Stop Wasting THOUSANDS on Audio Gear! Audiophile Speakers Set up 

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Very informative and interesting. My speaker setup is already almost exactly at the 83% rule. A couple of years ago I had spent a lot of time moving the speakers to achieve the best sound. The formula ended up being about 1.20 X the speaker's width measured from tweeter to tweeter, which is nearly the same as 83%. I have seen a few videos where other audiophiles have ended up with similar results. 83% is good advice.

I tried it, I like it. 85% rule sounds good with both the Unifi Reference and SVS Ultra (bookshelf). Probably the best I've ever heard them sound. Thanks for the post!

Wow, quite simply, this is a revelation for me. I'm getting a new amp (my last one died) and I can't wait to dig in on this book. Don't know how I stumbled on you channel, but sure glad I did! Thanks much !

I have the book, but it's nice that you start talking about it again Michael, you forget a lot if you've ever read it in the past, and now that I have new speakers, I'm going to measure everything again. Nice speakers the Tobian's, I've ever listened to them, I remember that they can go really HARD! without distortion.

Just measured while enjoying this video and exactly 83%! 290cm to position 240cm wide, that was weird. My front spikes are 10mm taller, the soundstage was lifted from a bit too low to perfection. Tilt is so often overlooked. Thanks for the content!

Just so happen to come upon your video. Thank you for it. I’ve been having major pro and can’t get my system to sound right. I have a L shaped room and my head is pretty much right where I have a partial wall. Wreaks havoc with my sound. I’m going to buy the book and I hope it can help my situation. Thanks again.

Lots of great info here. Thanks. I used the Sumiko method for placing my speakers and really got amazing results. However, you have to be prepared for the fact that the speakers won’t be exactly symmetrical in their placement. The Sumiko method really takes into account the room that everything is in.

My set up was easy, 20 inches from the wall, 7 feet apart, toed in slightly, set my T+A amplifier to free standing, and it sounds fine.

Nice video. Thank you. I wonder if you should have included diagrams - such as the final settings you did for all those positioning. I think, it would do a lot of good.

Speaker setup is an art and for the greatest bass it's all about distance to reflecting surfaces. A reflecting surface will both add (approx. +6dB for in phase distance and approx. -12dB for out of phase reflection). It's balancing act, and a good rule is to have 1/2 the distance to rear wall compared to the nearest side wall (or vice versa) and then move the speaker on that axis from the corners towards your listening position until you are satisfied with the over all bass quantity. Floor reflection is the worst but can be handled in two ways. Use loudspekers with 2 or more bass drivers that have different distances to the floor. That evens out the dip the floor reflection creates. If you have a single bass driver, put a 45 degree sloping piece of wood to stear the reflection away from the speaker and direct it out in the room towards your listening position. Width about the speakers width + 2 inch. That will help a lot to remove the worst reflection that most often are a -12dB dip in the 100-200 Hz region which prevent the sound to be seamless between bass and midrange. It's very essental to get rid of that dip in frequency response. The floor diffusers talked about in this video do a similar thing, but only to a limited amount. It's all about avoiding that reflective surface the floor creates by directing the sound wave in a different direction than back to the driver.

I could not build that diffuser. Looks interesting.

I spent a few thousand hours of listening tests back in 2000 to 2005 learning about the effects of gear and positioning. I agree that speaker placement is crucial for imaging and sound stage etc. I used some measurements but a lot was also done by eye but mainly ear. My speakers position were closer together to start with but once I changed cables and power supply and some preamp/amp mods, I then had to reposition speakers wider as the sound imaging etc had changed. I used around 1" increments of speaker movement to fine tune my sound. Also I originally used 2" slate hefty slab that my speakers sat on which gave me an amazing detailed and clear sound. But in the end I wanted a warmer sound so experimented with floor speakers direct on wood floor and that became the sound I loved most. In that house back then I used no acoustic treatment ( in a large room) yet my sound system sounded amazing. When it comes to speaker positioning there are certain general acoustics ( theory) guidelines to position speakers in both rooms or studios. However, it depends not just on the shape of the room but also on the construction of the walls, floors, etc, as to how close or distant the theory of acoustics will accord in practise in your particular room. Hence, percentages, distances etc are just guidelines and as you mention it's about experimentation. In my new place the speakers are in what acoustically would be considered the worst possible place, the corners! Yet I've got them sounding so good. But, in this case I have had to use acoustic treatment. Upstairs in another room I have my studio setup where the listening position would be considered the worst possible position, the centre of the room. However from experimenting it's turned out to be the best listening spot particularly relating to the low and lower mid frequencies exist ( standing waves). That's when you throw the rule book out and trust your ears. I think you can trust your ears after spending several hundred hours or more of listening tests because by then there is some objective insight which you can then you can appropriate that to your subjective like/enjoyment. For me fine tuning a system incorporates balance of sound in conjunction with an ' objective' sound quality, tailored to your own subjective taste🤗.

Nice video. Great book. I’ve had it for awhile now but with some new speakers I’m setting up I’ll be using these techniques again. Where did you find the test tone you used? Thanks

I know that we all here are loving the music and I will share my findings with respect and humility. As is well understood today, the speakers are the least linear and even piece of gear. The room is the second problem and I will think that starting with room treatment before identifying the speakers and listening position locations makes more sense. Another, less understood issue regarding room acoustics is that the room has modes in low frequencies (dictated by the room geometry) and only above these frequencies one has to try to tame phenomena of diffraction, dispersion, reflection, absorption and so on. The lesson for me here is that I found the best sound only after going fully active using one subwoofer (four 18" woofers mounted vertically on a bamboo 1" baffle) and two speakers with an 80 Hz corner frequency. If using a smaller subwoofer, I will put the second one on top of the first one to preserve the cardioid dispersion and avoid comb filtering. Tried once a kind of swarm application, but came back to one subwoofer location, it's simpler and sounds better to my ears. Thank you for your video !

Good video! When measuring the width of the speaker distance is it inside edge to inside edge, or from tweeter to tweeter? Thanks

Hey I have the VAC PA 100 100 tube amp that I bought back in 1995 and it still going strong!!, Interesting as I started all over the map with my speaker positions and ended up close to the 82% position rule 😅

Thanks for video! I've got the book and accompanying video, followed his method, great stuff. I didn't lay down a grid with tape though. I have thick carpet which makes it harder. Question: How do you get the speaker spikes in exact position with the carpet sliders under them? You can't see where the spikes would hit the grid with the sliders in the way.

This was real interesting. I’m having though of sound diffusion Will this work on dipole speaker like Magnaplanar

Does the book mention bass floor bounce? It generally better to have the woofer close to the floor to avoid floor bounce. Generally this implies a minimum of a three way design with midrange & tweeter at ear level.

My problem , as i feel it , is that currently when i start to play a little louder (1watt+ on my amp) , certain frequvencys sounds really harsh. Up until 1 watt, it sounds really good ( Yamaha A-S1100) , i'm considering buying new speakers but every speaking i look up, their crossover is really cheap and bad, or the speaker costs $100.000. For me the most important thing is soundstage . I use a pair of 4way floorspeakers with 2x6" woofers in each and if i play 'Massive Attack - Mezzanine', the dinnertable in my kitchen vibrates.. so the base is totally ok for 6" woofers. What i think the problem is, is the crossovers, but sadly where i live, there isn't any "crossover genious" that can do measurements and tailor new crossovers - or i would do it. That being said.. listening to any of my Dire Straits records, or even CDs, give me goosebumps .

Just subscribed the channel❤

How do you find the wellfloat platforms and is there a reason the la scala isnt sitting on one? Thankyou

Ya that magic moment when they lock in, and your like no fuckin way!

What speakers are there behind in the video

Excellent video. A big thank-you for posting. I 100% agree that getting 25 Hz to 300 Hz to a "flat frequency response" is ultra critical because of "room modes" which can act like a "comb filter" for certain low frequencies. Not sure if you've talked about his in other videos but part B of getting to balanced sound is also appreciating that ISO 226:2003 equal loudness curves comes into play at different volume levels. For instance ISO 226:2003 equal loudness curves demonstrate that you need significantly more bass at lower volume levels to get to what people will perceive as equal levels across all frequencies. This is also in play for higher frequencies as well but at a reduced gain. For lower volume listeners, they may find having a bass and tremble control or loudness button can help when listening late at night at lower volume levels. 👍

I have seen tubes in dacs lately, the Audio Note beast for example and the dac you have. Out of interest, what does a tube bring to a dac? thanks.

Stereo reproduction is imperfect inherently - it can't reproduce the same experience as listening to real sources. It does a great job for a simple practical system, but allways keep that in mind the limitations.

I use damping on floor in front of the speakers. One stupidity with my room I have steps coming from higher level between the seats so can't sit in middle unless sit on steps.

I never followed the golden rule of setting speakers with any of my speakers , even in the living room where everything was, I always listened to the system near field , i use the position of speakers almost like a giant pair of headphones , there are speakers where i like them less toed in and one meter away from me, and there are others where i listen to them almost in line with my couch on the sides , only about 50 cm or so behind that line , is not an exact science by all means , i find that this way i eliminate the most of the problems in a room , and its really like being there , you get immersed in the soundstage, i discover this with one of my first systems , (marantz cd63, marantz amp 44se mk2 and mission 751 speakers ) where i found that if i sat by the system, almost in the middle about only one and a half meter away , i got an impresive soundstage , and the effect from the room was mostly gone .....never looked back , and have being doing this also for almost 40 years, and now with the event of dsp even better , you can run a program to help to eliminate problem spots in the room. best upgrades are mostly common sense use ,...and for free!

This is where I ordered it from: www.getbettersound.com/product-page/get-better-sound-e-book

Those are pretty speakers! I hope you enjoy them for a long time. When you review them, can you include a sound sample (classical music please). Thanks, and congratulations!

How do the Tobians 12 FH react on the Puritan PSM 156?

Listening position is right in the middle of the room? Always heard that is a bad place to sit ..

i love music, like most here if you're watching this type video, but this is too much for a multi-function room. i would probably go to this length in a dedicated listening room but not a family/living room. besides, i wouldn't have expensive gear anywhere near kids or family members that have no clue the investment we make in this hobby.

I have a DAC review suggestion for you...Reach out to me privately I will organize it. I think you would be great for this product as a reviewer.

Could not awoid notising the speakers behind you having the tveeter in about same distance from three edges on the baffle. Its against advices, its bad for reducing or spreading difraction, maybe the horntweeter shoots audio waves past the edge...?

I don't see the PDF link.

Great video...BUT....wouldn't a good room correction device or amp (Lingdorf) do this equally as well if not better? Just asking if you have experiecne with room correction.

Bob Robbins has a RU-vid video on speaker set up. A lot of tedious work.

no such thing as too much absorption unless your speakers are specifically designed to use side wall reflections. There is such a thing as uneven absorption which is often confused with too much absorption. But it's actually insufficient absorbers.

Good guide, but I have better advice: buy yourself some decent headphones. If you place the equipment in a general purpose room, you won't be able to listen to music in peace anyway. There will always be children, a dog, a dishwasher, cooking, etc. In this case, spending hundreds of hours setting up the equipment is a bit... waste of time.