Topic: Speaker Placement

What is the best place to locate your speakers, relative to the keyboard, to get the most natural sound?

Re: Speaker Placement

I enjoy front and side (4 speakers) L and R only

Re: Speaker Placement

I have to say that you should experiment to get the sound that you want.

However, one convention has it that the monitors should be at ear level and equally distant from each other and from you--in other words, you and the monitors should form the points on an equilateral triangle, with the monitors on platforms and turned slightly inwards to face you.

But there are other considerations: if you want to play loudly, you may want to push the speakers back some, for obvious reasons.

Many synth\sampled piano makers have also experimented with placing the speakers under the keybed and facing down towards the floor, so the sound both comes to you from under the keyboard and is reflected off the floor and back up to you. Doesn't seem like a good arrangement, but the results are often good: Yamaha uses this placement in many of its home pianos, and Yamaha's knowledge of piano sound is worth considering. "Mounting" the speakers then becomes more of a problem, but you can just set the speakers face down and supported on each side and the middle by some heavy object--I've used old speakers as supports. (In other words, you have 3 old speakers resting on the ground, spaced evenly apart, and then set the speakers you want to use face down on them so that each newer speaker has its edges overlapping an outside speaker and the one in the middle, with the cones of course not touching anything. You then set the keyboard on top of these new speakers, or if you have speakers with a small cabinet, you can find a board, pad it, and set it across their backs, making sure that you don't rest anything on the cables. The combination of old and new speakers thus becomes the keyboard stand. The only difficulty is with getting things at the right height. May seem like a lot of trouble, but the sound is worth trying.

I've known other people--there was a discussion about this subject on Northern Sounds two years ago or so--who have experimented with placing the speakers facing a well-secured piano soundboard or a sheet of good spruce. (Spruce is the usual choice for guitar soundboards, since it resonates well. Mahogany, which is less reflective, will give you a darker sound, while maple is more reflective and will create a brighter sound--but remember that the sound will bounce off the wood, so the speakers need to be placed so the sound bounces off the board and towards you.) This method can get good results, but the sound varies dramatically depending on the thickness and width\length of the wood and the exact speaker placement. The sheet of wood has to be well-anchored, too.

I've also tried placing the speakers facing an interior wall, about three feet off the floor, for a more "home upright" sound. Sounds like a very bad idea, but it does give you the additional reflection that you can control , of course, by moving the speakers closer to or further from the wall. I was also able to use a wall that had a closet behind it, so there was a chamber in which the sound had a chance to develop. The result was both an immediate reflected sound and this longer evolving sound.

On the other hand, I've seen more than one studio in which the control room has the monitors mounted high on the wall and tilted down towards the control board to form the equilateral triangle. My impression is that this arrangement was more for saving space and avoiding damage than for sound quality, however.

Again, in other words, I hope you'll experiment and let us know the results.

Last edited by Jake Johnson (19-02-2008 16:19)

Re: Speaker Placement

yes, this is a difficult question... To save space, I use my studio monitors in a triangle (listener/player -left - right) of about 3 m / side but it's not very satisfying in terms of playing "realism" against my real grand piano. I would like to experiment a very different configuration: 2 monitors close to the keyboard, left and right, plus a 3rd (mono) speaker at the approximate distance of a piano end (2m50 - 2m70), all facing upwards...  but I have not enough place at home, I'll have to test this somewhere else... If somebody could test something similar?

Re: Speaker Placement

A difficult question. I am using a conventional hi-fi "triangle" set-up with the keyboard at an apex, but also feel this is less satisfying than on a Yamaha or Roland, where the speakers are under the keyboard - even after switching off Roland's "reverb" and "even more reverb" buttons.

Emulating speakers under the keyboard is likely to require serious EQ-ing, I would expect. I doubt Modartt have used recordings made at the piano bench as a basis for tonal balance. And then there is the question of realistically integrating the sonic elements of the piano simulation for different positions and distances from a listener, which I don't even want to think about.

Experience suggests that a fully passive EQ circuit (commercially expensive studio grade), or a very well designed active one (studio grade again, and fewer than one might hope), can be used to make changes well in excess of 10db while continuing to remain natural-sounding. That is far from the case with equalizers in general. Avoiding Pianoteq's room reverb, and using just its front-end EQ, should mean likewise that the sound quality of PTQ remains pristine when using under-keyboard speakers. (I think my assumptions accord with what Modartt have said about how the EQ works, but the details remain obscure).

Re: Speaker Placement

Hi all,

Go here:

http://www.ambiophonics.org/

and carefully study what has been achieved here.  It may look more than a little quirky, but concurs with my own rather haphazard experimentation over the last 20 years or so.

Have fun,

Stephen.

Re: Speaker Placement

Hi Sephen!

Thank you for that link!

Re: Speaker Placement

Hi Stephen!

Yust one question about ambiophonics:"Do you use it?"

I´ve tried it for some weeks now.

hope to hear from you about that

heinke

Re: Speaker Placement

Dear Heinke,

At present I am not set up to use the full implementation as intended, but at various times I have enjoyed dramatic benefits by experimenting with many of the features of the system.  Stereo is very inferior to this overall approach, as is 5.1 or any other conventional approach to surround sound (for very limited listening numbers obviously).  The psycho-acoustics are sound, and correctly draw a sharp distinction between sound creation and sound reproduction.  I have made a number of recordings which are particularly well suited to this style of reproduction, including this short one recorded recently before a session with a young pianist here at the orchestra studio in Brisbane (I was just fooling around with the special stereo mic in a position just near the player's head).  The piano in this case is a Steinway D—about to be completely rebuilt as has been its sister instrument just last week, which is now sounding and feeling stunning.  The file is in WavPack format, so you'll need to decode it before playback:

http://www.divshare.com/download/3914246-9ca

Ignore any strange pop-ups on this sponsored website and do the normal download routine.

Minimising the negative impact of the listening room is a major part of the ultimate success of this approach; again, it's not a system that will ever be universally adopted but for those who want the very best .  .  .

Cheers,

Stephen.

Re: Speaker Placement

Dear Stephen!

this new listening setup is what brings much more joy into my life. i hope it will become more usuall and will develope through the next years. Also while mixing it gives me more control over spaces and positions and even mixes done in an ambiophonic environment are, when listened in normal stereo, "well done". ( i had fears it could be different).
It works well with many kinds of music. but it is best with classic when recorded with binaural mic. techs.
Interesting, that mono vocal tracks sound much more real than with norm. stereo. You can hear the quality of the mic etc.
for me it is a great new exp.

thank you for that link again! (haven´t read the convention news from 2007)

I also would be interested in your opinion about my prestets. (in the file sect.) I did them to change overtones from PT. After a while I found out that it does´´nt do what I expected from (it did in some ways) , and I guess that it has something to do with the modelling technique itselfe. theoretically it could work but I think therefor you`d have to change the tchnique of recording the strings to analize them for the model. but that´s more the bussines of the pianoteq guys.
So I ended up by using two layers to compensate the neg. effects that come when  changing the overtone structure. The pro´´s are: more dynamic, more body in the mid-oktaves.
other changes in the presets like the piano size 10m are just because I never could play a real one  (10m) and for some combination with other instruments it is useful too. (precise tone in the lower oktave- could play chords very deep-not natural but good)

My dream of PT would be: one model-and by changing the harmonical structure of overtones and all related parameters you can build every piano that was or could ever be. but you know...i couldn´´t do the job. and together with ambiophonic we´´d need a benaural-generator too.

so back on earth now. I like to work with all the musicians out there and their wonderfull instruments!

that´´s all for now-have a good time

greetings Heinke