sweet spot hell

Dear All,

Actually I think both points are view are incorrect.

Firstly if you toe the speakers in, what you are actually doing is moving the focal zone of the speakers forward. i.e. the truely sweetest spot moves more forward. You are then more distal to the true focal zone or sweetspot. At that point the sound waves are already diverging from optimal. (this is called the fraunhofer zone for all you sonographers out there).

Sean's opinion I believe is incorrect also. Actually as the speakers get more and more in focus than the sweet spot narrows more. Any placement of the speakers which widens the sweet spot or faocal zone will cause less sharpness in in that sweet spot. So that if you untoe the speakers for instance the sweet spot will in fact be wider but the focus will not be as sharp.
This bothered me for a bit so I called Avalon (I have eidolons) and asked them abou this. Their answer is that with these speakers the focus is already so sharp that it is a matter of degree. The loss in sharpness is not very significant given to the overall sharpness of the image already. BUT if you were to toe themin more it would increase the sharpness and narrow the sweet spot in the near field.

SO I guess I am going to untoe my speakers a bit.

jd

Sean,

Well said. I apologize for not reading your post before I posted mine. Actually, I had written that post at work during the day and by the time I had time to finish and post it, yours had beaten me to it.

That having been said, I also do not like too much toe in. I have tried to not only not have much toe in but as well like to have them spread apart as much as the speaker and room characteristics allow without losing too much focus.

Please let me understand something though. I agree that with appropriate placement you can get a nice wide soundstage and good tonal balance, but do you think that translates into a wide sweet spot? I have not been successful at that.
My system is comprised of:
Theta transport, theta gen 5a DAC, Spectral DMC 30 and DMA 360 and eidolons. This is the new system that I have just upgraded after moving to a new house. I used to have spectral stuff and ascent Mk II's. With that gear although I am sure there were significant improvements that coudl have been made by one with more experience, it was still pretty good and I remember the distinct feeling of missing out somewaht on the sound if I was not dead center in the listening position.

thanks once again for your post. The dialing in and tinkering is alot of the fun

jd