Hi there, I’m Aldo Filippelli. These are photos from my room at AXPONA. For those who don’t know me, I’m an acoustic engineer that became a speaker designer, who was also one of the top car audio system designers and installers in the 80s and 9@s, then decided to become the distributor of Dynaudio in 1995. Since then, I’ve done so many things in and outside of the audio industry. In 2020, I decided to convert my consulting company into a global sales representation firm for various high end audio companies.
Regarding the room at AXPONA, thank you for sharing here in the forum! Much appreciated!
The speakers were actually toed-in about 12 degrees. Because of the shape of the speakers, lighting in the room, and general visual perception I can understand why you would have assumed there were toed-out, which indeed was not the case.
After exhibiting in that very room, which is 32 x 32 x 30 (a cube) and has terrible absorptive aspects, I had to spend much time to design various acoustical solutions to “fix” problems in the room while improving sound stage, imaging, and presence, as well as addressing numerous bass and resonance issues in the room.
The speakers were setup for the middle of the first two rows of seats while allowing a similar but slightly less ideal for the rest of the seated listeners. The imaging was rock solid and realistic in height, depth, width, and layering. However, it did depend on the selection of music, your seated location, and limited or no talking and distractions. The Haas effect was in full accord and assisted by strategic placement of diffusers, absorbers, and hybrid acoustic treatments in the room, including the number of bodies and their location. Know for certain that the imaging and staging were absolutely precise and many said were perfect, but again based on what I just said. I spent many hours dialing the system in with the guys from Scott Walker Audio and we were all extremely happy with the results.
The subs in the rear of the room were used for bass cancellation as proximity subs, with levels turned all of the way to their lowest setting, crossover low passed at 40Hz on one and 48Hz on the other, and phase in each adjusted independently to force cancellation at specific points in the room, namely the center listening positions. These helped reduce peaks while improving phase and decay times. It’s a trick common in studios and some theaters.
If you have any questions about the room and setup, please contact me. Thank you.
