Proper Speaker Placement

[duficity]

Jonti,

You dont show the depth of the room, but it seems your speakers are too close to the back wall, and too close to the side walls. If your room is 8.5 feet wide that doesnt give you much room to make the speakers bloom.

[MonkeyBoy]

Jonti, also you might want to bring the sofa away from the back wall a bit. If you put it up against the back wall it often tends to make the bass a bit boomy. I realise you have limited space, but if there is jnothing else in the listening room you at least have a little room to play with.

[bergenwhite]

I am setting up my system in my bedroom. While I realize that a square small room is not ideal, but going with the "Ya Does What You Kin" theme, I was considering ceiling mounting my speakers (so as to put some distance between the speakers and the wall). The diagrams are useful, but what happens when you deviate from the assumed height positioning (have the speakers at the listener's ear level?)?

Is ceiling mounting bookshelf speakers a bad idea? Are there alternatives for a small square room? Feel free to ignore this if my question is too plebeian, but any help would be appreciated.

bw

[Sheilajeanne]

Having finally got my system up and running, I am looking into the issue of speaker placement. I have a largish rectangular living room. It is sunken 3 steps down from the kitchen, and is separated from it only by a railing. It is also open on one side to a 'sun room' with a wall that is mostly windows. A fireplace at one end of the living room limits options for speaker placement even further. It's my main source of heat at this time of year, so I can't place speakers too close to it.

As for placing speakers out from the wall, I have 3 large dogs, who sometimes get clumsy when they're playing. My 1970's vintage speakers have survived 40 years without any major dings in them. I'd like to keep it that way, thank you.

Like Buddy Holly says, "Ya' does whut ya' kin." (Thanks to Whitneyville for the quote!)

[MonkeyBoy]

Sheilajeane, if the railing separating is in a spot where sound would normally reflect you might consider putting up a screen of some sort, perhaps an Oriental type screen. It isn't the railings that are the problem, of course, but the open space going into the kitchen. That way you can fold up the screen when you don't want it in the way and put it back when you do.

Fortunately there are several different layouts for speaker placement and one of them is bound to be a good starting point for enjoyable listening.

[mysticfred]

I read somewhere that you should place your speakers in the main focal point in a room i.e. where you would put a TV or fireplace to get the best sound, also remove all the china ornaments and anything that can rattle, and add anything such as closed curtains, bookshelves or shelves full of records to disperse reflecting sound waves - impossible to do in most situations due to living space restrictions, though the old "triangle" arrangement works well in most cases.

[rewfew]

Wayne Parham of Pi speakers is a wealth of information for speakers in general, but primarily his own corner horn and horn loaded bass reflex speakers. http://audioroundtable.com/forum/index. ... goto=53033 The Theater 4 Pi speakers I have really sound best in this configuration.

[Budd]

one should experiment with speaker placement until it sounds good to those who are listening therein.

Surely this is about as much as anybody needs to know.

[Tako]

I have tried dozens of these "speaker placement guides", and always found them completely useless: Room acoustics is much to complicated to deal with in a "general" online guide (IMHO). They always assume you have a perfect rectangular room: I don't know how houses are built in other countries, but in the Netherlands 95% of living rooms has an irregular shape, and most houses also have doors and windows in places that a lot of these guides want you to put your speakers. They never take in account the height of the room, or the materials the room is built from: A plasterboard wall or a large window will behave more like a bass absorber for example, should you place your speakers at 1/5 (just an example) of that plasterboard back wall in your living room, which is basically non-existant to the low frequencies that cause the most problems with standing waves? Or should you count 1/5 from the concrete outer wall in the room next to it which is the REAL cause of your standing waves?
If by some miracle you have a room that does meet the demands of a speaker placement guide, chances are you will STILL end up with massive standing wave issues, even when following the guide perfectly. This could again be a cultural/building material issue, since most Dutch houses are solid concrete boxes, they could have much more serious standing waves issues than the the average American living room. The Audio Physic speaker placement guide wants you to put your listening seat against the rear wall, because "that's were the bass is", now I love me some bass, but try that trick in a concrete room and all you will hear is BASSSSSS, even with a tiny bookshelf speaker.....

[andyr]

The Audio Physic speaker placement guide wants you to put your listening seat against the rear wall, because "that's where the bass is", now I love me some bass, but try that trick in a concrete room and all you will hear is BASSSSSS, even with a tiny bookshelf speaker.....

Thank you Tako, for confirming that seat-against-the-back-wall means your ears are in a place of increased bass. That's what I had always assumed - but haven't previously seen anyone confirm that.

However, I appreciate that this statement might be more relevant to a room with concrete-block walls (like my current "listening room"). I am hoping that in a room with stud walls/plasterboard, the "bass problem" may not be as much - as I am in the process of designing the listening room in our next house, and masonry walls are not an option.

Regards,

Andy

[Tako]

Thank you Tako, for confirming that seat-against-the-back-wall means your ears are in a place of increased bass. That's what I had always assumed - but haven't previously seen anyone confirm that.

However, I appreciate that this statement might be more relevant to a room with concrete-block walls (like my current "listening room"). I am hoping that in a room with stud walls/plasterboard, the "bass problem" may not be as much - as I am in the process of designing the listening room in our next house, and masonry walls are not an option.

Regards,

Andy

In my experience, low frequency standing wave problems are MUCH more severe in concrete houses than in houses made of wood or other lighter materials.
A typical Dutch living room (small/medium sized concrete bunker) is an acoustic nightmare, keeping most of the low frequencies in the room reinforcing and canceling each other out in different spots of the room, and causing spikes and dips of 15dB or more. These problems typically happen below 80hZ, which makes them almost impossible to combat without filling your room with giant tube traps. (and even with them the effect is limited: a 15dB peak at 40hZ is effectively "untreatable" with acoustic measures)
My experience with a wooden construction is limited (they are rare here), but ging from this limited experience I would say that putting your listening seat up against a wooden or plasterboard wall could work very well: The very low frequencies that cause that characteristic pounding, hammer-like bass near concrete walls will go right through a wooden wall.

[Black Stuart]

A very interesting thread this, as I have just brought back into use my speaker based system after listening through cans (Senn 650s) after nearly 5 years.

We are renting an old house here in France until I can find a farmer that will sell us a piece of land in a good position. It has all the classic negatives of an old stone built house, including sloping wooden floors and internal walls made of the awful cavity red clay blocks - 2.5 inches/6cm.

KlausR says that he had an extension built and then complained 'that he knew it would be a nightmare to set up his sound rig'

KlausR why did'nt you research building materials as deeply as you researched room acoustics or did you just accept what the builder chose .

Tako is the only poster to mention building materials and even he does'nt really know what materials are used in Dutch construction - I worked for a Dutch company in Rotterdam in 79/80 renovating old houses and on new build as well, I am a qualified builder with lots of experience in both old and new construction and know well construction methods used in most European countries.

The OP presented a lot of possible ways to deal with setting up speaker systems but totally failed to address this most important point - what are the floors/walls and ceilings made of in the listening room.

KlausR - why did'nt you specify - aercrete blocks - de Jong (or used to be) Netherlands; Durox (Tarmac) UK; Xella International - Germany/France/Spain.

These blocks are thermally very efficient, so much so that on the Xella sites it featured one man using a blow torch against one of these aercrete blocks with another man whose hand is against the other side of the block. Now the bit that should interest all those who want to maximise their listening experience - they are acoustically superb.Each block contains millions of air pockets which explains their lightweight but also load bearing ability. They also are impervious to insect attack and wil only absorb around 3% moisture.

Xella also make aercrete flooring and roofing beams - I intend to use all three products not only for our personal listening/sanity centre rooms but for the whole house and guess what - the materials maybe more expensive than crap traditional materials but it actually costs a lot less to build a house because the whole process is so much quicker. The irony is that they were invented by a Swedish architect and this in 1924.

For those not familiar with construction in mainland Europe and for Europeans who blindy accept what builders or architects specify:

Dense concrete blocks, solid or cavity - soak up water like a sponge are very heavy and with only a finish coat of plaster - thermally useless and will give a hard cold dead sound. With the new planning regs that came into force this year here in France - to acheive a sufficient U value, these rubbish blocks need a 4 stage process, which includes using plasterboard and a skim coat of finish plaster - resulting in an awful acoustic performance as well as costing a lot of money to create ( great for the builder).

Cavity clay blocks - these are used all over Europe for internal walls and are the principal cause along with re-inforced concrete (dense concrete again) floors covered with ceramic tiles for the awful ringing that is the norm with homes on mainland Europe. These homes offer zero privacy for those that live in them.

So, KlausR you could have specified aercrete materials for the floors/walls and roof of your extension - be far warmer in winter/cooler in summer. battened the flooring beams and used tongue and groove pine or oak as floor covering.

There is no rational reason to use any kind of plaster finish on aercrete blocks - they can be painted directly - do not use vinyl paints of any kind, they are all very carcinogeric, in Denmark there is a recognised condition known as 'painter's dementia'. Or, as in the UK - lining paper (1200 grade) which I may or may not use. I shall decide after initial listening tests. I may use tongue and groove wooden panelling for the walls upto approx 4ft/120cm. I aim for a neutral sound rig but with a warm vibrant room - it's all about personal choice.

Quite frankly if you have rooms with stud and plasterboard walls - don't bother get into using cans and h/amp.

If as a European you are contemplating having a house built - there is only one material to use - aercrete blocks and don't let any builder use anything else other than 'the thin joint' system.

If you own an existing house you should be able to take down any internal plasterboard walls and put up aerecrete walls instead - they are so easy to use that anyone can use them.

So here I am having to do the best I can in this rented house with two external walls made of local stone - very deep and p/poor insulation - hot in summer and bloody cold in winter and two other cavity clay block walls.

I'm sure that experimenting with the various methods expounded by the OP and others I maybe able to get rid of 'congestion' that happens sometimes in the upper mids but I will never acheive a result that satisfies me because of the materials used in constructing this house.

As so often in the hi-fi world, very few actually start at the beginning - imagine even attempting to build a house without proper foundations - room acoustics start with the materials used in the room construction - everything should follow from there.

[Jonti]

My house is a largely wooden construction. It sounds like an instrument!

[Tako]

Black Stuart,

You are right I am no expert in various types of concrete, but any form of concrete, either the heavier, more dense stuff used in 70's Ducth houses (the kind of houses you'd have to rent an enormous drill whenever you wanted to hang a painting) or the lighter blocks used in the outer walls more modern houses are an acoustical nightmare, even the lighter stuff does not absorb enough low frequency sound and causes extreme low frequency standing waves.
"Good acoustic properties" for building materials generally means is blocks a lot of sound, while the same term in audio mean just the opposite.

I am also a bit surprised by your statement about plasterboard being hopeless: A lot of acoustic experts actually advise putting up plasterboard "floating walls" in front of concrete walls (with a little space between them) to help absorb low frequency sound. (A technique also used in studios for example) As long as the plasterboard is secure enough not to rattle , I'd KILL for some plasterboard instead of "concrete" (whatever the type) .
I don't know what aercrete is, but if it is anything like the blocks used for the load bearing walls in a typical dutch house, I would never replace my "plaster" block inner walls (probably not the right word either, i think it's called "cellenbeton" in Dutch: white blocks that are so soft you can drill a hole in them with a screwdriver) with it: Iner walls made of light and "flimsy" material are often the only thing in a house that actually absord low frequencies (Along with large pieces of furniture).

Might be wort mentioning that I am unsure about the correct English term for "outer" and "inner" wall: With inner wall i mean the dividng walls between say, a kitchen and a living room, not the inside part of the "double" outer wal (whic is what I am calling "outer wall" if that makes any sense .