On Fri, 01 May 2009 09:26:27 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article 49ffc915.1207934406@localhost, Don Pearce
wrote:
On Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:51:41 +0100, Jim Lesurf
wrote:


My finding on this is that the sweet spot can be enlarged usefully if
you stop worrying about symmetry, but instead concentrate on creating
diffuse reflections rather than specular ones, particularly from the
walls beside the speakers. With that taken care of, pointing the
speakers a little straighter into the room rather than crossing
exactly at the seating position can make them cover three seats with
solid imaging.

My experience with that is that it also 'blurs out' the images for
specific instruments/voices. So you end up moving towards the old
'Sonab' experience where you got etherial noises from around you
wherever you went. They regarded that as 'stereo', but I don't.


That happens if you try to angle the speakers too far from crossing, but
if you just make it a few degree, so the beams hit the listening
position roughly midway between two listeners, all is well.

I was really referring to the first part of what you wrote above. I do
agree with the second part, but find it requires a larger room than I have.
:-)

You don't get a huge sweet spot, but certainly three people on one
settee is quite possible.

Never found that possible in the rooms of houses I've lived in TBH.

And it is dead easy to realign them properly when you are listening
alone, of course.

Again, I've not found that. It is easy enough to place the *speakers*
symmetrically wrt the listener. But the results do still depend on the
surroundings. These can be less easy to get optimised. My experience is
that it takes me a few weeks to get the system optimised if I setup in a
new room, even when the room is primarily dedicated to stereo listening.
But I may be ultra-fussy about this having found out just how good the
results can be in you are willing to work at it for that long, etc. :-)

Above said, I do find that you can get excellent results with the ESLs
quite quickly in many rooms. Given quick symmetry the results do tend to
beat cone-and-box speakers with ease, but I've found that continued
experiment generally provides improvements.

Slainte,

Jim

Well, I have to admit that the living room where I spent several hours
playing with placement of the ESLs was about 70 feet long and 30 wide,
so angling out to include three people did not involve much of an
angular change. Never tried the same in a small room.

d

Jim Lesurf wrote:
In article , Keith G
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G

The impressive thing was that Led Zep sounded the same with a couple
of feet of flames emerging from the center of the speaker - for a
while...
:-)


That would certainly be a sight to behold, but I've never deliberately
listened to Led Zep and don't know their stuff, so I can't say it would
have been an improvement!

I was using them purely as an expletive loud test signal. Interestingly,
the result sounded much the same even when squared off by clipping. :-)

That must have been the second album, or the latest remasters on the
'Motherhood' compilation.
Plenty of dynamic range on everything else.

--
Eiron.

In article , Keith G
scribeth thus

"tony sayer" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G
scribeth thus

"tony sayer" wrote


Those proper Tannoy's or the newer ones?...


Newer ones - triangular cabinets.

Not proper ones then like GRF's ...


They are '609's I believe.

I had a pair of those GRF monsters given to me when we moved in, but I put
them in a skip when someone here posted here that 'all old Tannoys were
crap' or summat similar - a pity as they looked to be in perfect
condition....

;-)




They seem to fetch very good money on e-bay..

Seen a pair of Arden's the other day in a lock up garage just wondering
of I ought...

SWMBO sez we've enough speakers as it is;(...
--
Tony Sayer

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G


The impressive thing was that Led Zep sounded the same with a couple
of feet of flames emerging from the center of the speaker - for a
while...
:-)


That would certainly be a sight to behold, but I've never deliberately
listened to Led Zep and don't know their stuff, so I can't say it would
have been an improvement!

I was using them purely as an expletive loud test signal. Interestingly,
the result sounded much the same even when squared off by clipping. :-)


I appear to have 66 tracks/4 albums of them in my MP3s. I just ran up 'Night
Flight' and 'Four Sticks' and couldn't listen to more than a few seconds of
them - hopping through the tracks!

It'll be me, I daresay - I know they are/were very popular!

(Bit more interested in Dragonetti atm, tbh! :-)

Try this for a taster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYIpC27v22o

There's some amazing high notes - never mind the bass!

"tony sayer" wrote


They seem to fetch very good money on e-bay..


Yep! Always! No such thing as *bargain Tannoys* on eBay - you've gotta find
'em in someone's....


Seen a pair of Arden's the other day in a lock up garage


......attic or lock up garage....

(Spooky....)


....for peanuts....



just wondering
of I ought...


Of course you bloody *ought* - how will yo know if you don't grab 'em -
provided they are sill cheap. If you don't like them or they need too much
work you can knock them out on eBay. You'll have no trouble selling them
*collected*!!


SWMBO sez we've enough speakers as it is;(...


Sure and life is too short....


Well, we've just fed the fox and now it's time to try out the new *full HD*
1080 PJ!! Latest Terninator and Star Trek trailers to start with - both
filmed at the Valasquez rocks at some point, I suspect! (Where the Cisco Kid
used to ride!! :-)

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...


I've also seen that. Also that they would drive two ESLs in antiphase
to check they could null the two outputs at the mic to confirm the two
speakers were near identical in performance.

How is that so hard - I would expect that with Lowthers?

Try it. Put the mic at the same distance (say 2m) from both, and drive the
pair in antiphase at the same level. Try doing this in your listening room
and if possible compare with doing it outside.

The problems a

A) most 'pairs' of speakers aren't actually that well matched in
sensitivity, frequency response, etc.


How much does that matter in most 'domestic' applications?



B) most chuck the power all over the room with a very poorly controlled
directionality pattern.


Again, what odds to anyone prepared only to pay as little as possible for
'budget' speakers?

That said, the budget Wharfedales. KEFs, Quads, B&Ws and Tannoy
standmounters I tried a while back (all mentioned here at the time, in their
time) were (IMO) sonically excellent and ludicrously good VFM - and I could
have lived with any of them!



I was seeing the quads doing this 'on the factory floor'.

if you can play antiphase music, sit in the listening position and hear
nothing (or very faint) until you switch back to inphase mono, then your
system probably can give very good imaging. But if not, then you may find
the imaging isn't what it could be. Depends on the details, though, so
isn't that simple to assess.

This is one of the tests I tend to do when fiddling with speaker/room
setup
to assess if I am close to a good arrangement. Can be quite revealing.


OK, that is all very interesting but I'm going to spare myself the effort -
I 'swing the other way' and don't care about any speaker disparity I can't
really hear. I remember that I had one each of two of those pairs of speaker
mentioned above (I think the Wharfedal Diamonds and KEF Cresta 2s) wired up
for a while (one brand on the left, the other on the right and never noticed
anything. I'd bet no-one here would have noticed either!

The 'horns' can be shoved into almost any postion (provided there's one on
the left and one on the right somewhere) and the 'image' might move a bit
but it's quite academic - the music exists independently of the speakers,
wherever they are - up to a point, obviously! (Like I said the other day -
my 'sweet spot' is all the way from my room out to the back door!! :-)

In article ,
Keith G wrote:
OK, that is all very interesting but I'm going to spare myself the
effort - I 'swing the other way' and don't care about any speaker
disparity I can't really hear. I remember that I had one each of two of
those pairs of speaker mentioned above (I think the Wharfedal Diamonds
and KEF Cresta 2s) wired up for a while (one brand on the left, the
other on the right and never noticed anything. I'd bet no-one here
would have noticed either!

The 'horns' can be shoved into almost any postion (provided there's one
on the left and one on the right somewhere) and the 'image' might move a
bit but it's quite academic - the music exists independently of the
speakers, wherever they are - up to a point, obviously! (Like I said the
other day - my 'sweet spot' is all the way from my room out to the back
door!! :-)

You obviously have never experienced decent stereo. Where you can position
things across the sound stage as if you were there. And depending on the
recording from above or even behind. Without it just sounding like an
extra loudspeaker or two behind you as do all the '5.1' etc systems.

You bandy words like 'depth' etc without knowing what they mean.

You can only experience this sort of stereo with well matched and designed
speakers in a decent listening room. Not a cat in hell's chance with horns.

--
*I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
"Keith G" wrote:

(Bit more interested in Dragonetti atm, tbh! :-)

The double bass composer?

Stephen

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Keith G wrote:
OK, that is all very interesting but I'm going to spare myself the
effort - I 'swing the other way' and don't care about any speaker
disparity I can't really hear. I remember that I had one each of two of
those pairs of speaker mentioned above (I think the Wharfedal Diamonds
and KEF Cresta 2s) wired up for a while (one brand on the left, the
other on the right and never noticed anything. I'd bet no-one here
would have noticed either!

The 'horns' can be shoved into almost any postion (provided there's one
on the left and one on the right somewhere) and the 'image' might move a
bit but it's quite academic - the music exists independently of the
speakers, wherever they are - up to a point, obviously! (Like I said the
other day - my 'sweet spot' is all the way from my room out to the back
door!! :-)

You obviously have never experienced decent stereo. Where you can position
things across the sound stage as if you were there. And depending on the
recording from above or even behind. Without it just sounding like an
extra loudspeaker or two behind you as do all the '5.1' etc systems.

You bandy words like 'depth' etc without knowing what they mean.


Doesn't it (depth) just mean some sort of spatial representation of
sound? Like an instrument at the front, another a couple of feet behind,
a vocalist over there on the left, towards the back?

Rob

In article , Keith G
wrote:

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...

How is that so hard - I would expect that with Lowthers?

Try it. Put the mic at the same distance (say 2m) from both, and drive
the pair in antiphase at the same level. Try doing this in your
listening room and if possible compare with doing it outside.

The problems a

A) most 'pairs' of speakers aren't actually that well matched in
sensitivity, frequency response, etc.


How much does that matter in most 'domestic' applications?

Means the two waveforms won't be 'mirro images' so won't null. Also means
that a nominally 'central mono' sound won't actually arrive as such at the
listening location as the contributions from each loudspeaker will vary
with frequency, etc, in a complex way. Thus, as with poor room acoustics,
tends to blur out the stereo image.


B) most chuck the power all over the room with a very poorly
controlled directionality pattern.


Again, what odds to anyone prepared only to pay as little as possible
for 'budget' speakers?

None. Just that the user won't be hearing clear stereo imaging. If they
have never heard this, or don't even know it is possible, then it may not
matter. Similary, if someone has heard this and doesn't wish it, then it
doesn't matter. However TBH I've never found anyone who listens to
classical/jazz/etc where the image is of a nominally 'real' acoustic layout
who didn't like this when they heard it.

The 'horns' can be shoved into almost any postion (provided there's one
on the left and one on the right somewhere) and the 'image' might move
a bit but it's quite academic - the music exists independently of the
speakers, wherever they are - up to a point, obviously! (Like I said
the other day - my 'sweet spot' is all the way from my room out to the
back door!! :-)

That's fine. But isn't the kind of stereo imaging I have been talking
about, and hear from the main system I use. I would not be without this,
but if you don't need it, it will make your life easier. :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Change 'noise' to 'jcgl' if you wish to email me.
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