how far can right and left speakers be apart?

S

smooth2222

Junior Audioholic
gonna be getting paradigm monitor 11's, is it ok for the speakers to be 143 inches apart on the wall? how will this effect the sound? maybe point them in a little bit? my console is 143 inches wide.

help much appreciated
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
gonna be getting paradigm monitor 11's, is it ok for the speakers to be 143 inches apart on the wall? how will this effect the sound? maybe point them in a little bit? my console is 143 inches wide.

help much appreciated
10 to 12 ft apart is optimal. Most members have their speakers far too close together.
 
F

fredk

Audioholic General
Depends on the room and the listening distance. Ideally you want the speakers the same distance apart as you are from the speakers.

How wide your room is can affect your speakers as well. Distance from the side walls can affect your soundstage.

Aim for equal distance and then play around with positioning a little to see what sounds best.
 
Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
The desired distance between the front speakers is a function of your distance from the speakers. Different manufacturers give different equations for this. I'm inclined to follow the specific advice from a manufacturer than the general guidelines that can be found on the internet. In the end, though, you'll just want to get the best imaging that you can given your placement constraints.

The owner's manual for the Paradigm Monitor 11 can be downloaded as a PDF file from Paradigm at this link here. Page 4 contains diagrams for recommended speaker placement and distances that are explained on page 7.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
The desired distance between the front speakers is a function of your distance from the speakers. Different manufacturers give different equations for this. I'm inclined to follow the specific advice from a manufacturer than the general guidelines that can be found on the internet. In the end, though, you'll just want to get the best imaging that you can given your placement constraints.

The owner's manual for the Paradigm Monitor 11 can be downloaded as a PDF file from Paradigm at this link here. Page 4 contains diagrams for recommended speaker placement and distances that are explained on page 7.
If you are going to out the speakers closer together than 8 ft, you might as well listen in mono, and you certainly don't need a center if you do. It would be a definite detriment to smooth frequency response.

I agree completely with Linkwitz on this, the THX Lucas film recommendation is BS. At closer than 8ft, any type of realistic sound stage or depth of field is impossible.
 
Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
Mark, with that argument, headphones might as well all be mono. :)

You can't ignore how far the listener is away from the speakers.
 
chris357

chris357

Senior Audioholic
my NHT's are 14 ft apartin my 18ft sq room and Ihave an amazing sound stage. so much so that I sometimes have to go and see if there is soudn coming from my center speaker(when in stereo)
 
S

smooth2222

Junior Audioholic
my front room is 18 x 18, speakers will be 12 feet apart.

gonna check out the pdf now, but looks like i will be good??
 
Adam

Adam

Audioholic Jedi
my NHT's are 14 ft apartin my 18ft sq room and Ihave an amazing sound stage. so much so that I sometimes have to go and see if there is soudn coming from my center speaker(when in stereo)
I get the same from mine! The 2.5s (and my 1.5s) are fantastic, IMO. Mine are about 7 to 7.5 feet apart, and my main listening position is about 10 to 11 feet away (I followed the NHT guideline for relative distances).
 
chris357

chris357

Senior Audioholic
I get the same from mine! The 2.5s (and my 1.5s) are fantastic, IMO. Mine are about 7 to 7.5 feet apart, and my main listening position is about 10 to 11 feet away (I followed the NHT guideline for relative distances).


i just did it on accident. I got this particular townhouse based on the huge loft and have the whole room for watching and listening so I put my speakers in the corners and sit in the middle(kinda back) I'm about 11 ft from the speakers. I tell you i really woudl love to upgrade to some exotic speaker one day but my 2.5i's have set the bar very very high for not alot of money... i'd have to say they are one of the best bangs for the buck I have ever in my life had. maybe if i got some really expensive cables first it might make a difference ;) just kidding
 
adwilk

adwilk

Audioholic Ninja
I like this article.

Its relatively basic, but still informative.

I've always been under the impression that creating the "equilateral" triangle approach is a great place to start. I disagree to some extent with Mark's post just based on personal experience. The speakers on my desk are fantastic "imagers" and they sit almost 4 feet apart.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
gonna be getting paradigm monitor 11's, is it ok for the speakers to be 143 inches apart on the wall? how will this effect the sound? maybe point them in a little bit? my console is 143 inches wide.

help much appreciated
Depends on where you'll be sitting. If you're 6' - 8' from the wall they're on, it may be a bit wide. If you're 15' - 20', it should be fine.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Mark, with that argument, headphones might as well all be mono. :)

You can't ignore how far the listener is away from the speakers.
Not really. With headphone listening the right and left channels are fed to the ears, with no interaction of the room, or the ability of one transducer to modify the other.

Now as you move closer to the speakers, speaker listening becomes more and more akin to headphone listening, as you get more and more direct sound and less dispersed and reflected sound.

Now a car environment and especially sitting at a computer desk with speakers spaced four feet apart, is very much akin to headphone listening.

Once you start moving back six to eight feet though you are away from the near filed.

Now we have speaker to speaker interaction and the ambient field to contend with. Think of a boom box, unless you are right close in front of it, it is mono.

The problem of speaker interaction is acute. As the speakers move closer together, then the wavelengths of reinforcement and cancellation move progressively into much more sensitive territory.

Then if you add a center speaker the problems are magnified greatly. This is really acute if the lobing patterns of mains and center are 90 degrees apart.

So if you have speakers spaced six feet apart, then centers and mains have to be 3 ft. apart. A frequency of 375 Hz has a wavelength of three feet, so you have created a bad situation for the distant field. You can make a really good case for not using a center if you can't get mains and center more than four feet apart. This probably is a factor, in the numerous reports on these forums about speech clarity and having to run centers hot. Interference patterns in the 375 Hz region are well into the speech discrimination region. At four feet, and 275 Hz you are still pushing your luck.
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
Not really. With headphone listening the right and left channels are fed to the ears, with no interaction of the room, or the ability of one transducer to modify the other.

Now as you move closer to the speakers, speaker listening becomes more and more akin to headphone listening, as you get more and more direct sound and less dispersed and reflected sound.

Now a car environment and especially sitting at a computer desk with speakers spaced four feet apart, is very much akin to headphone listening.

Once you start moving back six to eight feet though you are away from the near filed.

Now we have speaker to speaker interaction and the ambient field to contend with. Think of a boom box, unless you are right close in front of it, it is mono.

The problem of speaker interaction is acute. As the speakers move closer together, then the wavelengths of reinforcement and cancellation move progressively into much more sensitive territory.

Then if you add a center speaker the problems are magnified greatly. This is really acute if the lobing patterns of mains and center are 90 degrees apart.

So if you have speakers spaced six feet apart, then centers and mains have to be 3 ft. apart. A frequency of 375 Hz has a wavelength of three feet, so you have created a bad situation for the distant field. You can make a really good case for not using a center if you can't get mains and center more than four feet apart. This probably is a factor, in the numerous reports on these forums about speech clarity and having to run centers hot. Interference patterns in the 375 Hz region are well into the speech discrimination region. At four feet, and 275 Hz you are still pushing your luck.
Call it being stubborn, but my front speakers are way too close Yet they still do just fine. I wish I had more flexibility, but I don't. I know I could phantom, but I built 3 front speakers and Intend to use them come hell or high water. :)

I don't have the lobing issue at least. :)
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
i just did it on accident. I got this particular townhouse based on the huge loft and have the whole room for watching and listening so I put my speakers in the corners and sit in the middle(kinda back) I'm about 11 ft from the speakers.
In the corners of the room is pretty much the worst place to put your speakers in just about any room. In a square room, it is even more detrimental.

Not really. With headphone listening the right and left channels are fed to the ears, with no interaction of the room, or the ability of one transducer to modify the other.

Now as you move closer to the speakers, speaker listening becomes more and more akin to headphone listening, as you get more and more direct sound and less dispersed and reflected sound.

Now a car environment and especially sitting at a computer desk with speakers spaced four feet apart, is very much akin to headphone listening.

Once you start moving back six to eight feet though you are away from the near filed.

Now we have speaker to speaker interaction and the ambient field to contend with. Think of a boom box, unless you are right close in front of it, it is mono.

The problem of speaker interaction is acute. As the speakers move closer together, then the wavelengths of reinforcement and cancellation move progressively into much more sensitive territory.

Then if you add a center speaker the problems are magnified greatly. This is really acute if the lobing patterns of mains and center are 90 degrees apart.

So if you have speakers spaced six feet apart, then centers and mains have to be 3 ft. apart. A frequency of 375 Hz has a wavelength of three feet, so you have created a bad situation for the distant field. You can make a really good case for not using a center if you can't get mains and center more than four feet apart. This probably is a factor, in the numerous reports on these forums about speech clarity and having to run centers hot. Interference patterns in the 375 Hz region are well into the speech discrimination region. At four feet, and 275 Hz you are still pushing your luck.
Speaker positioning will greatly affect this and having the the center placed where it is not in perfect alignment with the mains will mitigate what you are talking about. The interaction from the room will also greatly affect the resulting sound as well. I agree completely that complaints about clarity/dialog very well could be caused by this, but there is a high probability that positioning and proper calibration has not been done in these systems as well.

My speakers are about 8ft apart and I sit about 8-9 ft from them. they are about 2ft from the walls and angled toward the listener. I get a near perfect center image from them when sitting in the sweet spot, though the sweet spot for my speakers is fairly narrow. They still sound good off axis, but for music why would anyone want to sit off axis? It took me WEEKS to dial in their positioning to get it right, which is why I say placement is CRITICAL to ANY setup because of room interactions.
 
S

smooth2222

Junior Audioholic
ok lets make this more diffucult. what about the rear speakers? my coach is all the way against the back wall, so what angle do i point my rear speakers? and how far do i put them from the side walls?
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
ok lets make this more diffucult. what about the rear speakers? my coach is all the way against the back wall, so what angle do i point my rear speakers? and how far do i put them from the side walls?
Are you talking 5.1 or 7.1?
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I hope not 7.1 with his couch on the wall. That's just silly. Putting the couch on the wall is also silly get some space if possible.
Yes, sitting on a couch on the back wall is about as bad as it gets, for uneven frequency response.
 
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