Speaker Placement and boundary problems

[prerich]

80skid and Lil' Louie made some good comments in another thread and I just wanted to bring it to full discussion here. The affect of boundaries and speaker placement. If it were a perfect world we would have no obstructions to our HT's - but seeing that most of our HT room's function as something else also (living room, den, ect...) or the room itself is the limitation, speaker placement becomes very critical.

I have seen speakers placed in corners (some belong there like K-Horns and Audio Note Sogons), but others actually need room to function properly like ML CLS, Mini monitors and the like. I see a lot of speakers that are set up like the BB and CC show rooms - however, they didn't take placement into consideration - they're trying to sell a box.

JJ has an excellent system with room treatments, but when I looked at his placement of his acoustic tiles - like another member, I began to question his placement. The mirror technique works (for the seated position or sweet spot - you need two people to do this, sit in the sweet spot and have another person hold a mirror an walk down the side walls - where the speakers come into view - you need a room treatment there). Bass also loads up in the corners so absorbant material is need there.

For imaging - speakers should be properly spaced apart (from each other and the front and side walls). Then if you use SDA speakers or Carver Sonic Holography a entire new realm of logistics comes into play.

The question I'm getting at is where does the trade off begin? We want our systems to sound the best - but the best stereo image would to theoretically place a wall down the center of your room to the listening point about a foot from your nose - one speaker on each side of the wall - no one is going to do that ! However we will go to some extremes to get the best sound. My setup is kinda ugly - but it sounds right (right is a subjective term by the way - the original performance is the represention of truth or right - if the original was bad - it should sound bad - think about that one for a minute). To what lenghts to we go with speaker placement? Do you use a measuring tape (I do) where do you measure from - center of the driver, outside edge of the cabinate ect..? Or do you just plop the speakers down, line them up and say I've got surround sound now. Or even worse - put the left and right speakers on the same side the center under the tv and the left and right surrounds next to each other (don't laugh I've seen this before) and proclaim you have "round sound". I think that with the combined knowlege here - we can start a serious discussion about speaker placement and boundaries (to include walls, sofas, furnishing - there effect on EQ's like the YPAO and Audussey - because they do)

OK its on, Chime in and start yappin'