The one last holy grail of tweaks

Certainly with my Active 20s I've found positioning to have a humongous impact on the sound - much more than changing the electronics upstream (and don't even talk to me about interconnects, mains treatment, etc ). I've had the speakers since December and I'm still not sure I've found the perfect positioning for them.

I've currently got them set up 1/4 to 1/3 the way into the room (firing down the width of the room rather than length for various reasons, so only have 3.5m or so to play with...) They're currently 75cm from the wall (to the rear of the speakers) and the listening position is as far back against the rear wall as I can get it without it sounding horrible (in this case about 20cm from the wall to my head). I also have Auralex foam covering much of the front wall and a panel behind my listening position.

This arrangement seems to be the best I've tried so far. It sounded rather good with the speakers 50cm from the wall and the listening position further into the room, but this is a bit better - the soundstage is much deeper and it doesn't "flatten out" when I crank the volume.

I've also spent a lot of time playing with toe-in, and it has a similarly huge impact on the sound. The best for the 20s seems to be slight toe-in. They sound pretty bad pointed straight at the listener and not quite right when perpendicular to the wall.

I've also found that raising them up a few inches (on some books, no less) and even tilting the speakers back a bit (in the sense of pitch) helps a lot. ATC spec them so that they sound their best with the listener's ears approximately level with the midpoint between the tweeter and the centre of the midbass driver. As my listening chair is quite high relative to the speakers I've found taking steps to align the speakers properly (with the aforementioned books and tilting) means the difference between barrage of excess treble with somewhat flat soundstage, and lovely, natural sounds and a lovely, deep soundstage.

Anyway, for me, positioning is key. If your room or speakers are less demanding, consider yourself lucky! I suggest, if SWMBO isn't totally against it, that you have a play with your speakers' positioning - you may be amazed at how much better they can sound.

Dunc