Small-room, nearfield system focused on resolution, transparency and imaging realism at lower volumes. Great synergy between the Esoteric K-01XD, Luxman L-509X and Fyne Audio F1-8S. Cabling and power-conditioning by Audience, resonance control by Symposium Acoustics, and acoustic treatments by ASC (Acoustic Sciences Corporation) combine to optimize verisimilitude and musical enjoyment.
Hi, Aniwolfe. Thanks for reaching out - it inspired me to update my system (long overdue). Yes, many updates; I've essentially revamped the entire system. What hasn't changed, however, is the speaker-placement configuration. No matter how many times I try alternative placement approaches (e.g., Cardas Golden-Ratio, Sumiko, Wilson), I keep coming back to Joachim Gerhard's methodology. Having experienced the incredible soundstaging and imaging benefits, as well as the greatly-reduced room influences, wrought by Gerhard's recommendations, it's hard to go back to more mainstream configurations. The levels of engagement and involvement, the levels of immersion, are, in my experience, unrivaled.
I encourage you to give Gerhard's approach a try - you may not like it, but it's free, and you can always revert to your previous arrangement. As noted below, Gerhard's methodology works best if you can get the speakers well off the wall behind them (his recommendation is to have them in the center of the room, preferably on the long wall, and to listen in the nearfield). In my case, I have the Fyne Audio F1-82 speakers just shy of halfway into the room, spread far apart, toed in to just behind my head, and at a distance of approximately six feet from my ears (measured on the diagonal, from tweeter to ear). Let me know how you fare, if you're able to give it a shot.
Hi 2s, as soon as I viewed the pic of your system I thought holographic imaging! I had a similar speaker set up many years ago using the ACI Sapphire mk3 speaker, it used the focal dual voicecoil driver in a slotted port alignment. The tweeter was Scanspeak 9300 if i remember correctly; this unit was used in speakers priced 5k and up (early 2000s)
I think the ACI may have been circa $1500, Audiophiles would come over for a listen and been blown away by the sound and especially the imaging. I would say 'set up wide like this and give your speakers a chance'. None would do it preferring to spend more on upgrades and tweeks. I'm positive you get a similar reaction regarding your sound.. I was using Plinius pre/power at the time. Also agree with some diffusion and absorption on the front wall can work wonders. I found Absorption on the rear wall worked best in my set up at chair was close to real wall. I currently use the GIK abfusor on my front wall, very effective, I use a similar GIK to you on my 1st reflection point. In response to DE, I think its a lack of dealer knowledge mostly . I was a distributor of audio products for almost 10 years and there were just a handful of dealers that understood anything about room interaction and set up. They tended not to be interested. Well I imagine you have long listening sessions, with a great sense of 'having the artist in the room' Best regards to you and thanks for sharing your set up.
I’ve long been an adherent of Joachim Gerhard’s speaker-placement tenets. Gerhard was most famously associated with the Audio Physic line of speakers back in the ‘90’s (he now designs under the Suesskind name), but his placement recommendations work well with many other speakers.
The benefits are myriad: a massive, wall-to soundstage, and within that, excellent image focus and layering, a strong and detailed center image, less room interaction, and greater sound pressure levels without room overload on account of the minimal distance between speaker and listener.
The trick to making it work is to ensure that the speakers lend themselves well to close listening distances. Generally, speakers with first-order crossovers and multiple, largely-spaced drivers are less successful, but even then, there are exceptions (Dynaudio comes to mind). It helps, too, if the speakers can be placed relatively far into the room (e.g, four feet or more).
