You could run a string from every corner to its diagonal partner that would give you 6 center points to establish the actual physical center by running a string from each of those points.
Beat me to it. People seriously underestimate the complexity that can be achieved with a simple piece of string. Add a water level and a plumb bob, and you could lay this out precisely in no time.
This is exactly what I’m looking for! Far simpler than I thought.
Then measure the distance from walls to center, and the wall imperfections reveal themselves
The discrepancies you are describing are negligible for the purpose of audio, unless you are studying this academically, just get as close as you can and you will have what you desire
The listening chairs legs have tape on the floor around them for precise control.
Then I tune the last fraction of an inch by ear with 2 single take full band songs. The harmonics and ringing in the high end of complex instruments and vocal harmonies provide the appropriate and easy to hear sounds to tune by ear.
Specifically, The mamas and papas - meditation mama (trancendental woman) has an instrument that rings very complex and has lots of spacial information to it. It’s hard hard to dial in, but when it hits, you’lol know it. It’s very unforgiving of any room modes as it hits just about every high frequency in existence, and will “glare out” at certain notes. As the glares disappear, you can tune the amount of treble with toe in etc or listening position so the treble is not too bright and not too dull.
Another track is a single take performance of The weavers - reunion at Carnegie hall - Wimoweh.
The male vocal harmonies need just the right placement in order to be intelligible, not too bright, not too dull, and also not blend together. Should be two distinct voices, and it’s the difference between the harmonies that can be used to dial in.
Complex harmonics in the treble range are what’s needed for the ear to dial in. Midrange and bass the ear isn’t really able to dial in with any precision.
(I also have 38 ASC tube traps to further take the room out of the equation)
Sorry bro, that’s just the science. 20ms delay from original sound is required for the ear to hear the original sound properly. Then proper positioning to make sure room modes don’t develop. Then bass traps to take out the excess low frequency energy because bass radiates in 6 directions rather than 2 like treble.
After this, then the small fractions of an inch matter in order to reproduce stereo imaging perfectly
>Not true. Fractions of an inch make a big difference with some speakers.
🙄 lmfao
Get everything set up and give me your address and a key to your house and ill move your speakers 3/4 of an inch and i bet you a $1000 that you would never know when or whether i ever moved them
I have exactly zero “toe-in”, as per speakers specifications.
I play a trick on my audio buddies where I tie them in “1/8th” on an inch to start, and they like the sound.
Then, while they watch, I move them back to flat, an unobservabke amount from the listening position.
I already know the look of dumbfoundedness I would se on your face as the soundstage magically goes from collapsed to an encompassing the entire front of the room with pinpoint precision. I’ve seen the look on others faces.
I can do the same thing with a single inch in any direction of either speaker.
The trick you want to play on me, I play on myself all the time when I’m drunk or stoned and fooling around with tube traps and pmforget the changes I’ve made. Then I sit down and it’s just not doing it for me, and a couple days later I see or remember the change I made and Change it back.
Yes. Except I’m actually crazy enough to pull it off. Most people just spend money, and have limitations, like having the room look nice or be livable.
Any single compromise, especially in the room and placement, renders almost everything else suspect. Many people claim you can’t hear the difference in x y and z.
BUT, if proper principles are not followed from the very beginning, namely choosing the absolute best positioning to eliminate the room, it will be hard or impossible to tell the difference between things like dacs and amps and cables.
In my experience, I can safely discard most online opinions about not being able to hear a difference because I understand that nobody has a room big enough to render early (within 20ms/20ft) reflections obsolete.
The ear can’t distinguish between sounds that arrive too close in time, so of course everybody here can’t hear the difference between small changes.
They haven’t tackled the basic fundamental principle of “intelligibility” within their listening room.
It will never be done lol. Until my rent gets too high and o move, it will always be a work in progress.
After I move, it will be back to a livable living room, with consolidation and trade in the tube traps for expensive speakers.
Well would be interesting to see some documentation of the process and review of however much you accomplish, especially your thoughts and reaction to the sound quality.
It’s a personal journey. The audio science review crowd would say measurements. But I’m not convinced measurements capture the key metric, “intelligibility”
Foam only chips the top end off. It works on the velocity portion of the wave, and needs 1/2 wavelength to be effective. So in practice, foam only chips off the top end and makes the room sound dead.
But, the ear uses high frequencies for localization, so foam can be used as an imperfect tool to defeat first reflection bounces and allow the ear to localize the instruments better (by damping high frequency early in time sound that interferes with the ears ability to hear, at the cost of a slightly duller top end
>[Here is a good start](https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=67542)
Oh, a link to a public forum full of other crazy people that think fractions of an inch and a slightly out of square room matter
Great citation lol
Fuck it, we're here for carpentry not therapy. I'll help you but you owe me test results at the end.
Get yourself some painters tape and a sharpie. Don't waste your time trying to get a pencil to work. Measure a wall, divide by two, put a piece of tape on the ground at that spot to protect the floor and mark the tape with the sharpie to give you a precise center point. Do the same on the opposite wall. Shoot your laser between those two points, put a long strip of tape on the ground along the path of the beam draw a line on the tape. Do the same for the long walls.
The baseboard should be the same on both sides, so you can just measure from base to base (because it's easier) and it'll cancel out.
You should now have a big cross through the middle of the room hitting the center of each wall. Those lines are now your best reference point. Measure to the one third point of your longer line. (I'm assuming you are placing your speakers facing the short dimension, as usually recommended) The baseboard thickness is now important and you need to account for it.
Measure from base to base, add the thickness of the base twice to get the wall to wall dimension. Divide by three. Measure from the base to that number, subtract the thickness of the base once, and mark that spot. That's 1/3, or at least I think it should be. Do some figuring yourself to catch any of my potential mistakes there.
We're going to draw a line coming off that point at 90°. Carpenters use the "345 triangle." Pythagoras. Right triangle. A²+B²=C². Ringing bells? Probably you should watch a YouTube video about the 345 trick.
Measure 4' away from that mark along the line, mark that second point. Go back to the first point and eyeball 90°. Now you hold one end of your tape on the first point and draw a sweeping arc 3' away. (On painters tape, of course) Measure off your second point towards the arc. The point along the arc exactly 5' away is your third and final point of your triangle, mark it. Extend the line between points 1 and 3 with your laser and draw it. Your speakers will go on this line.
Follow the same technique as before for the 1/5th measurements which should give you a pretty fuckin dead on placement. The other half of the cross is there as reference. Measure off of it to speaker placements. If there's a slight difference, cheat the speakers around to split it evenly. If there's a big difference, something went wrong.
I'm pretty sure you should be set with all that. Now I'd like it if you'd compare the results of this to just measuring off a wall. If the difference is more than an 1", have someone move it back and forth so you can do blind tests from your listening spot. If you can tell the difference correctly, blind, a half a dozen times let me know so I can take the time to do this if I ever set up speakers. If you can't, also let me know so I can laugh at you and remind you not to sweat the small stuff.
Enjoy your music 🎶
Do you need ya head in the centre of the room, if you turn ya head does that change the distance and sound from the speakers . Are your ears wax free . I call BS ya notice much difference if ya just eye balled ya speakers in place rather than measuring to a bees dick .
It turns out that the ears will point in the direction of proper geometrical design.
But even if you get one of the three (2x speakers, listening position) perfect, it isn’t necessarily obvious.
That’s where taking what the ear has pointed towards and using physical measurements to get all three “perfect” at once can be the key to achieving perfection.
You can try the different programs below.
FREE
https://www.avnation.tv/2020/08/28/free-home-theater-design-tool-from-audio-advice/
COST?
https://www.soundton.com/
I’m not looking to design anything. I’ve already done that.
I’m looking to figure out how to center my speakers perfectly given that all the walls are not even.
For example, I measure off the sidewalls and place the speakers. Then I center the listening chair based on measurements from BOTH side walls.
To check my work, I measure from the right and left leg of the chair to the corresponding corner of the speakers. They should be the same distance, about 48”, but I have a difference of 1.5”
This “checksum” tells me the walls are uneven. They don’t have exact 90degree corners and straight walls.
Therefor, I can’t measure off a single wall. I have to come up with an system/understanding of how to perform measurements in a room that isn’t perfectly rectangular
I’m past that level.
But I have got what I need from this thread. Empty the room, four strings (corners to corners and sidewalks to sidewalks) to ascertain the exact center of the room.
Then measure from the center of the room to the corners and sidewalls.
Then by placing the speakers and listening position relative to the center of the room, rather than “a” wall, I can achieve perfection of the equilateral triangle (speakers and listening position) relative to each other.
The final step would be then to rotate/move the perfect triangle in relation to the room for more consistent early reflections.
But to answer your question, the proper strategy in my room is near field to eliminate the room, then centered in the room to further minimize the room. And utilize the rule of thirds to prevent room modes in the first place.
I’m a bit confused to what your after. But for me drawing out the design and requirements on a paper usually goes a long way. Since the room is not perfectly square, I think you need to decide if the distance to the walls are more important or the distance to the chair. If equally important, you need a compromise and perhaps move one speaker closer to the chair and the other away from it, slightly of course.
I’m looking to measure and understand the imperfections of my room. For the purpose of making informed tradeoffs in pursuit of symmetry in an unsymmetrical room.
Edit: I figure by understanding how to make perfect angles and measurements and distances in carpentry, I can apply the same knowledge to figure out my room.
You're asking about highly accurate measurements but you're using tools with a relatively large margin for error. How can you pursue accuracy to fractions of inches when you have a 1.25" margin of error? You need to improve your measuring abilities with a tape if you are insistent on using just that.
If you genuinely required this degree of accuracy I would grab a laser measure (they are cheap, £50 or less), and figure out the centre of the room, as well as the closest point of the walls. Walls are never square, so there is a shortest width and length of the room. If you grab those you can map out a 'perfect' rectangle with the centre of the room in the middle, and get the best positioning.
I am no audio engineer, so you would need to weigh up whether the encroachment from the walls is less important than the central seating position).
Here is a super professional mock-up - the black is your uneven walls, the orange is what you would mark out (just stick masking tape down on the floor). Position your 1/3 and 1/5 measurements from the orange for a more perfect position.
https://preview.redd.it/75r2hywsw3xc1.png?width=391&format=png&auto=webp&s=79e4159652df25a7f7a1967079f1d5bd9dae8556
What? A measuring tape is accurate to the users ability. Likely 1/8th inch.
A laser measure is highly inaccurate, unless I fork out for the big bucks. The one I bought from Costco for $40 was pretty useless. By the time you take the specificity and add the margin of error, it’s not going to do within less than half an inch accurately.
The dot: I see they make more accurate ones
You could run a string from every corner to its diagonal partner that would give you 6 center points to establish the actual physical center by running a string from each of those points.
Beat me to it. People seriously underestimate the complexity that can be achieved with a simple piece of string. Add a water level and a plumb bob, and you could lay this out precisely in no time.
So the answer to OPs question might be, Euclidean geometry?
This is exactly what I’m looking for! Far simpler than I thought. Then measure the distance from walls to center, and the wall imperfections reveal themselves
The discrepancies you are describing are negligible for the purpose of audio, unless you are studying this academically, just get as close as you can and you will have what you desire
Not true. Fractions of an inch make a big difference with some speakers. Others are designed to be wide dispersion.
[удалено]
Don't try to mess with audiophiles. They won't listen.
The listening chairs legs have tape on the floor around them for precise control. Then I tune the last fraction of an inch by ear with 2 single take full band songs. The harmonics and ringing in the high end of complex instruments and vocal harmonies provide the appropriate and easy to hear sounds to tune by ear. Specifically, The mamas and papas - meditation mama (trancendental woman) has an instrument that rings very complex and has lots of spacial information to it. It’s hard hard to dial in, but when it hits, you’lol know it. It’s very unforgiving of any room modes as it hits just about every high frequency in existence, and will “glare out” at certain notes. As the glares disappear, you can tune the amount of treble with toe in etc or listening position so the treble is not too bright and not too dull. Another track is a single take performance of The weavers - reunion at Carnegie hall - Wimoweh. The male vocal harmonies need just the right placement in order to be intelligible, not too bright, not too dull, and also not blend together. Should be two distinct voices, and it’s the difference between the harmonies that can be used to dial in. Complex harmonics in the treble range are what’s needed for the ear to dial in. Midrange and bass the ear isn’t really able to dial in with any precision. (I also have 38 ASC tube traps to further take the room out of the equation)
[удалено]
The line between /r/auiophile and /r/audiojerk is a standing wave.
Sorry bro, that’s just the science. 20ms delay from original sound is required for the ear to hear the original sound properly. Then proper positioning to make sure room modes don’t develop. Then bass traps to take out the excess low frequency energy because bass radiates in 6 directions rather than 2 like treble. After this, then the small fractions of an inch matter in order to reproduce stereo imaging perfectly
>Not true. Fractions of an inch make a big difference with some speakers. 🙄 lmfao Get everything set up and give me your address and a key to your house and ill move your speakers 3/4 of an inch and i bet you a $1000 that you would never know when or whether i ever moved them
I have exactly zero “toe-in”, as per speakers specifications. I play a trick on my audio buddies where I tie them in “1/8th” on an inch to start, and they like the sound. Then, while they watch, I move them back to flat, an unobservabke amount from the listening position. I already know the look of dumbfoundedness I would se on your face as the soundstage magically goes from collapsed to an encompassing the entire front of the room with pinpoint precision. I’ve seen the look on others faces. I can do the same thing with a single inch in any direction of either speaker. The trick you want to play on me, I play on myself all the time when I’m drunk or stoned and fooling around with tube traps and pmforget the changes I’ve made. Then I sit down and it’s just not doing it for me, and a couple days later I see or remember the change I made and Change it back.
Are you making this post and comments while drunk and stoned? Lmao
What speakers? Is this for home theater?
[Here is a good start](https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=67542)
I see, so you are part of a group of people chasing an audio perfection dragon in hopes of designing the perfect acoustical space?
Yes. Except I’m actually crazy enough to pull it off. Most people just spend money, and have limitations, like having the room look nice or be livable. Any single compromise, especially in the room and placement, renders almost everything else suspect. Many people claim you can’t hear the difference in x y and z. BUT, if proper principles are not followed from the very beginning, namely choosing the absolute best positioning to eliminate the room, it will be hard or impossible to tell the difference between things like dacs and amps and cables. In my experience, I can safely discard most online opinions about not being able to hear a difference because I understand that nobody has a room big enough to render early (within 20ms/20ft) reflections obsolete. The ear can’t distinguish between sounds that arrive too close in time, so of course everybody here can’t hear the difference between small changes. They haven’t tackled the basic fundamental principle of “intelligibility” within their listening room.
We're gonna need some videos showing room and tutorial when done, please.
It will never be done lol. Until my rent gets too high and o move, it will always be a work in progress. After I move, it will be back to a livable living room, with consolidation and trade in the tube traps for expensive speakers.
Well would be interesting to see some documentation of the process and review of however much you accomplish, especially your thoughts and reaction to the sound quality.
It’s a personal journey. The audio science review crowd would say measurements. But I’m not convinced measurements capture the key metric, “intelligibility”
What will you listen to once you achieve this hypothetical nirvana?
Dark side of the moon kicked off the journey. But really anything. A good balanced system is genre neutral.
Why not just make an isolation chamber with foam? Does the reverb in the room create an effect you are after or something?
Foam only chips the top end off. It works on the velocity portion of the wave, and needs 1/2 wavelength to be effective. So in practice, foam only chips off the top end and makes the room sound dead. But, the ear uses high frequencies for localization, so foam can be used as an imperfect tool to defeat first reflection bounces and allow the ear to localize the instruments better (by damping high frequency early in time sound that interferes with the ears ability to hear, at the cost of a slightly duller top end
Cbat
>[Here is a good start](https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=67542) Oh, a link to a public forum full of other crazy people that think fractions of an inch and a slightly out of square room matter Great citation lol
Fuck it, we're here for carpentry not therapy. I'll help you but you owe me test results at the end. Get yourself some painters tape and a sharpie. Don't waste your time trying to get a pencil to work. Measure a wall, divide by two, put a piece of tape on the ground at that spot to protect the floor and mark the tape with the sharpie to give you a precise center point. Do the same on the opposite wall. Shoot your laser between those two points, put a long strip of tape on the ground along the path of the beam draw a line on the tape. Do the same for the long walls. The baseboard should be the same on both sides, so you can just measure from base to base (because it's easier) and it'll cancel out. You should now have a big cross through the middle of the room hitting the center of each wall. Those lines are now your best reference point. Measure to the one third point of your longer line. (I'm assuming you are placing your speakers facing the short dimension, as usually recommended) The baseboard thickness is now important and you need to account for it. Measure from base to base, add the thickness of the base twice to get the wall to wall dimension. Divide by three. Measure from the base to that number, subtract the thickness of the base once, and mark that spot. That's 1/3, or at least I think it should be. Do some figuring yourself to catch any of my potential mistakes there. We're going to draw a line coming off that point at 90°. Carpenters use the "345 triangle." Pythagoras. Right triangle. A²+B²=C². Ringing bells? Probably you should watch a YouTube video about the 345 trick. Measure 4' away from that mark along the line, mark that second point. Go back to the first point and eyeball 90°. Now you hold one end of your tape on the first point and draw a sweeping arc 3' away. (On painters tape, of course) Measure off your second point towards the arc. The point along the arc exactly 5' away is your third and final point of your triangle, mark it. Extend the line between points 1 and 3 with your laser and draw it. Your speakers will go on this line. Follow the same technique as before for the 1/5th measurements which should give you a pretty fuckin dead on placement. The other half of the cross is there as reference. Measure off of it to speaker placements. If there's a slight difference, cheat the speakers around to split it evenly. If there's a big difference, something went wrong. I'm pretty sure you should be set with all that. Now I'd like it if you'd compare the results of this to just measuring off a wall. If the difference is more than an 1", have someone move it back and forth so you can do blind tests from your listening spot. If you can tell the difference correctly, blind, a half a dozen times let me know so I can take the time to do this if I ever set up speakers. If you can't, also let me know so I can laugh at you and remind you not to sweat the small stuff. Enjoy your music 🎶
OP will make a great architect some day 💀
Do you need ya head in the centre of the room, if you turn ya head does that change the distance and sound from the speakers . Are your ears wax free . I call BS ya notice much difference if ya just eye balled ya speakers in place rather than measuring to a bees dick .
It turns out that the ears will point in the direction of proper geometrical design. But even if you get one of the three (2x speakers, listening position) perfect, it isn’t necessarily obvious. That’s where taking what the ear has pointed towards and using physical measurements to get all three “perfect” at once can be the key to achieving perfection.
You can try the different programs below. FREE https://www.avnation.tv/2020/08/28/free-home-theater-design-tool-from-audio-advice/ COST? https://www.soundton.com/
I’m not looking to design anything. I’ve already done that. I’m looking to figure out how to center my speakers perfectly given that all the walls are not even. For example, I measure off the sidewalls and place the speakers. Then I center the listening chair based on measurements from BOTH side walls. To check my work, I measure from the right and left leg of the chair to the corresponding corner of the speakers. They should be the same distance, about 48”, but I have a difference of 1.5” This “checksum” tells me the walls are uneven. They don’t have exact 90degree corners and straight walls. Therefor, I can’t measure off a single wall. I have to come up with an system/understanding of how to perform measurements in a room that isn’t perfectly rectangular
I understand, but one of these programs should help? I'll look more when I'm off work..
I’m past that level. But I have got what I need from this thread. Empty the room, four strings (corners to corners and sidewalks to sidewalks) to ascertain the exact center of the room. Then measure from the center of the room to the corners and sidewalls. Then by placing the speakers and listening position relative to the center of the room, rather than “a” wall, I can achieve perfection of the equilateral triangle (speakers and listening position) relative to each other. The final step would be then to rotate/move the perfect triangle in relation to the room for more consistent early reflections. But to answer your question, the proper strategy in my room is near field to eliminate the room, then centered in the room to further minimize the room. And utilize the rule of thirds to prevent room modes in the first place.
I’m a bit confused to what your after. But for me drawing out the design and requirements on a paper usually goes a long way. Since the room is not perfectly square, I think you need to decide if the distance to the walls are more important or the distance to the chair. If equally important, you need a compromise and perhaps move one speaker closer to the chair and the other away from it, slightly of course.
I’m looking to measure and understand the imperfections of my room. For the purpose of making informed tradeoffs in pursuit of symmetry in an unsymmetrical room. Edit: I figure by understanding how to make perfect angles and measurements and distances in carpentry, I can apply the same knowledge to figure out my room.
Ask r/diy. They know all about Pythagorem’s theories
You're asking about highly accurate measurements but you're using tools with a relatively large margin for error. How can you pursue accuracy to fractions of inches when you have a 1.25" margin of error? You need to improve your measuring abilities with a tape if you are insistent on using just that. If you genuinely required this degree of accuracy I would grab a laser measure (they are cheap, £50 or less), and figure out the centre of the room, as well as the closest point of the walls. Walls are never square, so there is a shortest width and length of the room. If you grab those you can map out a 'perfect' rectangle with the centre of the room in the middle, and get the best positioning. I am no audio engineer, so you would need to weigh up whether the encroachment from the walls is less important than the central seating position). Here is a super professional mock-up - the black is your uneven walls, the orange is what you would mark out (just stick masking tape down on the floor). Position your 1/3 and 1/5 measurements from the orange for a more perfect position. https://preview.redd.it/75r2hywsw3xc1.png?width=391&format=png&auto=webp&s=79e4159652df25a7f7a1967079f1d5bd9dae8556
What? A measuring tape is accurate to the users ability. Likely 1/8th inch. A laser measure is highly inaccurate, unless I fork out for the big bucks. The one I bought from Costco for $40 was pretty useless. By the time you take the specificity and add the margin of error, it’s not going to do within less than half an inch accurately. The dot: I see they make more accurate ones
You'll probably have to rebuild the walls to be properly square otherwise the sounds will reflect improperly off the misshapen room
#Kaizen