Neumann KH 310 woofers on the outside?

[DÆNI]

Hey guys, I've been wondering if it's possible to have the woofers on the outside? My triangle doesn't allow the woofers to be on the inside because of my monitor (1.1m triangle from listening position). I heard from Neumann support that "it's possible", but to what extend does this setup diminish the sound? Do any of you use them with the woofers on the outside - and does this sound exactly as good as having the woofers on the inside (granting that the mid driver & tweeters are in the exact same spot)?

Note that I'm going to be adding a kh750 to this setup and I'll be adding a lot of bass trapping.

 

[NTK]

Welcome to ASR!

Sure. The horizontal directivity is sufficiently symmetric.

 

[dfuller]

Not only do they work fine tweeters in, subjectively they image better that way.

 

[DÆNI]

Welcome to ASR!

Sure. The horizontal

Welcome to ASR!

Sure. The horizontal directivity is sufficiently symmetric.

HI! Thanks Good to hear! Just don't see a lot of people using them this way that's why I got a bit worried.

 

[DJBonoBobo]

In theory, "woofers in" may be better because they can be a few cm closer to the front wall and a bit more distant to the side walls (better for SBIR in a small room).
Personally, i tried this for the same reason (monitor in the middle), but in my case i was not satisfied. So i put the speakers on stands, 1.5m apart, and pulled the desk away from the front wall. I did not like any setup with the KH310 closer than 1.5m. Eventually i changed to KH120II because they are a better fit for my use case. Sadly the shape of the KH310 is not ideal for close nearfield with a monitor innthe middle.
Maybe you are more lucky, i think it highly depends on the room.

 

[AnalogSteph]

Sadly the shape of the KH310 is not ideal for close nearfield with a monitor innthe middle.

What frequency range(s) did you have issues with? The widening around 1 kHz concerns me a bit - possibly the formfactor did not allow fitting a waveguide quite large enough for the midrange. "Woofers out" looks better in this regard but still isn't ideal. The narrowing that follows in the high hundreds of Hz seems like it's related to baffle width since the vertical looks better-behaved.
In short, it appears that making such a speaker this exact shape and size comes with some compromises. (An ADAM S3H still has some narrowing around 4-500 Hz but doesn't sport any extreme widening "noses". Maybe some side-firing woofers could be the answer, Kii / Mesanovic style?)

What you did - placing them at a distance firing past the monitor - seems like one viable solution. Going by the vertical, larger obstacles below or above would be less of an issue as well, but I guess you're not going to be hanging your speakers above the monitor in nearfield.

 

[boxerfan88]

The narrowing that follows in the high hundreds of Hz seems like it's related to baffle width since the vertical looks better-behaved.

Or crossover related. The woofer to midrange crosses at 650.

 

[DJBonoBobo]

What frequency range(s) did you have issues with? The widening around 1 kHz concerns me a bit - possibly the formfactor did not allow fitting a waveguide quite large enough for the midrange. "Woofers out" looks better in this regard but still isn't ideal. The narrowing that follows in the high hundreds of Hz seems like it's related to baffle width since the vertical looks better-behaved.
In short, it appears that making such a speaker this exact shape and size comes with some compromises. (An ADAM S3H still has some narrowing around 4-500 Hz but doesn't sport any extreme widening "noses". Maybe some side-firing woofers could be the answer, Kii / Mesanovic style?)

What you did - placing them at a distance firing past the monitor - seems like one viable solution. Going by the vertical, larger obstacles below or above would be less of an issue as well, but I guess you're not going to be hanging your speakers above the monitor in nearfield.

I don't remember the frequency range, but i like the KH310 better now in my living room setup (bigger room, more distance, less obstacles).
I tried placing the speakers higher than the monitor, but i did not like the sound coming from "above". I had the KH310 more than 10 years in a nearfield-setup with a PC/monitor and of course they are good speakers, but their physical shape always was a bit of a challenge.