Recently I tried again to put the speakers closer together. I had them pretty far apart, 8.1 ft tweeter to tweeter (with distance of about 8.6 ft from ear to tweeter) because I wanted to have a wide soundstage. They had already moved closer together by two inches from my original position, with no drawbacks. Yet when I tried to move them even further together at the end of last year, soundstage width diminished noticeably, not to my liking.
Since the distance between speakers can influence tonality, about 10 days ago I performed another test. This time I moved the speakers a full four inches closer together (ca. 7.7 feet tweeter to tweeter), two inches on each side, while more or less keeping toe-in the same. With the change, the distance tweeter to ear was also reduced, at no change of listening position.
As for soundstage width and overall size, this produced an outcome unlike my earlier attempts: On a number of recordings of orchestral music (where width especially matters to me) apparent width did not seem affected at all, as far as I could tell, with perhaps an exception on just a few recordings. The system still threw a large soundstage (including depth). I listened for this in the dark, as I now usually do anyway, thus eliminating the visual influence of seeing the speakers closer together.
Peter A reasonably suggested that the greater toe out of the speakers that I have now (see above) makes moving them closer together more immune to a reduction of perceived soundstage width. Perhaps a superior spatial presentation and imaging by my Octave HP 700 preamp, which in April replaced a Pass B1 buffer, also plays a role. I cannot exclude the possibility that the installation of ceiling diffusers earlier this year may be partially responsible as well for the lack of influence on perceived width on orchestral music by moving the speakers closer together. -- On chamber music recordings, on the other hand, the perceived width is somewhat reduced, which is actually beneficial for realism.
What I did notice right away was improved tone on orchestral massed violins, yet another step forward in what already had been very good, in some cases astonishingly so. There was a somewhat softer 'edge' to their sound, including when they play fortissimo, which appears to be closer to the real thing. 'Silkiness' of sound further increased. On the other hand, cutting brass retained all its fierce intensity with the new speaker position. Some string sound that was problematic, like on my favorite complete Haydn symphonies set with Dennis Russel-Davies conducting the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, recordings that are otherwise excellent in terms of transparency of simultaneous musical lines, now moved partially into the rather believable column (depending on the particular symphony recorded). String sound that already seemed astoundingly good, like on the early Naxos recording from 1990 of Mozart Symphony No. 40 with the Capella Istropolitana under Barry Wordsworth, now seemed superb.
Distortion notably decreased. The forte violins after about 30 seconds into the above Mozart symphony recording now were clean, while they slightly distorted prior to the speaker position change. Also a number of other distortions vanished or substantially decreased, once more showing that the speakers can play much louder without distortion than I had initially given them credit for. Apparently the speakers previously had been too close to the side walls. Again, never underestimate the contribution of room acoustics to the sound.
While the tonal balance was not influenced very much, tonal depth and tonal density increased with the change of speaker positioning, further increasing realism.
Finally, a week later I also changed the level of toe in at the new speaker position. The speakers are now toed out even more than before, so that the angle of toe in is only about 10-15 degrees. The image below shows the view of the right speaker from the listening position. String quartet sound became yet again a touch more wooden, and the sound of massed orchestral violins improved even further. It is now 'toned down' in upper harmonics even more and sounds 'thicker', closer to what I typically hear live. At the same time, the sound acquires more of a feathery 'see-through' quality, also closer to live. This is very much in antithesis to the old feared 'digital brickwall' massed string sound; optimized playback and set-up shows that Redbook digital has come a long way! -- Interestingly, high pitched metallic percussion, such as triangles, rings through just as much as before.
It will be interesting to experiment with speaker set-up even further. I keep enjoying the discovery of just how much these speakers, and the system as a whole, have to offer. I had known already a long while ago that these speakers were keepers, and each improvement in system or set-up only confirms this assessment even more. They are just so impressive and enjoyable, on any musical genre, especially combined with high-quality subwoofers.
