This post refers more to stereo speaker setup than HT, but may highlight the importance of the effect of speaker placement on the sound quality.
I am sure that many enthusiasts buy their equipment, get home and plonk the speakers down in a position that sort of satisfies their needs, but most importantly in a position approved by their SO.
Another option(as I used to do as well) is to place your speakers in the corners(or close to), toe'd in a bit and there you go.
After reading some suggestions about speaker placement from George Cardas, I experimented a bit the last two evenings.
Lets start with room dimensions. The room is 4.6m(leading into a open plan kitchen) x 3m(ceiling 2m) and the speakers are placed along the long wall(practical reasons, although not ideal) Normal listening position is with speakers about 1m from back wall and more than 1m from side walls, speakers 1.8m apart and about 2m from listening position.
With the above positioning the sound(stereo image, soundstage, etc) is pretty good, but then I tried a nearfield listening position with speakers placed 1.2m from rear wall, 1.8m apart, 1.8m from listening position. Although this position is impractical for day to day use, the results were astonishing! The soundstage seemed to have grown by a factor of 2, stereo image was superb and subtle sounds which may disappear otherwise could be observed. In fact it was almost like listening to a pair of giant surround headphones, but with much better LF extention.
However, any imperfections, be it in recording quality or equipment does become painfully obvious with this listening position. I found one of two CDs to sound too forward to my liking with the speakers placed in this way, but in general it was a very pleasant experience.
The idea with nearfield positioning in simple terms is to create a perfect triangle between you, left speaker and right speaker, thus the equal distances from listening position to each speaker and from speaker to speaker.
Link to Cardas: http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=27&pagestring=Room+Setup
I am sure that many enthusiasts buy their equipment, get home and plonk the speakers down in a position that sort of satisfies their needs, but most importantly in a position approved by their SO.
Another option(as I used to do as well) is to place your speakers in the corners(or close to), toe'd in a bit and there you go.
After reading some suggestions about speaker placement from George Cardas, I experimented a bit the last two evenings.
Lets start with room dimensions. The room is 4.6m(leading into a open plan kitchen) x 3m(ceiling 2m) and the speakers are placed along the long wall(practical reasons, although not ideal) Normal listening position is with speakers about 1m from back wall and more than 1m from side walls, speakers 1.8m apart and about 2m from listening position.
With the above positioning the sound(stereo image, soundstage, etc) is pretty good, but then I tried a nearfield listening position with speakers placed 1.2m from rear wall, 1.8m apart, 1.8m from listening position. Although this position is impractical for day to day use, the results were astonishing! The soundstage seemed to have grown by a factor of 2, stereo image was superb and subtle sounds which may disappear otherwise could be observed. In fact it was almost like listening to a pair of giant surround headphones, but with much better LF extention.
However, any imperfections, be it in recording quality or equipment does become painfully obvious with this listening position. I found one of two CDs to sound too forward to my liking with the speakers placed in this way, but in general it was a very pleasant experience.
The idea with nearfield positioning in simple terms is to create a perfect triangle between you, left speaker and right speaker, thus the equal distances from listening position to each speaker and from speaker to speaker.
Link to Cardas: http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=insights&content_id=27&pagestring=Room+Setup
