Off-axis compensated for by balance adjustment


Can off-axis listening be compensated for by speaker balance adjustment?

128x128cantorgale

IF you do most of your listening off-axis, as I do, you might want to try more aggressive toe-in. Because of the extreme toe-in, the closer speaker is firing away from you more, while the farther is more directly aimed at you in the off-axis spot.

I discovered this as a side benefit- someone in another forum suggested that my Spatial Audio M3 Turbo S speakers might sound better with extreme toe-in. They did sound better to me at the sweet spot, but also much improved off-axis.

It’s worth a try if the majority of your listening is not in the sweet spot.

I use this in my office system with the Benchmark LA4 preamp. I would rather use the LA4 in my best system but the other preamp I have for that does not have speaker balance option.

I tried moving the speaker that is furthest from me a little closer to me. However, after a lot of permutations I decided to keep the speakers the same distance from the front wall and use the LA4 preamps balance control to compensate. It works pretty good with my Magnepan LRS+ speakers.

Another way to solve this problem is to use DSP. Since I am a ROON user I had a professional sound engineer make a set of Convolution filters for my office setup. He compensated for my seating position. It worked great with my Thiel CS3.7's. 

Digital Room Calibration Services, Convolver, Headphone Filtersets (accuratesound.ca)

I no longer have the Thiels and the Maggies do not need the compensation done as elaborately as the Thiel. If I were to use the Convolution filter for the Maggies, I would need start from the beginning with room measurements. I am not using Convolution filters for my office. However, as I am writing this, I am thinking that if I did get a new set of filters made, I could move the LA4 to my best system.

 

Somewhat.  I mean, it's not ideal but it's better than not using all the tools you have to make it better. :)

Yes it can when the arrival time of each channel is identical.

Unless you have a hifi digital delay, don’t try this at home.

 

 

Maybe some, go mono. It screws up stereo timing and warp who knows what. But sometimes depth csn change by recording, equipment, and song. If it disturbs you, it will probably be a rabbit whole ofmoney. Lol