Speaker Placement and Toe-In

yeay. :)  Many speakers are designed for just such placement.

Dali doesn't recommend any toe in and so far I'd have to agree.

My Spendors like straight ahead too. 

What I found is that I prefer no Toe-In. That is, I prefer the speakers straight out into the room.

If your room was reflective, then you might like toe in.

The fact that you like no toe in, to me says more about your room, than about your speakers.

My (different speakers) are toed in, but the speakers and the room, are both different than yours.

There is no easy way to get to this point, without just moving and listening… but you got there.

Do you have a link for the air bladder wedge?

@holmz 

The fact that you like no toe in, to me says more about your room, than about your speakers.

Bingo. My Treo’s have minor toe-in (had very little). But, something was bothering me yesterday, I didn’t feel I was getting a wide enough stage, and I know this sounds counter intuitive, but I toed-in both just slightly, and, wala, it worked. Wider stage.

No doubt, I chalk this up to my room more than the speakers.

When I experiment with toe in.....the soundstage is flat when they point directly at my listening position....as I move them out, the depth increases until I hear a hole in the middle....I went too far.  (Vandersteen speakers)

Needless to add, my Quad 57s are toed in to a 1/16th of an inch to each ear!

and I know this sounds counter intuitive, but I toed-in both just slightly, and, wala, it worked. Wider stage.

@bkeske - yep, that is counter intuitive… but listening to it, and liking it, is hard to argue. Sometimes it is weird and magical how it just all of a sudden seems to snap good.

Young fellow (work mate) had his speakers playing and I asked if he liked them.
He said that the bass was a bit low.
I asked if I could move the speakers, and I shoved them back to about 15” from the wall and toed them in 1/2 way.
He said, “wow.” And wanted to do more adjusting.
I told him he could spend most of the day with a roll of tape, and taking notes… and we had to man the BBQ for the lady folk.
He asked how will he know when they are right. I shrugged my shoulders and told him, when which ever way you move them gets worst, then we assume that they must be right… we both had a larf, and retired to the BBQ tongs.

With more or less omnidirectional loudspeakers toe-in does not matter much. You might change reflective patterns a little but that is all. With directional loudspeakers it is a totally different ball game. The idea is to cover the listening area with both channels and minimize reflections thus toe-in becomes very important for controlling room reflection. These are speakers like horns and dipoles of one sort or another. Even with room treatment, you will never get the image out of an omnidirectional speaker to match that of a speaker with controlled directionality.

ideal speaker placement is room specific, speaker specific, non transferable i-p among users, as important is proper placement is for any specific user

+1 @holmz on saying a lot about the room. I started a similar a similar thread last month on this as well that some of you contributed to. 

@ozzy How wide is your room, how far apart are the speakers, and what’s your listening distance? The fact that you have the sopras set up with no toe in means they need to be close enough together to create a coherent center image while also reflecting beneficially off the walls to provide a wide soundstage. This is fairly difficult to achieve in many rooms using no toe in, but when possible, it is incredible. 

So many great responses thank you. My room has been treated extensively. My room is 27 x 17 x 8. Three of the walls have exterior concrete. All of the walls and ceiling were made with separate studding and with 1/2" drywall with insulation behind them.

I have large 20" diameter tube traps in the corners and 7 Stillpoint Aperture ll’s located at the center and on the walls along with other wall treatments. Also, I have acoustic ceiling tile that is glued and stapled to the drywall. The speakers are 55" out from the back wall to the back of the speakers and are 37" from the wall side to the side of the speaker.

The wall behind my seating position is about 8 feet away and has a rack that holds over 6000 cd’s.

I was always under the impression that speakers should be toed in to dial in the soundstage. Obviously and to my surprise, with my room, speakers, equipment that is not the case.

ozzy

Oh, BTW, the air bladders were purchased from Amazon. A very useful tool when needing to move (lift) large heavy speakers (on stands) with the help of the furniture sliders.

ozzy

The general recommendation for my speakers Sonus Faber Amati Traditional)  is to the “cross the beams” 18” behind the sweet spot. In my room that causes a very restricted soundstage. They sound best with no toe in, just like yours,

I wish I was inclined to fiddle and tweak my placement to the Nth degree. If I have an expert guiding me I might. I had my Vandersteens pointed straight ahead for a long time (on the long wall, about 18" out from the front wall and 30" from side walls. My dealer suggested much more toe-in and it did seems to make an improvement but not radical. I think my ears need more training!

@ozzy - HOW do you like the Townshend podiums? I have a very live floor, and these appeal to me to isolate my speakers from the floor. Very expensive, to my mind (50% of the cost of my speakers) so I am reluctant unless the benefit would be significant. THX

Yeah, I think all the rules as to speaker placement should just be considered as a starting point. We still need to experiment. Moving heavy speakers on stands like the Townshends is near impossible. But trying to place the Sopra's in the right spot while off the stands gave a different result. And needed To-In. Thus the need to be able to move them around on the stands.

I have tried the spikes that the Sopra’s came with, then Stillpoints and then the Gaia 1’s. They were an improvement over the ones provided with the Sopra’s, but the Townshends podiums are revolutionary. Do they justify the cost? For me they do.

ozzy

Interesting read. Von schweikert uses a Pink noise tone, Wilson has there own version.

What helps is Identifying the first reflection point  and putting some sort of absorption there.  Good luck

Thanks for the reply.

What I have noticed is having the speakers aiming straight out does flatten the soundstage depth somewhat.

So always the tweaker, I decided to toe them in again (slightly). Now the question is how much, or little is the best? Never ending...

ozzy

Ozzy, thought you had Magico M6's?

Guess that was someone else .....

No, it must be some other "rich guy".

It is amazing that when you really start dialing in the soundstage, just a 1/2" can throw off the center image.

ozzy

Out of curiosity, I just measured my loudspeaker vs listening position and, coincidentally, found it is exactly the same ratio as the OP. It happens to be precisely 1:1 --> the distance between woofer centers and the distance from the drivers’ centerline to listening position. This ratio wasn’t intentional as I hadn’t measured it in that way recently, I was only using preferred positioning based on listening tests.

My toe-in is also the same: none. Speakers disappear with zero toe-in and imaging is optimal, and as toe-in degree increases, even a little bit, their location is more revealed. Center image with my speakers isn’t terribly disrupted by toe-in, but it does compress and overall breadth shrinks.

I'm using Townshend Seismic Bars, and thankfully their felt bottoms are super easy to slide around on my hardwood floor.

The equilateral triangle is a thing…. True more often then not.
 

The toe-in worth the search. Nothing wrong with being lazy for six months… then changing it a bit. Wait a while… then try something else. I am lazy… but over time, your system will sound amazingly better… the cost is really low.

Well, this should be interesting.  I have Daedalus Audio speakers on the way, should arrive on Friday (model Apollo 11, newest version, V-3).  Just sold my Dynaudio Contour 60i speakers.  The Daedalus speakers have the front baffle slightly canted (toed) and keeping the back of the speaker square with the front wall is recommended.  I will begin with that and over time make a few adjustments.  As ghdprentice stated, "the toe-in is worth the search, changing it a bit, wait a while, then try something else".  I'm looking forward to the process.  This is a fun hobby and passion.

@mammothguy54 

Congrats Joel! Glad to hear they are finally on their way 👍🏼

Some masking tape on the floor helps.
And changing the lyrics to “Toe the line”…. 😎
 

@ghdprentice For what it's worth to you, the arrangements of the OP and my own speakers relative to the listening position isn't actually an equilateral triangle.  If it were, the measurement from listening position to the perpendicular line between speaker midpoints would be 86.6% of the distance between speaker midpoints. In both of our cases, it was 100%.  Fascinatingly coincidental.

I’ve read and use in my system a triangle ratio of tweeter to tweeter =1 and tweeter to ear should be about 1.2. Sounded better than an equilateral triangle. No toe in for me either. 
 

Cheers! 

Definitely trial and error.  Since I read that horn speakers were directional or "beamy".  So I sit about as far away as the distance to my center of the speakers..  The speakers are toed in and pointing just over my shoulder. 

Some very interesting and helpful comments, thank you.

I'm still experimenting. I am leaning towards a very slight toe in. The Focal Sopra's are very difficult to measure distances from the walls due to them not having any real straight lines. 

I think the idea of re-checking again after a few months is a good one. Not that I think the speakers will move (duh) but my preference may change.

ozzy

I too find I prefer slight toe-in. As @ozzy found I found that the soundstage becomes flat when the tweeters are pointing directly at me. Some speaker mfr’s recommended having the tweeters line of fire cross about 2-3 ft behind the listening position. I find the soundstage opens up and the off-axis response is better when it crosses WAY further behind the listening position however.  Interestingly I don’t notice too much else changing with my B&W 802’s beyond this, as I mess with toe-in.  I don’t notice any change in frequency response from the sweet spot, as toe-in is changed.  I guess that has to do with the drivers being consistent across their wide dispersion range.

Currently my walls are being painted after I had dedicated AC lines installed (woo-hoo!). So my system is dismantled and covered in protective sheets right now. After the painter is done by Saturday, I plan to reconfigure my couch to be closer to my system - will try a closer configuration to an equilateral triangle with the speakers moved out further from the wall (was previously 20” of clearance behind the speakers). I will try the 1 to 1.2 ratio referenced above. For me this means speakers will be 7ft between tweeters and 8.4 ft from tweeter to ear. I might also try being even closer to the speakers. I find as I move back in my room, I lose some of the crisp upper frequency detail that I hear when I am closer.

@patrickdowns I've got the Townsend Podiums on my short list of near term upgrades and have had the same question, are they worth the cost?

I read somewhere that Townsend has never had a pair of podiums returned for a refund

That's a heck of an endorsement and has influenced me to give them a try in the next 12-18 months

I have the speaker bars. Max Townshend told me the were as efficient as the Podiums but not as easy to install and manage the the right position under the speakers. Aesthetically they are less fancy but the price is more friendly.

my 2cents

This can be a maddening process. I researched many online demos and used various calculators showing where to place the speakers based on room dimensions. Most would put my speakers way too far into the room in both distance from back and side walls. Cardas method 1/3 or 1/5 Golden Ratio....etc.

So, I am still moving and trying. What I am having the most trouble is with the center image. Sometimes it seems to shift a little to the right. Do I move the speaker out/back, sideways...uggh! I have also noticed that not all recordings are centered.

I suppose mono recordings is the best to use.

BTW, even though the Townshends podiums under the speakers makes moving them around very difficult, I would not want to be without them. They are that important.

ozzy

My soundstage is always naturally to the left because of room shape, but my amp has gain trim controls for both channels, so I just trim the left channel more to get it centered.  Maybe your preamp has a pan L/R knob?

I played with toe-in and distance from my chair the last couple of days after reading this thread. I wound up with a little less toe-in, a little further apart and sitting a little closer. Not a big change in any one spot, BUT, wow I think I really have it dialed in. I will give it a few more days, but I do think this is the best my system has sounded, ever. Thanks to all that contributed to the discussion. 

This can be a maddening process.

True. And a lot of work. Spending a lot of time that we could otherwise use to enjoy the music. But don't give up. Stay with it. Amazing things can be accomplished by speaker (and listening chair) positioning. And it's free! Lots of trial and error. A UMIK-1 and REW (and a laptop) can help even further, in addition (obviously) to using your ears. 

Dali doesn't recommend any toe in and so far I'd have to agree.

The fact that there is no on axis sweet spot is fantastic.

Where I originally had my speakers, the vocals seemed to be a little fuller. (If my memory is correct). Now, with little toe in, they seem to be a little thinner sounding, but the soundstage is wider, and details are more apparent.

Which is correct? Or the best? I’ll keep fiddling.

ozzy

As always: it depends. All other things equal a front baffle design upon toe-in does three things: it increases treble as treble is directionally radiating from the cone; it shifts the first reflection point further into the room which in turn affects standing bass waves as well as sound stage and -if the speaker has a bass reflector on the rear- it changes reflection from back wall to both sides of the corner. The effect of the latter can be significant but all three cannot be determined without knowing rhe specific room acoustics. Finally all of this may or may not have been accounted for by the manufacturer, so I am afraid my opening statement applies!

I just had to get this right.

So, I removed the Sopra’s from the Townshend stands, it is just too hard to move them while on the stands.

I do believe I have zero’d in the soundstage!

What I have found is, again, I prefer no toe in. But it has been interesting. I used the 1/5 rule for centering the woofers from the sidewalls. But I liked a slightly different distance from the wall behind the speakers.

I also found that my room is not exactly rectangular, that is probably why I have had so much trouble.

Now I have the center image locked in, I think can feel Linda Ronstadt noise hairs!

ozzy

Ozzy,

Congratulations.

To be honest, I hate futzing with speakers. My approach is to just make a little move every few weeks. If negative…. Back immediately.
 

if I don’t force a slower approach, I end up in a frenzied dervish of activity, wanting to get it over with and concerned I will end up with the system sounding worse than when I started.

Ideally, you want to talk a couple friends into spending two or three afternoons moving them for you while you relax and listen… without having to get up. I’m not sure what you would have to do to bribe them. I would feel so guilty, I would never allow myself time to actually make good judgements.

So, congradulations, sounds like you got there.

ghdprentice,

Thank you for your comments. As much as I really like the Townshend stands, they did make it hard to find just that right spot.

Now, I will again move the speakers to reinstall the stands underneath them. But this time I am armed with measurements and duct tape...

BTW, my friends are old like me, best I could offer them is perhaps some oxygen. LOL!

ozzy

“Where I originally had my speakers, the vocals seemed to be a little fuller. (If my memory is correct). Now, with little toe in, they seem to be a little thinner sounding, but the soundstage is wider, and details are more apparent.

Which is correct? Or the best? I’ll keep fiddling.

ozzy”

Heyya Ozzy,

Hopefully no issue for me to revive this thread - seems a very good question went unanswered.

Which soundstage (wide vs. deep) is best or correct? Easy - whichever is most enjoyable, as judged by you. Indecisiveness is a key enemy here, lol!

The real question: how consistent among all your recorded music are your preferences in sonic imagery characteristics? I’d hazard a guess of “below 100%” ;)

Uh oh, so much for “Easy”!

To keep sane on spacing / distance / toe-in, I remind myself that speaker placement measurements and ratios should theoretically differ from album to album, or even among “pressings” of one album if remasters are involved. Heck, some of the more digitally manipulated recordings seem to vary among tracks on the same album in how “effectively” things are staged by speakers’ positioning.

My speakers don’t provide the most pinpoint imaging, but they do shine a glaring light on any studio panning oddities. The toe-in that sounds great to me on some recordings is far from ideal on others. Thankfully, I don’t think most speakers made for one MLP will be such divas in this way. Still, we might be mistaken if we adopt a one-positioning-fits-all-recordings mindset. It would be a bit like assuming one-volume setting-fits-all-recordings mindset, yeah? Sigh, some complications are unavoidable even with the best of tech.
 

In my case, those Townshend podiums would never work without extreme customization, so at least I have that part of my back-and-forth considerations simplified, ha!

The center image does actually move around depending on the recording. Sometimes one of the instruments will switch sides too,maybe an accident when mixing. I am either cursed or blessed with a square room. One of my speakers is toed out ! slightly and the other one straight ahead. Looks strange but sounds wonderful.Each speaker is pointed towards a doorway.

You're not "there" until you adjust the RAKE of your speakers.  The vertical orientation can certainly be enlightening.  Case in point (pun intended): MartinLogan hybrids...

So as everything with this hobby (at least for me) changes with time, I have now toed the speakers (slightly) and yes, I now prefer them that way.

Although getting the symmetry right is very important.

ozzy

@ozzy 

Congrats to you for sticking with it- my room was pretty challenging so I hired an acoustic analyst to work it out. Thought I’d send this your way though- similar to what has been discussed previously but with a little less ratio. I prefer a 1.1 ratio in my setup.

WASP Setup

Thanks all for the additional help.

The difficult part of all of this is the size, weight and shape of the speakers. It's not as easy as just measuring the sides etc. The Sopra 2's really have an exotic shape.

I have tried to zero in on exactly the same distances, side to side, distance to front wall, toe in, and listening position. I think I have it!

Funny though, just moving one dimension can throw off the other distances.

ozzy

My best friends in speaker positioning have been multidirectional laser levels. Some good models can be bought for under USD $200 each.

Having 2-3 multidirectional units makes things even quicker. I don’t find unidirectional laser levels as helpful, and spirit levels can’t well apply in my use case.