Discovering near field speaker placement for my setup

Hari Iyer

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Untill now i have listened to speakers at my home in far field(earlier) and mid field(past 2 years) till last month. From this month i have been listening to my speakers in near field (10 days now). In my set-up i liked the near filed listening experience to be more satisfying than the other two approaches.

Background: I am using an Open Baffle enclosure with a field coil mid-range, a Alnico cone tweeter and a Piezo super-tweeter supported by a H-frame OB sub-woofer. Theoretically, the OB provides a good polar response with a nice figure 8 response for the low and mid-frequency. Even with this the interference with the side-walls in the first and second reflection point could ruin the otherwise clean presentation. Also in a small room like mine, its difficult to get the minimum 6msec distance from the front wall and the baffle. So there are many chances of phase errors creeping in and not get the recommended EDT of 0.3s (volume of room 1400cuft). There are countless sites and forum discussion on how to place the speakers in your living room. But i have read very little about where to sit or how to identify the sweet spot for your setup. I have read this else where and am borrowing this info from there
Far field - 8+ feet
Mid field - 5+ feet till 8 feet
Near field - 3+feet till 5 feet

Distance of both the left and right speakers from the wall is around 39" and the seperation between the two driver centers are 48". So i placed myself at exact 48" from the baffle (Equilateral triangle) and this was my near field sweet spot. Going less than 4 feet made the speakers directional and i started loosing imaging focus. I shall use the following adjectives to describe my subjective findings,
- Detailed and high resolution
- Excellent micro dynamics
- Holographic sound stage which is wide
- Excellent stereo channel separation
- Accurate tonality
- Razor sharp center image
- Low listening fatigue

The major advantage of listening in near field is you can avoid the early reflection points and the room gets neutralized with respect to the sweet listening spot. Also the sub-woofer sounds more balanced without any boom or resonance. The room contribution to the sound stage by reflection is minimized to a large extend and so is the associated phase errors. You listen to more of direct sound and less of reflected sound making the performance excel. I am still discovering this new phenomena and not yet done any measurements with this new found glory. I may plan one some time this week if time permits.

I have gone through countless modifications in the past 2 to 3 years concerning interconnects, speaker cables, power cables, isolation etc. All of these have had very minor improvements in my setup which could be identified if looked for critically. But this particular discovery had the most profound effect. IMO, even if you invest heavily in these cables, isolation etc kind of modifications, but if you don't have the luxury to move the speakers freely in your room and sit in the sweet spot (even against WAF wishes) then there is no point in pursuing these modifications as they won't matter so much for the improvements. Enough has been said about speaker placements in room and there are no second thoughts to it.
 
+1
I too agree. Since the past one week, due to some constraints i had to place my speakers within a distance of 3-5 feet in a very constrained area inside the room. I was very much confident that i will not like it but i did not have any other option to experiment.

Surprisingly it sounded so good. This setup was minimal without any dac, tube amp, any special speaker wire, spdif, reclocker or interconnect. It was directly from my ipad headphone out to the amplifier. That surprised me even more. For some time i felt that all those trials which I had done with my original setup, i do not require in this near field setup and i am satisfied for the time being.
 
Results usually are better as room reflections and unwanted bass boom is not audible which is there at corners.Each ear has better corresponding speaker info than mixing both.Those who don't have treated room can try this method.Again if speakers are toed in ,then details increases.If speakers are kept parellel ,then bass improves.So one can try as per their listening test.Best method can be to keep speaker at one fixed position and sitting position(chair) can be moved from far to near by 1 foot each time to get best possible result.
 
In my case the speakers are parallel to the front wall and not toed-in. You can avoid the expensive room treatments and also the bad aesthetics. IME, adding absorbent to the first reflection point compress the mid-range and its better to leave that alone un-treated.
 
Depends on how your room reflection and speakers dircetivity is. With single or coaxial drivers near field works well in most cases. Some speakers are quite unbearable in near field, some work only near field.
Simple logic is with distance of high frequencies decay more and low frequencies decay less. That’s why we hear bass from a club not the treble outside. So a near field speaker which works well near our ears will be accurate at that point and will be heavily treble shy at a distance. Similarly far field will need too much treble near them that the decay of the highs and lows are harmonious at a distance. There are other parameters also into consideration when designing them. This is one of the major aspects though.
 
In untreated rooms, if you have the luxury to pull in your speakers, near field listening is a easy option to set. This is anyhow the best option in square-shaped rooms.
Also near field listening with speakers placed along the longer wall is even more enriching, but the distance of the speaker to the rear and side walls should never be equal. A ratio of 3 times or more helps, also avoid even ratios.

It is incorrect to state you do not catch the 1st reflections, just that it will reach you a little later and actually spoil even more inless you have a well-treated room or a room that is reasonably dead.
In such situations, keeping windows and doors open also helps a lot in a not so dead room.

Another advantage of near field listening is the dynamics even at lower volumes is well perceptible, especially with the lows.
That said, if your speaker are a bit forward sounding, near field can sound more bright aswell.

Ultimately it is a synergy of the room and your component including speaker characteristics.
 
I am now rediscovering my near field speaker placement and it gives a lot of benefits in neutralising the room. I have again used GR speaker placements and am sitting around 5 feet from the speakers. This avoids the room energy build-up and associated resonance and reflected waves issue. The same speaker setup at 7 feet or 9 feet distance don't sound that great. As room treatment is not an option for me, I shall continue to listen in my near field domain.

Thanks for looking.
 
A VERY Important aspect of Near Field Listening is that the Drivers must Integrate ( ie their dispersion patterns overlap) at the speaker position... else (at the listening position) the sound will appear to come separately from the 2 or 3 drivers, rather than a single point source.

The minimum distance depends on the Speaker design ( Diver dispersion, spacing of drivers, etc) and not all speakers can be used for near field listening ... specially floor standing speakers.

Small sized Studio Monitors are usually optimised for near field listening.

The Speaker manufacturer typically specifies this as the minimum listening distance.

For my speakers (Revel Ultima Studio), it is 9 feet from the drivers ......
 
Imo, @ 9 feet distance 80% of what you hear is reflected sound and 20% is direct. At 5feet it's the opposite. I am using 2 FR drivers in an OB and they blend quite well in the near field compared to far field or midfield in my room in my setup after countless speaker placement and listening sessions. I shall suggest FMs to try this approach before completely dismissing this possibility with any speakers and not constrain themselves to near field monitors. Moreover it's free of cost.
 
A VERY Important aspect of Near Field Listening is that the Drivers must Integrate ( ie their dispersion patterns overlap) at the speaker position... else (at the listening position) the sound will appear to come separately from the 2 or 3 drivers, rather than a single point source.

The minimum distance depends on the Speaker design ( Diver dispersion, spacing of drivers, etc) and not all speakers can be used for near field listening ... specially floor standing speakers.

Small sized Studio Monitors are usually optimised for near field listening.

The Speaker manufacturer typically specifies this as the minimum listening distance.

For my speakers (Revel Ultima Studio), it is 9 feet from the drivers ......
Spot on..every speaker has a recommended distance else you lose coherency.Any speaker with a horn woofer or tweeter needs to follow the guidance based on their dispersion pattern hence this is not something which can be applied for all setups. eg the Klipschorn needs 10-15 feet else you lose the coherence. Tannoys prestige series do need min of 6-8 feet .

There are speakers designed for nearfield especially studio monitors..but you can manage 3-5 feet with many smaller speakers with the right toe in
 
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