Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems With M Processor: Speaker Placement Less Important?

Being a newbie to Meridian I'm wondering what you veterans think about the following:

From the point of view of acoustics (e.g., better looking waterfall plot) I am guessing that speaker placement (and listening position for that matter) is still important even with a Meridian controller. That is because the room has certain characteristics modes, ringing, etc. and the MRC can only compensate for those characteristics at the margin.

From the point of view of imaging, however, I'm thinking that since the M conttroller gives so much electronic control (since you can adjust the image with the width and depth controls in most DSPs), it is less important how far you place your front speakers apart or how far they are from the front and side walls.

I'm just trying to sort out my thinking on this and I might want to reposition my front speakers now that I have the 68 installed in my system.

Any reactions?

Thats what I have found, my speakers are very far apart, if useing normal stereo it wouldn't work. Also I am too close.

But as I have all my distances measured, speaker sizes taken into consideration and delays set with room aspect ratio at 0.5, the Meridian is perfect.

Once you have a base setup you can fine tune from there.

So, No I dont think you will have a problem.

The trick is to Listen and from there define your own presets that work for you with you Music.

How perfect is that then?

Cheers, Chris

Ditto - I've always found more flexibility using M- DSP than virtually all other systems; Especially now with MRC; still some placement considerations, but one of the most flexible systems out there; Go for it and listen as Chris says...

ken

double post--

For me, it's Trifield that lets me have the front pair nice and wide, and MRC does fix some of the boominess.

I do think it would sound better if I could have the speakers a couple of feet from the corners, but there aren't many wives that let you have speakers in the middle of the room.

I guess MRC gives me an easier time at home!

Actually, I was thinking of moving my L/R closer together but I want to keep a large sound stage. I'm hoping that can be done with the help of the Meridan DSP adjustments. For the short time I've had the 68, I find myself using the Trifield for most of my listening. I still haven't settled on depth and width settings for that DSP but the sound field extends well beyond the speakers which is why I thought I probably have additional leeway to move the speakers around a bit.

Jack, I think you have permission to play from all on this Forum.............. as if you needed it lol

Lets us know how you get on.

Cheers, Chris

Yeah well it's just that I'm kind of lazy and there are so many options on the M. If you add in all different speaker placements within the room to all the DSP settings you get a large amount of permutations. I could be fiddling for a long time.

Here's another angle to the question. I have my L/R with very little toe in at this point (mabye 10 degrees). I did that in my pre M system because I wanted to maximize sound stage. The draw back to that is that for seating positions other than the prime one, less toe in generally results in poor imaging. I wonder if I can toe in more now to help imaging at other positions. I suppose the answer is just a corollary to the first question. If speaker position vis a vis the walls and listener is less relevant than I supopse the toe in would be less relevant as well. Yes?

This is about taste how you set up the speakers. If you would like to have a most accurate stereo image as possible a good estimation will be about 45� apart due to your ears physical construction and the recording "standard set up" in studios. For me I don't like Trifield since it introduce a kind of "sameness" to the records. If M believes Trifield is the way to go with stereo recordings a suppose they would have used it in their stereoamps also. But taste matters.
Cheers

I Toe in my speakers so I can see them Face on at my listening position.

It sounds great to me, give it a go.

Harry, if Trifield sounds as you say, have you got it set up correctly? Also try Mulogic.

In the end, its all down to taste.

Cheers, Chris