Its all about the Room and Speaker Placement

Room Acoustics Play a Vital part in your Hifi setup

Ahhhh so you are on your quest for getting your first Audio or Home Theatre Setup put together. 

You probably visited a specialist audio shop and probably drooled over speakers from the likes of Dali, Bowers and Wilkins ( B&W), Revel, Tannoy, Dynaudio, Focal, Paradigm etc. 

With all purchases in life everything comes with a budget and most often than not its a shoestring budget .

So well you going about listening to various speakers in your budget and narrow it down to a particular set of floorstanding speakers that sounded brilliant to you as well as aesthetically pleasing and is something you can afford 

Most important it got the Wife acceptance Factor (WAF)..... So your wife approves on the spend

You probably even buy a amp that the salesman says will match well with your speakers . You listen to the combo as well   at the showroom and pretty pleased with the overall performance and cant wait to get it delivered home and listen to your favorite tunes.

Yes you spent way over your initial budget but feel its a investment to bring you many hours of listening pleasure

The D - Day and your speakers and amp come home nicely boxed ... Like a little kid on Chirstmas. you immediately start opening up the cartons and get your speakers hooked on with good recommeded speakers  cables and a decent interconnects to connect your CD player to your Amp and now you are ready to listen to your First proper Hifi setup 

You decide to start off with Brothers in Arms from Dire Straits this is one of the songs you heard at the Hifi Specialist shop and it brought a huge grin on your face when you heard it there.

Mark Knopflers voice sounded realistic, the soundstage was huge, the high frequencies were just about perfect. you could hear each and every instrument being played and their location on the soundstage  

Anyway moving forward. the song starts playing. and it basically sounds likes crap and nothing compared to what you heard at the Shop.  

You decide to check if all the cables are connected properly ... Well everything does seem perfect.  

However your setup sounds nothing like what you heard at the showroom ,.  you do a search and find out that ok .. new speakers take some time to open up or rather burn in to start sounding their best. 

Several days/weeks / months pass and you are still not pleased with your rig... 

You even decide to your change your CD player to a more exotic one with the hope of an improvement.. Yes the overall sound has improved but still find something lacking. the soundstage is narrow, the bass is boomy and the High Frequency / Treble is way t bright and it hurts your ears or rather gives you ear fatigue after 30 minutes . 

It is still nowhere near the bliss sound  your initially heard when your first auditioned the speakers and amp  

You finally decide its time to change your speakers and upgrade to something better and the whole Saga starts again...

Whats Wrong ------ Its not your speakers or your Amplifier or your CD Player or your Speaker Cables ITS THE ROOM

Something that you failed to realize in the very first place.. Not all rooms are equal what can sound beautiful in a acoustically treated room can sound horrible in your house or for that matter the same setup sounds completely different in your friends house but sounds pathetic in your own house. You put the blame on your speakers your amplifier your CD player etc etc

Its not your speakers nor your amplifier its your ROOM...... 

Why room you may ask me .......
Well lets say you placed your speakers in your living room which is 10x15 (feet) with a 10 feet high ceiling . You have large french windows behind your listening spot as well as a window to a side with glass panes, 

Your room floor is tiled as well with no carpet and you have a nice glass center table as well which your wife bought on one of her shopping sprees

So basically a typical house 

Your speakers are 6 feet apart from each other and your sit 13 feet away from the speakers.

Now lets dissect the problem step by step. 

Why did your speaker sound bright and the treble overly pronounced. Well high frequencies reflect sound from reflective surfaces. so your shiny tiles on your floor are reflecting sound and so are your windows. your glass top is reflecting it as well as a result when the sound reaches you... what you are basically hearing is not sound emulating from the speaker itself . It your speaker along with Reflected sound from your floor and glass window panes. as well as walls. 

So that what makes it sound harsh and overly pronounced ... 

A look back into the AV showroom . They probably had carpet on the floor, No windows and Acoustic absorption sheets on the wall and the ceiling at key points.  

So what you were hearing was the speaker itself and practically close to no reflected sound.

Ways to correct your room . A carpet on your floor would be nice to avoid reflections  Thick drapes on your windows will suppress a bump in high frequencies being reflected. 

Adding acoustic panels in your living room would be a strict no -no with your wife and if you decide to still go ahead and put panels at key points in the room .I guess you would land up back in your parents house   kicked out of the house by your wife. Wife acceptance plays a very important part. 

Not many are fortunate to have a dedicated room for Audio and HT.  

Now coming down to the Narrow Soundstage, why everything sounds compressed.... Well again your speaker placement with respect to where you sit . 

Your speakers in the example are placed 6 feet apart and you 13 feet away from them .
The golden rule for a good stereo image is the Golden Triangle a little deviation from the GT is fine but not by a big margin. 

Your listenening spot at 13 feet away so now you know why the narrow soundstage. You are not sitting at the optimal position

Either sit closer or place the speakers further apart or experiment with toe in 

At the AV showroom the speakers were probably 8 feet apart with the listening chair 10 feet away couple with the already discussed room treatment and that why it did sound sublime . 

Now coming down to the boomy bass or rather hyped up bass ... Again your room . depending on the speakers and its port location as well as proximity to rear walls, side walls as well as room size plays a important part 

The salesman at the AV shop probably did not tell you this but in a mid sized to small room a Pair of Floorstanding speakers is a strict no-no . Similarly priced  2 way Bookshelf speakers would sound much better and give you more than adequate bass as well as better imaging  

However if you have a large room 200 sq feet or more. Then a floostanding / tower speaker is recommended as bookshelves are limited by their design and driver size to to fill a larger room especially with low frequencies   

Your speakers were probably rear ported if they were they were placed too close to the rear wall . so again the bass was reflecting off the rear wall as well as the sides wall. 

Your speaker was probably 1 feet away from the rear wall ., pull it forward 1.5 / 2 feet. Bass will get better defined. However another problem does arise 

If your speakers are 2 feet away from the side wall, IT SHOULD NOT be 2 feet way from the rear wall as well . it should be at unequal distances so lets say 2 feet from rear wall and 1.5 feet from side or vice versa 

You get the picture 

With front ported/ vented speakers the rule is the same however you can place them closer to the rear wall but still try to maintain at least a minimum or 1 to 1.5 feet from rear wall. 

Bass traps is a welcome addition if you can add it it will help tone down bass

Remember if the speaker is very close to the rear wall  the sound stage seems to collapse especially depth in sound image.

As mentioned before A Floor stander although better to look at is going to cause more harm than good in a small /mid size room . 

Every room has Bass nulls and peaks m certain frequency wavelengths get excited due to room dimensions and certain get suppressed  Getting a flat Bass freq response in a room is extremely difficult unless off course you can acoustically treat a room to negate this effect as much as possible. 

A Square Room is the worst room to place speakers. Rectangular shaped rooms a much better

 Most Audio Enthusiasts or also called Audiophiles (I don't really like this term though) spend a lot of time on speaker placement, toe in, room acoustics etc etc and extract as much as they can with their present gear.

Your speakers and amplifier with someone who is serious about audio and a Audio enthusiast and it would sound like a completely different animal in his room. Why because he has taken a lot of trouble and experimented a lot with the optimal placement, toe in , room acoustics and he is probably lucky because his room is just perfect for audio. 

Remember what you hear in a AV shop is not what you get. Its not like buying a car. 

However it is a baseline of what you can expect to hear if all variables such as room , placement, etc have been taken care off at home

Your budget setup if setup properly can sound way better than a badly setup audio rig that costs many $$$ more    

Remember there are no bad speakers especially from reputed manufacturers  from the likes of B&W , Tannoy, Mirage, PSB, Paradigm , KEF, Monitor Audio, Energy, Dali, Jamo, Defintive technology, Axiom Audio, Wharfedale, JBL, Morduant Short, Polk Audio,  etc etc etc etc  

However the same cannot be said for mass market brands like Lg, Philips, Panasonic, Samsung etc

At the end of the Day you get what you pay for, a Budget speaker from Morduant short Aviano series or Polk Tsi Series will not sound as good as the expensive B&W 800 diamond series or a mid priced Wharfedale Jade series or for that matter even from the same manufacturers high up series like the Morduant Short Mezzo series or Polk Lsi series

When it comes to buying Speakers and Amplifiers don't trust your friends decision , use his recommendations and suggestions and also look at a plethora of reviews on the internet. However the final decision should be yours. 

Because at the end of the day its your wallet that's becoming lighter and its your ears. What sounds good to your ears may not sound good to mine or vice versa