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mid-April. It has since closed, but we expect to bring back new incarnations of it.
We should add that the Omega system was particularly easy to photograph, but the Alpha system is a lot closer to the way you imagine our systems to be.
You are right that the speakers have been placed asymmetrically in the room, but then the walls on either side are not quite
I’d like to thank you for publishing the component-by-component descrip- tion and especially the photo of the Omega system on the UHF Web site. I have long been curious to see a photo of any of your three systems, but since they are working tools I had assumed that they were, shall we say, less than presentable. Given all the equipment and accessories you review, I had a mental image of ankle-deep piles of mismatched interconnects and cables strewn about the room.
It’s also reassuring to see that you have the same aggravating room prob- lems as your readers (what appears to be a doorway just left of the left speaker, the turntable sitting askew on its platform to allow for access, etc).
The combination of the Omega system photo and the similarly appreci- ated UHF No. 75 State of the Art article has given me a sort of speaker position- ing awakening. I had always understood and agreed with your advocacy of placing the speakers on either side of a room corner (if possible), but I had not conceived of being asymmetrical within that placement (i.e. I had always assumed that the corner should be exactly midway between the two speakers). Unless my eyes are deceiving me, the Omega system speakers are not centred about the corner, but are shifted rather signifi- cantly to the left. True?
Given such an asymmetrical corner placement, should each speaker never- theless be about the same distance out from the wall (as appears in the Omega system), or can that also be different?
Given a decent hi-end system and acoustics, and a stereo image that appears to originate midway between the speakers from the “sweet spot”, how far off axis should one be able to sit and still hear that image as being centered rather than increasingly originating from the nearest speaker? All the way
out until a speaker is directly in front of you? Beyond even that?
Given the size of standard equipment racks and the W-8, it looks as though the inside edges of the Omega Reference 3a’s are about 2 m apart, but only about 30 cm out from the wall (that seems really close). Given that the Omega system is in a “large room” just how far from the speakers is your listening posi- tion? I would imagine relatively close.
My Totem Mani-2’s are centered about the narrow wall of a long, narrow room (8.4 m x 3.5 m) having at best mediocre acoustics. They are placed way into the room, about 1.25 m from the back of the speakers to the wall. I have always assumed they needed that much room for their prodigious depth. In your recollection from the review you performed (quite a few years ago now), is that distance too great? (For reference, my speakers are about 1.8 m apart centre-centre, and I sit 2.8 m away from them — and with experimentation I think that the 2.8 m is about 0.6 m too far away.)
I had rejected an Omega-like speaker placement when I first bought my house due to the constraints of the room, but if the Totems can be significantly closer to the wall (particularly in a corner- centered placement), then it’s worth a try experimenting with such a place- ment to see if I can improve the width of my currently very narrow sweet spot. By necessity I’ll almost be in the near- field (another great UHF article), but that might help negate the poor room acoustics.
Jeff Tennant
BURLINGTON, ON
Jeff, for anyone who missed it, we should mention that the photos of our Omega system appeared on line in our ephemeral Virtual Room, which opened the week before the Montreal show and remained open through
identical. You noted that there is a doorway to the left, but there is also a doorway on the right... actually a large archway to an even larger room. These are not necessarily bad things. An open doorway does not reflect sound, and thus it can be thought of as a broadband absorber. The speakers are indeed quite close to the rear walls, about 50 cm out, a distance that was determined by ear. Speakers we review are first listened to at the same distance, then adjusted by ear as well. The speakers are actually quite far apart, about 4.5 metres, and we listen, typically, from about 4 metres back.
The Signature version of the Mani-2 is reviewed in this issue, and we found that a distance of about 65 cm from the rear wall was about right, though that will vary from room to room. By the way, how far off you can sit off-axis and still hear a stereo image depends on speaker placement, acoustics, and especially the speakers themselves. With our Reference 3a speakers you can get away with being well off-axis. The same would be true of well-placed Totem Mani-2’s.
Of all the many enjoyable things on your Web site, the tour of the Virtual Room was the best. I would love to see the same treatment to the other two rooms you maintain.
Thanks for all the good advice.
Jay Valancy
IRVINE, CA
First, let me say we appreciate the opportunity to have UHF Magazine review our speakers again after so much time. This new range of Energy speak- ers is in our opinion one of the best we have ever made and still continues to provide Canadian audiophiles with the best sound available for the money. We were therefore surprised to read that your team was unimpressed with the new Reference Connoisseur RC-70 speakers. This is one of our most popular speakers and has, to date, received terrific reviews
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