Speaker Placement and Toe-In

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?