Apologies for the delay in response …..looks like PKN has gone offline so will assume he will not mind adding comments. I have owned the Pendragons for over 3 years. My system in that time has changed considerably, room not so much but will come back to that later.
My original setup with the Pendragons was an all Gryphon System with Pandora Kalliope , Mephisto Stereo . Kalliope made way for a dCS Vivaldi 2 full stack . Mephisto Stereo turned into Mephisto Solos and finally dCS stack and Pandora were replaced with MSB Select 2.
System is pretty settled now with Pendragons, Mephisto Solos, MSB Select 2 DAC with mono bases ,Femto 33 clock , matching Select CD player with power base. Cables are all Goebel.
I am a digital guy but do admire vinyl from afar. Many a vinyl pusher has tried to sway me to the dark side but all to no avail .."elevator music only in my system."
The Pendragon has been my first 4 towers speaker system and the first time I have owned ribbons. Previous speakers were all big cone driven speakers. The Pendragon for me due to my misunderstanding of ribbons and 4 tower systems has been my biggest frustration and ultimately my most rewarding speaker.
Before I head into my experimentation with positioning, I will touch on my listening room. It is a quite a large room but not without its challenges. It is an upstairs room on a floating floor. It is 8.5m (28foot ) wide room ,high raked ceiling which taper down and the room extends out 12m (36.5 feet) however the listening chair can only be placed 5m(18 feet) from the front wall. Room is thick carpeted with minimal window treatments except the curtains behind the Pendragons which have a little more volume. I have 2 ASC bass traps in the 2 front corners.
Room is not a dedicated listening space
My previous speakers to the Pendragons were Dynaudio Evidence Masters. Found an old photo for giggles and reference to how my room and system has changed
The Pendragons are very different. to the Dyn Masters The woofer tower is an active setup with 8x 8inch woofers with 1000 class ab amplifier , sealed doing 200hz to 16Hz. The Ribbon tower holding a 75 inch Bohlender Graebener doing 200hz-16khz and AMT tweeters doing above 16khz I initially set the Pendragons up in a typical big box speaker arrangement similar to the position of the EMs. As per the manual I had the woofer towers on the inside and ribbon towers on the outside. I did not pay too much attention to positioning of the towers and had little to no tow in. The sound was underwhelming, incoherent and not what I heard from the previous audition of this speaker system. I then proceeded on my learning journey of 4 tower/ribbon speakers.
After then moving the woofer towers to the outside ,reading the manual and looking at other setups of Pendragon I quite quickly came to the conclusion that to start moving toward a previous sound I was used to the Woofer Towers needed to be on the outside of the ribbon towers and the AMT tweeters positioned toward the middle of the room.
The speakers orientation/layout across the room was now decided which then led me to start trying to find the best position for the 2 towers each side in regards to depth into the room ,width apart of ribbon and woofer tower on one side , width apart of opposing woofer towers and Ribbon Tower from centre , toe in, lean forward/back/sideways. The different variables are endless and I have learnt the smallest of differences can mean the difference of ordinary/good to sublime.
The task of looking for ideal spots for the towers lead me to employ some tools to help me to try and remove some variables.
Using the above tools, I have had a reference grid-line indicating the center of the room and also the depth of the speakers from the front wall
The other handheld laser gives me exact distances from my listening position to the individual towers.
After much moving current position is as below
I have learnt everything comes at a cost….some general rules of thumb I have come to the conclusion from my experimentation/listening
- 1/3 rule works for me even with my short listening position
- Lean back of the ribbon tower lifts the sound stage but also gives a more laid back softened sound but this is relevant to my seating which is quite low. If you are after a more immediate attacking sound neutral to slight lean forward may help.I have settled on neutral.
- The aiming of the woofer towers directly to the ears or just behind is my preferred toe in
- The aiming of the Ribbon Tower depends on your tastes. The less it is toed in the more exciting the sound can be but it can head towards harshness in my room. If I feel it is a little hot I increase the toe in. Less toe in will also increase that wall to wall sound but you will lose a little pin point to point accuracy
- Coupling of the towers is critical and when you achieve this sound ,everything seems to magnify and drop to into place. The comment that I feel and that others relay is that it just sounds “real”
- Position within millimeters and absolute balance on all towers are critical and change the sound dramatically.
- Spiking of the Woofer tower and Ribbon Tower lifted the sound immensely in my setup. Bass improved, coherence ,nuances ,airiness and clarity also improved. I have thick carpet so may explain my large improvements even though the towers are so heavy . I run Gryphon Atlas spikes on the Ribbon Towers and custom-made disks for the Woofer Towers due to their weight. The spikes easily allow me to ensure the towers are balance or leaned to exactly where I want them.
- In my room I do not need heavy room treatments but the addition of heavier curtains behind the speakers did improve the sound to my liking by allowing me to not have to toe the Ribbon towers in as much. This lead to a much larger wall of sound without over exciting at higher frequencies at higher volumes
- For my listening preferences the woofer tower and ribbon tower need to be the same distance from the listening position – this generally has coincided with best coupling of the towers and matches the Pendragon manual .....who would have thought...
- Q setting A is my preferred choice and the most dynamic. I initially found that the Q setting affected bass mostly but as I found better positioning of the towers my understanding and to my ears it affects the blending /crossover of the 2 towers. A the most dynamic and alive while B and C soften the attack. No right or wrong fine tuning to tastes…
- Even though I knew the design of Pendragon differs from the Genesis speaker systems (which I do like a lot ) ….I did try briefly a similar setup with the woofer towers behind the Ribbon towers but I could never get it to sound right .It always seemed to lack coherence and the timing of the music seemed off to me ,exaggerated or lacking in certain areas. My limitation of my room depth to listening chair could have also impacted this, but it was worth trying even though I suspected it would not work well.
I am under no illusions that I have found the perfect spot for the Pendragons towers and hope to get some feedback from other Pendragon owners or other users who run 4 tower systems which may lead to me extracting even more from my setup ....... at the moment though I am quite content and enjoying the music.