New CLS Owner

[sbe]

Hi,

New member obviously, but old owner (both the speakers and myself). They've been packed away in the basement until the kids were old enough to know better than to poke paperclips through the holes but I think its safe for them to come out now.

In addition we're building a new house and I'm thinking of doing something kind of, well weird. Our new living room has cloth panels to the right and left of the fireplace which are quite wide (over 30") and somewhat deep (about 15"). I'm thinking of making my own frames so I can mount the CLS's there. Hopefully it's not as bad a hack as it sounds. It would be about the same as placing the speakers 15" from the wall except I have the ability to sound treat the wall to substantially reduce reflections.

The obvious question is why. The answer is that as much as I'd like to put my speakers where they belong there is a serious spouse factor. I figured rather than live without the sound I like so much I'd put my current CLS's down in the listening room I've built in the basement and find an old pair that I could use in the living room. If it works out well then all the better and if not I put the panels back in their frames and sell them neither the speakers or myself worse for the trying.

Anybody ever made their own frames? Any experience with rooms where you were forced to put the speakers close to the wall and how it worked out (or any wall treatment you used)?

Thanks.

Steve

 

[twich54]

Steve, first off....Welcome !

The "CLS Clan" will give you their offical welcoming shortly, but given your 'unique' mounting / location plans you may be sent to the wood shed ! LOL !

On the serious side of your install....who knows ?? but it does sound from your description that the potential for dispersion and issues with imaging could become a reality. Besides 15 inches regardless how you treat the wall is close !

With all this being said, we look forward to the endeavor and be so kind to keep us up to date with pics !

Oh, BTW, how the heck can your wife not like the CLS look ???? one of the classiest looks in all of 'speakerdom' !!

 

[C.A.P]

Welcome fellow CLS fan. Check them panels out and get them on stands. The single best improvement you can do with them.

The classiest look ! Thank you Dave. Ahh we come out like rats and a sinking ship when we see those 3 magic letters CLS.

Well as Dave said . CLS do like to be away from the wall. They are much more room sensitive than the Hybrids. That being said Its not a"Head to the wood shed " Yet !

The frames can be made but they are not the easiest. I have made a smaller version for a sub cover. Its a 7to 8* rip on a saw with the back side relieved to allow the panel to slip in and the front to cover it with a larger lip. Sorry this is all over many of your heads. PM me if your interested.

 

[Brad225]

Welcome Steve, Glad to hear another pair of CLS's is coming back into use.

I would have to agree with Dave. The only way to know if that will work is to try it.
If you haven't pulled them out of the frames yet play around with them that way using different absorption behind them. It may be clear right away that you should go on with the test or go in another direction.

How far apart will the center of the panels be? How far away will you be listening from?

If you have a listening room in the basement, is this just for background music in the living room?

As someone that until recently had a very large structure between my CLS's it is a killer for the depth of sound stage that you probably know they're capable of producing.
I used a lot of 2" Owens Corning 703 and 705 panels to make acoustic panels and 4" cotton for large bass traps.

 

[sbe]

Followup

Thanks everyone for the welcome. I'll try not to do anything too awful, at least not right off the bat.

To answer a few questions...

The room in the basement is a dedicated listening room/someday home theater (or at least it will be soon as right now it's just a shell).

Since I've been doing a lot of the work myself I could do it "right" without adding much cost. For example I dug the basement extra deep so the ceilings are 10'. The walls for the room are isolated from the floor by gaskets and the tops of the walls don't touch the ceiling but are connected via rubber dampers. The sheetrock isn't nailed to the walls directly but is screwed to rails that then have dampers between them and the studs. This is pretty standard fare for places like recording studios and if you are building from scratch the added parts for the isolators and such is only a few hundred dollars. The labor is a killer but I work for free.

Once its done this will be my real listening space. The acoustics will be done right and its far enough from the kids that I think they'll leave me alone for an hour or two once in a while. Besides I'm not sure they appreciate The Doors quite yet.

The problem is the living room. Acoustically I did the best I could but there are limits to what one can do within competing demands. I'll take a picture and post it so you can see what I am talking about when it comes to the spouse issue. We have this really neat fireplace going in and while the design made allowances for the CLS's to the left and right side I suspect that the wife is going to be less than pleased with how they fit in with the rest of the room.

I prewired from the built in stereo cabinet with two sets of wires, one set comes out through a hole in the kick and can drive the CLS's where they were supposed to be. Alternately I can push these wires back into the wall and use a second set that go up into the two big spaces to the left and right of the fireplace.

I could use some sort of in wall speakers of course, but I'm not really content to live with junky speakers as this would be more than casual listening to background music. On the other hand it doesn't have to be perfect either. I looked at in cabinet speakers but most are either AV or designed for more depth than I have or not all that good or all three. And their not cheap either.

Besides I really like my CLS's. Something about the width of the transducer maybe but they really do feel like listening to music through an open window.

Anyway I started searching the Internet and see there are quite a few for sale at any one time. Some seem to have been pretty well cared for and the cost is less than a lot of the better in walls. That said I've taken the advice to heart and I'm going to hook up my current speakers in the next week and simulate what the setup will be in the new house and see how it sounds. I'll also take some measurements of spacing between the speakers, post a photo and a drawing of the layout if anyone wants to look.

Any suggestions would be welcome. Oh, and if anybody is interested I might have an extra Cherry frame I could swap for something else, like black since I'm going it up anyway.

Steve