| Improvements [message #87395] |
Thu, 08 March 2018 09:09  |
Barryso
Messages: 195
Registered: May 2009
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A few month ago Wayne was helping me with an odd speaker issue. Long one short, the 2 Pi Towers sounded very different placed directly against the wall vs. being a few feet away from different wall (with flanking subs) in the same room.
Of course there are supposed to be sonic differences in different parts of the same room - and when using the flanking subs. This was more than that. It's hard to put into words but simply put the setup with the flanking subs just didn't sound as good. I've been struggling to figure out why.
A search of old posts on this forum lead to the answer - it's the floor.
This is an old house and it turns out there are three different regions under the suspended wood floor in that room. The area with the towers placed several feet out from the wall (using flanking subs) is, unfortunately, suspended wood and crawl space.
The floor where the towers were directly against a wall is different on either side. One side had the wood floor reinforced with more wood after some termite damage. The other side is where the floor rests on top of the original house foundation (the room was expanded in the 1940's). It turns out both of those locations are far superior sounding than the suspended floor over the crawl space. Stomp your foot on them and you can clearly hear the differences.
So it wasn't distance from the wall or flanking subs at all. It was the differences in construction of the floor.
As a test I put the towers back on top of the crawl space area and listened and then pulled them out to be over the old foundation. There's a lot more of a sonic difference than just the change in distance from the wall. A bit of bass boom is gone, mids are clearer and far better textured and they are just a much happier pair of 2 Pi towers. A thwack sounds more like a thwack when the speakers are on solid footing. Will play around to see which one of the locations sounds best over some extended listening as the two locations still sound different. They just don't sound totally different.
From a practical standpoint putting them over the foundation puts them about 5 feet out into the room and it makes them far more imposing than when they are against a wall. Having them directly against the "good" wall creates some layout and traffic issues in the room, too. This makes coming up with a good room/speaker layout a challenge but at least it explains the sonic differences.
I'd never thought much about the floor before. That was a mistake as it makes a big difference.
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