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What am I hearing ?

Posted by Ross (A) on February 22, 2025 at 20:16:17

I decided to experiment with speaker position earlier today.

My speakers are KEF LS50, and room size is 12ft x 30ft. Roughly one side is set up as my listening space, with LP shelves taking up most of the front wall, and equipment shelves on the 2 side walls. The other side of of the room is my office.

My usual speaker position was determined by the using Cardas web site calculator. About 5ft from the LP shelves, and about 3 ft from each side wall, with 5ft between the speakers. My seating position is about 6 ft from the centerline of the speakers. Near field.

Plus- pinpoint imaging with excellent soundstage placement. I can hear depth, height, low level detail and micro dynamics.

Minus- overall image is not very big. Bass can be better because the speaker location is in a null.

I spent time today trying to determine a better speaker position. I used a pr of AR3s speakers, and played a 40hz tone while moving the ARs around until they were firmly in a node area. Location is about 18 inches from the LP shelves, or 3.5 ft closer to the shelves. Rather than move my chair much closer to the speakers, I decided to keep my chair in its current location which is now about 9.5 ft from the centerline of the speakers.

These changes completely altered what I hear. I played several LPs over a 3hr period, including a few tunes that I am very familiar with.

Plus- soundstage is much wider, extending beyond the speaker location. Bass sounds more extended- bass lines are easily heard. Stereo image is bigger and approximately lifesize. Sound placement within the image is easier to determine. The scale of the image, and musician placement sounds like a real performance.

Minus- much less depth, in fact the soundstage sounds flat. Much more difficult to hear low level and micro details that were previously much easier to hear. The image, while wider and bigger is less clear and sounds slightly opaque.

What am I hearing ? Why did the soundstage flatten, why did micro dynamics just about disappear and why does the image sound opaque ?

Thanks !

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