Thinking about speakers and if I could actually fit them into my current room situation and sound great

[crazyfingers]

There was a discussion here about my current Allison Three speakers which I still love a lot.

Allison Three Speakers. Anyone still have them or used to have them?

Similar to a post I made in the Amps section, I recently retired am picking up on the hobbies I used to have before kids and such. I have money and I'm just looking at everything about my stereo on whether I should consider replacing anything. I got these in about 1978 I think. I know I took...

forums.audioholics.com

But I continue to wonder if my Allison's really are sub-par for today's standards. I'm not thinking of getting rid of them but I am wondering if it's possible to set up some modern speakers given the current imitations of my room.

I've seen that these days the trend is to have two speakers that handle the treble down to low mids and then a separate sub instead of having just a pair that handle the full range.

I have some pictures to show. Please don't laugh. Most of the junk is not mine and it is the basement that I'm grateful that my wife lets he have as my place. Given my room limitations over the medium term, the only place I could put some speakers that do treble to low mids are on the shelves above my current Allison speakers. And it would be possible to clear out a space between the two Allison's and where the doors are to outside so that I could find some place for a sub.

I am not a DYI person. I could not build new speakers to fit in the corners where the Allison's currently are. Neither do I think I want to remove the Allison's unless some excellent quality floor standing speakers could sound excellent in the same space.

So really the bottom line is, can excellent quality bookshelves sound good in the corners on the shelf above the Allison's?

I sometimes wonder if anyone on this forum who has a really good modern system lives close enough to me to come over and tell me if my Allison's really are sub-par for these days. I live about 20 minutes from Gillette Stadium where the New England Patriots plan.

And should this topic really be in the Room Acoustics, System Layout & Setup section?

So the pictures.

First my left Allison speaker and the available shelf above them, second, my right Allison speaker and the available shelf. Third, the room. It's not as big as the picture may make it appear. It was once a two car garage if that helps.

 

[NINaudio]

Where do you listen to music in this area?

 

[crazyfingers]

Where do you listen to music in this area?

Mostly at the computer/my desk. You can just see my chair at the bottom of the 3rd picture. The Allison's are just tall enough that I have line-of-sight to the tweeters and mids while sitting. I tend to shift the balance a little bit towards the right speaker because it's a little bit farther but not much.

If I really want to listen at the best spot briefly I stand in front of the desk between the middle pillar and the telescope. But 95% of the time I'm at my desk.

 

[ryanosaur]

Crikey!
I'd start by telling your wife that you get to have some space for yourself and making it happen. I'd quickly go some sort of 'cidal in that space if I was forced to spend any time there.
Please understand I'm not saying this to be snarky. You could create an 8x8' space in that area for yourself if you really wanted to.

That said, what's important to you?

Are you interested in being able to sit down and enjoy some critical listening? By this I mean hear details in the music that escape most when passively listening. Hear the Stereo Image created by good Speaker placement...

Or do you just need a spot to play your favorite Dead bootlegs and "spin"?

If you are just trying to fill the room with sound, try a couple Sonos Ones and call it a day. If you want to actually hear your Allisons and whether they still do it for you, well, you got some work to do to decide if they are worth keeping or "upgrading." But I wouldn't spend a dime on good Speakers for that space as it is in these photos.

If it were me, I'd make room on the left side of that lower photo for myself. Move the equipment and Speakers to that left wall, and clear out the boxes so I could sit between the trashcan and lamp, roughly, with the Speakers set up properly on that Left Wall.

Just my 2¢.
Cheers!

 

[ryanosaur]

stand in front of the desk between the middle pillar and the telescope.

Ha!
I picked the same spot as you.


You can make it happen if you want, and unless something has failed in those Speakers, I bet you would be happy having them setup properly.

 

[crazyfingers]

You can make it happen if you want, and unless something has failed in those Speakers, I bet you would be happy having them setup properly.

The Allison's are properly set up in the corners and they are in mint condition despite being 45 years old.

They are triangle shaped and that's where they are supposed to be placed - snug up into the corners. Those are the only two corners in the room. The opposite side of the room has no proper corners.

 

[crazyfingers]

Crikey!
I'd start by telling your wife that you get to have some space for yourself and making it happen. I'd quickly go some sort of 'cidal in that space if I was forced to spend any time there.
Please understand I'm not saying this to be snarky. You could create an 8x8' space in that area for yourself if you really wanted to.

That said, what's important to you?

Are you interested in being able to sit down and enjoy some critical listening? By this I mean hear details in the music that escape most when passively listening. Hear the Stereo Image created by good Speaker placement...

Or do you just need a spot to play your favorite Dead bootlegs and "spin"?

If you are just trying to fill the room with sound, try a couple Sonos Ones and call it a day. If you want to actually hear your Allisons and whether they still do it for you, well, you got some work to do to decide if they are worth keeping or "upgrading." But I wouldn't spend a dime on good Speakers for that space as it is in these photos.

If it were me, I'd make room on the left side of that lower photo for myself. Move the equipment and Speakers to that left wall, and clear out the boxes so I could sit between the trashcan and lamp, roughly, with the Speakers set up properly on that Left Wall.

Just my 2¢.
Cheers!

So many thoughts. I want them just to sound really nice from that chair whether I'm listening critically or also doing something else. And they do to the extent that the Allison's are still really good speakers and on that I have no reference point. They sound great to me but are they really still great by modern standards?

I have asked my wife if I can some day lot too long from now remove the sideways cabinet my the blue couch (Left side) and get stuff out of there.

The thing is, my wife has no space of her own. She's nice enough to let me have this basement. To ask for a more dedicated space for myself in the basement would be to ask too much given she doesn't even have a permanent desk. At some point we will clear all kinds of stuff out of that was my daughter's old room and either I could take that space or she could but except for de cluttering more, I can't ask for more dedicated space for myself in the basement. She's already talking about building an addition to the house just so that she can have space to have a desk and put her own stuff.

But it sound like you are pessimistic that a modern set of speakers could sound good in those corners even if a sub handled the base.

 

[crazyfingers]

By the way, the Allison's have no problem filling the room with sound. I don't need to push them at all to have a nice loud sound. I can play them loud such that it's uncomfortable for me to be in such a loud place but the speakers can easily get that loud. I just tend not to do it for my own ears.

I just don't know how close in quality the Allison's are to to modern speaker quality though they still sound great to me.

 

[ryanosaur]

@crazyfingers
Cool. to be fair I'm not super familiar with your Speakers... Rare are the ones actually meant to be placed tight up into corners. (Or use the corner like a Cornwall, as part of the horn...)

We each have our own things to deal with in setting up our systems. There are ways to make it work with some compromises, and then there are time nothing will work. I get it.
Your home is your home, and I am in no way wanting to pry into your lives.

To answer the last question, it is not pessimism about modern Speakers. It is about the acoustical space. You have a lot of stuff in between which is serving to absorb and detract the sound waves. Nothing is going to change that by changing Speakers. Yes, you may be getting cleaner mids and highs, but at some point there, the overall SQ is going to suffer.
Consider, please, that in more common living room type setups, even a coffee table can be problematic.

An interesting experiment might be turning them upside down and putting them on the shelves in the corners so the Tweeters are still better positioned for your ears, but the woofers won't be obstructed so much.
Dunno if those shelves can take the weight, but at least you would bypass the stuff in the middle of the room to a larger extent than in your current setup.

If you were to add a sub, I'd say just keep it on the right side wall from the same photo I was discussing previously, near the equipment. It's not necessarily going to be the optimal placement, but it will be easiest to setup in that space. *shrugs. If you have bass management you can use in that situation, I'd set XO at 100 assuming the Allisons are still on the floor and obstructed by the stuff in the room.

Here's another idea... switch your desk and the stuff in the middle of the room. Free the path from Speakers to your ears of clutter, and you'll have a much better experience.

Anyway, I'm just spitballin' to see if something in the "compromise" department will stick.

 

[crazyfingers]

To answer the last question, it is not pessimism about modern Speakers. It is about the acoustical space. You have a lot of stuff in between which is serving to absorb and detract the sound waves. Nothing is going to change that by changing Speakers. Yes, you may be getting cleaner mids and highs, but at some point there, the overall SQ is going to suffer.
Consider, please, that in more common living room type setups, even a coffee table can be problematic.

Some day the room will be de-cluttered. But I'll still be wondering if the Allison's are still great speakers compared with modern ones. The clutter has built up slowly but I can't say that so long as I have a some clear space in front of them that they sound worse now than they did when we moved in and had no clutter back in 1997. I will still wonder how well the Allison's stand up to excellent modern speakers.

An interesting experiment might be turning them upside down and putting them on the shelves in the corners so the Tweeters are still better positioned for your ears, but the woofers won't be obstructed so much.
Dunno if those shelves can take the weight, but at least you would bypass the stuff in the middle of the room to a larger extent than in your current setup.

I checked that long ago. The shelves I believe could take the weight. The trouble is that the speakers are 1 inch taller than the space between the shelf and the ceiling so I'd need to lower the shelf which is currently supported by all the wood trim. And I'd need to cut that wood trim which is about 3 inches providing a 3 inch shelf all around the room. I don't know that a new shelf say an inch and a half lower than the current shelf is something I want to try to do.

It's not a crazy idea. It's just something I really hesitate to do. To build a new shelf 1 and a half inches lower so that the speakers would fit.

Getting back to the 45 year old Allison's vs modern speakers, I know of two people on this forum who live less than an hour from me. I wonder if I'd ask them over to listen and tell me what they think of the Allison's.

 

[ryanosaur]

Obviously technology changes some things, but to what extent?
The basics of a pistonic motor are the same now as they were 50 years ago.

Design of the Drivers and Modeling the cabinet has improved significantly, even just in the last 10 years compared to what was capable previously.

But how much does that affect basic SQ versus efficiency or optimizing diffraction effects or minimizing distortion that may not be significantly audible unless running at 11?

I guess, at a certain point, the suspension of the Drivers could loosen up a bit more than ideal, or XO components could age and want replacing...
Whether that would make a significant difference or not to your Speakers?... No way I could say.

For your room and use case, if you were to consider new Speakers and you were set on keeping them in corners like that, I would recommend looking for something Sealed that you could place in the corner without worry of the port being too close to the walls. I would also suggest something with more controlled directivity in the form of a good horn loaded tweeter or good waveguides which would minimize the effect of having the walls so close.

As always there are a lot of variables to consider, and then how the Speakers would interact with the room.

 

[NINaudio]

I agree with pretty much everything Ryanosaur has said here. If you can do some shuffling around of things and get your desk into the center section I think you'll be in a much better position acoustically. As it stands now though, I honestly wouldn't worry about trying out anything new until you are able to get some space for it.

If you're really really itching to try some newer tech and absolutely can't do anything about the room I'd recommend a good pair of nearfield/desktop monitors to be placed on your desk since that's where you do the majority of your listening anyway.

 

[TLS Guy]

There was a discussion here about my current Allison Three speakers which I still love a lot.

Allison Three Speakers. Anyone still have them or used to have them?

Similar to a post I made in the Amps section, I recently retired am picking up on the hobbies I used to have before kids and such. I have money and I'm just looking at everything about my stereo on whether I should consider replacing anything. I got these in about 1978 I think. I know I took...

forums.audioholics.com

But I continue to wonder if my Allison's really are sub-par for today's standards. I'm not thinking of getting rid of them but I am wondering if it's possible to set up some modern speakers given the current imitations of my room.

I've seen that these days the trend is to have two speakers that handle the treble down to low mids and then a separate sub instead of having just a pair that handle the full range.

I have some pictures to show. Please don't laugh. Most of the junk is not mine and it is the basement that I'm grateful that my wife lets he have as my place. Given my room limitations over the medium term, the only place I could put some speakers that do treble to low mids are on the shelves above my current Allison speakers. And it would be possible to clear out a space between the two Allison's and where the doors are to outside so that I could find some place for a sub.

I am not a DYI person. I could not build new speakers to fit in the corners where the Allison's currently are. Neither do I think I want to remove the Allison's unless some excellent quality floor standing speakers could sound excellent in the same space.

So really the bottom line is, can excellent quality bookshelves sound good in the corners on the shelf above the Allison's?

I sometimes wonder if anyone on this forum who has a really good modern system lives close enough to me to come over and tell me if my Allison's really are sub-par for these days. I live about 20 minutes from Gillette Stadium where the New England Patriots plan.

And should this topic really be in the Room Acoustics, System Layout & Setup section?

So the pictures.

First my left Allison speaker and the available shelf above them, second, my right Allison speaker and the available shelf. Third, the room. It's not as big as the picture may make it appear. It was once a two car garage if that helps.

View attachment 64927View attachment 64928View attachment 64929

You have posted this picture before and asked the same question.

That pop shop needs clearing up for a start before we talk speakers. If you want speakers in the same location, then it will have to be a custom DIY design. Years ago corner designs were quite popular going back to the Wharfedale Airedales, Tannoy and Klipsch as well as those Allisons. Tannoy sill make a corner horn speaker, but that will be way out of your price range.

So if you are wedded to that location, it will have to be a custom design. I did design and build corner speakers for the living room of our Grand Forks home back in 1979.

It is possible, but you won't find it online or at Best Buy.

 

[MrBoat]

Since you already have the tower speakers, and no room, I would set up a near field 2.1 system around your computer desk instead. Some potent bookshelf speakers on stands on either side of your desk, and a subwoofer that fires part under the desk. People tend to only use baby satellites around a PC desk. I have 12" speakers that are 14"W X 26" H on either side of my desk pointing at me, along with two, 12" subs and it is incredible.

This way, you can get by with just rearranging the clutter a little back and away, and it may even help with the sound, in your case. One of the best listening rooms I ever spent time in was my cousin's basement where there was a maze of boxes and other clutter. We ended up with a temporary clearing in there that sort of grew over time and then untangled some chairs and a small table and other usable items found down there.

 

[mono-bloc]

The first thing you need to do is order a " garbage skip bin" and load all your crap for a trip to your local tip. But really the added attraction is the Litter tray in the middle of the walk-way. And all your worried about is how the speakers sound .

 

[crazyfingers]

The first thing you need to do is order a " garbage skip bin" and load all your crap for a trip to your local tip. But really the added attraction is the Litter tray in the middle of the walk-way. And all your worried about is how the speakers sound .

That's a cardboard cat scratcher. Not a litter tray. The cat litter box is on the other side of the room on the tile outside the bathroom near the door out to under the deck

 

[crazyfingers]

Since you already have the tower speakers, and no room, I would set up a near field 2.1 system around your computer desk instead. Some potent bookshelf speakers on stands on either side of your desk, and a subwoofer that fires part under the desk. People tend to only use baby satellites around a PC desk. I have 12" speakers that are 14"W X 26" H on either side of my desk pointing at me, along with two, 12" subs and it is incredible.

This way, you can get by with just rearranging the clutter a little back and away, and it may even help with the sound, in your case. One of the best listening rooms I ever spent time in was my cousin's basement where there was a maze of boxes and other clutter. We ended up with a temporary clearing in there that sort of grew over time and then untangled some chairs and a small table and other usable items found down there.

I'm mainly thinking what would I do if, 1: The Allison's die or 2: I decide that they are no longer great.

In that case what would I do. I was thinking yesterday, what about something like some Polk towers. The right one could be out a few feet from where the vinyls are, around where the cardboard cat scratchers are. The left, I could probably clear the left corner where the cabinet is sticking out, get the cabinet out of there and the stuff behind it and put another half way between the couch with Xmas throw and the left Allison?

If not full range towers, perhaps some floor standing high and midrange and find a place for a sub.

 

[mono-bloc]

That's a cardboard cat scratcher. Not a litter tray. The cat litter box is on the other side of the room

It just gets worse

 

[Bobby Bass]

What you have fits perfectly in your room. If they die you can get the R700 towers and return free of charge to Polk for a full refund if you’re not happy. Good luck!

 

[crazyfingers]

It just gets worse

I don't get it.