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Listening Height Adjustment -- Is This Why Two People Don't Hear the Same?

Just wanted to pass on a recent experience, and surprise, in my system

My room (https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5707) is set up for one person to listen. I have a medium height arm chair at the listening position and had always assumed that it left me with my ears broadly in line with the tweeters in my Magicos (i.e. 42-43" off the ground)

Well I checked and I was actually at 38-40" depending on how upright I sit. Wondering how much of a difference getting it just so would make I purchased a set of add on feet, each 3.5-4" tall and added them to my chair -- not a good look!

But wow, what an improvement in sound. Tonally the speakers take on a very different balance, upper mid range and vocal intelligibility is substantially improved, bass is lighter but better defined and overall integration across the frequency range is much much better than before

The odd thing is that I don’t have the tweeters pointed directly at me -- they’re angled about 2’ off to either side, so what would a couple of inches in the vertical make such a difference assuming the tweeter drop off is uniform in all directions? Is it more a matter of driver integration?

This experience leads me to wonder
a) how many of us have actually measured and adjusted our set height to optimal/tweeter level, and do we do this every time we audition a new speaker, and
b) if two individuals are not the same height do we adjust for the difference in height between them sitting -- say a 5’6 vs 6’ person that’s probably a 3" difference sitting -- unless your chair has adjustable feet the experience of the two individuals may be completely different
folkfreak

Showing 1 response by jhills

jhills
619 posts
 
In general, line source speakers, as well as most stats and ribbons are considerably less affected by seating height (head height) than point source speakers.
In my system, seating height seems to make no difference and the sweet spot is very broad. Regardless of seating height and regardless of sitting center or left or right of center - the stage stays large and well focused, with the vocals staying rock solid center stage, if that’s where they are on the recording.
What I found in setting up my Maggie 1.7s, in my listening room, is that timber, stage and vocal focus all came together when I moved the speakers closer together than typically recommended. The standard rule of having the speakers the same distance apart as the distance from ea. speaker to the listener didn’t work for me. Now my speakers are 5 ft. between panels (74 in. from center to center of ea. panel) and about 114 in. from the center of ea. speaker to the listener and have very little toe in. Also the speakers are placed so the tweeter ribbons are at the outside rather than to the inside of the speakers.
I agree with Geoff, I think a good many, place their speakers to far apart, maybe trying to achieve that ever larger stage, while sacrificing focus, detail and a larger sweet spot.....Jim
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