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my speaker, room or ears suck for 'depth'

MaxwellsEq

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The photographs help quite a lot. The optimum layout for stereo is an equilateral triangle (as per International Standards for listening rooms). The speakers look too far apart. Pulling the speakers forward only, will make the triangle worse. Instead, as an experiment, place them in front of the console, but closer together. Longer term, buy a less wide console.
 
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boogeroo

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See if you hear any depth when listening to the beginning of this track. an old classic. Caverna Magica- Vollenwieider.


Thanks, that's an interesting track. Sadly not much depth, it feels pretty wide, but depth maybe 3 feet deep? I think i'll find some time to setup a near field listening space away from walls and calibrate my ears using the test track to get a sense of what proper depth sounds like...
 

Thomas_A

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I think you need to measure and find any early reflections that may mask the important cues in the recording.
 

CapMan

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Maybe a freestanding absorber panel on the right and acoustic curtains on the left ?

The absorbers on the rear wall will be doing nothing for mid or low bass - need to be a whole lot thicker which I appreciate is really hard to accommodate .

I would think the big old AV cabinet is not helping imaging as it’s flush with the front baffle of the speakers - but best bet is to try and measure to see impacts.

FWIW - I have a small asymmetrical room (3.5 x 3.5 m) - bay window on left , angled doorway on right . I sit near the back wall like you.

The best thing I ever did was to change out my larger ported speakers for small sealed monitor type speakers (Harbeth P3s in my case) complimented with a small SVS sub.

Gave me more flexibility in positioning and they image really well .

The right speaker had a wildly different measured response below 250Hz due to asymmetry - very little output at the listening position due to cancellations - I ended up moving the speakers 1.2m into the room to get the right speaker to better fill in around this region.

The speakers are toed in 45 degrees , equilateral triangle arrangement with 1.9m sides, but I could go closer and still get good driver integration.

Being designed for mid/near field listening you can get pretty close (1.5m or less ) and still get a well integrated sound . I imagine this would work less well with the bigger quad towers. So one option is smaller boxes and pull them into the room
(angled in so you can’t see the sides) when needed - keep the space around them clear.

I’ve been in your position - it’s a real pain when space is limited. But my lesson was get smaller speakers ! Probably not what you want to hear (sorry :( )

I would urge you to get a UMIK-1 and REW software - measure the room response and it will help you to understand what you hear

Oh - get a big dog - helps a ton with floor bounce effects if they lie between the speakers :)
 

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Cote Dazur

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I want to listen to the depth in the recording, as little of the room as possible.
Thank you for sharing the pics of your set up. With the way it is now, you need to lower your expectations on stereo and depth is totally out of the picture, literally.:)
 
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boogeroo

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Thanks for sharing pictures. As others have stated, it is mainly the room and your speaker position. It is a non symmetrical setup with one speaker corner loaded and one open to a larger area. Plus the different reflective surfaces eg glas window.

However it is what it is and people seldom have their rooms constructed around their stereo system.

Seeing your restrictions there are not many options if any at all to reposition. The aim would be to achieve symmetry. It could be better from a sound point of view if you position the speakers in front of the window, but then of course your sofa might be in the way and it’s back facing the room. As this is likely not an option for you, the only other thing I can think of to have at least your system EQed to your room.
You're right, reorienting the listening area is a no go because the fronts also double up for the HT duty, and that has to go on either side of the telly. I'm going towards DIRAC on my PC for room eq, since my source is from PC and I want to use the external DAC. I think DIRAC on receiver would probably mean i can't use my external DAC.
 
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boogeroo

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The photographs help quite a lot. The optimum layout for stereo is an equilateral triangle (as per International Standards for listening rooms). The speakers look too far apart. Pulling the speakers forward only, will make the triangle worse. Instead, as an experiment, place them in front of the console, but closer together. Longer term, buy a less wide console.
I think for now I can play with toe-in and perhaps pull it out a little forward from the console. As someone else mentioned in the thread, too much compromises in my listening area for good stereo. I think i'll go for room correction and call it a day, perhaps one day if i have a bigger house I'll have a dedicated AV room or when the kids move out....whichever is first :)
 
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boogeroo

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Maybe a freestanding absorber panel on the right and acoustic curtains on the left ?

The absorbers on the rear wall will be doing nothing for mid or low bass - need to be a whole lot thicker which I appreciate is really hard to accommodate .

I would think the big old AV cabinet is not helping imaging as it’s flush with the front baffle of the speakers - but best bet is to try and measure to see impacts.
I think for now I'll go the room eq route, minor placement tweaks and plan for a dedicated room in the future. I think adding more room treatment would get pushback from the wifey and would still end up a compromise.

FWIW - I have a small asymmetrical room (3.5 x 3.5 m) - bay window on left , angled doorway on right . I sit near the back wall like you.

The best thing I ever did was to change out my larger ported speakers for small sealed monitor type speakers (Harbeth P3s in my case) complimented with a small SVS sub.

Gave me more flexibility in positioning and they image really well .

The right speaker had a wildly different measured response below 250Hz due to asymmetry - very little output at the listening position due to cancellations - I ended up moving the speakers 1.2m into the room to get the right speaker to better fill in around this region.

The speakers are toed in 45 degrees , equilateral triangle arrangement with 1.9m sides, but I could go closer and still get good driver integration.

Being designed for mid/near field listening you can get pretty close (1.5m or less ) and still get a well integrated sound . I imagine this would work less well with the bigger quad towers. So one option is smaller boxes and pull them into the room
(angled in so you can’t see the sides) when needed - keep the space around them clear.

I’ve been in your position - it’s a real pain when space is limited. But my lesson was get smaller speakers ! Probably not what you want to hear (sorry :( )
I see...that's an interesting direction to fixing an undesirable listening area, go near field with bookshelves and sub. Its probably good to know that getting bigger speakers won't help me, I was contemplating moving to something bigger, at least now I know that would be a pointless waste of money.
I would urge you to get a UMIK-1 and REW software - measure the room response and it will help you to understand what you hear
Yes, thats on my list of things to get/do.
Oh - get a big dog - helps a ton with floor bounce effects if they lie between the speakers :)
I have a cat, doesn't care much for being in front of the listening area unfortunately, and even if he does, I probably need 10 cats or so to have any meaningful absorption!
 
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boogeroo

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Thank you for sharing the pics of your set up. With the way it is now, you need to lower your expectations on stereo and depth is totally out of the picture, literally.:)
yeah, too many compromises. I figured there's a bunch of things i can do now that won't be throw away work, mainly the room eq, room measurements, small adjustments. As for the long term solution, i'll just wait till i can get a dedicated room. Its good to set the expectations....that way i won't go spending money that at the end still doesn't get the results i want. :)
 

HarmonicTHD

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I think for now I'll go the room eq route, minor placement tweaks and plan for a dedicated room in the future. I think adding more room treatment would get pushback from the wifey and would still end up a compromise.


I see...that's an interesting direction to fixing an undesirable listening area, go near field with bookshelves and sub. Its probably good to know that getting bigger speakers won't help me, I was contemplating moving to something bigger, at least now I know that would be a pointless waste of money.

Yes, thats on my list of things to get/do.

I have a cat, doesn't care much for being in front of the listening area unfortunately, and even if he does, I probably need 10 cats or so to have any meaningful absorption!
Yes I can not recommend to rely on cats for acoustic improvements. It is difficult to keep them in place (remember the saying „…like herding cats…“) and any attempt to nail them in place is heavily frowned upon ;-)
 

abdo123

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I like how people are just throwing out words left and right.

EQ will not help with this whatsoever, because EQ modifies the direct sound where the depth information already is. If anything it will likely makes things worse for that aspect of the listening experience even though it would help better with other aspects.

The only solution is ample broadband room treatment. The ratio of direct sound to room reflections need to be increased.
 

HarmonicTHD

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What is also worth trying is sitting closer to the speakers (and toeing them in).

While the location of the speakers is non-negotiable at least you can push the coach closer to them.
Agreed.

From the pics I derive that he is already pretty close (ca 1.4m, at least that is the speaker distance and assuming equilateral setup - I might be wrong though). The listening space is just not very big to begin with and space for acoustic panels isn’t really there either (assuming he doesn’t want to cover the window).
 

Cote Dazur

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that way i won't go spending money that at the end still doesn't get the results i want

You already are over equipped for the task, no need to spend anything. Looking more into the pics, if it was me living there I would change the way it is set up. Your main challenge is that you are using the space for watching TV and serious listening to music. If you were to dedicate the space to listening to music, maybe even just for a while, you could turn things around. Using the window as a front wall, setting the speakers way away from the window and fairly close together with nothing in between them, set the seat in a equilateral triangle. That should yield a decent stereo image and depth.
 

Chaconne

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I believe there is, to some degree, a psychoacoustic thing going on in regard to image depth. If our brains, via our eyes, perceive a large space behind the speakers, it concludes that there is enough space to accommodate musicians behind the speakers. Of course, I have no proof of this other than my own empirical experience.
 

Thomas_A

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I think there is not a equilateral triangle. Listening triangle may be too narrow?

However I still think the most important is smooth response from speakers. Resonances and early reflections make then easy to ”detect” and obscures the illusion of depth.
 

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