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
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.
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
@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).
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...
I’d opine there’s a whole lot more to soundstage height than speaker placement and sitting height. There’s also vibration isolation of the source and the speakers, room acoustics (duh!) and the myriad other things audiophiles do to improve SQ. All dimensions need to come along together, not just height. Think of it as an expanding three dimensional sphere. Or four dimensions, if you prefer. In fact, there’s not enough time left to do everything you would like to an *educated* consumer. 😥
”No matter how much you have in the end you would have had even more if you started out with more.” - old audiophile axiom
The higher you fly The deeper you go The deeper you go The higher you fly
Your inside is out Your outside is in Your outside is in Your inside is out
This is a major issue for me. I dislike speakers where the sound is not as pleasing to listeners who are not in the sweet spot. I've owned speakers which drop off sonically when standing (worst-Acoustat X, the coffin speaker). My current speakers (Legacy Focus and Signature IIIs) have a small loss of highs when standing but appear to maintain their sound from 2' to 5' high in the vertical realm. Guests and my wife say they enjoy the sound across a 10' wide span couch as well. There are many speakers very highly regarded that have a limited height and width seating/listening area. I would rather own my less than SOTA speakers than those SOTA limited height and or width listening area speakers.
{
The whole point of this thread is that the height of each listener’s ears needs to be optimized to the position of the speakers, and that differences in listener torso dimensions need to be taken into account}.
Depends on radiation pattern of loudspeaker not all designs are so picky that a few inches means great sound or poor sound. I would add that if your loudspeaker is so susceptible to such sonic changes than its a inferior in design.
one of the most important things for great sound quality (speaker placement) wasn’t optimal in the first place.
The whole point of this thread is that the height of each listener’s ears needs to be optimized to the position of the speakers, and that differences in listener torso dimensions need to be taken into account.
My entire premise was that you’d optimized speaker placement in all other regards already, and my surprise was that a small change in this one dimension (vertical) had such effect, whereas front back was very different. Your paraphrase is a gross misrepresentation, or maybe I’m just a terrible communicator 🤔
And also one one thing you cannot tell from pictures is that the wall behind my head is both built from scratch as a semi absorbent surface and bass trap and then further treated with ASC and SR products, I’m more than aware of the impact of close in reflections, see my discussion of the use of GOBOs to treat reflections from the equipment alongside me. Like I said in my first post, this is not new to me and I’m fully aware of how to treat a room
@pimbo you are more than welcome to come and listen to my system and you may be rather surprised that while it may break some commonly accepted “rules” of setup it does sound surprisingly good 😉
The post by @bdp24 in my system description is helpful in this regard, posting having heard the system in action
You might also want to consider how you come across in your first post in response to a well established member ... its more than a little arrogant of you to suggest I’m a newbie neophyte when it comes to setup. There’s absolutely nothing in “Get Better Sound” I haven’t tried, tested and rejected or adopted based on how it works in my room. If you’d bothered to read the thread and my full system description you would understand how meticulously I have done this, to make the system work in my room, for me. I’ve also benefited from the advice of Art Noxon in the core setup arrangement. It’s always amazing how people can diagnose acoustics based on pictures and specs, I wish I had that ability!
Oh and by the way using shims under Magico Q3s on Townshend Podia will actually cause them to fall over! Don’t try this at home!
BTW, to adjust and measure tilt, use something (anything solid will do) under the level on the low side and 'level' the speaker out. Do the same with the same thing in the same spot on the other speaker and you'll have the speakers perfectly tilted to the same angle. To change angles, just use something ticker/thinner or move the position of whatever it is you're using.
It saddens me a bit to see how much money and effort you have plunged into your system only to find out afterwards that one of the most important things for great sound quality (speaker placement) wasn't optimal in the first place.
As Tomic601 mentioned, I'm very surprised nobody mentioned Jim Smith's 'Get Better Sound'. It's by far the best $35.- you can spend on your system. I took one look at your system page and the first two things I noticed before anything else were that your speakers are too far apart and you're sitting too close to the wall behind you.
Your speakers too far apart means you're missing out on warmth and the soundstage won't be anywhere near as good as it can be.
Your head being too close to the wall behind you means you'll hear reflections from behind you mixed with the sound coming from your speakers resulting in who knows what but definitely not good things.
Folkfreak, you obviously spend a lot of effort to optimising your system but you're on the wrong path. I know this might sound arrogant but that's not how I mean this. I'm telling you this because I was there once. I had my speakers setup in the same and wrong position for 25 years! It was only once I read 'Get Better Sound' that I learned how to get the best out of my system. The difference wasn't subtle. I've since replaced my system for one costing ten times as much but the increased sound quality hasn't gone up ten fold. Twice as good maybe. But the sound quality increase I got from setting my system up right was at least 5 fold. Yes, it was THAT much better.
I sure hope you will find a way to get the best out of your system. After all, you've put the effort in so you should be rewarded.
My speaker maker tells me Where the tweeter should be and I should be sitting at. But he wants me 9.5 or ,10 feet from speakers. He even gives me a tool 10 degrees toe in. I looked at your set up awhile back It's some very nice equipment. I would like to Listen to Quads right against the wall There I listened to a pair set up like that ,,,,,amazing.
Many people have talked about using tilt to align the tweeters with the listener. Leaving aside room interaction my concern with this method is how do you ensure each speaker is tilted the same amount?
I make sure that each of my speakers is perfectly level to within a fraction of a degree (I use a very accurate, very heavy spirit level). Just as with laser aligning for toe in having completely equal level is essential to tip top information retrieval
if you are adjusting tilt on each speaker how can you be certain they are the same? Especially if your floor is not absolutely even. Maybe you level each speaker and then adjust tilt, but that assumes you have a vernier system or the like to ensure absolute consistency on each speaker
The shape, position and degree to which a persons ear protrude from the cranium make huge differences as well. Try pressing your ears back or forward when listening...the results are quite shocking!
I feel it depends,on the speaker size and type..i have never been the type to just sit down in front of the system and listen ,unless if i was watching a,movie or rock concert.
Folky. I pay attention to everything.Even the well known scientific fact that your eyes are part of the nuro chain that determines what you hear .Which varies from person to person .
You have a good point @prof, hence it's important to a) be aware of these differences and know when you're experiencing them and b) have a setup that allows you the listener to get to a consistent and repeatable position.
Hence probably a fairly firm chair, reliably located and so on.
One of the ones that always gets me is glasses on vs glasses off, this is both some sort of acoustic interference effect and also the removal of a layer of visual processing allowing more focus on the sound
I'm always playing with acoustics, including listener height and position.Even just placing a small pillow behind my head alters the sound (focuses and brightens to some degree).
In fact I suspect that at least some of the "component break in" phenomena that audiophiles ascribe to gear changing is due to the very real sonic alterations that happen when we move even a bit. If you are listening for differences, and your head is even a slightly different position, or even a bit more upright, or a bit more slumped etc, we could attribute the sound difference to the component changing it's sound rather than to the acoustics that are happening. Just a hunch.
This is from a Michael Fremer review of the W/P 7. "Wilson's excellent setup guide includes specific vertical angling requirements for the WATT, based on the height and distance from the speaker of the listener's ears. Wilson provides four sets of rear spikes for the Puppy so that you can adjust the system's height to ensure that the WATT's tweeter and midrange driver are at the correct height relative to your ears. Guesswork is eliminated: Plug in the numbers, and Wilson tells you which set of spikes to use".
Well this seems to have wondered off into a discussion about speaker placement in the room in general which is fine ...
The only point I was trying to make was to observe that, in my room, with my speakers, even when they are optimally positioned the listener themselves must also be located to within +/- 1-2" in the vertical and lateral dimensions, with the ability to adjust front-back to taste
My room is basically set up as a near field system, truly a large set of headphones. It's not big enough to even have a second chair so allowing for more than one listener was never even part of the design. I will in future however try to ensure that if I have visitors I make sure their ears get to the perfect level!
The room matters greatly in this discussion. There will always be null and standing wave nodes that can vary greatly from one another, dependent of course on room dimensions and speaker placement. And why not? It’s simply a function of wave physics. Of course, we do our best with finding the overall optima, but it is always a compromise. A position that is ideal in one spot may be horrible two feet away. The key is to find the overall sweet spot in set up and room treatment while not driving yourself bonkers. At some point, one can overreach in the search for "perfection" and then the law of diminishing returns takes over. Whenever frustration enters the process, it’s time for a break and clearing of the head, and only then pick up where you left off with fresh ears.
Also, for low bass, two subs are much better than one.
And, this is why those vertical and horizontal response measurements, that John Atkins is fond of, are so informative relative to the OP’s topic.
I prefer speakers with a wide listening arc, or I guess off-axis listening. Often times I have friends over and I like to share in the great tunes. Moreover, I do not like to pinned to a specific spot in the room.
We’ve been all over this before. There are many reasons people don’t get the soundstage height or any other dimension the way the big boys do. For starters, the speakers are almost always too far apart. One big reason is everything’s all messed up is the speakers are too far apart and the middle is MIA. To compensate, people toe the speakers in, making things even worse. You have to start with the speakers close together and slowly move them apart until the sounstage suddenly appears, like a bolt out of the blue⚡️. The height specifically isn’t there because of two things mostly, acoustic anomalies and not enough vibration isolation.
Trial and error without a methodology is like trying to solve some simultaneous equations in too many unknowns.
Surprised nobody has mentioned Jim Smith book......that and good setup instructions from manufacturers plus laser tools and a willingness to experiment/listen = joy
I have suffered the limitations of a very narrow sweet spot using old Quad (57) for many years-- to the point where many people consider the speaker impractical. (I still love them and consider their midrange peerless). My horns have limited off-axis dispersion and also require some attention to listening position relative to the tweeters. I had them nailed in my old room, and when I moved, it took some positioning to get them right-- not only seat height but distance and their relationship with each other. As for torso length of the listener, I suppose a height adjustable chair would help and let the listener fiddle with to suit, but I often give over the sweet spot to the guest and sit behind, back rowing it.
Ha-Ha. This is pretty funny these days now that various speaker manufacturers have decided to make many speakers 6' tall. I WONDER where they got that idea (Magnepan) and what influenced their driver placement (Magnepan) and why they work on "imaging" so hard (Magnepan)?
Yes, your ears need to be in the center of the Maggie panel when seated for "serious" or "fun" listening IF you want that specific experience.
I remember many customers who sat down in the shop once the music was playing and watched their eyes light up and smiles appear as they realized how wonderful the listening experience was, and those were the days of STEREO--2 channels only. Enjoy!
"Well this is why where practicable the best method, technique and protocol for evaluating components in a Music Reproduction System is to rely on headphones."
Well, its a bit difficult to evaluate/compare speakers using a headphone.
Tilting affects time alignment between drivers. Competent designers spend much effort to get this as close to perfect as possible, so definitely at least start with manufacturers set up recommendation.
Not saying this this is the only way, but I start with placement to best result, then toe in to best result, then raise/lower my a@@ to adjust ear height to best result.
I rarely, if ever, sit in one spot while music is playing. However, over the years, I got to the conclusion that I should figure out if I like the sound of some system regardless of ideal conditions. In fact, even in another room. If I have to work too hard to figure the differences out, they are not worth thinking about for me. Before I get crucified for this kind of blasphemy, I do understand that some people enjoy sitting and distinguishing each and every nuance from the recording and I admire their dedication and patience.
Going back to the original post, yes, every detail counts. It is just question how much.
- definitely could be a contributing factor but isn’t perception a highly individualized thing to begin with? Do we taste flavors the same? do smells evoke the same reactions in all humans? you get the point...just thought I’d throw that into the mix.
Quick add is that the third dimensional ie towards the speakers is not sensitive, in fact it acts more like a depth of image function, move towards the speaker and the parts of the mix that are forward come towards you (while everything else stays in place) , move back and the reverse. It’s a kind of uncanny effect but presumably a result of controlling the room well
Nope with Magico Q3s the vertical sweet spot is +/- 1" or less, sucks but that's what it is. The horizontal sweet spot in my room is maybe 1-2" at most. Like I say in my room description it's a big pair of headphones
surely tilting causes all sorts of other issues however by changing the relationship of the mid range and bass drivers to the floor
Less than you think.
-- it also doesn't help if you have more than one listener and need to adjust quickly between the two
True, but this is why having speakers with smooth off-axis response matters. I mean, with two users, only one is exactly in the middle, right? Why isn't the same vertically? :)
Different speakers have different horizontal and vertical sweet spots. Hopefully yours are broad enough to accommodate.
@erik_squires surely tilting causes all sorts of other issues however by changing the relationship of the mid range and bass drivers to the floor -- it also doesn't help if you have more than one listener and need to adjust quickly between the two
@folkfreak Good point and question. I’ve experimented by moving myself around (quite a bit) before picking a spot that works for me.
This has led me to move further back and sit in a higher chair. My speakers are elevated by approximately 2 inches (due to isolation), which in my case, and for my speakers and preferences, means an (ideal) ear to floor distance of 51 inches.
Since I have the Tekton Design SEs, that puts my ear at about 2 inches above the topmost ’tweeter’ in the tweeter array, and just below center of the topmost 'mid-range' driver.
It's not so much the height but the relative angle... this means you can do this adjustment by tilting the speakers themselves if you can. :)
Speakers do sound different on angle. Some makers specifically recommend you not toe the speakers in. This is often due to how the tweeter or mids perform. Some makers specifically design for the mids to be the central focus, you often see them with tweets physically UNDER the mid-woofer. Looks weird, sounds good.
Also, as a speaker maker, though I have designed speakers for on-tweeter axis, sometimes they do sound better closer to the mid-woofer.
What's important is your long-term listening pleasure, but use manufacturer's recommendations as guides.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
