweeter to tweeter and the listener sits ~9' from each tweeter also making an equilateral triangle. I believe the equilateral is perceived as more 'correct' vs simply isosceles. As it happens, for music anyway, the soundstage got even better and the imaging became more spacious/stretched which I sort of expected by widening the speakers. I can better pinpoint where different instruments are during an orchestra performance for example...however, dialogue still suffers.

The dialogue isn't 'centered' so much as it is just emanating from the wall space between the speakers. Now of course it could have been recorded that way, or an effect of processing 5.1 into 2.1, so I'm going to try different movies to see if that's the case.

I'm just concerned that my 42" of plasma glass 15 feet across from a 50" mirror may be contributing. (each is on a flat untreated wall with the tv side having one big wall mounted cabinet horizontally mounted only 16" high but 9' wide and the other side has floor to mid wall bookcases with doors and stuff on the top of the bookcases)


Seth

 

[Ethan Winer]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sethwas /forum/post/14247553


I was hoping I could do something with either absorbtion or diffusion along the wall where the speakers/plasma are

But the front wall is not a direct reflection point. It's the side-wall and ceiling reflections, and the resulting comb filtering, that harms imaging.


--Ethan

 

[sethwas]

Ok,

My last change was to toe the speakers a little more, now the front corners of the speakers are almost 5" separate (the left corner of the speaker is 4.5" ahead of the right corner) in my equilateral triangle. To me the toe looks extreme but it doesn't sound bad at all. The imaging tightened up about as good as its going to get, so like you said I'll just live with it. (I moved the rug to extend completely from the display until the couch, moved the armchairs, and re-set the SPL levels so everything is equal)

Still, the audio gets a tad fatiguing now which is an interesting side effect of the new layout.


Thanks,


Seth

 

[sethwas]

I think this is as good as it gets. It seems to be very source dependent.

Not only that, it's decoder dependent as well.

So if I put in a discrete 5.1 track, and have it play through the receiver set to auto, it will try to decode the 5.1 into the 2.1 speakers I have since everything but the mains are set to 'off' - however, if I set it to 'stereo' it comes in a little clearer. Go figure.

Of course OTA stuff, watched 90% of the time, is not as tight, but the setup sounds great with a DVD/CD.


Seth