"Setup of Controlled-Directivity Waveguide Speakers" by Bill Waslo

[zheka]

http://libinst.com/PublicArticles/Setup%20of%20WG%20Speakers.pdf

I am curious if any of SHO/PRO owners have tried the extreme toe-ing technique recommended in this article.

My apologies if this was discussed before.

[tesseract]

I've mentioned it several times, but more info is GOOD. Thanks for posting, zheka.

[zheka]

I've mentioned it several times, but more info is GOOD. Thanks for posting, zheka.

I cannot wait to get my set of SHOs to try this out. My hope that I'd be able to place them further apart than I can do with my current speakers without getting into channel separation issues.

Judging by this picture you found suggested level of toe-ing unnessesary in your room. how come?

[HopefulFred]

Thanks for posting. A good read, for sure - the diagrams are very helpful.

Is there an argument against this, or a setting in which it's inappropriate? (like multi-channel playback?)

[zheka]

Is there an argument against this, or a setting in which it's inappropriate? (like multi-channel playback?)

I am not aware of one. And I have no first hand experience since I do not own CD speakers yet. however the guy who blogged very favorably about this article is heavy into multi channel music so I guess he did not find this to be a problem.

[tesseract]

Judging by this picture you found suggested level of toe-ing unnessesary in your room. how come?

The picture doesn't show, but the right side of the room opens to the kitchen. In order to take advantage of the toe in, you need a symmetrical room.

Constant directivity was a blessing in my difficult, non symmetrical room for it's reduction in first point reflections.

[dguarnaccia]

Earl Geddes recommends that his Abbeys be crosses 2 feet in front of the main listening position. Roughly the same as the author suggests. The speakers are essentially toed in at 44 degrees. The imaging is amazing. I tried this with the sho10s and it was equally revealing. I suggest everyone try it.

[zheka]

Earl Geddes recommends that his Abbeys be crosses 2 feet in front of the main listening position. Roughly the same as the author suggests. The speakers are essentially toed in at 44 degrees. The imaging is amazing. I tried this with the sho10s and it was equally revealing. I suggest everyone try it.

This is great stuff, thank you.
Does he have any recommendations about vertical positioning?
This guy sets his speakers higher than usual.

The only thing I would add to his paper is an addendum to Mr. Waslo's final paragraph, which discusses the improvements he found by raising his controlled directivity speakers to eye level. My experience is that it may even be worthwhile to elevate controlled-directivity speakers above the listening position. Especially if they are based on point-source drivers. In theory, doing so gets all three front speakers roughly similarly off-axis at the listening position, and points the on-axis treble null one often finds in controlled-directivity speakers above the listening position. In practice,* "above-and-'overtoed" is the placement/aiming approach has provided the best sound quality I've heard from recorded music with my reference speakers.

[dguarnaccia]

Yes, Earl suggested to align the midpoint between the compression driver and woofer with your ear height which is a little higher than you'd use with a standard tweeter. Vertical dispersion isn't nearly controlled as the horizontal (at least with his speakers. ) he suggests trapping to reflection points on the ceiling if you can.

[zheka]

Thank you.
This is OT. Did you set up your subs using Geddes technique or conventional way? Specifically do you let your mains to overlap with subs or do you use fixed crossover points?

[dguarnaccia]

Only have 2 subs, so they are in opposing corners. I run the abbeys full range, and cross the subs off at 100 which gave me the flattest response in my room. They blend nicely, as did the sho's when I a/b tested them against the Abbeys.

[zheka]

Only have 2 subs, so they are in opposing corners. I run the abbeys full range, and cross the subs off at 100 which gave me the flattest response in my room. They blend nicely, as did the sho's when I a/b tested them against the Abbeys.

thank you for sharing.

in your opinion how high can SS-18.2 play reasonably well? I tried the Geddes thing, crossing the subs much higher than you did, at 200Hz region. While the measurements looked good I was not too impressed with the sound. am not sure if it was the 18.2 or my epik legends that were to blame.

[diamonddelts]

thank you for sharing.

in your opinion how high can SS-18.2 play reasonably well? I tried the Geddes thing, crossing the subs much higher than you did, at 200Hz region. While the measurements looked good I was not too impressed with the sound. am not sure if it was the 18.2 or my epik legends that were to blame.

I would not try to get the 18.2 and smaller subs such as epik legends to play nice together. Best best would be to sell the legends and get a second 18.2.

[zheka]

I would not try to get the 18.2 and smaller subs such as epik legends to play nice together. Best best would be to sell the legends and get a second 18.2.

I am actually very pleased with the results, short of my experimenting with high crossover settings. i currently have them crossed at 100, the sound is great, and the FR is pretty much flat to the teens.
There is no need to use matching powerful subs if Geddes multisub approach is used. The Legends are sufficient as supplemental subs to normalize frequency response while the 18.2 is doing most of the hard work.
The only thing I miss is phase adjustment and high pass filters for the epiks, it would make the set up so much easier.

[dguarnaccia]

I had them all the way up to 120hz and they sounded great. I'll have to try it again once the new mancave is operational and I have 4 18.2's playing :)