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.
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.