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.
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).
