You know, we have a lovely and very interesting house. But one thing that makes setting up audio systems here a little bit different, some would say more difficult, is that we do not have rectangular rooms.
The small room setup [listening room 3]
Oh yes, some will say we have it easier, but I say that 1) we still get unwanted side-to-side sound wave reinforcement and 2) most speakers were designed for rooms with a front wall [except those that were designed to go out in the middle of the room i.e most dipoles and most rear-ported speakers].
So here we have the Audio Note speakers. Designed to go into a corner. But we have no corners.
We do put them out from the walls, in the ‘middle of the room’, like a plain-old rear ported speaker – and that works as expected. Excellent imaging [superb actually], soundstage depth, transparency etc. But not as much bass as most speakers that were designed to go into the middle of the room would have.
So. What to do. What to do.
We tried making [in our feeble minds] corners out of the octagonal angles of the room and angling them this way and that. It kind-of-works.
The larger room [listening room 2]
We tried putting thm against the long walls [in our smaller room, not in the larger one yet]. It kind-of-works.
Then, somehow, I plucked down the heavy crossovers and let Neli do-with-them-what-she-will.
And, continuing the theme of the CES setup, with them towed in so much that they cross in front of the listener, she put them in parallel with one of the smaller octagonal walls. [See photos].
And it works! In my experience it works as well or better than putting them in the corners in rooms that have corners. There is bass reinforcement, but it is tight bass, unobtrusive bass. And there is still quite a bit of imaging and soundstaging – and almost all positions in the listening area, from wall-to-wall, have a good sense of a center image [all except where the one of the speakers is pointing right at you].
Anyway, for all of you who have octagonal rooms and Audio Note [or rear ported] speakers – you should really try this 🙂
