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To all respondents–room is 21′ wide and 19′ deep.. Ceiling height starts at 6.5′ at front wall, rises to c. 12′ above listening position, and then descends fairly quickly to 8′-high backwall.. The main, 16″-high, left-right beam near the front of the room is centered about 4′ from the front wall, and most speakers have been placed, over the almost-43 years I’ve had this room, with their faces 5 to 5-1/2′ from the front wall.. Listening position is c. 3′ from rear wall.. The room has a relatively low proportion of its flat surfaces parallel with other flat surfaces, and all walls are rather diffuse from all the cabinets, etc. around the room.
I’ve added two LARGE basstraps on the left and the rear wall, both being about 1.5×2.5′ rectangals maybe 10′ long and containing NO reflective plastic; these plus two 3’x 6’x 6″ panels on the front room absorb lots of broadband acoustic energy.. Due to its almost-square nature, the room has a bass node at c. 30Hz that’s VERY strong and peaky and substantially reduced by the basstraps.
I sit about 10′ away from the faces of the speakers, and the faces of my current speakers, the very excellent Vandersteen 7.2s, are centered about 9.5 feet apart.
I plan to get to SanDiego this Saturday to hear a pair of SLs.
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In addition to what I said below about the panel divisions that are different depending on the version of the panel, the other variable is the curve of the speaker panel. I have a pair with 90 degree curve and a pair with 45 degree curve.
I’ve found that the 90 degree version allows excellent imaging when sitting closer to the speaker than the 45 degree version. They (the 45s) seem to me to require a somewhat greater distance to the listener to image similarly. I do not tow-in to where the intersect line between the speakers are directly pointed at the center of my head/ears. That intersect line between L and R is usually slightly behind my head. -
My experience is that even though the speakers are supposed to be a “line source” with the same sound no matter where your ears are vertically in relation to the panels, I have never actually encountered this with any “line source” including my Ultimate 845s. My experience is that your ears should be located in the vertical center of the panel. I sit in a high director’s chair in order to facilitate this.In terms of toe in: if the speaker were flat I would toe them in so that the horizontal center of the panel was pointed directly at my ears. But since the panels are curved this takes a little more experimentation.I sit very close (8 feet). I am posting a picture of my set up.
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Along with Dizzie’s comment:
I would add that the divisions of the panel vary depending on the version, ie. The older panel is divided (from bottom to top) with the largest division at the bottom and progressively gets smaller all the way to the top.
The later Bass Focus version of the panel has the narrowest segment in the center of the panel and progressively gets larger divisions towards the bottom and towards the top of the panel.
This affects the imaging and tonal balance relative to the distance from the speaker. -
Be aware of the high frequency and midrange portion of the panel height in relationship to the height of your ears and listening distance. I heard some SLs where seating was too close for the size of the speakers. Another listener who had heard them on a different occasion agreed with me about seating distance.There was no solid center image. Maybe more toe in would have helped.
I have 545PX in a 12×15 room with one wall almost completely open. Imaging is amazing. Sound stage is spacious but there is still a solid center. IMO bigger is not automatically better.
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Beam is five feet from front wall. What is room depth?
Mine are eight feet out in 26′ room. That was determined empirically by delivering the smoothest measured response in the bottom octaves.
My long term friend and mentor HP died almost ten years ago.
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dupe
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lotus123, no, not yet.. After measuring my musicroom, if I order any SL, they’ll be Maj. 645s, as the 7-footers look like narrow buildings in front of me.. I’m still trying to arrange driving help for the audition trip.
The beam–holding the roof up–five feet off the front wall somewhat complicates choosing the maximum height available.. The pic is from June, 2008 but shows the beam fairly clearly.. All my speakers since I rebuilt the room in 1982 have fit under the beam.
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…but not to e-stats, having owned Quad 57s, stacked 57s, some
Audiostatics, Quad 2905s, and maybe more I can’t remember–I’m almost 80YO, and the memory is the 2nd to go (I can’t remember the 1st).I currently have Vandersteen Model 7 Mk.IIs and LOVE their sounds–they’re highly resolving, very cohesive, very full-range, very musical…but they’re short…that is, the soundstage is low top-to-bottom.. Therefore I’m looking for speakers that are as sonically excellent as the 7.2s but ‘taller’.
I’ve chosen, initially, the Majestic 745s as they’re ‘affordable’ and the tallest I can get in my largish room.. I have 400WPC-into-8 Moon/Simaudio monoamps(1) and Aesthetix Atlas Eclipse hybrid monoamps(3) to drive them as my summer amps and substantially improved Atma-Sphere(2) 140-Watt MA-1 Mk.3.0s to heat my house in Phoenix’s nonsummers.
Will be hearing some largish SoundLabs next Monday.
(1) I HATE the term ‘monoblock’, coined, I think, by Harry Pearson.. Harry, wherever U are, if a single-channel poweramp is a monoblock, than a stereo poweramp is a ‘stereoblock’.. YUCK!!!!
(2) I’m suprised so many peope here don’t know how to spell that name. 🙂
(3) which use a 6SN7 in each frontend.
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