Sierra LX - Office Placement, making the best of it.

[gmetro]

speakerlayout.jpg


My setup:
Sierra LX monitors
Single 10" Speedwoofer
80x2 amp


I've moved my speakers off my desk in the middle of the room. I now have a good, nearly equilateral triangle (about 60" every way) for my Sierra LX speakers. This has immediately solved many issues I was fighting with in regard to imaging, echo, weird bass issues, and what i'd call "glare." They were 55" apart, yet only 29" from me. Sounded great if I rolled my chair to the back of the room, but i can't use my office that way.

Now I have a nice equilateral triangle, but my ridiculous ultrawide monitor (48" wide 12" tall) is in the center of this triangle. While the speakers are 60" apart from each other, and myself, I cant' actually see the speakers from my desk. They're obscured by the edges of the monitor.

I also tried putting one speaker on the shelf represented by the black shelving at the front of the room, and one speaker in front of the white shelving on the left. It did let me widen the distance between speakers a bit, giving them more chance to get around the monitor, but having one speaker with a foot of air behind it and one right up on the wall created an issuea where all the bass would get located in one corner.

During certain music/movies I can tell there's some issues in the midrange/treble. Electric guitar makes it really obvious. That said, it's still so much better in other ways now! I do think a lot of the issue is the sound bouncing off the back of the hard plastic monitor. I did try toeing them in and out a little, but zero toe seems the best to my ear. (I havent broken out REW yet)


Should I be putting some sort of sound treatment on the back of the monitor? It's completely smooth where the speakers would hit it, but it is curved. Any treatment will need to be light and flexible. (I tried taping those 1/4" dense foam adhesive wall decorations people like to the back, but it didnt really do anything.)

[curtis]

That big monitor is blocking a lot of direct sound from reach your ears.

Just to experiment, if you haven't done so already, remove the monitor and have a listen. Heck, move the whole desk to the back wall, leave the chair where it is, and have a listen. That will give you a great idea of what you are missing.

[gmetro]

That big monitor is blocking a lot of direct sound from reach your ears.

Just to experiment, if you haven't done so already, remove the monitor and have a listen. Heck, move the whole desk to the back wall, leave the chair where it is, and have a listen. That will give you a great idea of what you are missing.

Fortunately the monitor is on a pretty good pneumatic arm. I can actually flatten it and move it out of the way entirely. The difference is much less than one would think.

Broke out REW:

fR.jpg

Red is WITH monitor
Green is NO monitor. There's that dip 2.5-5k, which might explain the weird voice/vocal thing im hearing.



I tried pushing them ~70-75" apart, which is where I can still see them. I'm 59" from them there, but it creates a huge valley between 50 and 200hz.

[curtis]

That measurement looks pretty good...but definitely a treble issue from 2khz on up...and yes, voice issue there especially female.

When you push them apart, did you try toeing speakers in?

Can you easily move the desk out of the way temporarily?

[davef]

Measurements look good without the monitor there. Have you tried raising the speakers a bit higher so they clear the monitor?

[gmetro]

On speaker toe: They dont seem to make much difference with up to 20 degrees toe either way. Toed out actually maybe sounds slightly better, but imaging is a wreck.

On moving the desk: Unfortunately I cannot. There's some pretty intense cable management between the desks and the walls that can't really be undone. i CAN move the desk backwards about 6" (more into the room, away from the speakers/windows). I had moved it farther into the room so there was more room to exercise between the wall and desk, but I gave up on yoga.

Monitor height:
The speakers are on 36" stands at the moment. Tweeter height is 47.5"
Ear height is 52".

I am planning on building a stable base to set the stands in that's a few inches thick, which might help. Right now they are a bit wobbly on 36" stands.

The top of the monitor is at 53"
The desk surface is 31.5" tall.

(Eventually I am getting a narrower monitor, unfortunately the hardware doesn't yet exist in the specs I need.
- which is a 21:9 5k monitor with high refresh. So I'm stuck with this one for a while longer.)

[gmetro]

rotated office.jpg

Hmm, might be an absolute pain to arrange the office like this, but I wonder if it wouldn't be better. The LX would be pretty pushed into the corners, but I think thats what the plugs are for.

The monitor of course will still be an issue, but the speakers wont be off to one side in the width of the room anymore. Might make up for it more.

[gmetro]

Update from this end.

So I went ahead and turned my desk.
At my sitting position, without the sub at all, with zero room correction, speaker cutoff 70hz, the sound is just absolutely dramatically better (and bass too!) I still hear the issue with vocals a bit

But I also accidentally created an absolutely fantastic listening spot. Basically between the speakers, just behind where the rug ends.

The bass is unbelievable from 6" speakers. I can roll my chair back and just get absolutely outstanding sound.


All that said, should I still try and add some kind of diffusion to the back of the monitor panel?aftermove.jpg