The George Cardas Listening Room

Q.)Hello George,

I have a rear wall in the basement that has stud and drywall enclosures around my water and gas meters. They stick out 30" into the room. One is upper right corner and the other is 2 feet from the left side wall, toward the center, and from the ground up. Would you compensate for these in the calculations using the G.R. speaker placement and if so how? Together they total about 1/3 of the total area of the rear wall.

My room width is 132" and 213" long with an 82" ceiling.

Secondly, there is a closet with no door that I have my components in, 2.5' deep x 3.5' wide x 6' tall, that ends right at 59" from the rear wall. Would this come into play as well?

I have Revel Gems and when I place them according to your calculator they measure very well. Only thing is they are 5' apart. I like everything about the sound with the exception that the sound stage size is very small and "squished".

Thank you in advance for your input!

Cheers,

Chris



A.)Hello Chris,

The rear wall things only very slightly affect the sound. I would soften their surfaces. The sound stage is "squished" because you are sitting to far back from the speakers. A perfect stage is achieved when your head and the speakers form an equilateral triangle.

Cheers George

Q.) Dear George, I am an audiophile based in India and I am in the process of designing my music room. I have gone through your room/speaker set up guide and have reached this conclusion. My room size would be 24 ft x 14.8 ft x 9.3 ft, based on your guidelines. Are these dimensions correct?

A.) They would be pretty close. A Golden Cuboid would be 24' x 14.832' x 9.16' or 24' x 14' 10" x 9' 2". If you are actually building the room, I would suggest tapering the side walls and ceiling a few inches. Increase the dimension of the back wall 4" in height and 6" in width, then connect the front and rear corners. Conversely, you could decrease the dimension of the wall behind the speakers by the same amount.

Q.) What treatments should be done on the floor, ceiling and all four walls? One of the side walls, which opens out into the garden may have French Windows. Is this a problem? Thanks and Regards, Arvind

A.) Soften the surfaces a much as possible. Use thick padded carpet and linen over cotton batting on the walls (or similar). The batting thickness is proportional to percentage of the area covered and shape of room. As a room goes from rectangular to trapagon in shape the thickness required diminishes dramatically. That said, if you do all surfaces, a 3/8" foam pad under the carpet and 1/8" of a fibrous material or foam on the walls (like linen over cotton batting or a thin polyurethane foam) will suffice if you give a little extra in the corners and at the first reflection points. If only half the surface is covered, probably 1/2" foam would be close, with a double pad under the carpet. If only a quarter, then you will probably have to go to more obvious treatments.

At a minimum, the room should be soft enough to eliminate audible slap/echo with the first reflection points padded. In any case, treatment should be the same left to right. It is desirable to have a softer wall behind the listener than behind the speakers. It is desirable to pad the ceiling a little more in a band between the speakers and the listening area. To deal with the French Windows, if they are behind your head you will need to have curtains. If they are behind the speakers and the wall behind you is soft, they are of little consequence, unless your speakers are Dipoles. George

Q.) Dear Mr. Cardas, I've used your room setup calculations for box speakers and later, when I owned Sound Labs, for dipoles. I'm curious if you have any suggestions for setting up omni-directional speakers? I have just purchased a pair of MBL 101E loudspeakers and I am going to place them along the long wall in a 22' x 16' x 8' high room. Thanks in advance for your help, Dave

A.) Hi Dave, The setup of omnis is about the same as box speakers. Box speakers are generally omni-directional in the bass region. The real setup difference for a fully omni-directional speaker is the need for wall damping. The first reflection points should be padded and, if possible, a slight softening of all wall surfaces. Cheers, George

Q.) Hello Mr. Cardas, Your website is a pleasure, most recently the "Room Setup" online calculator. That's quite a service you're providing.

I've got dipoles with a vaulted ceiling. The ceiling starts on the left side of the room at 9' and peaks on the right side at 14'. The size of the room is 15' x 22'. What ceiling height value would you use to optimize placement of the dipoles?

Your sharing your dead-on expertise so openly makes a very convincing impression that your products are also a notch above the rest. Very impressive. Thanks and best regards, Gregory

A.) Hi Gregory, The ceiling height equation is not applicable because the ceiling and the floor are not parallel. This is a good situation for the standard formula. Cheers, George

Q.) George, Is there more information about room setup on the cardas website? Thanks, Han

A.) Yes, under the Insights menu, there is a detailed room setup guide. Click here to view our Room Setup Guide. Cheers, George

Q.) Hi George, I'm a frequent visitor to your site and often go through the FAQs to read your suggestions to other people. I am currently in the process of building a basement and will be dedicating a room to Home Theater. The HT room will be used primarily for watching movies. The dimensions of the room are: 21' L x 13' W x 8' H.

I have all the electronics, which are setup in a temporary room. I use Athena AS-F2 floor standing speakers in front, AS-C1 in the Center and four AS-R1s at the sides and back. I use an SVS sub. It's the big 110 lb PB-2 sub.

I use a projector for my video. Since I haven't really finalized the size of the screen as it is in my control depending on the screening distance. I am planning to sound proof the walls a bit . I have built 4 of bass tube traps using fiber glass insulation tubes. Their dimensions are 18" Diameter and 3' high. Would you suggest any other room preparation to improve the sound.

Looking at all the dimensions what would you suggest the size of the video screen and speaker/sub placements for a complete satisfactory HT experience.

I would really appreciate your suggestions and expertise. Regards, Raj

A.) Hi Raj, Nice room! I like to use a light, uniform absorption material in Home Theater rooms. A layer of carpet felt or cotton batting on the walls, covered with a material of you choice, works well. If practical, I like venting the room into the attic or another space, to relive the bass pressure.

I like a single small sub in the middle, near the rear wall. Go easy on the sub, you don't want to "hear it".

I like video screens as big as practical. Place your projector on a box or something and move it around to find what your situation will tolerate. Cheers, George

Q.) George, I read the article on room setup in your insights section and I have some questions. In a room design like the golden trapagon (Diagram I), how would the speaker placement be?  Do I have to follow Diagram D or does it allow me total freedom of speaker placement?  Is there any diagram for this case? I am making my room drawings now and this info is crucial since I have to allocate room for my screen and the required clearances. Thanks! Carlos

A.) Speaker Placement in a Golden Trapagon is approximately the same as in a rectangular room of the same length. There is more tolerance in a Golden Trapagon because the room nodes are much softer since you are not setting up to a parallel wall. The calculator on our website will work fine. If you want o be exact, use a width of .275 x Room Length for the distance to the rear wall. Cheers, George

Q.) Hello there I recently moved my stereo to an asymmetrical room where the left speaker has a rear wall and a side wall next to it, but the right speaker only has the rear wall behind it. The side is open. Both speakers are positioned 18" from the rear wall, and the left speaker is 36" from the side wall. The speakers are 72" apart from each other. All of this resulted in a very noticeable shift in the stereo image towards the left speaker. Is there anything I can do to correct this, aside from adjusting the channel balance on the amplifier? Regards, Adam

  A.) Hi Adam, The symmetry of the system is a critical element in any set-up. The frequency/phase response and amplitude of the speaker is directly determined by the proximity of the surrounding walls. You can make a simple high pass filter for the left speaker to compensate or lower the volume. The problem with turning down the volume control is that it does not compensate for the spectra change and you will always have noticeable smear at some point. George  

Q.) Hi George, Thanks for the reply! I am a mechanical engineer by trade, so I am relatively clueless when it comes to electrical design. How would I design the high pass filter so as to only filter out the unwanted frequencies, and not lose any of the true signal? Regards, Adam

A.) Yeah, sorry. I guess you have to be a bit of a experimenter to do something like this and I don't suggest that you dive into it if you are not. I was just trying to relay my understanding of the asymmetrical layout problem of your room. Again, I am not advising you to do this, but the easiest way is to decrease value of the output capacitor in the pre amp, or series-in a capacitor on the input of one amp channel. In any case, it would be a trial and error thing. I would probably buy a mixed bag of caps at radio shack and experiment until I found the right value, then replace that cap with the best cap money can buy.

If you have access to an electrical surplus store (or eBay) you can buy something called a "Capacitance Decade Box" which can be used to sort values more quickly. A bag of capacitors will be close enough though, if you understand the way they work. What you are trying to do, is roll off the low frequency at the point the wall begins to boost it and match the speakers. I have done this and it is effective, but more that a bit tedious, Cheers, George

Q.) Thanks George! I think I might have an easier time moving the wall... Regards, Adam

A.) LOL, Thanks Adam. I guess I have to learn when to stick with the short answers. Best Regards, George

Q.) I read a quick blurb in Stereophile regarding your recommendation to put bookcases against the wall parallel to speakers placed in the room. I would be interested in reading more information about this - what it does, why it works, how it works, what size bookcases, etc. -Helen

A.) A standard book case works as a "wave trap". Parallel shelves about 13" apart not only make good record and book shelves, they are also at a quarter wave length of roughly 250 cycles. This is approximately the standing wave length between the speaker and the side wall, thus they provide excellent low frequency damping. If the shelves have books or records they are also an excellent diffuser. Buy "keying" the shelves into the wall structurally, you can stiffen the walls immensely. I like to make them extra deep and inset acoustic foam in the back of the shelf. I make a very special hi-density "acoustic wall paper". It is only 3/8" of an inch thick. It starts absorbing at about 300 cycles and eliminates all slap and reflection between the walls it is applied to. This combination of shelves and absorption make the best room damping combination and does it with out being obvious. The shelves in my room run across the wall behind the speakers and along the side walls to behind the listening area. They start at 10" wide on the side walls, behind the listener, and increase to 18" wide at the corner behind the speakers. They are mechanically keyed in to the walls themselves. - George

Q.) Dear George, Sorry to bother you with my listening room issues. I've always been a fan of your cables. All of my windows are double paned glass. The ceiling is lath and plaster, which is quite fragile. With mirrors and french doors, there are a lot of reflective surfaces. My wife uses a motorized wheelchair in the house. In order to make the living room accessible to her, I have to keep the room open and any rugs to a minimum. The room has a lot of slap and I'm not sure what to do. I could use some help. Best regards, Sam

A.) Hi Sam, Killing slap in an existing room is all about adding soft stuff that looks good to your wife. One of the best choices is Melamine foam. You can get white, paintable, 2 ft. x2 ft. squares that aesthetically, are virtually invisible, but do absolute wonders when it comes to killing slap. If you have trouble finding a local supplier, we sell it here at cardas Audio. Thanks, George

Q.) Hi George, Thanks for the suggestion on the foam. To limit the amount of foam we attach to the ceiling do you have any suggestions on where to locate it? Thanks, Sam

A.) Hi Sam, As far as where to put the foam on the ceiling, make it look right. It should be arranged symmetrically. To reduce the amount of foam used, you can make a simple cross the length and width of the room, with the crossing at the first reflection point. This can be very effective in the listening area. The overall dampening effect is proportional to the amount of foam used. George

Q.) Thank you! For three years I have been struggling to place my B&W Nautilus 802 speakers and finally came across your website. The speakers are placed on the long wall (zillion dollar view) and I never had ANY soundstage. Out of desperation, I did exactly as you wrote. Magic! I am in a concert hall. Every instrument clear, focused and in place. I am stunned! You cannot believe how happy I am.

I just need one more piece of advice, The glass and hard plaster room is large 26' by 36' with a 13' ceiling and the speakers are 7' away from the front (36') wall and following your formula are 11'4" from the side walls. My chair is 6' from the rear wall. Unfortunately, I have an imbalance of +11 dB at both 100 and 63HZ. Do I move the speakers along the diagonal of the the Golden rectangle to correct for this or do I ignore the diagonal and move them closer or further away from the front wall? I know each room is different but after three years of haphazard moving, just tell me what general steps I should try. Thank you again. - Leonard

A.) Leonard, The room resonances you describe are the direct result of the room dimensions and the fact that the room is so live. The 63Hz is caused by the length. The 100 is caused by both the 13' and the 26' dimensions. This cannot be totaly corrected by moving the speakers, unless you want to give up everything else. You can consider bass trapping, venting the room, modifying the speakers (if there is a port, put a sock in it or a tennis ball or what ever). I hate to suggest EQ, but it does work for this type of thing, if you dont get carried away. Aside from that you can draw a line on the floor from where the speakers now stand to the corner and symetricaly place the speakers on that line. All of the above are compromises of a sort. I would hope that a sock works best. Good luck - George

Q.) Dear George, Thanks again. I totally rearranged my living room and put the speakers on the short wall. I followed your method exactly. (Room size 26’ x 36’ x 13’ high). I should have done this a long time ago. No more booming, no more mushy sound, just the best sound I ever had in my living room. Regards - Leonard

Q.) Mr. Cardas, with the "Golden Cuboid" theory in mind, I have a two part question on the placement of 2 subwoofers. I want to place both subs outside the left and right main speakers. My room dimentions are 21' wide x 29' deep x 10' high. Where is the optimum placement for the subs?

Also, how high off of the floor should they be, considering room nodes & modes? - Mike

A.) Because the wave length of a subwoofer is so long, compared to room dimensions, subs are traditionaly placed close to the wall-floor junction. In the case of a single sub, it is placed behind the speakers and with stereo subs, outside the speakers. I suggest crossing over at about 40 cycles with your room dimensions, as this will put a null at the multiple of the room length dimension. - George

Q.) Hi George. I am looking at a new home and it has two rooms that could be ideal for my audio/video setup. I would like to get your opinion on which one I should use. The first room is 9' high, 14’8” wide, 16’4” long. The second is 9’ high, 10’10” wide, and 20’5” long. Thanks - Rick

A.) Hi Rick. The 9' x 14' 8" x 16'4" would be my choice. Carpet with thick pad, a little softening of the walls and this should be a great room. The 9' x 10' x 20' would have very strong nodes because of the 10 x 20 multiple. - George

Q.) Hi George - I am having a new home built. It has a basement room that would be ideal for my audio/video setup and I would like to get your opinion on it. The room has 8 ft  ceilings, it's 13 ft wide and 21.75 ft long. I am going to use it for both my audio and video needs; 80 percent audio, 20 percent video. Can you suggest where I should put the speakers, seating, and side speakers? I will be placing a 60 or 70 inch, thin, TV monitor in the middle of the speakers, but the speakers will be at least 1 or 2 ft in front of the screen. Acoustic recommendations would be helpful also.

 Also, I will be looking for new cables. I have used Cardas Hexlink 5c in the past. I have Odyssey monoblock amps, Classe preamp, Totem Mani 2 speakers. Any suggestions? Thanks, Rick

A.) That sounds excellent!  The  ideal place for the speakers, acoustically, is 43.3 inches from the center of the speaker to the side wall  and 69.3 inches from the back wall. The surrounds would be in mirror image locations.  I would use some high quality "In Walls" in the ceiling.  In a room this size, to be practical, skip the sides (7.1 is for theaters).

I had a room just like this and it was great. One thing I did, was pad the wall surfaces.  I used a thin layer (thicker at first reflection points) of cotton batting and stretched linen cloth over it. I put this on the walls and ceiling to kill the high slap in the room. I used a double pad under the carpet. I used dark blue linen cover cloth and it looked very good. I use an excellent foam material now. It is a melamine base which can be painted any color, using water based paint. It comes in 2 ft squares and is basicly an acoustic wall paper. You can also use a thin 4 lb, Ester Urethane foam that comes in sheets. It's cheap, it works well, but it is only available in dark gray.

With a setup like this, I would use Neutral Reference cables, end to end. - Cheers, George

Q.) Hi george - Thank you very much for your reply! This is mostly an audio room with an added home theater setup. I will place a thin, big TV along the back wall, or a screen on the wall with a separate projector. Which would be the least offensive to the audio sound? I have talked to others and they indicate the TV should not be an issue, if you put your speakers at least 1 or 2 ft in front of the screen. Your opinion would be very useful.

Also, you mentioned that you have some foam material for acoustic treatment. Where would I need to place it and how much does it cost.

A.) Hi Rick - I like projectors, especially when you can isolate them sonically and the room is fairly dark when you are watching. I have a large screen, stretched on a frame, that flips up against the ceiling when not in use. The screen has little or no affect on sound. Similarly, other types of TV sets, if they are set back behind the speakers, should not have an adverse effect on the sound.

The sound absorbtion panels are 2 ft x 2 ft and are ten dollars each. They can be used to cover the walls and ceiling, or just the first reflection points.

Q.) Dear George, I was looking through your webpage for home theater setup but could not find detailed information similar to the stereo setup. Can you please share your view on it? Thank you very much, Best regards, Peter

A.) In a home theater setup, the rear channels should mirror the fronts if possible. If this not practical then the rears should be limited to frequencies that are higher than the half wave of the room height   (110~ for a 10 foot ceiling). The small monitors used for surrounds generally come close to this. Another great choice is to use dipoles for surrounds like the small Magnapans. Cheers, George

Q.) Thank you very much for the basic idea for mirroring the rears based on the fronts. I would like to ask 2 more question if possible to get a full understanding. Peter

My room is 5 (front) x 7 (side) meters. Calculating with the programme on the website it is: 1.38 from the side walls and 2.24 from the front wall. If I use the below calculation then I will have two pairs of speakers 0.52 meters facing each other.

My first question: In this case what shall I give up?

1. Reduce the distance of the rear speakers from the "back/front" wall and leave the side distance as calculated?

2. Use the calculation as if the room was a "long wall speaker placement" ONLY, at the "back/front" and gain 1 meter extra at the back and take advantage of the golden ratio as well?

A.) Your answer would be number one, reduce the distance to .618 times the side wall distance.

My second question: Where shall I place the middle speaker.

1. In between the two speakers (straight line), in front of the listening position.

2. In front of the listening position on a curve, like on a circle from the listening position? Waves reach the ear sinchronised with the other two front speakers.

A.) Number one will work better. The center channel is mainly for vocal material, so there is a minimal overlap. In any case having the leading edge a tiny bit forward will help the speech intelligibility. If you recess it you will have a near unison resonance in the system because of the rear wall distance. Hey, it is a small tweak and I would position it by ear. I will bet that you end up with it flush. I have a Theata and have tried time delaying to match the curve, but have not found satisfaction that way. Cheers, George

Q.) On your Listening Room Design page you mention 'acoustic wall paper: "I make a very special, hi-density, "acoustic wall paper". It is only 3/8" of an inch thick. It starts absorbing at about 300 cycles and eliminates all slap and reflection between the walls it is applied to."

Is that something you sell? If not, how is it made? Can regular wallpaper be applied to it? I'm trying to dampen a room in a way that my wife, who is concerned about the decor, would not object to. Regards, Max

A.) Hi Max. The product I was referring to is a very hi density urethane foam, but it would have a low "wife acceptance" factor (dark gray and cannot be painted). I am developing another product that is similar, but is a semi rigid, paintable foam, with a very high wife acceptance factor. - George

Q.) Hi George. Just had a small question regarding the Golden trapagon room. What are the distances (from rear wall, side wall, etc. ) for speaker placement in such a room - Ashish

A.) It would depend on the size of the room, but in general they would be placed on the narrow end of the room at the room width divided by 18 x 2 and room width divided by 8 from the rear wall and each other. (rw/18) x 5 = speaker to side wall. (rw/18) x 8 = speaker to rear wall and speaker to speaker. All measurements are to center of woofer- George

Q.) I looked at your room set up diagrams and did not understand what value the 1 and the 1.618 represent. Could you please explain.

A.) The ratio of 1 to 1.618 is called Golden Ratio. It represents the least divisible of ratios. It is sort of halfway between all the multiples. It can also be derived from something called a Fibonacci sequence: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144... each successive number being the sum of the previous 2 and closer to Golden Proportion.

The reason we use this ratio is it does not produce beats. In the case of wall reflections, the speaker's frequency of interaction is proportionate to its distance to the walls, so in doing this we graduate the bass resonant frequencies so they cancel rather than beat or double. A good audible way to hear this is in tuning a guitar to a major chord. As the last string is pulled in to tune, the beats between the note will disappear. Beats are particularly noxious in audio because they are an additive quality that is easily heard by the ear. It is thought one reason the Greeks used Golden Ratio in there temples is the sound of these structures. Dig around on our web site, there are many examples of the use of this proportion. - George

Q.) You recommend to place speakers RW x 0.447 from the rear wall and it means the speakers are almost in the middle of the room. I have a reservation from the stand point of appearance. My speakers are 52 inches from the rear wall now and I am willing to pull it more. Does this gives me any benefit? Conventional wisdom says the closer to the wall, the more bass sound and vise versa. My speaker is B&W S800 which does not reproduce low end too easily, so it is my concern that pulling the speakers farther away from the wall may make the sound thinner. - Massi

A.)This would be ideal setup in a dedicated room but obviously there are other considerations. The quantity of the base is normally of far less concern than the quality of the bass. This setup will yield excellent musical bass without accentuated notes common in most setups (such as the rule of thirds). Alternate setups that are quite effective can be found on our site under "Insights/Room Set Up". - George

Q.) George - Your website "insights" says, "For example, if the wall behind the speakers is 10 feet x 16 feet, the room would then be 26 feet long and the wall behind the listener would be 13 feet x 21 feet. Ideally, the rear portion of this room would vent into an attic space filled with fiberglass insulation." Could the wall behind the speakers be 8 H x 13 W and behind the listener 10 H x 16 W? - Patrick

A.) Yes, a 10 x 16, 13 x 21 room would be a scaled up version of a room 8 x 13 at one end and 10 x 16 at the other. You can make golden trapagons in any size you want. The idea is, the wall behind the speakers is a golden rectangle and the rear wall is a larger golden rectangle, 1.618 x the front wall's area. So, the rear wall's heigth and width dimensions will be 1.272 (square root of phi) x those of the front wall.

The length could, in fact, progress from either end using a fibonacci sequence. So, if the room was 8 x13 on one end and 10 x 16 at the other, the length could be either 21 or 26 feet (8+13=21 10+16=26) - George

Q.) As to the "rear portion venting into the attic", does that mean leaving a part of the ceiling open to the rafters, or do you mean some other way of venting? Thanks. - Patrick

A.) Exactly, you put fiberglass insulation in the attic to absorb the sound wave. This also equalizes the pressure on the opposite side of the ceiling so it does not "drum". The opening is usually covered with cloth so that it does not show. The idea is to have some absorption at all frequencies in the room. The vent is basicaly a hole that absorbs all frequencies. Typically you can cut the bottom bump in a room by 6db using this technique. - George

Q.) I tried to place the speakers in my living room according to your idea of using Golden Ratio. The measurements were made on the basis of your article in one of the online, high-end zines. I do not remember exactly in which one, but can find out if necessary. The distance from the front side of the speakers' woofers to the rear wall was calculated from the room height, divided by a certain ratio (which gave me a result of approx. 190 cm, - by memory, I'm writing to you not from home) and the distance from the woofer centers to the side walls was calculated from the rear wall lenght divided by another ratio, resulted in 175 cm). After I moved the speakers accordingly, I was simply amazed by the results! I never heard anything comparable from my sound system before. Honestly, the placement of my rather big loudspeakers (ribbon Apogees which weight and height are comparable to my beloved wife's) in our multifunctional guest room according to your idea was not very practical. My wife and I agreed to rearrange some settings and disturb some convenience, only to keep the placement under the golden ratio.

Recently I revisited your website, and after checking the article on loudspeaker placement, I found the actual placement, referring to the side walls, must be the same, but the distance to the rear wall should be much larger. In my case 281 against 190! In this case it was calculated not from the room height, but from the rear wall lenght. Well, it brought me into the some confusion. Further moving ahead of the loudspeakers will kill other use of the room besides purely listening purposes. I just do not know, whether initial placement according to your advise is good enough. I will be grateful if you will find a free minute to instruct humble music lover from Odessa, Ukraine. My room measurements are RW lenght - 630, SW lenght - 590, room height 320.

A.) The original formula uses .618 x the ceiling height for the rear wall placement and is ideal for dipole speakers such as Apogees and Magnepans because they cancel their side wave. However, the common box speaker radiates low frequencies in all directions, thus the formula that places the speaker to rear wall at 1.618 the side wall distance. Stick with the original formula, it suites your speaker well. - George

Q.) Hello, First of all I'd like to say thanks for all of the great information provided at your site regarding speaker placement and listening room dimensions, I've found it very interesting and useful.

I'm one of the unfortunates that has a room measuring 8' H x 14' 7" x 15'. My speakers are set up on the long wall.  Should I consider this room "square"?  If so, the statement at the bottom of Diagram G, Speaker Placement in Square Listening Rooms: "Golden Rectangles, 1.618 (side wall) x 1 (rear wall) on one side and 1 (side wall) x 1.618 (rear wall) create diagonal lines for speaker placement in a square room."  leads me to think that the Golden Rectangle may be rotated ninety degrees and used similarly to the way shown in Diagram "F"- Horizontal and Square Listening Rooms. Am I interpreting this correctly?

1.) Not being certain if the dimensions in my room are close enough to being square, which diagram should I use?

2.) Am I correct in thinking that I can place my speakers anywhere along the line created by bisecting the corners of the golden rectangle?

3.) Would the Nearfield Listening Position in Diagram B be an improvement over the the other diagram(s) that would be applicable to my room?

Thanks in advance for your time, I really appreciate it! - Best regards, Dave

A.) Hi Dave - Yeah, that is square room! You seem to understand the suggestions, except that "Near Field" refers to a listening position that has the listeners head the same distance from the speakers as the speakers are from each other. This is probably going to be the best place to listen in this room, no mater how the speakers are arraigned. I believe that you will find that softening the walls and the room in general will make the biggest improvement.  Carpet with thick foam padding or batting on the walls covered by cloth, or anything else you can come up with along those lines, will make the room much more pleasant. Let me know what works best for you. I am always interested in the solutions that people find for Square rooms. - Cheers, George

Q.) Thanks George!  I'm going to try your ideas with the room treatments and set up for the near field position, this room is driving me nuts! - The best, Dave

A.) Do you own the house?  If so I have an idea that might work. - George

Q.) Hi, yes, I'm the owner.  I do have plans to knock out a wall and extend the room another 5 feet, making it 15' x 19', but who knows when this will happen!  I'd love to hear your idea. - Dave

A.) Ok here is a semi radical idea, but cheap and easy. If there is an attic, you can vent the room into it through a couple feet of fiberglass insulation. Use the pink stuff with no backing. A square room peaks all its nodes in the center of the room. An opening 4’ x 8’ (one sheet of dry wall) in the center of the ceiling will do fine. You can cover the hole with linen cloth. This will dramatically reduce the 50~/100~ cycle bump.

Felt works good for wall covering or linen over foam or cotton batting. If you have a source for pretty cloth, it works great and gives you tremendous latitude for tuning the room while still maintaining a pleasing aesthetic. - George

Q.) I just love radical ideas!  Ok, let me be sure and understand your idea. I will cut out a section 4' x 8' out of the sheetrock in the ceiling, leaving joists intact, stuff  a couple feet of fiberglass up in to the space, then make it pretty at the ceiling by covering with  (probably in a frame) some linen cloth, or maybe burlap. I understand that burlap has good a good way of not reflecting sound. Do I have it right?

Thanks so much!  My wife has pretty much figured me to be crazy already, so this won't surprise her at all. - Dave

A.) Yup that’s it. Maybe a little chicken wire or something to keep the fiberglass under control and yes, burlap is fine, if you can find big enough rolls. My current room has cotton batting on walls double or triple at corners, edges and reflection points.  The surface of the room is a blue linen I purchased at a yardage store. It is sewn together and stapled at the edges to hold it on the walls. It's rather extreme, but it looks great and it is the best sounding room ever.  The unachievable goal of a perfect listening room has a little  absorption at every frequency, evenly distributed (a little more at reflection points).  This is easily achieved at mid and high frequencies, but the low frequencies require more industrial strength tricks. In  the case of your square room, the hole in the middle seems ideal. If not, you get a little extra insulation and it only cost a little more than a sheet of dry wall to put it back.  Let me know how it works out. - Cheers, George

Q.) I enjoyed reading the article on room setup posted on your site. I have recently moved my system from a 18x30 room into a room that is 12'9"x20'. I am not getting all the soundstage and detail I previously had (I have moved, not just my gear, so there's no going back.) I would like to try putting the speakers on the long wall. Are there any guidelines or recommendations for doing that? Any info is greatly appreciated. (Gear is Madrigal Mark Levinson and the speakers are about $8-9K and not sold in this country. Cables are Neutral Reference.)

A.) I have added a couple pages dealing with long wall and square rooms. Have a look at Diagrams F and G, under "Insights/Room Set Up".

Basically form a golden ratio between the side wall and the rear wall, (behind speaker). This will give a placement that nulls the two major interaction nodes. Either diagram will apply in a long wall setup. Because of the variables and the wall behind the listener - in a long wall setup it is difficult to make a formula that covers all the combinations. - George

Q.) I wish to try my Maggie 1.6QRs along the "long" wall in my listening room. The long wall is 250" in length (20'10"). The short (side) wall is 170" in length (14'2"). If I follow your placement protocol, the center of the 1.6 woofer panel would be 69" from the side walls (250" x .276) = 5'9", which means the woofer centers would be 112" (9'4") apart.

However, if I follow the protocol vis-à-vis the back wall, the center of the woofers would be 250" x .447 = 111.75" = 112" (9'4") from the back/long wall. But the room is only 170" (14'2") deep along the side/short wall. Thus the Maggies would be in my lap. This cannot be, can it?

A.) The room setup formula is optimized for lengthwise setup in a rectangular cuboid and often cannot be applied with the speakers firing across a room or in a cube shaped room. However, most aspects of the formula can be realized if the two major periodic interfaces of the speakers are graduated in a ratio of 1.618 to 1. In other words, pick a speaker to side wall or speaker to rear wall position and multiply by either 1.618 or .618 to determine the other measurement. - George

Q.) I have my bookshelf speakers set up with the Golden Ratio. I was wondering if there's a particular place I should sit. I currently sit pretty close to the wall that the speakers face.

A.) You can sit any where you want as far as the formula concerned. If you are concerned about stereo balance you must be more or less equidistant from both speakers. If you want the exact, three dimensional mix (most mixing is done from what is called the Nearfield Position) to hear the exact perspective that things are recorded in, you must be one corner of an equilateral triangle with the speakers being the other two. - George

Q.) Hello George, I want to experiment a bit with your  Golden Rule method of getting rid of dips and resonances in my current setup, but I am a bit confused about the results I get following those rules. So could you please help me calculate the position for my Magnepan dipoles MG 1.6 QR?

My room is 5.07 meters wide, 4.85 m deep and has a 2.56 m ceiling height. According to  your  method, for a horizontal room, where the speakers are set up across the wide wall, it says: multiply the distance from the back wall by 1.618, then you get the optimum distance of the speakers from the side wall. - Joerg

A.) This is not a multiple!   Figure f indicates placing the speaker center on a diagonal line that extends from the corner. Any point on this line is  in a ratio of 1 to 1.618 in distance from, respectively, the back wall and the side wall. - George

Q.) So far, so good. For dipole speakers, there seems to be another rule: ceiling height multiplied by 0.618 results in the optimum distance of the speaker to the back wall. This calculation seems to be important for optimum bass response and clarity. - Joerg

A.) This  is an alternative placement  for dipoles . Because the dipole cancels a portion of its side wave, the side wall is, at times, less significant than the ceiling reflection (in a low aspect ratio room, for instance).   You would not  necessarily use this method  and if you did, it would preclude any other method. - George

Q.) In my case, the above would mean the following: Multiply ceiling height 2.56 m by 0.618 = 1.58 m distance of the Magnepans to the rear wall. According to the other, the "Horizontal" rule, you multiply those 1.58 m by 1.618 (which results in 2.55 m) to get the distance of the speaker to the side wall. But 2.55 m distance means, for a 5.07m wide room, the speakers meet in the center!

Even if I take this measure only as a reference point and draw a line to the back corners and move the speakers along this line, even if I only allow a distance between the speakers of 2 meters, then the distance to the back wall would be only 0.8 meters. This is not a good setting for the Maggies, I guess, it's too close to the back wall. So, basically I am stuck, unless I got something major wrong here.

Let me add one final remark. I dug into this matter, since with my current setup, that I found acoustically by moving the speakers around until I found the best imaging possible. The center of the Maggies is 1.58m from the back wall and 1.45 from the side wall, slightly toed in. Funny, huh, a  Cardas  value by coincidence. - Joerg

A.) This is exactly how I got there in the first place!. It is more that a coincidence! Leave them there. The dip around 120 is the round trip time to the back wall. The wall reflection is a given of sorts . You can move it around, but not eliminate it by moving the speakers.  You can trap the wave with a set of padded book shelves or other devices. - George

Q.) I do get a big dip in the important range between 100 and 140 Hz; up to 20 dB, measured! I hoped, that with the Cardas  Method, I could avoid dips and resonances, as best as possible, and get a better bass response. At the moment, as I said, I am stuck, because calculations seem to guide me to some strange results. Your help in this is greatly appreciated. Kind regards from Germany - Joerg

A.) I am surprised that it is that deep!! 20 db is a lot.  Amazing!  I believe that  you are  in a 1/3 - 2/3 relationship front to rear. This doubles the dip. Sigh! Again, this is an artifact of a squarish room or a short front to rear aspect ratio. - George

Q.) Dear George, I'm very impressed with your Fibonacci /Golden Ratio approach in room design and speaker placement. I would appreciate it if you would inform me more on "Far-Field" speaker placement in relation to the Fibonacci/Golden Ratio. Thanks and regards, Frederick

A.) The results are very impressive. You can tell when you have them in the right spot by listening from the next room.  The progression simply scales the interaction of wall reflections so that they cancel. This is audible from any position. The "Nearfield" Listing Position is just the standard location for stereo mixing/listening. Cheers, George

Q.) George, I used the dipole set up for my Bohlender-Graebener 520dx ribbon speakers and it worked out great. Now I'm trying to install a single, 12" downfiring subwoofer into the equation. Do you have any tips for subwoofer placement? Kind regards, Alan

A.) Hi Alan, With dipoles, I like in the center, positioned equally between the speakers. This avoids modulation of the dipoles. George

Q.) Good morning, I'm Italian, sorry for mine bad English. In the "Room Set Up" section on your website, where is the point of where I listen? Thank you. Best regards. Roberto

A.) The traditional listening position is called the Nearfield Listening Position. It is where your head is at one point of an equilateral triangle and the speakers are the other two points. It can be heard quit distinctly if you play pink or white noise through your system and move your head in the general area of the nearfield point. Thanks, George

Q.) Good morning. Thanks for your help. I tried this configuration in my listening room yesterday and it has increased the quality of sound and the bass is more correct. In this configuration, however, the triangle seems too small. My room is 3.4m wide and 5.3m long and I have a triangle with a side of 1.52m. Can I increase the size of the triangle without changing the quality?

Another question. The tringle is equilateral. Should the speakers be angled toward me at thirty degrees? Best regards, Roberto

A.) Hi Roberto, the position of the speakers in the room determines everything.  You will hear the best sound where you are at. The Nearfield triangle is determined, in turn, by the position of the speakers. The speakers usually work best ninety degrees to the side wall. Some speakers like to be toed in about 5 degrees, rarely more. You can experiment by ear .

If  you draw a line from the current position of the speaker (center of the woofer), to the corner behind the speaker,  you can place the speakers on this line, closer to the corner and thus widen the base of the triangle. Depending on the speaker, you might go a foot or so before you get any noticeable degradation. George

Q.) Dear Mr. Cardas, I wanted to pass on my experience using your Golden Ratio system for listening room set-up. I had been struggling for quite some time, to find a good set-up for my MG 2.5 R's. I'm unfortunate to have a sonically bright, square room (5.6 x 5.7 x 3m). While I was searching for room treatment suggestions, I followed a link to your web site and read your solutions for dipole speaker placement and dealing with a square room.

I did the necessary calculations to find the initial rear wall speaker distance, (for a dipole), then used simple algebra to calulate the ratio distances for "5" and "13". I then measured and marked the lower left and right hand corners of the inner and outer Golden Rectangles for each corner and penciled a diagonal line on the floor connecting these points.

From my previous 2.5R placement expereince, I knew a speaker separation of around 2.5m gave a nice wide sound stage. I then moved the speakers along the marked diagonals until I had the desired seperation distance, and did the equilateral triangle for listening position.

At this point, the speakers were still in a parallel position to the rear wall. I sat down for a listen, and was truely amazed at what I was hearing. No longer were the maggies "barking" at me, I had a mid-range I forgot existed, and I had a wonderful sound stage. After a few tracks, I toed them in 1.25cm and I had bass response, and very detailed, well focused imaging.

I want to thank you for providing such simple and elegant solution! Best regards, Brian

A.) Brian, the Maggies are great speakers and I know you will enjoy them. Cheers, George

Q.) Hi, I am trying to find a good location for my front, Magenpan 1.6 speakers. I utilized your Speaker Placement Calculator and the results were to place them 3 feet from the side walls and 6 feet from the rear wall. The problem is, I have a screen in-between the speakers requiring them to be placed closer to the walls and further back. What would be a reasonable compromise for locating the speaker placement. The room is 11 ft. 2 in. x 17 ft., with a 10 ft. ceiling. Thanks, Darin

A.) Darin, With dipoles the sidewave is canceled, so simply use the Dipole Speaker Calculator and spread them equally to towards the walls from the calculated point. Thanks, George

Q.) Dear Mr Cardas, I am an audio enthusiast and I am currently using Cardas interconnects and speaker cable in my system. I experienced a marked improvement in sound quality when I switched from Monster to Cardas cables.

I however realized that most people overlook the physical room as one of the most important components of an audio system. I cannot see the point of investing in expensive high-end equipment without having a decent listening room. I am finally in a position to build a listening room from scratch and I require advice about the ideal dimensions for such a room. The architect has drawn plans and the current size of the room is 7m long by 5m wide by 3m High. How can I accurately calculate the relationships between these dimensions for optimal sound quality? Regards, André

A.) André, The ideal for a rectangular cuboid is to progress the dimensions by a ratio ot 1.618 to 1. Take the largest dimension and multiply by .618, which in your case would result in 7m x 4.3m x 2.7m. A great room can be created by adding a slight taper to the walls, see "The Golden Trapagon" in our "Insights/Room Setup" section.

Q.) Hi, I have been using the rules on your site to set up my speakers. Unfortunately my room does not have parallel walls and one speaker always sounds louder than the other. Is it OK to use the volume controls on the power amp to center the image or should I move the speakers asymmetrically. Thanks Chris

A.) Hi Chris, Keep them symmetrical adjust the volume. Many systems can benefit from a bit of balance adjustment. Cheers, George

Q.) Hello George, I just want to say that your cables are fabulous. They helped "neutralize" my strident-sounding system. I run Krells with Tannoys. My listening room has modest proportions. It's 12' x 11'. Kinda squarish I know. I positioned the speakers according to your mathematical equation and unsurprisingly, the speakers are in-my face now. I must admit though, the transparency and soundstage deepened like I've never heard before.

That said, my question is, have I compromised bass-depth and soundstage for transparency by having them positioned like this? Thank you for your time, Felix

 A.) Thanks Felix, glad you are enjoying the cables.

As to speaker position, I believe the deep base should not be compromised in quality and there should be less of a bass bump. Squarish rooms will have some compromises though. Usually softening the walls at the reflection points and behind your head will help transparency. Killing any slap or echo is the next step. Cheers, George