Jost, could you please explain what you mean by wider spread with greater toe in, how far apart from tweeter to tweeter would you recommend me placing the speakers, you say this will create a massive sound stage. Please help.
Jeff
Well, I'm not promising anything, ok? Try to form an equilateral triangle between your two speakers and your head. Then toe in so that the tweeters are firing at your head; someone who I greatly respect would say have them toed-in to the point where the axes would cross just in front of your face.
This is not the final position though, it is the starting point. You start tweaking to personal preference. If you think one spot is really good, but want to keep experimenting, just put a piece of tape on the floor to mark that spot so you can easily go back to it. When I move my speakers around for whatever reason, I usually use tape.
However, room interaction with the speakers doesn't always mean that the above will sound best. If for instance to form something close to an equilateral triangle means that the speakers are right up against the sidewalls, well, no that's not ideal at all. Ideally, you'd have significant space from all boundaries to speakers.
In a nutshell, like I said earlier, experiment. If the equilateral triangle for some reason seems to sound like it has a hole in the middle with stereo, obviously I don't think you will like it. There is no magic dimension/angle, because some speakers act so differently, as do rooms.
Grant, could you explain a wider spread(center of L speaker to center of R speaker), I would definetely like to go wide, my room is 13 feet wide and have no problem of keeping the mains off the front wall by at least three feet, as my room is quite long (26 feet). I would definetely play around with placement as I believe this is critical, what would you suggest as a starting point for separation of the mains and toe in angle? Thanks my friend.
Jeff
Jeff 'n Sholling, my name is not Grant. Jeff, maybe you wanted GranteedEV to expound on what I offered already??
I thought I already explained "wider spread"?
As for 13x26, well, it's too bad that the 13 is exactly half of 26. Anyways . . .
Lengthwise is best, and so it's good you have it that way. From there, the starting* point for listener distance to either front or back wall in a rectangular room is 38%.
Therefore, if your ears are 9.88 ft from the front wall, AND you wanted at least 3' off the front wall (and then add the depth of the speaker, let's see what is the 340, alright 10.5" depth) . . . you would be just about exactly on the dot 6' from each speaker, with 6' of space between the centers of the two speakers. But see, that could* look pretty funny (not that it wouldn't sound fantastic though).
Basically, there is no way you're going to get it all to work out perfectly, in terms of equilateral triangle, 3' from any given boundaries, with ideal listener position, with any semblance of using the room well in the aesthetic and practical senses.
If there was one of those things that mattered the most, I have read on more than one occasion that it is the position of the listener. I am sure it's still a generalization, as we could get carried away . . .
If say we went with 38% from the back* wall, you are then 16.12' from the front wall. Then you would be 12.245' from the fronts of the speakers (if they have 3' from front wall). Well now . . . if the space between the speakers was the same at 12.2' . . . well it's basically not even possible anymore, and definitely not desired, since the width of the room is 13'.
There is no silver bullet here, if you catch my drift. The drift I wanted you to catch was simply this: Keep a very open mind about experimentation of the placements of both speakers and yourself. Whew.
