I am going to get Focal Kanta 2 speakers for non critical listening. I will be using my current Sopra N1s for critical listening. Currently, my N1s are 8 1/2 feet apart. They are 1 1/2 feet from the walls. I am limited on room so I will need to place the Kanta 2s right next to the N1s. Will this hurt the soundstage or holographic sound of the N1s if I do this?
-
Welcome to ASR. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Placing speakers next to each other - will it hurt the soundstage or holographic sound?
Can’t you listen non-critically to the speakers you already have?
Keith
Keith
- Thread Starter
- #3
No, to much treble in the N1s where I get fatigued on some music. I also like to have towers in addition for some of my music.
antcollinet
Grand Contributor
This was the bit I didn't get also.
Probably the best thing to do is fix that. You have a fairly reflective listening space. Hardwood floor, glass to the left. No soft furnishings. A rug on the floor might help. Plus as much soft furnishing as you can put in - drapes over the glass door for example.
What might also help would be some room eq or even just some simple tone control.
In this case, just get a DSP such as minidsp devices and a pair of subs in addition of your sopras.
Will take much less space and will cost way less than a pair of kanta 2.
You will be able to customize as you want the treble level.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2024
- Messages
- 1,504
- Likes
- 2,239
Sounds a bit like the N1s aren't to your liking. You'd probably be better off either getting different speakers that you don't find fatiguing, or getting something that allows you to use a PEQ to shelve the treble frequencies a bit.
If the Audioholic review is to be believed, those speakers have excellent on-axis FR. However, I don't see anything about the off-axis reponse beyond the polar plots. Could be that their in-room response is too flat, rather than sloping down as is more ideal.
If the Audioholic review is to be believed, those speakers have excellent on-axis FR. However, I don't see anything about the off-axis reponse beyond the polar plots. Could be that their in-room response is too flat, rather than sloping down as is more ideal.
Amen, you need to address some room treatments first. Just about any speaker you put there is
going to give you some problems from room reflections. Your room is a acoustic nightmare.
My goodness, your room looks like a mirror of mine in size and layout
If you really love the N1, dampen that room, a lot.
Then maybe use some EQ to tame the top end, that should be a relatively easy-peasy fix.
There's no reason to go after a second pair of speakers unless the Sopra's are REALLY bright, I know nothing about them
Edit, took a look and James Larson at Audioholics called the N1 "superbly neutral.
Focal Sopra N°1 Bookshelf & Center Speaker Review: Looks that Kill!
$10,000 is a lot of dosh for a pair of bookshelf speakers. What if they are among the most finely constructed bookshelf speakers on Earth? Such is the case with Focal's Sopra No1 bookshelf speakers.
www.audioholics.com
Last edited:
Might have the same problem with the Kanta 2 and fatigue in that room.
terryforsythe
Major Contributor
If the OP does not want to change the room aesthetics, that would be my first step.
kemmler3D
Master Contributor
So to answer your actual question, placing the speakers right next to each other may hurt the soundstage a little due to diffraction, but probably not a lot.
But agree with the other comments, do something about your room or do some EQ - you are putting a new mattress on a broken bed frame, the mattress is not your issue. Even a rug and some curtains on the glass will be a huge improvement. And probably cheaper than new speakers...
But agree with the other comments, do something about your room or do some EQ - you are putting a new mattress on a broken bed frame, the mattress is not your issue. Even a rug and some curtains on the glass will be a huge improvement. And probably cheaper than new speakers...
Finally! Congrats on being the first to do so, kemmler3D.
This is just a guess, but I'd tend to agree with that assessment.
In my opinion, probably yes. Let me explain:
The first roughly .68 milliseconds (roughly nine inches) of sound is especially critical for sound source localization. This interval corresponds to the amount of time it takes for sound arriving from the side to travel around your head from one ear to another. The ear/brain system judges the azimuth (horizontal angle) of a sound source by the time between the sound's arrival at the first ear and its arrival at the second ear.
So a reflection arriving within that first .68 milliseconds can behave like a false "azimuth cue", injecting a contradictory and confusing signal about the arrival angle of the sound, potentially resulting in the image localization being less distinct.
(I believe that one of the reasons narrow speakers generally image better than wide speakers is because the false azimuth cues from edge diffraction on a narrow speaker arrives earlier within that .68 milliseconds time window, and therefore would be interpreted by the ear/brain system as a smaller "false" arrival angle than edge diffraction arriving later within that .68 milliseconds window. I use the word "window" because after that roughly .68 milliseconds the Precedence Effect kicks in, largely [but not entirely] suppressing localization cues from subsequent reflections for the next thirty-five milliseconds or so.)
So if it's just for causal listening, where presumably you don't care about the imaging, it doesn't matter. But for serious, in-the-zone listening, imo you will probably want to pull the unused speakers well back behind the ones you're listening to.
Last edited:
Edit, took a look and James Larson at Audioholics called the N1 "superbly neutral.
Fix the room.
Focal Sopra N°1 Bookshelf & Center Speaker Review: Looks that Kill!
$10,000 is a lot of dosh for a pair of bookshelf speakers. What if they are among the most finely constructed bookshelf speakers on Earth? Such is the case with Focal's Sopra No1 bookshelf speakers.
I mean, having some wide-dispersion speakers with a tad of extra widening in the mid-treble is in no way helping matters under these circumstances. The Kantas do not appear to be any improvement in this regard, more oomph down low excepted. Midrange and tweeter are the exact same sizes for both. They have done their best to match them, but if you don't believe in waveguides a 1" dome is always going to be a hair too wide for a 6.5" midwoofer. Either way these can still be very good but need a well-damped room.
If you can't fix the room for whatever reason, you need some drastically different speakers with much narrower dispersion. Bigger with a big ol' deep waveguide. Like, say, some Klipsch The Nines (or their passives, but those skew a bit bright).
JeremyFife
Major Contributor
I'd want to sort the asymmetry of those speaker stand bases ... but that's my OCD and my personal problem.
It's a beautiful room, but does look very reflective (very)
It's a beautiful room, but does look very reflective (very)
Looks like same sort of living room i have lots of reflection lousy acoustics. If OP does not want room treathment he can make use of the several DSP solutions like Dirac, Lyngdorf, Mathaudio Room EQ ( for free in combination with Foobar2000) REW in combination with APO in windows ( also for free)
DSJR
Major Contributor
Been there, done that in the opposite direction. My now elderly Harbeths have a presence 'dip' on and off axis, which would work quite well in a room like the OPs (my pal's dem room is 'lively' and they sounded exquisite there). The modern evolution of my speakers are flatter on axis and perhaps slightly better in lateral dispersion if not as 'we' would prefer.
Bare rooms with inevitable lively acoustics seem to be a domestic fashion choice these days, but go too far and the acoustics become dangerously close to 'bathroom' acoustics. That Focal tweeter is hardly a 'shy retiring type' either, especially on some older stand mounts at a grand or so the pair I remember, but some listeners think it's 'detailed' and of course, oldies like me with rolled off hearing sometimes like the seriously wild HF of say, a B&W or PMC domestic model which take 'treble exuberance' to a whole new level - deliberately it seems.
So after the above, what to do? A good thick rug would help a heck of a lot, and maybe a light voil or curtain dressing on the glass to the left of the rig (surely a cream or white curtain wouldn't interfere too much with the minimalist look and actually make the environment more 'intimate' in the evenings?
Finally and I'm going to say it, a speaker like the Harbeth C7-XD or M30.2-XD (main obvious sonic difference is mid to low bass balance), may well work superbly in a room like this, despiew looking old fashioned, as the equally old-school dispersion properties may suit the room acoustics better (so many owners of this brand show barely furnished rooms very similar to the OPs, often with equally tasteful minimal furnishing and ornamentation).
I liked the Kanta 1 I briefly heard, but found the Kanta 2 rather bland and 'all-one-level' with no real dynamics at all. Maybe it was the full-with Naim (Uniti Nova?) streamer it was connected to that didn't help either, I don't know...
Old experiences tell me that two pairs of speakers alongside each other will kill the sounds of both to a surprising degree, as the pair not playing may act as an absorber/kind-of-microphone as the diaphragms vibrate in sympathy with the playing pair (suggestions have been to short the terminals of the non-playing pair). In the OPs room, it'll loo a total disaster as well!!! Best sort the acoustics out on the existing pair of speakers if mostly non-computer based sources are used.
I also echo the vibes on the odd non-mirror stand bases - very strange and it'd get to me as well eventually...
I mention the Harbeths because I know the brand ever since it began and know most of the models as they've evolved (and evolved they most definitely have in fairness and without ever losing sight of where they started from)
Bare rooms with inevitable lively acoustics seem to be a domestic fashion choice these days, but go too far and the acoustics become dangerously close to 'bathroom' acoustics. That Focal tweeter is hardly a 'shy retiring type' either, especially on some older stand mounts at a grand or so the pair I remember, but some listeners think it's 'detailed' and of course, oldies like me with rolled off hearing sometimes like the seriously wild HF of say, a B&W or PMC domestic model which take 'treble exuberance' to a whole new level - deliberately it seems.
So after the above, what to do? A good thick rug would help a heck of a lot, and maybe a light voil or curtain dressing on the glass to the left of the rig (surely a cream or white curtain wouldn't interfere too much with the minimalist look and actually make the environment more 'intimate' in the evenings?
Finally and I'm going to say it, a speaker like the Harbeth C7-XD or M30.2-XD (main obvious sonic difference is mid to low bass balance), may well work superbly in a room like this, despiew looking old fashioned, as the equally old-school dispersion properties may suit the room acoustics better (so many owners of this brand show barely furnished rooms very similar to the OPs, often with equally tasteful minimal furnishing and ornamentation).
I liked the Kanta 1 I briefly heard, but found the Kanta 2 rather bland and 'all-one-level' with no real dynamics at all. Maybe it was the full-with Naim (Uniti Nova?) streamer it was connected to that didn't help either, I don't know...
Old experiences tell me that two pairs of speakers alongside each other will kill the sounds of both to a surprising degree, as the pair not playing may act as an absorber/kind-of-microphone as the diaphragms vibrate in sympathy with the playing pair (suggestions have been to short the terminals of the non-playing pair). In the OPs room, it'll loo a total disaster as well!!! Best sort the acoustics out on the existing pair of speakers if mostly non-computer based sources are used.
I also echo the vibes on the odd non-mirror stand bases - very strange and it'd get to me as well eventually...
I mention the Harbeths because I know the brand ever since it began and know most of the models as they've evolved (and evolved they most definitely have in fairness and without ever losing sight of where they started from)
Last edited:
Digital EQ is a great way to get the sound you like. Buying another set of Focals will probably not bring much, just more of the Focal signature sound that does not seem to match well with your room.
With the equipment you have, you may want to try:
With the equipment you have, you may want to try:
- Reduce the toe-in to 0 and move the speakers closer to the back wall. This will boost the bass/low mid a bit while reducing the treble at your sweet spot.
- Use your tone controls (on the bottom amp) for non-critical listening. Here I assume the bottom amp is used as a kind of pre-amp?
- It seems you have bi-amped your speakers. Maybe it's possible to dial down the volume to the tweeters a bit?
beagleman
Major Contributor
I had to outfit a local Pool (VERY large) with sound reinforcement. The acoustics of it, made it utterly useless even for the moderate/barely loud background music they wanted.
No amount of EQ or adjustment would even remotely fix it. They cheaped out on doing the wall treatments I suggested for various reasons.
I get sick every time I go there now, as the music "Echoes" and sounds so horrible, I feel wrong even taking the job.
You can barely make out songs, as it sounds like one huge jumble of noise......
Moral: acoustics make or break a place for the most part.
No amount of EQ or adjustment would even remotely fix it. They cheaped out on doing the wall treatments I suggested for various reasons.
I get sick every time I go there now, as the music "Echoes" and sounds so horrible, I feel wrong even taking the job.
You can barely make out songs, as it sounds like one huge jumble of noise......
Moral: acoustics make or break a place for the most part.
