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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
128x128folkfreak
54 responses Add your response
pimbo
14 posts
 
@folkfreak ,

Let me start by apologising for 'concluding' you're a 'neophyte'. (I had to look that one up...English isn't my first language) just by looking at some pictures.
Out of respect I've decided to read your whole system thread and got a lot better idea of your setup now. To be honest, on the pictures it looks like your speakers are way further apart than they actually are, hence my wrong 'conclusion'. Again my apologies.
Just to explain where I was coming from; I've too often seen and heard good audio setup badly and it saddens me. I therefore applaud you for starting this thread for everyone to learn something new.

Back on the topic of speaker / head hight. Once I worked out how important it was to have the tweeter / midrange pointed at the right angle to my head, I made some simple timber blocks to tilt my speakers. The result was much better than having them on stands. Looked awful though...
folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak OP
1,349 posts
 
@pimbo thanks for your nice follow up message. As you saw from the thread I had to make some compromises to work within the rather odd shaped, and smaller than ideal, room that I have to work with. The decision to go with a long wall set up rather than the more common short wall arrangement was made by Art Noxon when we started the design and so the whole room, including the in wall acoustic treatment, was designed with this placement in mind. Its actually a version of the classic Cardas setup.

@fleschler and @johnk -- given the room cannot accommodate more than one listener at anything close to the sweet spot the idea of designing for wide dispersion is moot. However it has been my experience that any speaker I've ever liked really only worked best for a listener at one point. It may sound "nice" off axis but you are not hearing the best the speaker can deliver unless alignment is achieved to mm (not inch) or so tolerances. Hence the time and effort Jim Smith and other setup gurus spend with laser alignment tools to get the setup just so. Ron Heydrich from Marigo, just across the river in WA from me, took me through this process and showed me how to get perfect alignment between each speaker (this is actually why you can see pieces of blue painters tape in the room behind the speaker position as these are the reference points for speaker toe in). 

jhills
615 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
fleschler
2,012 posts
 
I agree that tall stats allow for a large range of listening height as I previously owned Acoustat 2&2s and Martin Logan Monolith IIIs. One loses some of the highs from my Legacy Focus when standing but the overall sound is less directional than when sitting.

My speakers are 10’ apart speaker to speaker center, towed in about 10 degrees and my listening area is 12’6" from between the speakers. 20 years ago I tried moving the speakers closer but it resulted in too much bass even in my big room. I can’t move them any further apart due to my CD drawer cabinet has to open to the outside of the left speaker. I don’t think I would want the speakers to be further apart.

In my second listening room, my Legacy Signature IIIs are only 6’ apart, not angled, in a room measuring 13’ wide X 20’ deep (and open to one side and the rear). It has great focus and wide, even dispersion without any room acoustic treatments. The room also has a vaulted ceiling from 8’ at the speakers to 10’ at the rear, like a horn. Tremendous sound with little effort compared to my main room which is too live and had slap echo without room treatments. This is Oregonpapa’s speakers in a better room.
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