How critical is the speaker placement?
A2 – Basically, any dipole speaker needs breathing room around it. Even a conventional box speaker benefits greatly from as much open space around it as possible. When measured from the tweeter of the ORION, the side wall should be at least 2 ft (0.6 m) away, and the wall behind the speaker at least 4 ft (1.2 m). The side wall is not as critical as long as there is a sufficient opening for the acoustic volume flow between front and rear sides of the ORION. This then forms an acoustic pressure null towards the side wall. The wall behind the speaker should be somewhat diffusive to disperse sound that is reflected from it. In addition, the sound path from the speaker to the rear wall and reflected back to the listener is at least twice as long as the direct path from speaker to listener, so that the reflected sound level is far more than 6 dB below the direct sound. It is well below the reverberant sound level in the room to which it contributes.
