Speaker toe in

Not just toe-in. Tilt-back.


My speaker soul-brother, Troels Gravesen, and I have both found that sometimes when we design a speaker to be listened with the ear at tweeter height the best place to listen ends up being a little between it and the mid-woofer. 

The point is, of course, to have the most enjoyable listening experience for you.


No reason not to experiment even when all the tools and tech says to listen another way.


Best,
E

When your room is firing on all cylinders the best toe-in is no toe-in.

This is so incredibly speaker dependent.
As for imaging, I find that toe-in affects whether musical instruments appear in a continuous range from speaker to speaker. If there is a missing center, or there is a L, C and R but nothing in between, toe-in can be the game changer.

And yes, too often speakers are too far apart for the room they are in.

So this doesn't make the soundstage laterally narrower??

If you mean the quality of the perceived image, this is a good trade-off.

Ideally, you'd be listening in a much wider room, allowing you to point the tweeters straight ahead, and you could listen in between them, but if the room is your problem, this is a possible compromise.

However, if you mean the listening location, well,  yeah, very much so, but you are in a narrow room anyway for you to consider this setup.

It won't take the room completely out of the equation, but it may reduce the intensity of the side wall reflections.

Also, many speakers have tweeters which just sound better off-axis, instead of pointed directly at you. Toeing in so they cross in front of you can benefit both issues, and is a good trick for small space with live rooms.  Too much of this and you risk the same issue but from the back wall.

Of course, one of the first things you should consider is room acoustics, and I always recommend GIK acoustics products and advice.

Best,
Erik