WFS, CJ, Parasound, 20.7s

[Ray]

A photog I'm not... but here goes:

[ralphf]

The essential beauty comes through just fine. Very nice indeed.

[admin]

Awesome! Looks great. Your going to have to give us some more shots! May I ask how close you sit to the system. Do you think separating the speakers a little more would improve the soundstage? Those speakers are so large, I wonder if they are not a little too close?

[Ray]

Oh yea, by any normal reasoning, the things are tooooo close /tight in the room.
(Speakers right around 7 feet apart center to center, listening position approximately 8 ft. back from center plane of speakers.

To make a very very (several years) long story short, I was able to get a lovely wide, deep sound stage with the 3.7s in basically the same position.
..and again I'd always felt that the 3.7s were going to be way too big for the room.

The 20.7s are in the exact same position the 3.7s were, and I will likely widen them up a bit at some point. the 20.7s are behemoths and there is simply no way they should work in my small room.
However, I'm still getting a fantastic sharp/focused center image, with the sense that you could walk down the center into the stage, and nice wide beyond the speakers width.

All told, I've found it's the toe-in and the distance to the front wall that kill maggies, at least in my case. They are 5 feet out from the front wall (center of speaker) any closer and the sound stage starts going all hay-wire immediately.

My goal was to start with the identical setup as with the 3.7s, right down to the 1ohm Duelund cast in the tweeter and jumper on the mid-range. I'd hoped that this setup would give me a good starting point to begin tweaking the 20.7s. As it turns out, this setup is pretty darned good already and meets/exceeds everything I had with the 3.7s, so I'm content, for the moment at least to listen and let the speakers break in a bit more.

[admin]

Glad to hear that you made the setup work even with these HUGE speakers being relatively close. I have martin logan speakers which are clearly a different design (and much smaller) but nonetheless still have similar challenges of planar speakers. After a few weeks of listening I stool up while the music was playing and noticed that the when at standing height the sound was more rich and there was a better soundstage overall. I ended up elevating the rear of the speaker about 1/3 of an inch (to point them downwards) and there was a significant improvement in sound. I wasn't expecting the vertical dispersion to be an issue and had not thought of experimenting with it until I came upon the this by accident. Since your speakers are so tall and you sit "relatively" close, do you find the vertical dispersion ok? Have you tried listening at different vertical levels?

[Ray]

I'll have a quick listen on vertical position, I believe there have been mentioned some vertical sweet spots with magnepans, but I don't recall what and where I read it.
current position is just a bit below the mid position on the speakers.

[Ray]

I did today separate the speakers a bit more, Pushing 8' now speaker center to center. still around 8' or slightly more listening position.
I increased the toe-in by about an inch. (to keep the tweeter-center cross point just in front of listening position.

So far very nice. center images still focused and tight. depth as good or better.

...and my "Q-Sound" test recording is quite improved actually. (this is a recording by Roger Waters, "Amused to death") the sound stage on this recording basically starts at your left shoulder and continues along through the center over to your right shoulder. It's an uncanny effect to be sure. But generally speaking the recording is a good test for speaker positioning etc. the music isn't bad either Still need to do some vertical listening position testing.

[admin]

I did today separate the speakers a bit more, Pushing 8' now speaker center to center. still around 8' or slightly more listening position.
I increased the toe-in by about an inch. (to keep the tweeter-center cross point just in front of listening position.

So far very nice. center images still focused and tight. depth as good or better.

...and my "Q-Sound" test recording is quite improved actually. (this is a recording by Roger Waters, "Amused to death") the sound stage on this recording basically starts at your left shoulder and continues along through the center over to your right shoulder. It's an uncanny effect to be sure. But generally speaking the recording is a good test for speaker positioning etc. the music isn't bad either Still need to do some vertical listening position testing.

Glad to hear that the "optimizing" is working out well. It's funny that you mention that you use the "Amused to death" CD as a test as I often will use that too. Plus I agree, there are some really good songs on there.

You mentioned that you you use a "toe in" where the straight speaker sound intersects in front of you. As I mentioned before, I use Margin Logan electrostat speakers that are a different technology, but nonetheless still planar. With these, Martin Logan actually recommends a toe in where the speakers are focused slightly behind you. Meaning that the listener is sitting in front of the direct crossover spot of the two sound waves. Perhaps this does not apply to the 20.7's as it's completely flat while my ML Vantages have a curvierlinear design but still, if you have a chance, I would love to see how it sounds if you actually decreased the toe in so the crossover would be behind you, it would make for an interesting experiment.

[Ray]

My brother has MLs, which are fantastic and would be my choice in a heartbeat if Magnepan disappeared.

there are a few positioning options on the Maggies, first choice being tweeters on outside vs inside. I'd experimented with 3.6s originally and in my case I preferred tweeters in. With my own small room, tweeters in worked considerably better. Tweeters out generally from what I understand can be preferable with larger room, with a larger audience.

Depending again on actual seating position, I typically just adjust toe-in by making sure in rough terms the mid/base panels are 1 to 2" closer than the tweeter. It's not terribly critical, but other than if it's too far the other way, in my particular room, the center image focus is not as razor sharp.

[admin]

Another thing I notice with the positioning of my speakers is what is actually behind the speaker (not just distance from the wall). Even with my speakers more than 5 feet off the back wall, when I had a media rack up against the wall behind one of the speakers, there was a clearly audible difference between the left and right. It's a little difficult to tell from you picture, is the equipment behind your speakers symmetric?

I have found that acoustic treatments can help with planar speakers as the rear reflected sound wave is just as powerful as the forward wave. Have your experimented with any acoustic treatments? I can be as easy/cheap as putting curtains or a heavy blanket behind them temporarily to see the effect on the sound.

[pdjmwj]

Looks like you have an HTPC also in your system on the second shelf. Looks like a Lian Li case. I have one also.

[Ray]

Looks like you have an HTPC also in your system on the second shelf. Looks like a Lian Li case. I have one also.

Yes on the Lian Li, I've used this model (PC C37) a couple times now, it works very well for my needs!

[Ray]

My Brother had been working on a new shelf setup for my audio gear.
He's a part-time woodworking person, back in October or so he started working on it. 'not his day job, so it took awhile.

In any case, the raw-steel rack I'd been using has been replaced. I've no eye for such things, but I think they came out nice and surely better than what I had prior.

[jeffreybehr]

VERY nice, Ray! With the black all-thread and brass nuts, it sure looks classier than the one I built some years ago.


That DIY rack has been replaced with this.

...in process.

What wood are the shelves?

[Ray]

That had to be fun threading all those nuts down the support rods....or maybe not!

African Padauk with a few coats of Formby's Tung Oil Finish.
Lots of ways to go with the finish, but the time involved in this project was just way too much, so went with what seemed to be the simplest finish!