The speakers arrived last wednesday. My friend from CT and I attempted to voice them on our own. We definitely located the beginning areas of the Zone of Neutrality. There were multiple areas because of the irregularities in my ceiling shape, where extended volume of the room frees up the bass. We had a hard time locating the ends of the zones of neutrality lengthwise though (we are not professionals and the room is well treated - making it a more difficult task).
Sean Turner from HiFiBuysNashville, a friend through a longer term friend came out to voice them on Saturday. It was quite a learning experience to see and hear the difference between where my friend from CT and I had placed them and where they ended up. There was not a tremendous difference in terms of footage (maybe even less than 6 inches on one side), but the difference in terms of sound was uncanny. The initial position we had them in imaged incredibly well, but the lower end of bass notes seemed oddly disconnected from the top end. It was like the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. Once Sean voiced them correctly I was pleasantly surprised how what was once two separate halves became one extended organism from top to bottom.
Unfortunately, the best position in the room would have been behind the movie screen, close to the front wall. Fortunately, because of the shape of the ceiling, it is a tray ceiling that opens up almost a foot and a half upwards from the soffits surrounding the entire perimeter of the room, the other zones of neutrality were in front of the screen (actually not too far from Richard Rives start-point projections - in fact one side, practically directly on it). If anyone looks in the Stereophile photo gallery, old pictures (with the 802Ds, not the W/P8s) are in there somewhere (Here is one as an example: one pic).
I took ETF readings most of yesterday (partially because I had a faulty cable and spent most of the time troubleshooting the gear instead of measuring the speakers) and will begin the fine tuning of the room now. I will post some measurements at some point this week when I get some time, suffice it to say though, when I did 1/6 octave measurements with 200 ms gating, it looked good to me, with only a peak in the low bass region, but thankfully no large nulls like Wes Experienced in his setup. There are some nulls in the normal FR, that get lighter when I increase the gating time, but those are room issues (I've had them on my 802Ds as well in similar locations before using the Meridian room correction software). I'm fairly excited with the results, as my worst fear was that they wouldn't mate well with my room (illogical yes, but that measurement in W/P8 review really scared me!). They sound phenomenal.
I'll add measurements and pictures when I get a chance. I'm certainly not as eloquent nor experienced as any of the Stereophile reviewers, but I will say this, David Brubeck Quartet's "Take 5" SACD album has never sounded this real and alive on any system I've ever heard it on before... I close my eyes, and I'm there!
I wasn't sure where to put this thread, as I will be adding to it as I fine tune the room and post additional photos and measurements, so I apologize if this is not the right spot.
The speakers arrived last wednesday. My friend from CT and I attempted to voice them on our own. We definitely located the beginning areas of the Zone of Neutrality. There were multiple areas because of the irregularities in my ceiling shape, where extended volume of the room frees up the bass. We had a hard time locating the ends of the zones of neutrality lengthwise though (we are not professionals and the room is well treated - making it a more difficult task).
Sean Turner from HiFiBuysNashville, a friend through a longer term friend came out to voice them on Saturday. It was quite a learning experience to see and hear the difference between where my friend from CT and I had placed them and where they ended up. There was not a tremendous difference in terms of footage (maybe even less than 6 inches on one side), but the difference in terms of sound was uncanny. The initial position we had them in imaged incredibly well, but the lower end of bass notes seemed oddly disconnected from the top end. It was like the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. Once Sean voiced them correctly I was pleasantly surprised how what was once two separate halves became one extended organism from top to bottom.
Unfortunately, the best position in the room would have been behind the movie screen, close to the front wall. Fortunately, because of the shape of the ceiling, it is a tray ceiling that opens up almost a foot and a half upwards from the soffits surrounding the entire perimeter of the room, the other zones of neutrality were in front of the screen (actually not too far from Richard Rives start-point projections - in fact one side, practically directly on it). If anyone looks in the Stereophile photo gallery, old pictures (with the 802Ds, not the W/P8s) are in there somewhere (Here is one as an example: one pic).
I took ETF readings most of yesterday (partially because I had a faulty cable and spent most of the time troubleshooting the gear instead of measuring the speakers) and will begin the fine tuning of the room now. I will post some measurements at some point this week when I get some time, suffice it to say though, when I did 1/6 octave measurements with 200 ms gating, it looked good to me, with only a peak in the low bass region, but thankfully no large nulls like Wes Experienced in his setup. There are some nulls in the normal FR, that get lighter when I increase the gating time, but those are room issues (I've had them on my 802Ds as well in similar locations before using the Meridian room correction software). I'm fairly excited with the results, as my worst fear was that they wouldn't mate well with my room (illogical yes, but that measurement in W/P8 review really scared me!). They sound phenomenal.
I'll add measurements and pictures when I get a chance. I'm certainly not as eloquent nor experienced as any of the Stereophile reviewers, but I will say this, David Brubeck Quartet's "Take 5" SACD album has never sounded this real and alive on any system I've ever heard it on before... I close my eyes, and I'm there!
I wasn't sure where to put this thread, as I will be adding to it as I fine tune the room and post additional photos and measurements, so I apologize if this is not the right spot.