The General's Audio Set-Up

[IanG-UK]

@IanG-UK

As I said, I don't think you're going to notice it unless you want to start sitting very close to the panels.

I think it was RPG, a company making diffusors for big spaces, who commented some years ago about the need for distance between a listener and a diffusor. They recommended around 10' or 3 metres or so in order to allow the diffusion to become fully effective. I suspect that once that happens you wouldn't notice any difference and if you're sitting a bit closer than that to your panels you probably won't notice it anyway because they probably added a bit on to their base figure for safety and any differences are going to be stronger much closer to the panel where diffusion hasn't had a chance to develop.

Do the panels on the left and right sides need to be oriented as a mirror image to each other? I don't think so. The panel that is a left/right mirror image of the other 5 will actually be an identical panel which was made with what is the front side of your other panels attached to the absorbing layer behind it. Your room looks a little on the narrow side and if you want to allow 10' between side diffusors and a listening position you need a room at least 20' wide but even so I doubt you're going to notice much as a result of differences in orientation. Your side panels are largely in front of your listening position and that increases your distance from them somewhat anyway.

Since you're obviously happy with the sound you're getting, my guess is that any differences caused by differences in orientation of panels in your setup isn't large enough to be noticeable. I wouldn't worry about removing any panels from the wall and re-orienting them unless I was moving the system to another room.

I do think GIK seem to have a couple of quality control issues. Their label attacher isn't picking the same corner every time and the guy who attaches the diffusion panel to the backing behind it apparently doesn't make sure that he has the same face of the panel on the outside every time. Most customers would never notice these sorts of differences and the likelihood of the differences being audible is going to be quite low but I do think they should try to avoid them. If you have 9 panels in total and 4 are different to the other 5, that doesn't show good consistency in the assembly process.

David

Hi David

Thank you.

When reading up on GIK there were a few comments about quality control and about a finish which is good rather than first rate. For me, the compensating issue is that although GIK is US based, their European operation is run out of Bradford only 25 miles from me. So any issues are more easily resolved.

Yes, the room is a touch on the narrow side but neutrality and imaging are ok. I guess I am used to listening to big electrostatics like a huge pair of headphones!

Best wishes,

Ian