With a tall speaker your seat would have to be on a ladder! I use quite tall Wilsons - they solve this by having vernier adjustment of the forward rake angle of the module carrying the tweeter - you choose your listening chair and then use a laser pointer to align the top module at your head. Solves that question, but not many speakers are that adjustable |
@onhwy61 , thank you!!
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@erik_squires , thanks for the suggestions. The speakers are currently on 24" Target stands (now wishing that many years ago I would have bought higher stands), and I'd rather not shim the stads themselves, but I could easily shim between the front of the speaker & the top of the stand. I believe that my experimentation is going to be with shortening the legs of the inexpensive listening chair I am currently using. @onhwy61 (that used to be one of my favorite 8-Track tape), yes, Stereophile did once review the B&W 805 Matrix model, and once upon a time I owned that copy; however, finding it would now be difficult. I imagine that the review might be available on line, and I still have the manual that came with them and I would think that it would have all the measurements--which should I be most concerned with? @elliottbnewcombjr , thank you for the input.
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I can’t help yapping a lot about this. Being 74, I’ve messed with lots of spaces and lots of speakers, various toe-in’s ..., better equipment and more experiences progressively along the way. I’ve also worked with AV consultants for the Boardrooms, Training Rooms, Conference Centers I designed for my clients for 46 years before retiring. A space can be gorgeous, but if the AC ain’t right, if the sound ain’t right, I have failed. Yes, tweeters aimed at your ears when seated. Published frequency graphs of speakers ’smoothness’ measurements are taken with direct dispersion, and then some reviews show fall off graphs of off center dispersion. If you look at individual driver Polar response graphs, you see how directional various drivers are. 3/4" domes; 1-1/2" domes are omni-directional, diminished volume distribution to all sides. Variations like drivers with diffraction lenses widen the distribution, perhaps limit too strong direct radiation so sides are stronger, perhaps limiting vertical dispersion. My main system, 4 way, 3 horns, 15" woofer, they have horn shapes designed to achieve wide horizontal dispersion and purposely narrow vertical dispersion to avoid both floor and ceiling diffraction mixing slightly time delayed and improper direction from the primary direct waves. Thus believing horns are ’wide’ in all directions is erroneous. There are phase issues also. My horn tweeter’s orientation is visually opposite to the distribution, an uninformed person might mount them incorrectly horizontally
Some horns, i.e. JBL’s, Altecs: their shapes are tailored for wide/limited vertically when mounted horizontally ............................... Yes, time aligned, i.e. tilted back, as high frequencies travel faster than mids and mids faster than lows. Listening distance involves very slight or slightly more time differences, they might be very small differences, but everything we do is to eliminate very small differences. Some speakers have driver height and time alignment ’generally’ solved by their sloped front faces, like my JSE Infinite Slope Model 2’s. My current flat boxes. wanting to keep the enclosures shorter than the JSE’s: I put a 2x4 flat in the front of the base, thus raising the front 1-1/2", projecting my horn tweeters directly at my seated ear height and effecting some time alignment which is a guess at best. see 9th photo here, shows guts and under the base
One of the reasons I am such a fan of L-Pads for individual drivers is to achieve the best/flattest frequency distribution, in any space, at ____ toe in. I use a mic and cd with 29 1/3 octave test tones to get them ’right’ in any specific location. If conditions restrict/prevent ideaal toe-in; an L-Pad can boost the highs when measured at your listening position. Just restored a pair of AR-2ax’s, working on a second pair. I had forgotten they came with two level controls. Mine are flat in bookcases, toe-in not possible, so level controls help adjust dispersion for my center position in my office, and will help in my garage workspace when 2nd pair done. When I have two listeners and the small table in the middle, I alter the toe-in, narrower, so that each is closer to the speaker on their side, but the opposite speaker is aimed directly at their chair. Wider center imaging is created, very enjoyable on either side. My front home theater speakers were designed specifically to do that. Main face aimed at opposite side, and two tweeters on the back sides. http://www.hifi-classic.net/review/dbx-soundfield-100-135.html Some recordings are weirdly mixed, i.e. Bill Evans at the Village Vanguard, considered one of the all time great performances. Very wide separation, big hole in the middle. I’ve been there many times, it’s a small room and a small stage. I toe my speakers in more to narrow imaging/reduce the hole in the middle. Thus I like speakers easily re-positioned for various placements/toe-ins. Luckily my wood floor’s grid helps me re-position my main speakers 1 listener/2 listeners/wide/narrow.
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@roxy54 , is there a method that you would advise to experiment with this factor? For the time being I am planning on shortening the legs of an inexpensive chair. |
Thank you for clarifying that for me, @erik_squires ; the center of my midrange driver is at 34.5" above the floor. Being these are B&Ws, I would have to say that I am definitely too high. For the time being I think it is going to be cheaper/easier/quicker to bring my ear level lower than to raise the speakers (although I am already considering that option). Tomorrow I am getting out the whiz-wheel & doing some surgery on the chair I am using right now. I will start looking into another chair as well. JerryG says that his IKEA chair gets his ears down to 37" which is lower than my tweeters but 2.5" higher than my midrange drivers--I may look into those. |
@immatthewj YW. |
Yes, @jerryg123 , thank you. |
My tweeter level and ear level is 37 inches. I am using an Ikea Poang chair (really like it) I have perfect alignment. My speakers are Sonner Legato Unum with the factory stands. When I have the QLN Sonora's in place I am 2 inches lower but that is not bad and they sound fine. Guess I could sit on a pillow. Hope this is some help??
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Thanks for the input, @cd318 ; I am one that doesn’t want to be limited to a strict sweet spot, but I have always been thinking that if there is one in my "listening room," I’d like to find it. @erik_squires sorry for the ignorance on this subject, what is meant by mid-axis? These are the older B&W 805s (not the Diamonds) and the tweeter is sitting about 39" above the floor. I’ve been doing some rearranging in my "listening room," and one of the things I just did was I moved a bulkier computer chair out & temporarily substituted a folding metal chair. Slouched the way I like to, my ears are probably at 44 or 45" high. That is an approximate measurement, because I took it by myself. Getting lower is not going to be hard to do, seeing as how I paid about $10 for the chair, way back when, I wouldn’t have any problem at all with whacking 5 or 6 inches off the legs. Another option is the "pillow chair" from Walmart ($98), and from what I remember of my measurements it would get me down to about 4" lower without having to slouch (the slouch is built in) and it would be a lot more comfortable.
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It’s a starting point, and not always true. B&W sound much better on mid axis, I believe that's how they are designed but not 100% sure, and sometimes it just turns out that way after building. It’s good to listen to the entire range from on-tweet to on-mid axis in terms of height. Usually above the tweeter is a bad area due to crossover issues. In terms of turning the speakers, some speakers, like Focal, really sound best with little or no toe-in. Ultimately it is your own ears and room that matter, but I would not attempt to rigidly enforce the on-tweeter-axis rule. |
It does, although with some speakers that have good vertical dispersion characteristics the exact height won’t be so important. This is why dispersion matters. Not everyone wants a sweet spot that's limited to a few centimetres either way. Thankfully sites like ASR, Archimago and Erin's Speaker corner provide plenty of data on this regard.
One thing that has troubled me is when I read that speakers that can sound too sharp can be made more listenable if you angle them away from your ears.
Wouldn’t it be much better if they didn’t sound too sharp in the first place? |
