Another speaker placement question

[Hilroy48]

In my room i have placed my speaker as best i can with reading and trial and error. The middle of my speakers, Confidence 20's are just at the front of my racks of gear. Is there a definite rule of having your speakers ahead of your racks or gear? I have isolation on everything, and do believe that there is no vibration being sent through the gear to cause reverb. Is there a rule of thumb for this? My triangle is 8 feet between the speakers, and then 9 feet back from where i sit. My room is 13'x 21'. This setup offers a lovely soundstage and it is comforting to listen to? Should i mess around with this or leave it alone? I know each room is unique.

 

[sbnx]

In order of preference: have you gear off to the side. But this requires a long cable run. If you have to have it between the speakers have the gear as low as possible. Your speakers belong where they work best with the room.

have you read “get better sound”? Have you found the optimum seating position for best bass response? If so the the next step is to take the left speaker and start pulling it forward until it locks with the room (there are several positions that this will happen). Find the one that gives great muds in addition to great bass. Then tweak until the highs come in. Then match the right to the left.

 

[Brad Lunde]

Hilroy 48:
A triangle is ideal and maybe you could move 1 foot closer and see what happens?

Yes, anything that could cause a reflection from the direct output of the speaker will do something, although it could be minor and hard to hear. That's the wonder of moving speakers, you can test it with your own ears easily.

Try this test: put both speakers on one side, one in one position, one in another position that might be proposed locations for that side. Then feed them both mono pink noise. Using your balance control, change output from one to the other and you were for certain here a difference in the speakers sound as the pink noise changes based on reflections. Now switch to mono music and try the same thing. You can switch the process to the other side and see which speaker position sounds better. Then after you figured out what's best, locate both speakers as close to that positions you can, maintaining the triangle, minimizing cable length etc..

Usually reflections (causing phase cancellation) mess with the overall tone and image. The #1 goal is to avoid the initial reflections from side walls, so getting speakers away from side walls is important. It's very easy to get a good sound from speakers when placed in a very large room far away from walls. Minimizing the amount of energy sent to large highly reflective surfaces like glass, or tile, or concrete, can make a big difference.

Brad