More CLS Mayhem!

Prompted by a PM and the fact that I've been thinking a lot about speaker placement, I came home from a job and got off my ass.
First stop was to get som Y adapters so as I can leave the signal to the CLs's alone and fiddle with the external crossover to my heart's content.
That is working out well, and I'm also able to bring in some of the old curves for the subs from my vantage settings.
The big move, and really big improvement was to move the speakers. I had them about 5' out from the front wall and a little farther apart than the 1/4, 3/4 position across the room.
Dullsville.
And that's what bothered me. Good soundstage but kinda lifeless at the same time.
So I put the speakers in the corners.
Sort of.
From my seating position the outside edge lines up with the wall corner by sight, more or less, and they are 4' from the corner itself.
the subs are still hard in the corners but the CLS's are 8" up on blocks.
I've also turned my sound dampener panels to now perpendicular to the corner as opposed to diagonal, but still on top of the subs.
The room is alive, baby! Headphone City. Details are more pronounced and I like my albums again.
The only drawback so far is a flatter soundstage, but that's the tradeoff for a roomfull of music.
The CLS seem to need a lot of space and this is one way to get it. Try it and post up.

Soooo, when do we get pics of the new setup.

Brad225 said:

Soooo, when do we get pics of the new setup.

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Yes please. And thanx.

When I clean the house. :ROFL:

Beakman said:

When I clean the house. :ROFL:

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ha, i can relate. U should see my room, looks like a poster for a hornet's nest ad, wires goin' every which way!

i took photos of my new gear the other night only to realize there was dog fur in each one...i gave up for the evening....

Pictures!

The photos are on the first post in my system pics, via signature link.
Since last post I moved the speakers forward about 6" and put the sound panels flat against the secondary reflection area of the corner.
The signal comes from the source > Preamp > then splits, one straight path to the main amp, the other to the crossover. The crossover is set at one point, 75 Hz on a Butterworth 18dB curve. That is routed to the EQ where all sorts of tweaking the bass signal happens and then it's off to the subs. The CLS's know nothing of this.
The toe-in is pretty steep compared to any previous setup I had and I tilted the speakers back slightly to alleviate some harshness related to that and also deal with HF beaming loss at standing height.
The sound panels do a great job with the corner reflections - I can stick my head back behind the speakers on either side and hear the difference on the walls.
I put my Beakman Diffusion Lamps behind the speakers and got a surprise. I had on a recording of a live performance where the stereo separation was more subtle than a studio recording. When I put the diffusers behind the speakers the stereo separation was lost as if it were mono. Great diffusers, bad idea.
As I said before, the room really lights up and the music is happy again. I really like these speakers and just might sell the Vantages to finance some new panels for the CLS, and maybe a used Benchmark for a preamp.

PS: The bass is very good out of the CLS by themselves. I often forget to turn on the sub circuitry.