Speaker placement

Our den - listening room - is 18' by 28' , with furniture. Have the Klispsck K horns on the LONG wall (28). Should I not have
the horns on the short wall (18). Thx all, Dale

best thing is to try it out, impossible to say, even more so to predict.....

Conventional wisdom is that you're better off firing down the long sides of a room, but ...

More important is speaker placement relative to the walls and the primary seating position. If you can, divide the room in fifths and leave one fifth between the back of the speakers and the wall. Place the speakers one third of the total width in from each side wall. This should minimize undesirable reflections. The primary listening position should form the third corner of an equal sided triangle. Once you've got the starting points, you'll want to fudge them as needed for the best results in YOUR room and ears. Don't forget to play with your toes, angling the speakers either towards or away from center to dial in the stage.

Not to forget, you'll also want to review any specific suggestions provided by the manufacturer for a particular speaker. Some types and designs are very particular about placement.

Of course, this is all hogwash ... do what works best ...

PS ... all bets are off if the "golden triangle" ends up blocking all the doorways ... having to crawl over or under a speaker could take away from the experience ... even more so if the SO has to do the same to come in and yell at you for blocking the doors!

I would try placement on the small wall side just to be sure, You could build some false corners from plywood to try placement as sKiZo has suggested, What are you driving your K Horns with?

The size and shape of that room may change the application of the usual rules. I worked with a room that big once. I found my best results came from placing the speakers at thirds along one of the long walls. The ceilings have a lot to do with it - my room had cathedral ceilings and I placed my speakers along the wall that had the lower ceiling. That sounded much better than the short-wall placements.

K horns are a very efficient design @ 105 dB 1W / 1M designed to go into a corner of a room so unless you build false corners it limits placement options

When I sold HiFi years ago, we had the entire Klipsch line on display. The K Horns were always in the corners on the long wall. As you know, they are designed for and rely on corners so positioning them out from the front wall (the wall behind them) is not a realistic option. My guess is that your long wall would work well because you have 18' in the other direction which allows you to place the primary listening positions back enough to avoid a headphone effect. Of course, if you have the ability to try both, that's your best bet.

Had them and also tried on both walls of a 16 x 26 room. Opted to have them on the 16" section. Keep in mind that three feet minimum is desirable on both sides of the horn for better bass response. If you want to get goofy like I did, filled that 3' length of the wall with sand almost to the ceiling ( built the room so I was able to have false backs) It did help the low end. Guy who bought the house gave me a call 2 years later when he did some remodeling and asked me "what the #$&*$ did you do?"

Tell him he's lucky you didn't go with oil ...

If you really want to complicate the issue, add a Carver Holographic unit to the mix. Lost a lot of hair here getting that right. The floors are marked for perfect toe and position, and I did a few mods to the listening chair to keep my head exactly in the sweet spot ...

Great minds think alike! My first "audiophile" grade juice was a Carver M1.5 and the C-1 preamp with sonic hologram. That was fun to play with. Still have it and works great although the preamp sits idle and the 1.5 is used for a secondary zone amp for dining room speakers -- mainly used during the Holidays only.

Maintarget, I have Bob's VTA ST 120 which gives lots of head room. Great info here; I'l try the
SHORT wall to see. Yes, the Khorns do require a corner. Also, the slanted ceiling goes from
9' to 12', from the long wall. Thx everyone, Dale

Brap wrote:Great minds think alike!    My first "audiophile" grade juice was a Carver M1.5 and the C-1 preamp with sonic hologram.  That was fun to play with.  Still have it and works great although the preamp sits idle and the 1.5 is used for a secondary zone amp for dining room speakers -- mainly used during the Holidays only.

My latest acquisition ... the Amazing Swiss Army Carver!!



It slices, it dices, it does julianne fries!

And ... (drumroll please) ... it works! Plan is to recap and replace all the Malaysian ICs with some silver back Texas Instruments. I've done that with both my C9 and AV9 with some pretty outstanding results. Really opens up the sound stage ... enough so that I don't have to wear the head clamp and harness anymore.  I still do ... because I think it looks cool ... ;-}

sKiZo wrote:

Brap wrote:Great minds think alike!    My first "audiophile" grade juice was a Carver M1.5 and the C-1 preamp with sonic hologram.  That was fun to play with.  Still have it and works great although the preamp sits idle and the 1.5 is used for a secondary zone amp for dining room speakers -- mainly used during the Holidays only.

My latest acquisition ... the Amazing Swiss Army Carver!!



It slices, it dices, it does julianne fries!

And ... (drumroll please) ... it works! Plan is to recap and replace all the Malaysian ICs with some silver back Texas Instruments. I've done that with both my C9 and AV9 with some pretty outstanding results. Really opens up the sound stage ... enough so that I don't have to wear the head clamp and harness anymore.  I still do ... because I think it looks cool ...  ;-}

sKiZo it's all fun and games until someone throws the switch on your special listening chair while your sittin in it

Vandersteen goes into about 5 pages of math and measurements on his website. His expert dealer flew over from Tacoma to set up my 5As. Within a month I was moving them around, away from, then closer to, the wall, toed-in, toed-out, straight ahead. It's what sounds good. Mine are toed-out, about 2 feet from the wall, it's what sounds best to me in this room. I prefer less focus on the ethereal "sweet spot" than what sounds good throughout the listening area. Move 'em around till they sound right to you; it ain't like you're going to break anything.