Speakers on the floor ?

M

mwhorley

Guest
I've just moved house and my Home cinema set up is such that there is no real room either side of the TV for the large speaker stands I have used until now.

Last night to test, I put the 2 fronts (KEF Q15's) on the floor (1 on the stone fire hearth (away from the fire!!)) and the second on the wood laminate flooring and to be honest the sound was fine. I suppose without a carpet the sound waves are bouncing off the laminate as oppose to been absorbed by a carpet.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't leave them in these locations ? There's no way the missus would allow me to wall mount them as there are pretty deep an would protrude too much. The rears are Q85's which are wall mounted and the Centre 80C sits under the TV.

See pic for a better idea.

Any advice / views would be much appreciated

MIke.
 
What Pic?

I have a wooden floor with no carpet and the only real issue is the sub placement, a sub will sound better on a carpet from my experience as the reflections are limited. I cured this by placing insulation behind the sub and introducing a rug to the wooden floor to deaden the reflections a bit more.
 
Originally posted by mwhorley
Yeah what happened to the pic ?...seemed to upload it but no sign of it !!:(

Don't wanna insult your intelligence but did you use the img and /img tags, also this forum encourages the use of your own webspace so can link the image here there by causing no slowdown for 28/56k modem users. Linking it to your webspace also means you can use larger pics :)

Hope I didn't offend you if you know how to post pics allready :blush:
 
I have mine set on the floor as a temporary stopgap, but the performance is not as sharp and the sound seems a bit ofset, i presume because the hig frequencies are not placed at ear level.

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Originally posted by buns
the high frequencies are not placed at ear level.

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Buns is correct. Having the speakers so low down won't help the front soundstaging at all. To get the full range you have to lie flat on the floor and even that doesn't help as the sperakers need a bit a space all round to "breathe" and allow the sound to radiate evenly. You'll get lots of "rebounded sound" off the floor interfering with the top-end especially.

To please the wife too, you can buy some short stands (about 20-30cm) which won't intrude into the room and will improve the sound a lot too. Gale S20's (20 cm high) at Richer Sounds are just £20. Put coins under the spikes to protect your floor.
 
You should notice a very good improvement even with using the most basic of stands, get them to ear level if at all possible!

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Originally posted by buns
You should notice a very good improvement even with using the most basic of stands, get them to ear level if at all possible!

Succinct and absolutely correct.

It's worth remembering that the Q15s are actually very capable speakers and will only get anywhere near their true potential when mounted on stands and positioned carefully.

Using the speakers on the floor may give you some perceived added bass 'thump' but will ruin the depth, clarity and top end of what you'll be hearing from them.

To be honest, with the Q15s it's worth finding some Atacama stands to put them on. They tend to look fairly nice as well if the wife needs sweetening on spending the £40/£50 or so.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys - I've tried Richer but they are out of Gale S20's.

Does anyone know of similar smallish stands ?

Anywhere else that might stock the S20's ?

Cheers,
Mike.
 
Originally posted by mwhorley
Does anyone know of similar smallish stands ?

Anywhere else that might stock the S20's ?

Cheers,
Mike.

I would trust in any of atacama littler stands, though i cant give you any details. I just think the company makes resonable stuff!

I think gale is exclusive to RS, i dont think you can get them elsewhere.

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