Topic: Speaker orientation and placement
Speaker placement and speaker direction appears quite critical both for producing realistic sounds as well as producing a realistic psychological 'image' of the virtual piano in the space in front of you. Recently realizing that the sound was 'too soft' for me unless I was using 'Bright' presets, I tried some experiments in speaker positioning. I have enclosed photos of how things ended up, as described below. (I would suggest that you consider your speakers when you declare that one person's Preset File doesn't sound good, and so forth.)
In my situation, I have an upright piano with a MIDI sensor rail feeding Pianoteq. My speaker locations are limited by the 53" beast in front of me. I am using Emotiva Stealth8 near-field monitors, having moved up from AirMotiv6's. Towards the end of my experiments, I added a pair of AirMotiv4's. (All of these speakers were cannibalized from my not-yet-completed media room!)
First, to hear more detail from my original 'speakers facing upwards' configuration, I turned the speakers towards me, both bass and treble elements on a direct line with my ears, with one speaker on each side of the keyboard, facing me at about 30 degrees. The treble was more clear, but also more bright and bell-like (this puts each near-field monitor only 560 cm from each ear - close, I think, even for a 'near-field' monitor). Fairly annoying. Furthermore, I lost the sense of imaging of my virtual piano - the depth of the music feeling as if it came from in front of me was gone, replaced by the sense that it was either coming from the speakers themselves, or that it was completely enveloping me, as if I was listing to a headphone playing mono music (my 'stereo width' was set at about 30%, unchanged from when I had the speakers facing the ceiling). And every time I swayed my body or moved my head, it reinforced the sense that the music was coming from the speakers. Every time I turned my head or shifted in my seat, the sound-field did not respond the way that a real piano sound-field would respond.
I changed the speaker position, so that they now didn't face me but faced the wall behind me, while both bass and treble speaker elements were still line-of-sight to my ears. This was not much better. Plus, like the prior set-up, this arrangement also gave the impression that the piano was wider than it really is (since each each 27 cm-wide speaker was placed outboard of the piano, and even with the 'widths' set fairly narrow, my brain still couldn't believe that the piano was narrower than the speaker spread).
So, I went back to the speakers facing the ceiling which gave me my omnidirectional presence again. As before, I have them on stands placed at a height so that my keyboard uprights on each side block the direct line-of-sight from the speaker elements to my ears when I am playing. This time, however, I took a smaller set of monitor speakers and put them on either side of the piano, just behind the main speakers, and faced them towards me so that I now have two sets of speakers that are orthogonal to each other. I get my piano presence and stereo imaging out of the larger speakers that are facing upwards, and I get the brighter notes from the two speakers facing towards me. In this fashion, I no longer need to choose such bright presets in using Pianoteq. Additionally, as predicted, this got rid of much of the "veiled" character that I was complaining of from most of the Pianoteq instruments.
Having the speakers facing the ceiling is much more of an omnidirectional configuration. Instantly, my perceived stereo imaging of the sound coming from out of the piano and the wall a couple of feet in front of me returned. Much better magic, though I don't understand why. (It's counter-intuitive to me - shouldn't a less-distinct source give worse and not better stereo imaging?) You should try it if you have never done so. Plus, the smaller speakers pointed at me preserve the details in the highs.
I am very happy with my current speaker configuration.
Furthermore, when you think about it, grand pianos are omnidirectional – they radiate upwards with some of that sound reflected off a raised lid. Even an upright piano generally has an opening top and a solid face – therefore, having speakers that face upwards and not towards the player better duplicates the piano. Some little satellite treble speakers facing the player do help, as I noted above.
- David
https://goo.gl/photos/Tiw83yuRupTbf7Bb7
