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Who positions their speakers straight ahead (zero tow in) and why.

I’ve been experimenting with toe in and tweeter position (inside v. outside) for my LRS and ProAC Studio 3 speakers. My listening position is about 8.5 feet from the speakers front surface.

In both cases I ended up with tweeters on the inside and zero toe in. I like the more immersive soundstage I get with zero toe in. I sacrifice a little of the lock in for the center image.

Zero toe in also makes my sweet spot for listening a little wider.

Sorry about the incorrect spelling and the missing question mark in the subject. I couldn’t edit the subject.

g2the2nd

Showing 3 responses by erik_squires

erik_squires
16,798 posts
 

@lingraves just a little toe.  Youll hear 3 locations at first.  Left, center, right, until you get it right, then it will all come together as a continuous image

erik_squires
16,798 posts
 

Kind of related to this is that we sometimes focus too much on getting rid of all reflections around the speaker when in fact there is an ideal balance between a given speaker's output pattern and how good the side and rear reflections sound. 

Small space + wide speaker may force you to toe in more than in another location.

erik_squires
16,798 posts
 

The formal answer is that toe in affects tweeter rolloff, the width of the sweet spot, the treble to midrange balance and early reflections.  There's also the issue of some excellent tweeters may have resonances which completely vanish a little off axis.

Many speaker brands are designed to optimally perform with little or no toe-in.  I include:

  • Magico
  • Focal
  • Revel

Magico and Revel in particular have great imaging across a wide listening area when placed with little toe-in and plenty of space to the sides and rear.

A little history may be helpful.  In the last 30 years or so tweeter manufacturing has come a long long way.  Cheap (< $50) tweeters often flat past 20 kHz, wide dispersion and low energy storage.  In the old days this was the realm of exotics, and if you wanted to hear everything you needed to point the speaker right at your head.

A related issue IMHO is the tweeter height.  Some speakers, like B&W, really should be listened to on mid-range height, not tweeter height.  So in general the best listening position for many speakers in the 21st century is with little toe in and perhaps significantly below the tweeter's laser like axis.

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