Main Listening Position

[Daverich4]

I'm trying to find the best listening position in my room. I started with the microphone 6' from the back wall and moved it forwards 6" at a time until I was 8’ from the back wall. Can someone tell me if any of these are better than the others? The room is 23' deep and the front of the speakers is 43" from the front wall. If this is not usable information, is there some other way to do this? I'm including the .mdat which would allow someone to look at the individual measurements. Each measurement is identified by its distance from the back wall. I'd appreciate any guidance someone could give me including the proper way to measure and present the sweeps. Thanks for your help.

 

[staticV3]

They all look equally as good/bad.

Shifting your listening position by a foot or two won't make an appreciable difference in the first place.

Speaker placement, Subwoofer integration, room treatment, and room correction are what will actually improve in-room response.

For the first two, REW's Room Simulator is a great help.

 

[Daverich4]

They all look equally as good/bad.

Shifting your listening position by a foot or two won't make an appreciable difference in the first place.

Speaker placement, Subwoofer integration, room treatment, and room correction are what will actually improve in-room response.

For the first two, REW's Room Simulator is a great help.

Thanks for the response. I’ve been getting advice in this forum on improving my sound and while adding subwoofers has been suggested several times, improved listening position has also been brought up more than once. I’m just trying to follow along with people who clearly know more about this than I do.

 

[ryanosaur]

Just adding a little to what Static said above.

Below the Schroeder Frequency in your room, where your FR graphs are roughest, your positioning won’t matter as much as solving for all the room modes and what not. For your room, the quick and dirty estimate is around 250Hz. Below there, your room is dominating as a resonant chamber. Above, you can see the FR smooths somewhat which is where direct radiation from the Speaker takes over.

In fact, as I look again, the red line is your "best" measurement, and it could be argued that the Schroeder Frequency is lower than that rough 250. Looking at the red line alone, I might guesstimate around 133-150.

Without photos and such info about your room, it's hard to make suggestions. My first question, though, is:
Why so much distance for everything? You are 4' into the room with your Speakers, and 6' for your LP, so roughly 13' between you and the Speakers. How wide is the room, and how far apart are your Speakers?

You should also consider what each Speaker is doing on its own, not as a pair.

There is an old Dynaudio video where they talk about setting up by fifths: for you that would be 4.6' into the room for your Baffles and your LP and 13.8' as distance from you Speakers. Whether by accident or not, you are pretty close to that. Though I would point out that you are also very close to 1/4 way into the room for your seating and I would suggest moving slightly away from that if difficulties persist.

Regardless, testing out different Speaker positioning would be the first thing I would do. Get individual and summed response for each location. See how your low-end response changes and if you can address some of the massive suck out tat is happening in the mid to upper 30Hz range. (I had one side that was triggering a massive suckout down low and just moving that speaker by a few inches made a significant impact and brought that sickout back to only -10dB instead of -20

Once you have the best Positional EQ dialed in, then look at ways to add some treatments or other furnishings as a remedy for some of the acoustic issues. The better you have your room dialed in, the better adding room correction will be.

Lastly, I am a firm believer in Subs for helping your low end. I like to get dirty and do the Subwoofer crawl. When I did that, I really learned a lot about how LF sound behaves in my room. Even just two subs placed smartly can do wonders for the jagged lower end response, but they need to be Subs that can handle your room!

Good luck!

 

[Daverich4]

Just adding a little to what Static said above.

Below the Schroeder Frequency in your room, where your FR graphs are roughest, your positioning won’t matter as much as solving for all the room modes and what not. For your room, the quick and dirty estimate is around 250Hz. Below there, your room is dominating as a resonant chamber. Above, you can see the FR smooths somewhat which is where direct radiation from the Speaker takes over.

In fact, as I look again, the red line is your "best" measurement, and it could be argued that the Schroeder Frequency is lower than that rough 250. Looking at the red line alone, I might guesstimate around 133-150.

Without photos and such info about your room, it's hard to make suggestions. My first question, though, is:
Why so much distance for everything? You are 4' into the room with your Speakers, and 6' for your LP, so roughly 13' between you and the Speakers. How wide is the room, and how far apart are your Speakers?

You should also consider what each Speaker is doing on its own, not as a pair.

There is an old Dynaudio video where they talk about setting up by fifths: for you that would be 4.6' into the room for your Baffles and your LP and 13.8' as distance from you Speakers. Whether by accident or not, you are pretty close to that. Though I would point out that you are also very close to 1/4 way into the room for your seating and I would suggest moving slightly away from that if difficulties persist.

Regardless, testing out different Speaker positioning would be the first thing I would do. Get individual and summed response for each location. See how your low-end response changes and if you can address some of the massive suck out tat is happening in the mid to upper 30Hz range. (I had one side that was triggering a massive suckout down low and just moving that speaker by a few inches made a significant impact and brought that sickout back to only -10dB instead of -20

Once you have the best Positional EQ dialed in, then look at ways to add some treatments or other furnishings as a remedy for some of the acoustic issues. The better you have your room dialed in, the better adding room correction will be.

Lastly, I am a firm believer in Subs for helping your low end. I like to get dirty and do the Subwoofer crawl. When I did that, I really learned a lot about how LF sound behaves in my room. Even just two subs placed smartly can do wonders for the jagged lower end response, but they need to be Subs that can handle your room!

Good luck!

Thanks for your detailed response. I can answer your questions and have a couple questions of my own if that's OK. The basic shape of the room is 19'5" wide by 23' long. There is a staircase across part of the back wall as well as a small L-shaped alcove with a kitchen on the same side of the room as the stairs. The face of the tweeters is 43" from the front wall and they are 115" apart. They are toed in directly towards the MLP. My normal listening position is 8' into the room from the back wall. For room treatments I have a GIK Bass Trap in each corner of the front wall and there are Real Traps panels on each side wall that were placed by using a mirror. The post in the pictures is an unfortunate recent addition to level the floor above it. GIK has a service where they work with you to design room treatment for your specific room and I'm in the process of getting the information together to use their service. The speakers were originally installed with assistance from the dealer. You mentioned that you simulated moving the speakers by a few inches and greatly improved the measurements. Can I ask you in what direction produced that result? They weigh over 200lbs. each and are on spikes instead of the castors we originally set them up with so any directions on which way to move them would be appreciated. When I have everything basic done my plan is to add a pair of subwoofers. Right now it looks like a pair of SVS SB-3000s (or 5000s) would be at the top of my list but getting to that will wait until I get as much of the things sorted out as I can.Thanks again for helping me out.

 

[kemmler3D]

If I had to pick I'd pick the blue trace, but overall the advice in this thread so far is good.

Your speakers are either too close or too far from the wall, depending on how you're able to place them:

This is an illustration for genelecs but the principle applies to any speaker equally. You should ideally get them a good deal closer to the wall, or more than ~90 inches from the wall.

As others have mentioned a lot of the unwanted variation in your bass is due to the room - placement can help, room treatment can help, EQ can clean up whatever those efforts don't fix, at least in terms of FR.

 

[Daverich4]

If I had to pick I'd pick the blue trace, but overall the advice in this thread so far is good.

Your speakers are either too close or too far from the wall, depending on how you're able to place them:

View attachment 522190

This is an illustration for genelecs but the principle applies to any speaker equally. You should ideally get them a good deal closer to the wall, or more than ~90 inches from the wall.

As others have mentioned a lot of the unwanted variation in your bass is due to the room - placement can help, room treatment can help, EQ can clean up whatever those efforts don't fix, at least in terms of FR.

Thanks, I can try closer to the wall but having them more than 7.5 feet out isn’t going to work, even in a dedicated room. I’ll see what happens closer.

 

[ryanosaur]

As for how I moved my Speaker, that was partially luck. But the suckout I had was revealed to be in my L Main alone. The summed response showed it too, but I never would have identified it without the mono FR graphs. It happened to coincide with the halfway reflecting off the back wall about 13' away. My Speakers were mostly symmetrical, but with this evidence, I left the R Main alone and moved the L Main into the room slightly and toed it in just a little bit more than the R Main.

Sometimes even an inch in Home Audio can make a significant difference.

My first take is that you have a lot of reflective surface going on and you will need to address that. The large rug is nice, but that alone, along with those curtains, do not save you from a tiled floor and all the windows adding their reflectivity to the ceiling and drywall which are also very reflective surfaces.

One of the first things I might consider if this was my setup is putting the Speakers along the Window wall and the seating on one side or another of that post (preferably more in the center of the room than along one side). I would get the thickest blinds and curtains you can find to cover that window wall and find a way to pad the living daylights out of that rug.

Turning the setup and tightening up the triangle some will allow you to minimize the sidewall reflections to a certain extent. I also would expect it to feel a little more intimate.

BUT. It is your home and you will do what you want!

I like very much that you are in an isosceles triangle and not an equilateral. Not gonna lie, I think you might benefit from tightening that up a little. Your Speakers are almost exactly at 1/4 points from the Side Walls.

With that in mind, I would look at your individual FR graphs, consider narrowing the Speakers and bring your distance-from a bit closer. With almost 10' between (on center?), I would sit about 11.5 - 12' away.

When it comes to other placements, avoid sitting (or having your Speakers) at 1/4 and 1/3 points.

My mains are about 100#, two separate cabinets. The Bass Cabinet is 80# and 12x24x24" and sits on a concrete platform with some seriously sharp spikes! It is not an easy move. That you might be willing to undertake this is not a light decision.

But if you can take care of some of those issues before committing to treatments, I think it will make everything else you do easier and more enjoyable!

 

[tmtomh]

At the risk of oversimplifying, I'll say that in my experience the biggest source of unnevenness in the bass region is the distance from the speakers to the side walls. I moved my speakers a bit closer to and farther from the front wall; shifted my listening position a foot or two forward and backward; moved around and temporarily removed my room absorbers, changed the speaker toe-in/toe-out, and my in-room response measurements were all essentially the same like yours. Then I moved the speakers closer to and farther from the wide walls and the difference in measurements was obvious - on the charts the main bass null followed the speaker-sidewall distance changes, right up and down the frequency spectrum as one would imagine from doing SBIR calculations of distance and frequency wavelength.

So to me it's quite simple: move the speakers a bit closer together and farther apart and see what happens with the measurements. If you can get them close enough to the sidewalls, it will push the resonant frequency up high enough that your speaker's dispersion will be directional enough that the nulls and peaks will be minimal.

But also in my experience, to get the speakers close enough to the sidewalls to make that happen, you create other sonic problems: they're too far apart, or you get other weird/unpleasant effects from them being so close to those sidewalls. This is why so many folks recommend subs - it's sometimes the only way to solve the issue.

 

[Flaesh]

On the independence of the deep between the first and second longitudinal modes from the distance between the speakers and the lateral walls

 

[Keith_W]

In my sig, there is a link to the REW eBook. In the same public directory, there is also a zip file with target curves. Download both. Read the eBook in your spare time. For now, do this:

1. Open your MDAT, then click on one measurement and press the "EQ" button. Under "Target Settings", click on "House Curve" and load a target. Then click "Calculate target level from response" and then "Generate measurement from target shape". Close the EQ window, and you will see something like this. In this case, I loaded the Harman target (look in the TXT folder).

2. Now select two measurements for comparison with the target curve. In this case, 6' (red) and 6'6" (green). We see that neither are particularly great, but the red curve seems to be a bit closer to the target curve. So we reject the green curve, unclick it to make it disappear.

3. Repeat the exercise with the next curve. Here we are comparing 6' (red) with 7' (blue). Blue is better with the exception of the dip at 200Hz. So now the red curve is rejected. Proceed in this way until you find the measurement that complies closest with the target curve.

After going through all your measurements, IMO 8' (yellow) is the best.

To be honest, all your curves are more or less the same. A couple of dB here and there won't make too much of a difference.

 

[Daverich4]

If I had to pick I'd pick the blue trace, but overall the advice in this thread so far is good.

Your speakers are either too close or too far from the wall, depending on how you're able to place them:

View attachment 522190

This is an illustration for genelecs but the principle applies to any speaker equally. You should ideally get them a good deal closer to the wall, or more than ~90 inches from the wall.

As others have mentioned a lot of the unwanted variation in your bass is due to the room - placement can help, room treatment can help, EQ can clean up whatever those efforts don't fix, at least in terms of FR.

Thanks for the information. I've moved the speakers closer to the front wall and am at about 28 inches to the front of the tweeter. They measure differently than they did before although not all that much better. However, they SOUND better than they did before. It's a much fuller low end than I had before. Still a work in progress.

 

[Daverich4]

As for how I moved my Speaker, that was partially luck. But the suckout I had was revealed to be in my L Main alone. The summed response showed it too, but I never would have identified it without the mono FR graphs. It happened to coincide with the halfway reflecting off the back wall about 13' away. My Speakers were mostly symmetrical, but with this evidence, I left the R Main alone and moved the L Main into the room slightly and toed it in just a little bit more than the R Main.

Sometimes even an inch in Home Audio can make a significant difference.

My first take is that you have a lot of reflective surface going on and you will need to address that. The large rug is nice, but that alone, along with those curtains, do not save you from a tiled floor and all the windows adding their reflectivity to the ceiling and drywall which are also very reflective surfaces.

One of the first things I might consider if this was my setup is putting the Speakers along the Window wall and the seating on one side or another of that post (preferably more in the center of the room than along one side). I would get the thickest blinds and curtains you can find to cover that window wall and find a way to pad the living daylights out of that rug.

Turning the setup and tightening up the triangle some will allow you to minimize the sidewall reflections to a certain extent. I also would expect it to feel a little more intimate.

BUT. It is your home and you will do what you want!

I like very much that you are in an isosceles triangle and not an equilateral. Not gonna lie, I think you might benefit from tightening that up a little. Your Speakers are almost exactly at 1/4 points from the Side Walls.

With that in mind, I would look at your individual FR graphs, consider narrowing the Speakers and bring your distance-from a bit closer. With almost 10' between (on center?), I would sit about 11.5 - 12' away.

When it comes to other placements, avoid sitting (or having your Speakers) at 1/4 and 1/3 points.

My mains are about 100#, two separate cabinets. The Bass Cabinet is 80# and 12x24x24" and sits on a concrete platform with some seriously sharp spikes! It is not an easy move. That you might be willing to undertake this is not a light decision.

But if you can take care of some of those issues before committing to treatments, I think it will make everything else you do easier and more enjoyable!

I appreciate you getting back to me and the input. Since I posted previously I moved the speakers closer to the front wall and adjusted the MLP forward a little bit to allow for that. The measurements are different from what they were before although I don't know if they're better. I could try the speakers closer together to see what happens. For short distances they're not as hard to move as I imagined. I was under the impression that 1/3 of the way in from the back wall was an OK place to start for the listening position. Does your comment about 1/3 of the way in for the speakers apply to the listening position as well? As far as room treatments, I'm going to try GIK's service to analyze the room and offer suggestions on how to treat it. I don't want to get so far into that however that I don't want to be in the room as much. I'll just have to see how it goes.

 

[Daverich4]

At the risk of oversimplifying, I'll say that in my experience the biggest source of unnevenness in the bass region is the distance from the speakers to the side walls. I moved my speakers a bit closer to and farther from the front wall; shifted my listening position a foot or two forward and backward; moved around and temporarily removed my room absorbers, changed the speaker toe-in/toe-out, and my in-room response measurements were all essentially the same like yours. Then I moved the speakers closer to and farther from the wide walls and the difference in measurements was obvious - on the charts the main bass null followed the speaker-sidewall distance changes, right up and down the frequency spectrum as one would imagine from doing SBIR calculations of distance and frequency wavelength.

So to me it's quite simple: move the speakers a bit closer together and farther apart and see what happens with the measurements. If you can get them close enough to the sidewalls, it will push the resonant frequency up high enough that your speaker's dispersion will be directional enough that the nulls and peaks will be minimal.

But also in my experience, to get the speakers close enough to the sidewalls to make that happen, you create other sonic problems: they're too far apart, or you get other weird/unpleasant effects from them being so close to those sidewalls. This is why so many folks recommend subs - it's sometimes the only way to solve the issue.

Thanks for your post. I think the speakers are as far apart as they can be right now but it's easy enough to move them closer together and experiment with the listening position as well. Adding a pair of subs to my system is on the todo list but I want to have things setup as best I can with my limited knowledge and the generous help from the people here before I take that step.

 

[Daverich4]

In my sig, there is a link to the REW eBook. In the same public directory, there is also a zip file with target curves. Download both. Read the eBook in your spare time. For now, do this:

View attachment 522234

1. Open your MDAT, then click on one measurement and press the "EQ" button. Under "Target Settings", click on "House Curve" and load a target. Then click "Calculate target level from response" and then "Generate measurement from target shape". Close the EQ window, and you will see something like this. In this case, I loaded the Harman target (look in the TXT folder).

View attachment 522235

2. Now select two measurements for comparison with the target curve. In this case, 6' (red) and 6'6" (green). We see that neither are particularly great, but the red curve seems to be a bit closer to the target curve. So we reject the green curve, unclick it to make it disappear.

View attachment 522236

3. Repeat the exercise with the next curve. Here we are comparing 6' (red) with 7' (blue). Blue is better with the exception of the dip at 200Hz. So now the red curve is rejected. Proceed in this way until you find the measurement that complies closest with the target curve.

View attachment 522237

After going through all your measurements, IMO 8' (yellow) is the best.

To be honest, all your curves are more or less the same. A couple of dB here and there won't make too much of a difference.

Thanks for your help. I already have both of your books as well as the target curves but had not gone through the steps you've listed here. Since I first started this thread I experimented with moving the speakers various distances closer to the front wall. Once I've found a spot that seems likely I'll have to do the measurements again before I can follow up with this. Lots of good information in your books but I'm new enough at using REW that it takes some time to work through it.

 

[ryanosaur]

I appreciate you getting back to me and the input. Since I posted previously I moved the speakers closer to the front wall and adjusted the MLP forward a little bit to allow for that. The measurements are different from what they were before although I don't know if they're better. I could try the speakers closer together to see what happens. For short distances they're not as hard to move as I imagined. I was under the impression that 1/3 of the way in from the back wall was an OK place to start for the listening position. Does your comment about 1/3 of the way in for the speakers apply to the listening position as well? As far as room treatments, I'm going to try GIK's service to analyze the room and offer suggestions on how to treat it. I don't want to get so far into that however that I don't want to be in the room as much. I'll just have to see how it goes.

Thirds are better than quarter and half the distance in the room, though still not great. If possible, just offset positioning slightly and you may well be fine. Again, letting the measurements tell the story will pay dividends.

That said, chasing perfection isn’t something you should do in one day. Hang out with the change you made, see how you like it. Grab a measurement when you can. Let that guide your next move.

Re: room treatments, there is plenty of evidence that one can overtreat a room. I am a firm believer in erring on the side of less, especially if you can address other issues with furnishings and decor! This is your home, after all, and it should first and foremost be livable for you! Get creative with how you can absorb and diffract without adding panels, if that suits you. Only you can decide the value of how deep you run down the path of seeking audio perfection. None of us can decide for you what is good enough, or anything like that.

 

[tmtomh]

Thanks for your post. I think the speakers are as far apart as they can be right now but it's easy enough to move them closer together and experiment with the listening position as well. Adding a pair of subs to my system is on the todo list but I want to have things setup as best I can with my limited knowledge and the generous help from the people here before I take that step.

Makes sense - and for what it’s worth I’m in the same situation. I don’t have subs and my speakers are as far apart as they can be. I have a bass null at around 105Hz, but it’s so narrow (and not huge in amplitude) that I don’t even notice it in day to listening, so I just let it be and enjoy the sound of my system and the music!

 

[janbth]

@Daverich4 I’m late to the party, and you already write about moving the speakers, but I can offer some opinion on the plot in your first post. I’m assuming these are measurements of L+R?

Let’s focus on the bass region below 100 Hz since you have some issues with room modes there. Your room seems to be sufficiently rectangular to apply a standard rectangular room mode analysis. Let’s look at the lowest lying room modes. (Length, Width, Height) denotes the modes.

In the length direction, your room is 23 ft = 7 m. So the lowest lying mode, (1, 0, 0), is at approximately 25 Hz, and the second lowest, (2, 0, 0), is at 50 Hz. These fit quite well with the two lowest peaks in the plot. Since your speakers are close to the front wall and your listening position is away from the nulls of these modes, this may explain these peaks.

In the width direction, your room is 19.5 ft = 6 m. The two lowest modes are: (0, 1, 0) at 29 Hz and (0, 2, 0) at 58 Hz. These don’t fit exactly with the dips in your response, but computations like this are always approximations. Can they explain the dips? Yes, if the listening position is on the mid-line, then it’s in the null of the 29 Hz mode, so it will lead to a dip. The 58 Hz dip is a bit more tricky. The listening position is not in a null of that mode. However, the speakers may very well be. The nulls are 1/4 and 3/4 into the room for the second lowest mode.

You can test these ideas by playing with the Room Simulator in REW. Also, check out Amroc to visualize modes.

So how do you fix this? You will probably need some subs, as you yourself have mentioned.

 

[Daverich4]

Thirds are better than quarter and half the distance in the room, though still not great. If possible, just offset positioning slightly and you may well be fine. Again, letting the measurements tell the story will pay dividends.

That said, chasing perfection isn’t something you should do in one day. Hang out with the change you made, see how you like it. Grab a measurement when you can. Let that guide your next move.

Re: room treatments, there is plenty of evidence that one can overtreat a room. I am a firm believer in erring on the side of less, especially if you can address other issues with furnishings and decor! This is your home, after all, and it should first and foremost be livable for you! Get creative with how you can absorb and diffract without adding panels, if that suits you. Only you can decide the value of how deep you run down the path of seeking audio perfection. None of us can decide for you what is good enough, or anything like that.

I appreciate your help. When I experimented with moving the speakers, the measurements changed but they were just different, not better. On the other hand, the sound improved quite a bit. The bass in particular filled in and individual vocalists seemed to move forward and become more pronounced. For now I'm going to experiment with moving the speakers closer together and then listen for a while to get used to the changes. I will go ahead and get advice from GIK on what room treatments to use but may or may not do anything with that information. At some point I will add a pair of subs and see if I can work out the process for getting them properly integrated. Thanks again for helping me out.

 

[Daverich4]

@Daverich4 I’m late to the party, and you already write about moving the speakers, but I can offer some opinion on the plot in your first post. I’m assuming these are measurements of L+R?

Let’s focus on the bass region below 100 Hz since you have some issues with room modes there. Your room seems to be sufficiently rectangular to apply a standard rectangular room mode analysis. Let’s look at the lowest lying room modes. (Length, Width, Height) denotes the modes.

In the length direction, your room is 23 ft = 7 m. So the lowest lying mode, (1, 0, 0), is at approximately 25 Hz, and the second lowest, (2, 0, 0), is at 50 Hz. These fit quite well with the two lowest peaks in the plot. Since your speakers are close to the front wall and your listening position is away from the nulls of these modes, this may explain these peaks.

In the width direction, your room is 19.5 ft = 6 m. The two lowest modes are: (0, 1, 0) at 29 Hz and (0, 2, 0) at 58 Hz. These don’t fit exactly with the dips in your response, but computations like this are always approximations. Can they explain the dips? Yes, if the listening position is on the mid-line, then it’s in the null of the 29 Hz mode, so it will lead to a dip. The 58 Hz dip is a bit more tricky. The listening position is not in a null of that mode. However, the speakers may very well be. The nulls are 1/4 and 3/4 into the room for the second lowest mode.

You can test these ideas by playing with the Room Simulator in REW. Also, check out Amroc to visualize modes.

So how do you fix this? You will probably need some subs, as you yourself have mentioned.

Thanks for your response. So far I think I've gotten pretty good advice on improving my speaker placement as well as the listening position but like you said, subs appear to be the general consensus on what to do eventually.