LSI 15 Distance Question

[Joe Q]

Just bought a pair of LSI15's as well as the matching center.

The manual is very sparse on speaker placement information compared to the manual on my now retired NHT 2.5i's.

Would appreciate some advice as I am trying to get these puppies set up properly.

How far from the back wall should the 15's be?
How far from any side walls?

If I read the manual right, it implies that if I sit 9 feet from my HDTV then the speakers should be 9 feet apart.
This seems REALLY wide. Am I reading that correctly?

TIA,
Joe

[Aaron]

All of this really depends on your room size and what's feasible in it. For an excellent explanation of loudspeaker placement, click here

Aaron

[mantis]

Speaker placement is an art in my opnion.
There is guide lines you can follow like Aarons link.

I have my own devolped way to set up main speakers.
I cut the front of the room where the mains are going to go in 3rds.If the room is big.If the room is smaller,I go toward 4th's.
What you want to do is minimize front room reflections.So let me give you an example of what I mean.

That is just a basic idea where the main speaker are going to go.
The distance from the seating has to be factored in.You want at least the same distance apart from speaker to speaker the same to the seating/listening area.
So if you have 9 feet speaker distance apart,you would want to sit 9 feet away.
Remember this isn't exact,you can modify to suit the charatisitcs of the given speaker.Like Martin Logan's this does work well,you need to sit further away from them as they can over power the room and you.sitting further back then the distance between works well.I tend to lean this way for all kinds of speakers.
The distance apart ,what your trying to do here is make a soundstage,and good distance for imaging.To far apart and the image gets hollow.To close and it starts to sound monural.

Toe in also works well with most types of speakers.There is also speakers that need to be placed straight ahead to work well.
Like Mirage speakers work there best when firing straight.

The distance from the rear wall for most speakers ,3 feet is nice to have but more is better here.The closer you have your speaker to the back wall, the more you will add gain to the lower end.Boom usually follows.Not good.

So I would playy around with placement,leave the carpet spikes off untill you find a good home for your new LSI 15's...
Congrads by the way, they are a fine set of speakers.

When I set up the lsi15's i have found that toe in was not as great as with my rt1000p's.the lsi15 need less toe in to image.They also have a much wider soundstage,fill the front of the room with sound.The rt1000p's have a narrow soundstage in compare.

If you need more help,post back after you fooled around with them.
Dan

[Joe Q]

Dan,
Thanks for the tips. Very useful.

I am constrained by distance to the rear wall because I have a 50" HDTV between the speakers and the sound/picture is kinda wierd if the speakers are too far in front of the plane of the TV.

You were right about the distance BETWEEN the speakers. Taking your advice, I have them set 8.5 feet apart and I sit nearly 10 feet from the TV.
It sounds better than if I made the speakers 10 feet apart.

A one inch toe in was needed to be in the sweet spot.

Ah,The joys of the marriage of Hi-FI sound and Home Theater.

I've now got everything adjusted with the AVIA test tones.
Quite impressive speakers.
I have never heard my DVD-Audio discs sound so good (only listened to a few select tracks).
You can hear a few chair's rustling on stage during the 4th movement of Ludwig's 9th.

I think I cracked the sheetrock when the aliens in "Independence Day" started blowing everything up:)

Joe

[mantis]

Joe,
what are you driving them with?
I'm glad I could help.I'm leaning the way of the lsi's myself.

[Joe Q]

Originally posted by mantis
Joe,
what are you driving them with?
I'm glad I could help.I'm leaning the way of the lsi's myself.

Yamaha DSP-A1 drives the Center Channel and the Rears.
Front channel Pre-outs on the A1 go to a Parasound HCA-1500A.

The Parasound is a Two Channel Stereo Amplifier that is rated at 205 Watts/channel.

It's the Parasound that is driving the 15's.

Joe

[mantis]

Further listening to the lsi15's I have noticed something about the way they image,they need less toe in then most other speakers.I figure its the placement of the tweeter.The Imaging can fall apart if you toe them in 2 much.

I got a few more hours in on demoing them.I think they are going to come home with me.They suprised me on my last demo,they are truly a phenominal sounding loudspeaker.I have fallen for them.

What color did you get?

[Joe Q]

I found the same thing so I now have them toed in only about 3/4".

I got the Ebony color. As you know it is not really Black like Ebony would imply. Besides sounding GREAT, they are very handsome with that wood trim.

Joe

[mantis]

Yeah the color is strange,it's like it has charcoal grey in it.Any they didn't put enough if it on.....weird color dude, but if your into it,I'm not bashing it ,I like the cherry better.

I also came to this ..I don't care for the new(old in the industry)carpet spikes.I have found them to be more difficult to adjust when your trying to set them up..tweaking and such.I like so much better the carpet spikes on my old rt1000p's.They have a very usefull thumbwheel.
So how many hours do you have on them now????They seem to take a very long time to break in......But it's funny even brand new they aren't harsh or unlistenable..like other brands I heard out of the box.....but over time they do sweaten up ......What are your thoughts???

[mantis]

O I had another thought,
the angle of the binding posts I'm finding that spade ends(which I don't care for)might be the better connection over banana at the speaker side.With heavy guage wire,it shoot it up then bends down to the ground..I know this sounds alittle anal, but..I'm looking at it with the spades on there and see a nice out for the unbent speaker wire to comfortably lay....

[Joe Q]

Originally posted by mantis

I also came to this ..I don't care for the new(old in the industry)carpet spikes.

---> Yes. That would be my only real complaint.
My NHT's have these nice adjustable 'spikes' that look like upside down hershey kisses. Much easier to move.
Lifting the LSi's for the subtle adjustments is not such an easy task.


So how many hours do you have on them now????They seem to take a very long time to break in......But it's funny even brand new they aren't harsh or unlistenable..like other brands I heard out of the box.....but over time they do sweaten up ......What are your thoughts???

---> Got about 10 hours on them. I can't say I have really noticed any difference in sound since when I got them and now though.
Where these speakers really shine is in the high resolution audio formats like DVD-Audio. Thanks to these darn speakers, I am now looking into buying an SACD player:)