Speaker position relative to front wall (video)

[sigbergaudio]

So, it's my turn to post a video, let's see if I am able to put enough context to it to avoid it being deleted.

Let me first also get this out of the way;
Commercial Disclaimer: I design speakers that are intended to be placed close the wall, so it is in my interest to be criticial to something like this. This is why I initially viewed the video, as I was curious what he was going to claim and how we went about proving it.

So to what you can see in the video if you were to click it: In this video the guy who created it seem to have a goal of proving that placing the speakers way out on the floor will significantly improve imaging and soundstage. I am not really familiar with his channel, so I am not sure what his deal is. He also mentions Erin in the video, apparently in a positive manner. He does several A-B tests throughout the video with different clips to prove the point. There are clear audible differences between the clips. I think this is an interesting video and also an interesting topic.

The video concludes that you should definitely move the speakers way out in the room if you can (he acknowledges that this isn't possible for everyone).

Observation: When he moves the speakers out, he apparently also moves the listening position back.

A few things I find problematic:

• It is unclear if the distance between speaker and listener stays the same.
• It is also unclear if the distance between the speakers relative to the distance between the listener and the speakers stay the same.
• By changing the listening position, he also naturally changes the microphone position in the room, and the reflected sound in the room will differ significantly.
• When the speakers are way out in the room (his preferred configuration), there are two large diffusers in the first reflection point on each side, that is not there in the first position.
• If he hadn't changed the listening position, it would still be a problematic test, as then the speakers would have been way closer to him, also significantly affecting the in-room experience.
• When the speakers are way out in the room he adds subwoofers, apparently to get back the bass he lost by removing the boundary reinforcement from the wall(?). I didn't see/listen to every second of the video, he may have explained this at some point.

Now remember my initial disclaimer, but I would say the result or the reasons behind the audible differences are not necessarily as clear cut as he makes it out to be. One of the reason I am relatively confident in saying that, is that on my own system in my main dedicated space, I can play back these same tracks with the speakers 10-15cm from the wall and get the same effect as he gets when his speakers are 2.3m or something into the room. So.. that's interesting.

 

[ozzy9832001]

Without some sort of measurement it's hard to know exactly what is going on. However, we do know that speakers placed close to a boundary do see reinforcement in the bass area. This is problematic as many frequencies benefit from this gain. Worse if placed near a corner.

This guy is legit as far as not trying to teach any nonsense, but he doesn't use any sort of measurements to really back up his stuff.

Adding the subs in after moving away from the wall will add the bass back without any of the other frequencies being boosted. It would be a more natural sound, as is evidenced in his AB tests.

You could get a similar result by placing treatments along the front wall.

 

[A Surfer]

I remember finding some advantages when having my speakers further out, but also some tradeoffs.

Ultimately I could not allocate the space for the speakers to remain as far into the room so I did not stay using this approach for long enough.

 

[Chrispy]

Curious, what makes this channel worthy of a click at all? Not familiar with it nor its history but new record day and had origins in vinyl comparisons? He that guy selling particular pressings of vinyl for a premium? Or am I thinking of some other entity with similar name?

 

[sigbergaudio]

Curious, what makes this channel worthy of a click at all? Not familiar with it nor its history but new record day and had origins in vinyl comparisons? He that guy selling particular pressings of vinyl for a premium? Or am I thinking of some other entity with similar name?

Not sure I understand the question. Shouldn't the content of the video be the deciding factor of its click-worthiness? I tried my best to explain the content in the first post. If this does not sound interesting to you, it is probably not worth a click for you.

 

[traind]

I did not watch the video yet but have read some on this topic as my family space has a 2ch setup and life will not allow them too far off the wall. One interesting take on this I discovered was from Genelac. I am not sure if it is unique to their monitors but they specify different distances from the front wall depending on if there are subwoofers involved or not. Without subs, their recommendation is to place the monitor between 5cm and 60cm off the wall and not to go any further out from the wall. With subs, the recommendation changes to either 5cm off the wall or >1.1m from the wall, avoiding the intermediate space.

They mention the 5cm minimum space is due to their rear bass reflex port. They are not talking about soundstage here, but avoiding cancellation dips.

Monitor Placement - Genelec.com

To create the ideal listening experience, several aspects need to be taken into account when placing the monitors within the listening space. First, you need to identify the listening area within the space and consider where the listener will be placed in relation to the space as well as the...

www.genelec.com

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

My stand mounts are (front of speaker) 5' off the wall behind them. When I was using a sub, I could pull them 9' out and the soundstage depth would expand. Pull them 10' out. and the soundstage starts to pull away from the wall, so I don't get any more depth. 33' long room btw. It was nice, but a lot of work to put into place and put back, since my sub is for the AVR as well.

It works without the sub too, but with no low bass. To get that, I need them where they are or closer to the wall.

So I get what he is saying. But I would not try it with open baffles, nor did he, despite his being an open baffle lover.

 

[stringer]

My Martin Logan SL3s sound much better moved about 4-5 feet away from the wall. Especially for watching movies. REW showed that the reason why is I get a big resonance around 100 hertz if I remember correctly. It sounds good for explosions and special effects but makes dialogue hard to understand. My wife doesn't want them positioned that far into the living room so I temper it with the PEQ settings on my Wiim. Works a charm.

 

[Adis]

There is another comment of mine, the last one that's a reply to davidristic3800, that has been deleted, and it reads: "Well, I don't need sonic mindfucks in my life", then I gave up.
My reasoning is that not everything that sounds different is automatically better...

 

[sigbergaudio]

I did not watch the video yet but have read some on this topic as my family space has a 2ch setup and life will not allow them too far off the wall. One interesting take on this I discovered was from Genelac. I am not sure if it is unique to their monitors but they specify different distances from the front wall depending on if there are subwoofers involved or not. Without subs, their recommendation is to place the monitor between 5cm and 60cm off the wall and not to go any further out from the wall. With subs, the recommendation changes to either 5cm off the wall or >1.1m from the wall, avoiding the intermediate space.

They mention the 5cm minimum space is due to their rear bass reflex port. They are not talking about soundstage here, but avoiding cancellation dips.

Monitor Placement - Genelec.com

To create the ideal listening experience, several aspects need to be taken into account when placing the monitors within the listening space. First, you need to identify the listening area within the space and consider where the listener will be placed in relation to the space as well as the...

www.genelec.com

Yes, keeping them close to the wall will normally reduce the dips inthe 100-300hz area (which is a good thing).

 

[sigbergaudio]

My stand mounts are (front of speaker) 5' off the wall behind them. When I was using a sub, I could pull them 9' out and the soundstage depth would expand. Pull them 10' out. and the soundstage starts to pull away from the wall, so I don't get any more depth. 33' long room btw. It was nice, but a lot of work to put into place and put back, since my sub is for the AVR as well.

It works without the sub too, but with no low bass. To get that, I need them where they are or closer to the wall.

So I get what he is saying. But I would not try it with open baffles, nor did he, despite his being an open baffle lover.

Soundstage will normally expand if you are closer to the speaker / if the speakers are further apart from each other. This is essentially what is happening if you move them away from the wall. So the expanded soundstage doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the distance to the wall behind them.

 

[sigbergaudio]

There is another comment of mine, the last one that's a reply to davidristic3800, that has been deleted, and it reads: "Well, I don't need sonic mindfucks in my life", then I gave up.
My reasoning is that not everything that sounds different is automatically better...

Hehe, well that "surround" feeling is actually what a large, immersive soundstage sounds like - and what many (myself included) are after.

 

[Bjorn]

Obviously this depends on the directivity of the speaker and how it's tuned. It's also dependent on the room/wall and whether you get SBIR with certain distances from the front wall as well.

But for a lot of speakers the area for the midrange will suffer with close proximity to the front wall. So while close proximity can avoid SBIR, it can be bad for the midrange.

Another drawback with speakers close to the front wall is the loss of the visual depth. When our eyes see good distance to the front wall, the brain perceives this as depth. If you close your eyes it vanishes.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Obviously this depends on the directivity of the speaker and how it's tuned. It's also dependent on the room/wall and whether you get SBIR with certain distances from the front wall as well.

But for a lot of speakers the area for the midrange will suffer with close proximity to the front wall. So while close proximity can avoid SBIR, it can be bad for the midrange.

Another drawback with speakers close to the front wall is the loss of the visual depth. When our eyes see good distance to the front wall, the brain perceives this as depth. If you close your eyes it vanishes.

It is of course good to know what the speaker is designed and tuned for, yes.

 

[Adis]

Hehe, well that "surround" feeling is actually what a large, immersive soundstage sounds like - and what many (myself included) are after.

Well, I'm after focus.
When I feel like being after diffusion I wire the speakers out of phase.

 

[Bjorn]

The best speaker design for close placement to the front wall is a large horn speaker. It can avoid the front wall reflections and SBIR and at the same time pick up reinforcement from it.
It can also do the same with close side walls.

A cardioide will minimize the reflections from the front wall greatly, but no avoid it. And the cardioide will have pretty strong side wall reflections from nearest boundary.

 

[dedobot]

Speakers further than 0.8m/2.5ft from the wall is luxury which not everyone can afford. Sure they can play better but so what. Out on the meadow they will play best may be

 

[sigbergaudio]

Well, I'm after focus.
When I feel like being after diffusion I wire the speakers out of phase.

It is possible to have both. But of course people have different preferences with regards to what is most important, so that is fine.

 

[audiofooled]

I'm curious if anyone had noticed that at the beginning of the track there should be no "rumble" at all (the case when speakers are close to the front wall), and that the attack of the bass is absent, even with subs in second scenario.

What I mean by this is that, there are speakers which are designed to be placed close to the wall and provide some proper attack but without room rumble. If the speakers are incapable of real mid-bass, subs with low crossover are highly unlikely to provide it. Such speakers may benefit in closer listening position, for far field in bigger rooms you need bigger speakers.

Videos of this kind may have some meaning to the actual scenario, but can't be used as a general rule of thumb for other speaker designs and other rooms. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Soundstage will normally expand if you are closer to the speaker / if the speakers are further apart from each other.

Normally? Normal is not a word that applies well with my room, in so many ways I don't even want to get into it. But I have certainly noticed that for width effects in multiple rooms and systems, closer = wider, all other things equal.

If I get all up in the triangle with the current position, and compare it to a triangle spot with the speakers further forward, same things happens. And it is ONLY the depth that changes, not the side to side sound stage. It's not a distance from speaker effect in my room. And....

Another drawback with speakers close to the front wall is the loss of the visual depth. When our eyes see good distance to the front wall, the brain perceives this as depth. If you close your eyes it vanishes.

... I always use eyes closed to evaluate sound stage. Close eyes, point to something, open eyes to see where I am pointing. I also have a track with a trumpet recorded 10' from the mic, which is a handy test of depth in a recording. It's always quiet, but it's not always deep, that takes good set up to achieve.

Plus I am having a problem figuring out how the sound stage pulling away from the back wall at a certain point is related to listening distance from the speakers. It should just get deeper and deeper, right? If it is just a function of speaker distance to ear, and some psychological process of seeing walls?

Might be my brain of course, but that's my experience. Admittedly I have not done it for over 2 years, but when I did, that's what happened.

As an aside, Ron of NRD has a video on what he calls L.O.T.S for speaker placement (basically a grid, but starting with speakers way out and moving them closer and closer to the wall, so opposite of what people normally do). The experimentalist in my likes that process, though I would never use it myself. For a relatively inexperienced person in a new room... there are worse ways to figure things out.

/takes a break to make coffee. Thinks critically about his own statements while sipping.

Ok my best guess for a room related effect would be that my current speaker position, which works well, is about 1/6 the way into the room. When they are out at the max sound stage depth, that's about 1/3 the way into the room. I can see that playing a role in what I hear in my particular room with depth effects.