Speaker Placement Tuning

We use the Tune Method to evaluate performance

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springwood64
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Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by springwood64 »

No forum is complete without a detailed discussion on speaker placement :) If I've missed an existing thread please point me in the right direction. I put one on the old Linn Forum but someone cruelly deleted the entire forum.

I've been through this process about 4 times, with a few years between each iteration, and each time it is like I'm learning it all again.

A few years ago I bought Jim Smith's "Get Better Sound" which provides a detailed step by step speaker placement tuning approach, and I found it really helpful.

Unfortunately the book piskies have hidden my copy and I can't find it anywhere, so I'm going to try and repeat the process from memory, but with one difference: I plan to rely on video clips to supplement my audio memory for before and after comparisons.

My recollection of the process is this:
  1. Assume a reasonable starting point with zero toe-in and speakers all symmetric, level & vertical (I think my current speaker positions are probably not too far off)
  2. Use tape to mark on the floor a centre line from the centre between the speakers to the listening position with regular accurate perpendicular divisions every 10cm or so. Measure these accurately so that these can be used as references instead of time-consuming individual measurements between the speakers and walls (or other reference point)
  3. Start by using bass to tune the distance between speakers and listening position. Move the speakers backwards and forwards until bass is at its most tuneful. I recall finding a few false peaks, and the optimal position can take quite small movements (<1cm) to find.
  4. Once the optimal position for bass is found, move the speakers wider or narrower without changing the perpendicular distance to the listening position to tune the mid/high tones. As for bass position be prepared for false peaks and the optimal position is likely to be found within quite a small range.
  5. Finally for imaging, tune the toe in.
Keep the speakers symmetric with respect to the listening position at all times.,

Music I've used include Fleetwood Mac "The Chain" for bass and Cowboy Junkies "Trinity Sessions" or Chieftains "Tears of Stone" for mid/high tones.

Any suggestions? Does this sound right? I think it generally takes me a few hours to do. much to the bafflement of my family.
Last edited by springwood64 on 2020-10-15 12:10, edited 1 time in total.
Pete

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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by springwood64 »

If I'm using familiar music to judge changes, am I really able to use tune method? Will my familiarisation with the music compromise my ability to detect differences in timing?

I suspect that I should use a different unfamiliar tune for each change, but I'm not sure how practical this would be.

How do other people do it?
Pete

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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by Discodave »

Hi Pete
I too advocate your process. I use blue tac instead of tape but who cares. It's all about making the job less onerous, efficient and effective.

The tunes you use are best for you as you know them, easy to translate into a result based on this. Personally, I dont use different songs for different frequencies although I used to. I simply base my testing on tunedem (or my approximation of it). So whatever is most musical I leave it at that. I tend to find that once pinpointed everything else falls into place. Therefore for me MJ and Quincy " Dont stop till you get enough" is my default. There are so many stems in this song that it is easier to be more accurate as so much can sound out of place. When Frederik was demoing his various amps in Ireland (Lisburn) I nigh on demanded it be played lol. Made it so much easier for me to see differences through Boazu, Tundra variations. Most important; each to their own in this regard.

I tend to find that with my Majik 109s any toein benefits imaging at the expense of musicality so I leave alone.

Hope this helps.
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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by springwood64 »

Pete

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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by springwood64 »

I think I have a challenge on my hands. My house is timber, and internal walls are all plasterboard with a service cavity behind.

I think my living room is echoing frequencies close to 50Hz back as a smear of 8Hz and below.

Any suggestions for remediation?
Screenshot_20201101-154938.png
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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by Spannko »

I always find these plots interesting, but tbh, they’re useless for helping us to set up our systems!

The only approach that works (musicality speaking) is comparing the systems ability to play rhythms n tunes before and after moving the speakers.

However, the plots can help to identify potential room problems which may require a bit of treatment, but any changes to the room must be checked again for musicality!
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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by springwood64 »

I agree. However, above a certain point, increased volume causes a sharp degradation in musicality and I was trying to figure out why
Pete

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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by Spannko »

OK, I’m with you now. I didn’t notice the two frequency responses were recorded at different levels, and I can see the 6-10kHz lift on the louder plot you were wondering about.

The spectrogram appears to tell a different story though. The 6-10kHz region appears to change very little as the sound decays.

Can you show a spectrogram which plots amplitude, frequency and time to see if there’s any problems with sound hanging around for too long in that 6-10kHz region? Or a waterfall? Looking at the waterfall and the spectrogram together might show something up.
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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by gabrielbecheanu »

For me the best way to place my speakers was a CD made by Reference Recordings: Test XLO.
Most important before use this cd to place the speakers on the right position in the room. A few readings about acustics is very important, to understand the baseics
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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by lejonklou »

gabrielbecheanu wrote: 2020-11-26 11:22 For me the best way to place my speakers was a CD made by Reference Recordings: Test XLO.
Most important before use this cd to place the speakers on the right position in the room. A few readings about acustics is very important, to understand the baseics
Hello Gabriel and welcome to the forum!

You are 100% wrong in the above.
There is zero need for any reference recording and zero need for any understanding of physics to optimally position your loudspeakers in the room.

I have written about how to properly do it here:
https://lejonklou.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... bio#p39464
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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by gabrielbecheanu »

What you wrote there is very correct, but you need a lot of time and a lot of attempts to get a correct positioning. I said about this cd produced by Refferance recordings because I can position the speakers in the room very easily and quickly.
When I said you need to read a little about acoustics, I was referring to some basic rules in positioning speakers in a room, such as the distance between speakers and walls, symmetries and more.
In the end, it is not the method that matters, but the result.
What I wrote on the forum is my personal experience, maybe 100% wrong from your point of view.

Believe me, I read and experimented a lot about positioning the speakers in the room, including your recommendations, which I do not dispute.

Thanks
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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by lejonklou »

Thanks for the explanation.

I would love it if there was a faster way than listening to music and using the Tune Method, but I don't believe there is. Lots of people have used this method, for several decades, and many have worked on possible shortcuts, using test tones, measurements, mathematics, etc. But they have never yielded anything even close to the same result.

Hence my reflexive dismissal of your post. That said, I would certainly not mind watching you do it and hearing the result. Perhaps a speaker installation battle, recorded and put on the forum? That would be fun.
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Re: Speaker Placement Tuning

Post by springwood64 »

Tuning the speaker positions (these are Linn Espeks) I've noticed an oddity in the process and wondered if this is something any of you more experienced tuners have found:

With zero toe in I tuned the distance to the back wall. It was reasonably easy to find the best point. I tested a range of 15cm to 60cm and ended up at 37.8

I was selecting for bass and at this point the bass is precise and tuneful, and the bloom that appears at shorter distances sharply disappears. The difference between longer and shorter distances was easy to hear and the best position is notably better within 3-5mm.

I tuned separation, listening for tune of vocals and guitar mainly, but this was harder. The differences seemed subtler over large distances but I seemed to stumble on a point that was sharply better, again to within a few mm.

I then tuned toe in, again listening for vocals and guitar, and this was easier than separation.

However, bass was now generating considerable boom.

Keeping the toe in and separation precisely aligned, I revisited the rear wall distance. This time it was completely different to the first time.

I struggled to hear a difference until I moved the speakers to within a cm of one of the worst positions I found first time around (when positioning with zero toe in) : 42cm. Again the better position was sharply better.

I ended up at 42.3cm and now the speakers sound amazing.

What puzzles me is that the toe in seems to have required a change in rear distance of 4.5cm, a position that according to my notes was initially quite poor with zero toe in.

Also, I did not feel I was getting closer to the right position, I seemed to hit a narrow sweet spot hiding in among very similar poor positions.

Instead of using initially large changes in position and then zooming in, should I systematically check at each cm position for these coy sweet spots?
Pete

Linn Axis, Kinki, Källa (GS308T+Amplifi HD x 2 + BJC), Boazu, Espeks
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