Best room positioning for 3 Phantoms?

[Rom1511]

Hello all,

Been a long time reader of that great forum but this is my first post!

I recently upgraded my system with a 3rd Phantom (mostly because I wanted more power to host large parties at home). Now I was wondering what you would recommend as the best configuration with 3 Phantoms in the same room. 

My living room is about 15 feet large and 20 feet long (Sofa in the center). I am facing the 15-feet wall (where is also a large screen for videoprojection). 

I am currently with 2 phantom in stereo in front of me, on the 15-feet wall (by the screen) and 10 feet apart from each other (and very close to walls). The 3rd phantom is in mono, behind my back at the other end of the room. 

Any other setup you'd recommend?

I know this is highly subjective but I felt I had a better sound when I only had 2, which I had positioned on the left and right of the sofa, also 10 feet apart (but I wouldn't know where to place the 3rd in this configuration). 3 fill up the room better but it feels more distant (technically the 2 Phantoms were closer to my ears before). Hope it makes sense. 

[streamy]

My setup with 3 Phantoms is similar. I also placed the 3rd Phantom in the back of my listening position. The sofa backrest protects me of hearing the 3rd Phantom directly, but the 3rd Phantom extends the soundstage in space compared to listening to 2 Phantoms in stereo configuration. There are pro and cons with this setup of 3 Phantoms. Positive is extended spacing and less disturbance from room modes at higher volumes (This of course is much dependent on placement of the speakers). Negative is the slightly reduced precistion in the lows compared to my stereo configuration. I have attributed the 3rd Phantom as mix to another room than the left and right Phantom. Like this I can listen to 2 or 3 Phantoms depending on mood and program.
Placing the 3rd Phantom together with the left and right as center speaker is currently not a good idea for music listening. The stereo image collapses and the advantage of the co-centric design of the speaker drivers gets cancelled out. The great phase behaviour that makes alot of the Phantom experience is impared with a center speaker as long as Devialet does not provide 2.1 or other listening modes. But when the 3rd Phantom contributes to the production of indirect (additional reflexions) sound this can have a positive sound effect for some music program.

[Rom1511]

Thank you Streamy.
Yes it works well to allocate the rear Phantom to a separate room and then switch from 2 to 3 speakers whenever wanted!
I also found out something interesting: Spark for iOS doesn't let you control the volume independently between front and rear (ie 2 separate rooms here, merged onto single stream of music), but Spark for Mac has the option to independently adjust the level of 2 rooms even when merged onto the same stream of music.
Note that the Remote changes the volume globally and resets to zero any difference between these 2 rooms.

[streamy]

Nice find! Individual (room) volume control is an essencial feature that was available even on IOS in versions earlier than 1.2 in the old user interface design. Only Devialet knows why it got lost in IOS during transition.
Also the small x on the right corner of the artwork to delete a track from the playqueue is not available in the IOS version. Let's hope these essential features find again back to IOS in a future release.