Room alcoves and speakers

[lostwin]

I have been thinking for a while about trying to move my system around in my room. Where it is currently there are three possible limitations. Firstly, the right hand speaker is quite close to the side wall giving a slight channel imbalance. Secondly, I could get the speakers further apart and finally the TT and rest of kit is between the speakers.

As I will be packing all my kit up to cart it to Stoke in a couple of weeks time maybe this becomes a good opportunity to consider some different options.

I think I have the luxury of 3 different ‘front wall’ options. The current, the window wall or the fireplace wall. The latter two have alcoves to consider- the window is in a large bay, the fire place with chimney alcoves about 35cm deep.

The speakers like to be about a foot from the wall behind. They would sit either side of the bay or within the chimney alcoves.

Room is fairly square if measured into the bay.

What impact do you think the alcoves would have particularly on bass? Does it make a difference to move the kit from between the speakers ? Presumably many of you have similar features to contend with, where would you put the speakers?

Some pictures to help - my daughter is moveable!

 

[Snoopdog]

Richard

If your speaker cables are long enough, I rather favour keeping your source components where they are, and moving the speakers to either side of the bay.

Any chance of relocating the sideboard to the left of your guitar?

What are the room dimensions please?

 

[tuga]

I'd throw the TV away and place one speaker to each side of the window.

 

[lostwin]

Consider all furniture moveable. Room is about 5.5m long 4.5m wide but 5.5 into bay. Ceiling height about 3m.

 

[johns]

The only sure way to know is try all the options, I'm only down the road from you if you fancy a day moving your kit around, I'd be happy to help.

 

[lostwin]

The only sure way to know is try all the options, I'm only down the road from you if you fancy a day moving your kit around, I'd be happy to help.

I think you a right and having the system broken down for the show makes it less daunting.

Two votes for speakers either side of the bay and I like the idea of keeping the rest of the kit close to where it is now as that means it’s good for the dedicated mains feed.

Nice to know of another Wammer in this part of the world, we are fairly thin on the ground. Would be good to catch up sometime and thanks for the offer of help.

 

[rabski]

Experimenting is the only sensible answer. I know what I'd advise if they were Living Voice, but the Snells are a bit of an unknown to me. I'd be slightly wary of the alcoves reinforcing bass too much, but trying them will soon show whether it's an issue.

I'd definitely try either side of the window, but a lot also depends on how far apart they need to be to produce the most coherent sound stage.

 

[tackleberry]

Either side of the bay window.

 

[karlsushi]

I am having palpitations looking at that beautiful Snell speaker so close to the door. Dear god.

 

[newlash09]

My vote will go to either side of the bay window, provided the tweeter to tweeter distance is equal to or lesser than the ear to tweeter distance.

 

[lostwin]

I am having palpitations looking at that beautiful Snell speaker so close to the door. Dear god.

there is a door stop screwed into the floor to prevent it hitting the speaker and the door itself then protects the speaker from those entering and exiting - so it is actually quite a safe arrangement. Appreciate your concern though!

 

[lostwin]

My vote will go to either side of the bay window, provided the tweeter to tweeter distance is equal to or lesser than the ear to tweeter distance.

Yes, that could prove the main limitation on this firing across the room arrangement. That window bay is 2.7m wide so speakers either side, even nestled close to the edge of the bay will have tweeters well over 3m apart. Tweeter to back wall distance would be around 3.8m, listening chair should be ideally 1m off back wall, so tight overall compared to firing down the room.

 

[karlsushi]

there is a door stop screwed into the floor to prevent it hitting the speaker and the door itself then protects the speaker from those entering and exiting - so it is actually quite a safe arrangement. Appreciate your concern though!

Phew.

Having seen all of the time and effort you've put into those Snells, I was sure there would have been safeguards in place, but thanks for confirming and at least I will sleep easy tonight now

 

[MVJ]

The only sure way to know is try all the options, I'm only down the road from you if you fancy a day moving your kit around, I'd be happy to help.

Thats the best of the wam right there

Nice one John have one of these...

 

[lostwin]

As a follow up question, does speaker toe in compensate for sitting closer to the speaker than their distance apart, or is it more complicated than that…?

 

[Jules_S]

I'd say probably not. Altering the toe-in will change the on / off-axis response of the tweeter so you may find the tonal balance alters, but too far apart and I think you'll still get that "hole-in-the-middle" effect. YMMV of course. Snell A's aren't exactly the smallest or lightest of speakers to shift around so appreciate that you may not want to experiment a lot with positioning, although as they're coming to Stoke I'm sure a few of us could lend a hand if you wanted to experiment with that setup in your show room on the Saturday? We could shift them around while you listen and see what you think, it may help you get an idea of what you could expect back home, allowing for the differences in the room.

@Tony Whittle has / had Snell A's so might be able to offer some placement advice? I've heard his pair on a few occasions and while they might not be exactly to my taste they are a very impressive, capable and revealing speaker and more importantly I always enjoy hearing them. Looking forward to some time in your show room!

 

[lostwin]

I'd say probably not. Altering the toe-in will change the on / off-axis response of the tweeter so you may find the tonal balance alters, but too far apart and I think you'll still get that "hole-in-the-middle" effect. YMMV of course. Snell A's aren't exactly the smallest or lightest of speakers to shift around so appreciate that you may not want to experiment a lot with positioning, although as they're coming to Stoke I'm sure a few of us could lend a hand if you wanted to experiment with that setup in your show room on the Saturday? We could shift them around while you listen and see what you think, it may help you get an idea of what you could expect back home, allowing for the differences in the room.

@Tony Whittle has / had Snell A's so might be able to offer some placement advice? I've heard his pair on a few occasions and while they might not be exactly to my taste they are a very impressive, capable and revealing speaker and more importantly I always enjoy hearing them. Looking forward to some time in your show room!

Yes, good feedback, thanks. I guess I can get a fairly good idea even where they are sat currently if I move my listening chair to change to relative relationship between distance apart and listening position. Currently, speakers are 2.7m apart (tweeter to tweeter and I sit 3.8m away. For some recordings I move my chair forward to 3.5m, between those two points seems to be the sweet spot.

I re-read the typed instructions - presumably written by Peter Snell himself - last night. They actually give some quite precise guidance for set up as a starting point and recommend distance between speakers to be 2/3 that of distance to listening position - that correlates fairly closely to current set up. Advice was to have them parallel to back wall - was toe-in a thing in the 80's? I have them slightly toed in currently.

In some ways moving the speakers is not a problem, they have a flat bottom and slide fairly easily. Problem starts when they are then put on my spring bases which transform imaging and bass - even tiny changes then become a logistical nightmare.

Anyway, as you say - Stoke and the return home afterwards is a great time to experiment. I'll be hopefully arriving early afternoon Saturday so if anyone is available I would welcome the extra opinion - I'll shout down the corridor or failing that drag 'volunteers' from the bar !

 

[Tony Whittle]

Hi
As Jules says I have been using Snell A‘s for over 15 years now. I have had Ai, Aii, and currently Aiii. The Peter Snell instructions are very good, he obviously new his speaker very well. In my experience the single best part of his advice is to always fire them across a large room, i.e. Not down a long room. They really need a good three to four feet clear to the sides of them. The tweeter puts out a lot of energy to the sides to maintain sound pressure off axis. The increase in transparency and resolution is stunning, the speakers completely disappear, which is no mean feat given there size. Unfortunately for me the only room in my house where I could do this was in my main lounge, however SWMBO would not allow them in there. I did have my own dedicated room but it was too small really. They never performed as well as they did in the lounge. So of course I always moved them into the lounge when she was on her yoga weekends…….

 

[lostwin]

So I took advantage of having the system broken down to take to the Show and have reassembled into the suggested new position along the bay window wall.
Proving an interesting exercise. I have pretty much plonked it down as simply as possible. The kit is between the speakers as I don’t have long enough speaker cables to have it on the side wall yet, I do quite like the look of it placed here though.

Speakers are only very slightly wider apart than before (although more is possible) but the right speaker is now much clearer from the side wall compared to previous. The sideboard next to it would go if I stick with this new layout.

It sounds ok so far and looks alright visually in the room. Interesting bit now is that as it has just been plonked all my layers of tinkering- mainly with isolation- have not yet been reintroduced. It will be good to hear afresh what each bit does again as I add them back in. There can be a tendency to add and never remove tweaks, will all stand up to fresh scrutiny I wonder?

 

[Jules_S]

Looks great, Richard, somehow the photo makes the A's look quite small - quite an achievement considering how sizeable they really are! Loved hearing your system at Stoke, really engaging and tuneful. Do keep us posted on your thoughts re: the new arrangements