Anyone Else Run Out of Room??

[LaserMark4]

Love this group, and as a newbie, sure learned alot from you all. Thanks--

Here's another predicament. I'm really wanting to stay with ML's ESL as surrounds to compliment my Aeon i fronts and Theatre i. Problem is that my HT room of 13' x 18' becomes REAL short on the back wall for those who are in the 2nd row (elevated). I have a 103" screen, and the first row is about 11-12 feet back. The G70 at as scaled 720p and 1080i is an awesome sight.

I'd like to go with either a Scenario or Aerius i or Clarity in the rear back corners in a 5.1 configuration initially Problem is I cannot bring them out away from the rear wall hardly at all with the 2nd row adjacent (although they can be mounted at any height). In addition, they will be awefully close to the back row folks.

Need help! Anyone suffer the same problem? Could I use any diffusion panels behind the rear corners to assist sound of the ESLs since they will be so close to the wall? Is this a bad choice and should I go with more traditional wall mount surrounds on the sides??

I keep thinking my wife and I for the most part (and maybe another couple) will be using the room 90% of the time and for the front row, it will be sublime with complimentary ELS speakers in the rear. But is the close placement of the speakers to the rear wall going to kill the sound and offset the benefits?

 

[Jeff Zaret]

I do not think you will have that much of a problem. It really depends how loud the rears will be playing. It is the reflection that is the issue. I have mine, unfortunatley, against the wall because that is the only option and for the most part I have had very little issues.

Just my inflated 3 cents worth

Jeff

 

[EricE]

I agree with Jeff.

The placement of the rear Aerius i's in my setup is about 4ft from the rear wall almost in line with the second level seats. Sitting in that position, the side Aerius i's are very much subdued because of the nature of the CLS. The rear seats actually get more rear fill from the surround back channels on either side of the monitor.

I may be moving the rears to the rear wall up from the floor about 2 feet though just for some more room to walk.

 

[SugarMedia]

LaserMark-

I saw a guy hook up his Scripts from the top of his ceiling and had them directed down on his audience. They were placed on their side, parallel in the room and each Script meet at the wall's right angle.

I can't remember were I saw it though. Perhaps I did a search on Google using the image only feature. http://www.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi&q=

And, I'm assuming since he had so many ML products in his house, he knew what he was doing...

 

[SugarMedia]

Just did another google image search (Martin Logan Script) and this came up. It's not what I was talking about in my previous post, but man is this a cool set up.

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...=martin+logan+scripts&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&sa=G

 

[LaserMark4]

Thanks for the quick responses-- I'm feeling a little more reassured my rears will work with your past experiences.

As far as Scripts on a horizontal corner ceiling placement, are you all thinking of Bonedust's system (#6)- System #6 -- Way cool, including the Stylos....talk about speakers/sq ft ! I am looking at that horizontal placement concept as well, but having a few challenges in ceiling heights and ceiling angles. I think the Scripts and/or Stylos, due to their minimum width, are the only ones practical to do this with. Got to hand it to Bonedust who gets the "creative placement" award IMO.

I'll check out those other suggested links--

 

[zaphod]

Just did another google image search (Martin Logan Script) and this came up. It's not what I was talking about in my previous post, but man is this a cool set up.

i seem to remember this set up being discussed in detail on the old incarnation of this forum and the basic conclusion was that the scripts were wrong.

according to the install manual, the top of the bracket should be at 38" from the floor. that is, the panel should be between 38" and 61" inches as measured from the wall (the panel is 23" in height).

that said....

Bonedust, by mounting the scripts sideways, allows them to be aimed down at the listener. but there seems to be a doorway at the 110 degree mounting point.

i also had a bad install problem in that the foundation kneewall forms the basis of a shelf that runs around the room at a height of 38"

what i did was to mount the scripts upside down which kept the panel running from 40" to 62", the cone, being a more radial device is now much higher than recommended

a big help in the surround image was to also mount the scripts on an angle. you see the scripts have two mounting holes on each end of the bracket allowing you to have them 9 inches or 7 inches from the wall. i used the outer hole on the top of the bracket and the inner hole on the bottom putting a nice angle on the scripts that really helped fill out the surround. i now get a much more complete image pan behind me, for example when the Bruce Willis' hovertaxi early on in the fifth element. pulls a u-turn.

when i get the rear scripts, i'll tilt them in same way as i'll need to mount them upside down too.

 

[attyonline]

I agree with Jeff.

The placement of the rear Aerius i's in my setup is about 4ft from the rear wall almost in line with the second level seats. Sitting in that position, the side Aerius i's are very much subdued because of the nature of the CLS. The rear seats actually get more rear fill from the surround back channels on either side of the monitor.

I may be moving the rears to the rear wall up from the floor about 2 feet though just for some more room to walk.

I do not understand what you mean when you say the side (rear?) speakers are subdued but you still get more rear fill? How many surrounds do you have and where are they located?

 

[gaffman]

The way my room is set up I couldn't put my rears anywhere but up on the wall. I have Scripts monted 8 ft high and to the side of my main listening spot. Soon I'll be adding another set of Scripts to the rear wall.

 

[Reverb2009]

i seem to remember this set up being discussed in detail on the old incarnation of this forum and the basic conclusion was that the scripts were wrong.

Thats right I posted that system on the old site, because I liked the over all look and presentation of the room, but it was heavily bashed because of the placment of the scripts.

 

[gaffman]

After a lot of experimenting I mounted my Scripts sideways and angled downwards towards the listening area.

 

[Reverb2009]

If you’re worried about your Martin Logan’s being to close to the rear wall, maybe you should take a look at ASC (Acoustic Sciences Corporation) “Martin Logan Black Box”.


From http://www.asc-hifi.com/whats_new.htm

Engineers at ASC have hot rodded Aerius, the popular hybred electrostat by MartinLogan. We’ve added the ASC-BackBox behind the treble range electrostatic panel to attenuate the back wave without loading, dulling or colorizing the front wave. Now this great speaker can be pushed up against walls and corners, to the side of projection TV s and even in-wall pockets without changing its fantastic sound. The ASC-Aerius BackBox was conceived by, prototyped and voiced by Art Noxon, acoustic engineer and long time fan of ML speakers.

The ASC-Aerius BackBox is snug fit and sculpted specifically for the lines of this great speaker. It cuts the rear fire by 7dB and retains full bandwidth brightness and clarity of the forward firing sound. It is not yet an authorized accessory, although it has been submitted to MartinLogan for review and comment which to date has been positive.
The ASC-Aerius BackBox was developed because of repeated requests to ASC from hi-fi and home theater users to help fit this speaker into tight corners while retaining it’s crystal clear sound. Traditionally, sound panels would be installed to cover the walls and corners behind the speaker. Now, the ASC-BackBox eliminates the need for acoustic conditioning panels and bass traps.

The electrostatic sheet of the ML speaker is sensitive to changes in the acoustic impedance of the air behind it. The process of the ASC-BackBox development was guided by blind A/B testing of the speaker with and without the BackBox, modifications were made to the basic BackBox design until there was no discernable difference in treble range voice of the speaker, with and without the BackBox. At that point, it became the sanctioned, ASC-BackBox. An added bonus was that that with the quieting of the back wave came a discernable increase in explosive power, strength in attack transients and bottom end. And that’s also good, especially for home theater applications.

With this technical breakthrough in acoustical impedance matched attenuation baffles, we are looking forward to developing ASC-BackBoxes for other MartinLogan models on a request basis. However, the next BackBox project here will probably targets Art’s personal set of original CLS speakers.

ASC is currently looking for product reviewers, beta test sites, and trial dealers. MSRP is for the ASC-Aerius BackBox is $650/pair.
Call 1-800-ASC-TUBE (west coast)

 

[EricE]

I do not understand what you mean when you say the side (rear?) speakers are subdued but you still get more rear fill? How many surrounds do you have and where are they located?

Click on my sig to see pics of my system. I have Aerius i's as side surrounds and 2 little small speakers on either side of the monitor at the rear which are designated as surround back channels in a 7.1 system. They add quite a lot of ambiance when using Dolby ProLogic IIx.

Hmmmmmm.....
That ASC black box might be useful if I decide to move the rear speakers closer to the back wall to gain some needed walking space back there.

 

[garmtz]

I must stress that the Scripts are highly directional in the vertical plane, so they definitely should be at ear level, or pointing downwards toward the listeners.

 

[zaphod]

I must stress that the Scripts are highly directional in the vertical plane, so they definitely should be at ear level, or pointing downwards toward the listeners.

that matches my experience when i tilted mine down toward the listener.

 

[socialxray]

Out of room and out of money

The same thing happened to me as well. My listening room is too small for more than 1 pair of Martin Logans. I also did not have the budget to get Scripts or Stylos.

It has been said time and again that all of the speakers should be identical for the best sound. I have found that this is not always true. My old rig had 5 identical speakers and they sounded different depending on their placement in the room. The room dictated the placement of the rear speakers and due to the placement of the rears, they were always a bit warmer.

So with some trepidation I added Martin Logans to the mix. I worried that the sound would not integrate very well with electrostatics in the front and cones in the back. Well, I was very suprised how things worked out! After playing around with the placement of the surrounds I fired up Beck's "Sea Change" DVD-A and was very surprised. A quick listen to the Door's "LA Woman" DVD-A confirmed that the front to back integration was pretty damn good! (The same could not be said of the center channel but I was expecting that.)

Unfortunately I have not listened to my surround recordings since then because I have been so enamored with the Martin Logans in stereo. They just fill the room with excellent, excellent sound!

But the point is my initial reaction to mixing MLs and cones was very positive. Not sure if it will work for you but it did work for me and saved me a bunch of room and money.

BTW, my surrounds are Ascend Acoustics CBM-170s. Awsome speaker for $328 a pair but cosmetically lacking.

 

[EricE]

That idea of 5 identical speakers has always intrigued me. The theory of 5 identical point sources has its merits but it does not take into account that the ear perceives sounds in different ways from different directions. I would love to run 7 Statement's but just imagine the size of room you would need for that thing to sound right. Although I run 5 electrostats and 2 mini monitors for the surround back channels the overall experience is more of a sound sphere with imaging between the channels at some points.

Also listen to a surround system with only the rear channels running. You will be surprised at what the sound designers put back there.....

 

[zaphod]

Unfortunately I have not listened to my surround recordings since then because I have been so enamored with the Martin Logans in stereo. They just fill the room with excellent, excellent sound!

Nothing unfortunate at all. in fact, i have my universal remote set to provide a switch to stereo mode on the processor so that i can enjoy stereo videos without the mix into "mostly 2 channel with a bit of surround" that the processor seems to decode.

the Dire Straits LaserDisc "The VIdeos" is fantastic 2 channel sound, particularily some of knopfler's later work such as Local Hero.

In today's world of surround systems, 2 channel repro can get lost. with speakers such as logans that image like little else, 2 channel can give remarkable results.

For example, the movie "Conspiracy Theory" (1997) has a scene in an old swimming room with dripping water. LIstening in 2 channel only, the dripping comes from beside on the right hand side. When I noticed this i only had my CLS, so I'm darn sure that it wasn't a surround effect

 

[socialxray]

...with speakers such as logans that image like little else, 2 channel can give remarkable results.


This is so true! I can see why some audiophiles turn there noses up towards surround sound. True reference quality speakers can give you jaw-dropping holographic results. To paraphrase one reviewer, "if all speakers imaged like Martin Logans then surround sound may have never been invented."

And sometimes, I feel that surround sound is more of a panacea to make cheap speakers sound better. I guess that is probably to be expected since the average consumer cannot see the value in buying an expensive pair of quality speakers, much less 5 of them! Not to mention that surround sound in the wrong hands can come off as cheap and gimmicky. Of course I am a little jaded coming from a background of cheap speaker ownership. My SL3s have truly taken me to a whole new level of audiophile snobbery. (2 or 3 levels actually!)

Don't get me wrong. You can get stunning results from surround sound formats. It is just you get more of everthing else. More equipment, more cost, more frustration, more tweaking, more stern looks from the Wife when hugh boxes are arriving from the delivery man.

Anyways, I have to get back to my obsessive tweaking. ~Yes Honey the distance to the seating position does matter~!

 

[Ironic77]

Tagging on to the thread

I'm tagging onto this thread, which seems related to my question.

I recently purchased Mosaics and a Fresco for the center. I'm quite pleased by this purchase so far. I think the cost/benefit on this was amazing -- the 2/3 channel imaging is amazing on most sources. With that, I was able to take my older Infinity Reference floorstanding speakers and add them as rears. They do not clear the couch, so I have them placed on either side of the couch, towards the back of the couch, and toed in about 45 degrees. I am even more pleased by this result, though I think I have some more tweaking.

Logically, I could go with Mosaics for the rear as well. However, the rear wall is about 15 feet behind the couch. In experimenting, I have been having trouble getting the Mosaics to clear the couch as well (especially the traditional driver which is near the ground, though obviously some upper-bass can go through the couch), and since they seem to do best 2-4 ft from a wall, I'm really struggling to get it right.

Can anyone offer suggestions? I might eliminate the problem going with wall-mounted Frescos, but they'd have to be mounted on the "sides", not the back wall, and above the windows on one side...