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Toe-in for Harbeth M30 in a narrow room?

Although my Monitor 30's present lots of problems in my room from hell (see below), they perform better than most speakers I have had in this all but impossible room. Fore me, the most vexing issue is toe-in.

I am m trying to position my speakers for fairly nearfield listening. They are 64" apart and I sit 64" away.. For the most part, the side walls on my L shaped living room are very reflective, although I have a few bookcases and wall hangings to ammediorate the hardness of the plaster/concrete/cinderblock construction.

Pointing the speakers at the listener, yields a very intense and focused sound and a very compressed soundstage-almost like looking through a fish-eye lens, However, there is good tonal accuracy, for the most part. The sound can get a bit over the top and fatigueing at 75-85 db. I sometimes have to lower the volume. While center-fill is excellent, some images just hang around the speakers.

Pointing them straight ahead, gives a wall to wall rectangular sound stage, with slightly diffuse images-although relaxed and easy to live with and non-fatiguing. loss in transparency and tonal accuracy, but not significant.

Surprisingly, an intermediate level of toe in, seems to combine the worst aspects of each approach. Midrange becomes hard and compressed.

Trying to get them further apart and therefore closer to the bookcases/sidewalls makes them sound worse still-very recessed, thin and vague.

The nearfield placement, as described above seems to work best, but I am bafled about the toe-in.

Under these circumstances, if you had to chose between pointing the speakers at the listener and no toe-in, what would you chose?

Thanks so much,

Jay
jaybar
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drubin
3,269 posts
 
If you haven't already, you should pose this problem on the Harbeth Users Forum, which you can find a pointer to at the main Harbeth site.

Have you played around with your 64" dimensions? You may want to try a "T" configuration, in which you are 64" from the center point between the two speakers instead of 64" from each speaker. Or is that what you have now?
jaybar OP
4 posts
 
Thanks Drubin,

I have posted this on the Harbeth users group. Alan Shaw suggested a very slight amount of toe-in (a few degrees), just to sharpen things up. Even with that, the sound stage begins to narrow, quite a bit and sound moves forward of speakers.

Is that what is supposed to happen with toe in?

Other than AS, not much in the way of suggestions from my last post on HUG.

I have not tried the T-approach.

Jay
tobias
1,534 posts
 
FWIW a diffuser made of angled panels placed behind my speakers and close to the rear wall helped both image and midrange in my situation.
newbee
4,752 posts
 
If you like the sound of the speakers pointed straight ahead, but for a bit of diffusion created in the sound stage attributible to the nearby side wall, try crossing the speaker axis well in fron of the listening position. Actually use the same degree of angle of the speaker to the ear that you use when they are pointed straight ahead. I assume this would be 22 to 23 degrees. Doing this will allow closer placement to the side walls, i.e. widen the spread, just move your listening position back accordingly. I've never done it with Harbeths but I have will several other dynamics and I always got a better (more focused, and IMHO accurate image (but you loose a bit of the reflected sound from the side walls which can give the impression of a wider stage (more 'airy' some feel - :-). Everything has tradeoff's. Give it a try.
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