I just had my 50s installed last week, and calibrated this week.

I came from a setup with 18s as fronts, and a 19 and pair of 3s for other duties.

I'll let other more seasoned 50s owners chime in on the relative merits of wide mode - my room is not that large so thus far narrow mode pointed / calibrated for various positions works well for me. I may use wide (calibrated for the mid point of the room) for listening when I'm just wandering around, maybe.

In your current setup I'm guessing your 18s are therefore on the short walls, and perpendicular to the sofas facing each other? If so, how far apart are the 18s (left from right)?

In moving from my old 18s front to 50s front setup, I've spread my 50s to 5m apart from each other, and therefore wider than the 18s were.  In the week or so I've had them, I've been mighty impressed - and this is in narrow mode.

In your scenario, you may not need to use them in wide mode exclusively. You can tune a narrow mode calibration for one sofa, repeat for the opposite sofa, and create a listening preset that combines both. The app gives you the option to do that.

I haven't combined room compensation positions in this way myself as yet - maybe some of the more seasoned 50s owners who have can comment.

Remember these speakers are pretty flexible - you can listen in narrow calibrated for one sofa, and then if others install themselves on the opposite sofa, you can switch quickly to the combined preset (both sofas) as described above.

If your lounge room is not that big, like mine, narrow mode is more likely to work across your various listening spots anyway.

Using 90s at the front, a couple of months ago I switched my 50s towards the middle of my room using them as surrounds with 18s at the rear.

Like you I have a couch that runs parallel to my normal listening position and a short while ago I decided to experiment with the 50s for listening to music. Despite one speaker being a little over 3 metres away and the other being nearly 5 metres away I was astounded to discover that I could produce a perfect phantom stereo image from the couch seating position. This was achieved merely by using the speaker settings on the Harmony and without any room calibration whatsoever, and they sounded great!   

It is a mistake to think you cannot have a sweet spot (or sweet spots) in the position you describe.

My advice would be to purchase a microphone and stand (or negotiate with the dealer :-) ) and learn how to calibrate because you can set up as many positions in narrow or wide as you like and combine them to your heart's content. There is an excellent video by Geoff Martin showing the process.

For my use I only ever use two speakers for music and sometimes use wide mode for listening to certain performances (orchestral for example) and others I know use wide mode most of the time.

Only you can decide about value for money, but I also exchanged a pair of 18s for the 50s and the results exceeded my most optimistic expectations by a long way. They bought me back to real music listening that I thought had been long-lost.

Fabulous speakers :-)

This seems like a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. Instead of allowing your room layout to dictate how you listen to your speakers, why don't you change your room layout to create a proper sweet spot? I have Lab 90s as fronts as rears, and my room is set up around my TV and speakers, not the other way round, with the positioning of the sweet spot measured down to the last centimetre to create a "golden triangle".

Thanks. This is most helpful. I'm glad you've been impressed, and that narrow mode is working well for you in your setup. It sounds like it might work well in mine, too, which would alleviate my concerns.

How big is your room roughly.Mine (reference my response this morning) is 6m by 4.5m.

So in that size of room, I have narrow mode "pointed / calibrated" for 4 positions (sitting on floor, on sofa, in armchair, at the table), and one wide calibrated for mid point of room, for me wandering around. 

My experience, in the above situation, is that the narrow modes are more than sufficient.

There is in fact not that much difference between the various narrow mode calibrations

So I think narrow modes will be more than sufficient even in a room a bit bigger than mine.

Once you get to a much large space, then a broader range of setup options (both narrow and / or wide) will likely need to come into play. But if your room is in the vicinity of mine, or say up to 8m by 6m, I suspect narrow modes will be fine for you, even with your slightly sideways positioning.

Thanks. The room is roughly the same size as yours, about 6m x 5m. I'm glad to know the narrow calibrations are working well there. Your observations are very helpful and appreciated. You and the other posters have alleviated my concerns, so hopefully I'll soon join the Lab 50s owners club!

Thanks. The room is roughly the same size as yours, about 6m x 5m. I'm glad to know the narrow calibrations are working well there. Your observations are very helpful and appreciated. You and the other posters have alleviated my concerns, so hopefully I'll soon join the Lab 50s owners club!

Here are some profound suggestions from someone, who - although not a BL50 owner himself - certainly knows how these work and how to get the most out of them.

Read here:

And watch the video here:

link

Just wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to answer my questions--and for your insights. I've just today ordered a pair of 50s for delivery/installation in April--and am very excited for them!