Speaker Placement Question

[Haywood]

I talked over this idea with my wife. She is a lot less excited about it than she was about the sofa table, because of the inevitability of things falling behind the couch. She is, however, willing to let me do it!

If I am going to do an EQ, I will have to put it at line level between my receiver and my power amp, since there is no processor loop on the receiver. That means I am limited to three speakers as I only have three available channels on my amp. I do not have any suitable speakers laying around, so I will have to buy anything I put back there. I am still thinking about buying Atoms or Mini Monitors because they are such a great match for my mains and I might be able to reuse them in the next house in a more conventional layout. I'll just buy two pairs and put the extra speaker in storage.

I have absolutely no idea what I am doing with an EQ or even what kind of EQ to look for. Any suggestions?

 

[Haywood]

I just thought of something. I do have one pair of rather beat up old Infinity two way bookshelf speakers in a box in my basement. If timber matching is not critical, I might be able to get away with it. The only downside is I only have two. It might be worth a try though.

 

[Flint]

Use the infinity speakers. Buy a used EQ off Craigslist. Anything from a 7 band to 31 band will work. It is just one channel you are tuning. You'll need to split the line level signal from one output to three to feed the amp.

Be sure to set your receiver to 6.1, not 7.1.

As for the EQ, just play the test tones for manual calibration and adjust by ear as best you can. I envision you needing to cut the bass below 400hz and boost the treble above 5Khz.

 

[Haywood]

How is this for an EQ?

http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-FBQ...UTF8&qid=1447018306&sr=1-3&keywords=equalizer

 

[Flint]

That should work just fine.

In Austin there are dozens of cheaper traditional stereo EQs on Craigslist selling for less than $50. It may be work checking in your area. The Audio Control brand are the best quality for the money, if there are any available.

 

[Haywood]

There was very little on Craigslist here. The cheapest one I found was $50 for an old Kenwood about 15 miles away. I can get that EQ, some nice heavy rubber feet to stick under the speakers, a hundred feet of 16 AWG wire (roughly 30 to 35 feet per speaker) and a decently made RCA Y cable for about $94. If this works as well as I hope, it should be a nice little upgrade for $100. I'm also going to see what I can do to tweak the placement of my dipoles and I need to re-balance my system (the sub is too hot). I'm hoping I will be reasonably pleased when I am done, at least enough to tide me over for a few years.

I will likely do this project over the holidays while I'm home with some time to tinker.

Thanks again for all the great advice.

 

[Snake Doctor]

Scott, are you ready for some serious outside-the-box thinking?

Put one of your dipole speakers on each of the shelving units flanking your TV and wire both of them out-of-phase. While seated on the sofa, their sound will seemingly come from behind and above you.

Actually, I think this is the best solution. I did the same thing, the speakers will be effects and give you the sound, that I "think" you are looking for.

 

[Haywood]

I just got the EQ, RCA splitter and speaker wire from Amazon on Sunday and plan to set the whole think up next weekend. I also had to buy yet another sound level meter, because I cannot find my other two <sigh> and plan to re-level the entire system. I've never gotten the subwoofer entirely tuned to the room, so I plan to play with that as well. I hope I like what I hear when I'm done.

 

[Haywood]

Flint,

I got my new EQ and I knew just how to set it up:

:character-beavisbutthead:

 

[Haywood]

In all seriousness, I played around with the EQ for a long time and was not able to get anything close to a good timber match. I think the speakers I put back there are just too different from the rest to blend and I have to wonder if it wouldn't be worth a couple hundred bucks for some used Mini Monitors. I'm thinking the EQ might be up to compensating for the weird acoustics, but adding the difference in voicing is just too much. I'm going to wait until I spend some time with the current set up and see how it sounds under real use. What is glaringly obvious with white noise, might not matter as much with typical rear channel sound effects (though I'm afraid it might suck for multi-channel music).

 

[Flint]

You should be able to get close enough for ambience channels with just the EQ compensation. This is the approach I would take:

- First off, ignore everything above 10kHz and below 200Hz.
- Adjust your specific EQ to the 6dB range and turn on the low cut filter.
- set the bottom two EQ sliders to -6dB
- set the top two EQ sliders to -6dB
- put the rest of the sliders in the middle
- play a pink noise signal into mains speakers then into the EQ'ed speakers and try boosting and cutting the 250 Hz slider until you recignize how that range is reflected in the sound and how its level can be similar or very different from the mains.
- repeat the futzing around with each slider until you get a feel for how each frequency range reflects similarities or differences from the tonality of the pink noise in the main speakers.
- set the middle bands back to the center positions, take a break, then come back and try to.adjust accordingly to match the sound of the mains using pink noise.

Faster way:
- if you have access to a RTA or other response.measuring tool, like REW, then use that to record the response of the mains and then the response of the ambient chanels.
- note the difference at each of the frequencies of the EQ and then adjust in the opposite direction each EQ slider to compensate.
- measure again and.make adjustments until you are as close as.possible from about 200Hz to 8,000Hz.

 

[Haywood]

You should be able to get close enough for ambience channels with just the EQ compensation. This is the approach I would take:

- First off, ignore everything above 10kHz and below 200Hz.
- Adjust your specific EQ to the 6dB range and turn on the low cut filter.
- set the bottom two EQ sliders to -6dB
- set the top two EQ sliders to -6dB
- put the rest of the sliders in the middle
- play a pink noise signal into mains speakers then into the EQ'ed speakers and try boosting and cutting the 250 Hz slider until you recignize how that range is reflected in the sound and how its level can be similar or very different from the mains.
- repeat the futzing around with each slider until you get a feel for how each frequency range reflects similarities or differences from the tonality of the pink noise in the main speakers.
- set the middle bands back to the center positions, take a break, then come back and try to.adjust accordingly to match the sound of the mains using pink noise.

Faster way:
- if you have access to a RTA or other response.measuring tool, like REW, then use that to record the response of the mains and then the response of the ambient chanels.
- note the difference at each of the frequencies of the EQ and then adjust in the opposite direction each EQ slider to compensate.
- measure again and.make adjustments until you are as close as.possible from about 200Hz to 8,000Hz.

That is hugely useful advice. I will give it a try. I do not have RTA, so I'll have to do it the harder way. It is really nice to have a methodology to follow. I was doing it entirely by trial and error, starting with everything at zero. I ended up boosting the upper frequencies and cutting the lower ones, but I never got it to blend the way I wanted to. I will let you know how it turns out doing it your way (it most certainly can't be worse).

 

[Flint]

There are some free RTA apps for.smart phone, maybe you could try one of those. Just use pen and paper to draw the general repsonse curve for each speaker, then try to adjust the EQ to match the mains as closely as possible. Once you are close on paper, fine tune by ear.

 

[Haywood]

There are some free RTA apps for.smart phone, maybe you could try one of those. Just use pen and paper to draw the general repsonse curve for each speaker, then try to adjust the EQ to match the mains as closely as possible. Once you are close on paper, fine tune by ear.

I found a great app with all the features I needed for $5.49 and it made all the difference in the world. I got it dialed in much closer and it sounds quite a lot better. This is what the EQ ended up looking like:

 

[Flint]

That looks about right for a speaker placed close to large reflective barriers, like on the floor against the wall.

Personally, I would cut 63Hz to -12dB just to reduce any distortion or risk of overload.

Groovy!

Remember, this is an ambient plan, not a plan to create that magically immersive perfect 3D surround which would require a completely different room. If you are experiencing that bit of enhanced rear ambience, then you have succeeded!!!

 

[Haywood]

That looks about right for a speaker placed close to large reflective barriers, like on the floor against the wall.

Personally, I would cut 63Hz to -12dB just to reduce any distortion or risk of overload.

Groovy!

Remember, this is an ambient plan, not a plan to create that magically immersive perfect 3D surround which would require a completely different room. If you are experiencing that bit of enhanced rear ambience, then you have succeeded!!!

What I'm after is envelopment, not spot perfect sound placement. I know I'm a bit screwed by my room. I'm just trying to make lemonade until I can get a better place in a few years. The bitch about living in Massachusetts is that any house I actually want to buy is at least $600k and a good hour-plus commute. If I didn't have family in New England, I never would have moved back here.

 

[Flint]

So... how does it sound?

 

[Haywood]

I haven't actually had time to spend much time doing demos yet. I've been kind of occupied dial it in, taking pictures, dealing with some parenting issues, getting the room ready for the Christmas tree, etc. I'm hoping to watch something later tonight though.

 

[Haywood]

The verdict is in. Between pulling the couch out from the wall a foot, moving the right surround to a stand, moving both side surrounds out from the rear wall, adding the rear surrounds behind the couch (with proper EQ) and re-leveling the entire system, the end result is an enormous improvement. This is the best my system has sounded since Florida. I am extremely happy with the improvement. Is it my dream setup? No. Is it vastly better and good enough to keep me happy until I can buy a house with a good basement and build a theater? Yes. That is important, because the soonest it can happen is 2019.

 

[Deerhunter]

Sweet! Very nice

I just got back into town, for the holidays and have enjoyed reading this. Once I get my house I think that is the way I will have to set up my stuff as well. Looks like I will have to buy a separate amp to drive the rear to do so. Since I only have a Denon revicer, and 5.1 Monitor 11 and mini for the rear.

Question, when I do this should I plug the port on the mini monitors?