Interesting. Looks like PSB's entire flagship line of speakers have a mid or woofer above the tweeter. They clearly know what they're doing. :) noromance, that's sound advice (pardon the pun). I guess I'm really asking whether there are any reasons unrelated to sound quality that they shouldn't be placed upside down -- like would it put pressure/stress on internal parts in a way they weren't designed for and thus lead to parts failure?
odd question about stand-mount speakers
Is there any reason you shouldn't turn stand-mount speakers upside down and listen to them that way, as long as you use some kind of vibration control/decoupler between the speakers and the surface they're placed on? The reason I ask is because, at least in a near-field setup, I would think having the mid/woofer ABOVE the tweeter would enhance image height/size -- assuming the tweeter is kept at ear level. (A couple of asides: I don't currently have bookshelf speakers, otherwise I would experiment. Will likely be buying some in the near future though. Also, I know that there are some stand-mount speakers that place the mid/woofer above the tweeter, but the vast majority do not -- most of the ones I'm interested in do not.)
Showing 5 responses by hiphiphan
Yes, a d'appolito design would accomplish the same thing. Plus I wouldn't have to upend the speakers, and the mids/lows would be spread out over two drivers instead of one (per channel), potentially enhancing the sound quality. The only drawback is there are a lot more MT design stand-mounts to choose from than there are d'appolito designs. |
"As long as the tweets are at ear level, it probably shouldn’t matter much" -- that's what I was kind of thinking. If tweeter is at ear level whether right side up or upside down, then either way the same output should reach your ear from each driver at the same time, with the only difference being the direction from which the mid/woofer sound wave arrives at your ear. But sonics aside, I was also wondering if there is any non-sonics-related reason I shouldn't try this -- for example, would it be bad for internal parts to have gravity pulling on them in the opposite way. (Thanks for the replies, everyone.) |
One of the speakers I'm interested in is the Graham Audio LS8/1 ($10k), designed by Derek Hughes, the son of the engineer who designed some famous BBC speakers. The LS8/1 got a very positive review in TAS (if anyone's interested, the review has a lot of fascinating info in it: https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/graham-ls8-1-loudspeaker/). So I emailed Graham Audio and got the following reply directly from Derek: There is no reason why the speaker could not be used upside down, it will not harm it. Interestingly, the BBC often used to used their BC1 speakers inverted when they were used near field, so yes that should be fine. |