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Properly towing in speakers when you are sitting off axis?


ninjai18

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Can anyone provide any info on what the best general guidelines are for getting good stereo imagining when your main listening position is off axis (to the right a few feet)? I am about 11 feet or so from the towers. My projector makes it so I can't be symmetrical, and there's no way of remedying that as it stands in this room. I just need to know how I could get the stereo image a bit more centered, as it sounds like it's off to the left too much. I have done the Audyssey calibration and done SPL meter level matching to both speakers. I also have acoustic treatments (bass traps, absorber panels, and sound diffusers)

 

Thanks in advance for any insight on this. :)

Edited by ninjai18
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Assuming that your RF-3 II's have good enough polar control, you'd want to toe in your fronts so that the centerline of the loudspeakers cross in front of your listening position by at least 2 feet. 

 

Why? If you are listening off-axis left or right, toeing them in more acutely will put the farthest loudspeaker centerline more on-axis to your off-center listening position, (on the side opposite the centerline between the loudspeakers from your LP) pointed more directly at your ears, while the closest loudspeaker will be directed more acutely away from your ears.  This partially corrects for your off-center listening position. 

 

Try it.  Your "sweet spot" should be about double width once you get it right.

 

Chris

Edited by Chris A
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By the way, if you have a lot of acoustically reflective equipment and/or furniture between your fronts, either remove anything that you can and place it away from the front center of your listening room, or place something acoustically absorbent on the side of the stuff that you can't move (like a blanket or comforter temporarily, until you get some acoustic tiles or other absorbent material in hand).

 

What you are trying to do is to suppress any early acoustic reflections that are made stronger by toeing in your fronts, thus stabilizing the imaging soundstage that your hear.

 

Chris

Edited by Chris A
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Assuming that your RF-3 II's have good enough polar control, you'd want to toe in your fronts so that the centerline of the loudspeakers cross in front of your listening position by at least 2 feet.

I had a supposedly knowledgeable person comment on a picture of mine where I did exactly this with RF-7ii's and they acted about as surprised as they would had the ports had live tentacles coming out of them.

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I think every application is different... behind the LP works for my my room and set up.

 

set the angle and give a listen... move it and give another listen. results will vary.

Edited by Schu
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It was the reference that Ski Bum provided that got me to change from "pointed downrange" to reversing the toe-in philosophy to pigeon-toed.  It made a fairly mild difference in my Jub stereo sweet spot width--having two chairs side-by-side at the LP. 

 

If you glance at my profile, you'll see what it looks like.

 

Chris

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I think that ^ is more than true... I have a really tight LP since I am the only that listens to music in a critical manner.

 

Personally, I get more dimension with wide angle over narrow angle... whatever sounds good to you OP, do it.

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I had to toe (not tow! :)) mine in quite a bit because I have a curved row of 4 seats which seemed like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately if I don't do this, the outside people cannot hear the tweeters on the opposite side and the rest is also pretty weak. I can't say I have great imaging but at least it can be heard. Need to dink around with it more.

Edited by MetropolisLakeOutfitters
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My RF7-II's are having a toe-in of 45° , pointing straight into the MLP so I consider it "on axis" listening

I'm going to read / try the attached documents, because the sweetspot *IS* small in this configuration, but I really wanted to achieve the most "flat" response.

I've found some graph indicating RF7-II's frequency-response and wanted to go straight for the "on axis" graph ;-)

 

hoch=german for "height" so 10° off-axis in height

seitl=german for "sideways" so 30/60/90° sideways off-axis listening

 

Klipsch_RF7_II_Frequency_response.jpg

Edited by jvanhambelgium
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I was thinking about buying a couple of those cheap lasers that are usually in the checkout lanes at menards and placing one on top of each of my speakers and perpendicular to the baffles. Then using some kind of flat surface placed about 2 feet in front of the listening position all you have to do is just toe in or out the speakers until both laser dots are hitting the same spot on the flat surface in front of the listening position.

Edited by cradeldorf
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I was thinking about buying a couple of those cheap lasers that are usually in the checkout lanes at menards and placing one on top of each of my speakers and perpendicular to the baffles. Then using some kind of flat surface placed about 2 feet in front of the listening position all you have to do is just toe in or out the speakers until both laser dots are hitting the same spot on the flat surface in front of the listening position.

Yes you could do that.

I've done about the same, but it turned out I was not far off from setting them "on sight" pointing the center of the compression driver towerd my head on the main seat.

So the beams from both fronts actually "cross" where my head is, not a few feed "in front" or behind the MLP.

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So the beams from both fronts actually "cross" where my head is, not a few feed "in front" or behind the MLP.

 

This is actually a problem for stereo,  See Toole's book pgs, 151-154, for the discussion of why there is a "fundamental flaw in stereo".  I really don't recommend placing the horn centerlines on-axis at your ears.  It's best to be slightly in front or behind the crossing spot and/or off-center slightly asymmetric in a stereo/room layout.

 

The K-402 horns are very good "acoustic antennas" that are extremely sensitive to angular alignment. They are very revealing of imaging, and I can attest to the fact that you'll hear a "hole" at 1.85 kHz if you put them on centerline with your head while playing stereo: it isn't subtle. 

 

In addition, listening on-axis to any round mouth horn is also a problem in that you'll get a big cancellation at some distance from the mouth.  This effect is much less pronounced for rectangular horns of unequal height/width dimensions.

Edited by Chris A
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So the beams from both fronts actually "cross" where my head is, not a few feed "in front" or behind the MLP.

 

This is actually a problem for stereo,  See Toole's book pgs, 151-154, for the discussion of why there is a "fundamental flaw in stereo".  I really don't recommend placing the horn centerlines on-axis at your ears.  It's best to be slightly in front or behind the crossing spot and/or off-center slightly asymmetric in a stereo/room layout.

 

The K-402 horns are very good "acoustic antennas" that are extremely sensitive to angular alignment. They are very revealing of imaging, and I can attest to the fact that you'll hear a "hole" at 1.85 kHz if you put them on centerline with your head while playing stereo: it isn't subtle. 

 

In addition, listening on-axis to any round mouth horn is also a problem in that you'll get a big cancellation at some distance from the mouth.  This effect is much less pronounced for rectangular horns of unequal height/width dimensions.

 

 

 

Great info. 

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So the beams from both fronts actually "cross" where my head is, not a few feed "in front" or behind the MLP.

 

This is actually a problem for stereo,  See Toole's book pgs, 151-154, for the discussion of why there is a "fundamental flaw in stereo".  I really don't recommend placing the horn centerlines on-axis at your ears.  It's best to be slightly in front or behind the crossing spot and/or off-center slightly asymmetric in a stereo/room layout.

 

The K-402 horns are very good "acoustic antennas" that are extremely sensitive to angular alignment. They are very revealing of imaging, and I can attest to the fact that you'll hear a "hole" at 1.85 kHz if you put them on centerline with your head while playing stereo: it isn't subtle. 

 

In addition, listening on-axis to any round mouth horn is also a problem in that you'll get a big cancellation at some distance from the mouth.  This effect is much less pronounced for rectangular horns of unequal height/width dimensions.

 

Hi Chris,

 

Thanks for this info!

To be honoust, my whole system sound really, really wonderfull as long as I'm sitting on my narrow sweetspot. Moving even less then 1 foot left or right does "collapses" the imaging.

Fact is I use dual SVS PB13 Ultra's and have everything Audyssey Pro calibrated so that's not too bad either ;-)

 

I will give it a try to "toe" them in even further, so that the absolute "on-axis" from the 2 frontspeakers crosses in front of me (say 2 feet or something)

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To be honest, my whole system sounds really, really wonderful as long as I'm sitting on my narrow sweet spot. Moving even less than 1 foot left or right does "collapse" the imaging.

 

Yes, this is typical in my experience.  Planar speakers (like Magnapans and electrostatics) may even have a narrower sweet spot depending on how little curvature they have in their midrange panels. 

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I was thinking about buying a couple of those cheap lasers that are usually in the checkout lanes at menards and placing one on top of each of my speakers and perpendicular to the baffles. Then using some kind of flat surface placed about 2 feet in front of the listening position all you have to do is just toe in or out the speakers until both laser dots are hitting the same spot on the flat surface in front of the listening position.

Yes you could do that.

I've done about the same, but it turned out I was not far off from setting them "on sight" pointing the center of the compression driver towerd my head on the main seat.

So the beams from both fronts actually "cross" where my head is, not a few feed "in front" or behind the MLP.

 

I did that this morning also, but found that Chris's suggestion was actually more pleasing to listen to, so mine are crossing about 3 feet in front of me

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So yes, I tried it like Chris suggested and gave it a listen.

Since I could not directly re-calibrate with Audyssey, I ran my Onkyo in "Pure" (=2 channel STEREO without any DSP/correction) and played some music.

 

My "toe-in" is now even more, and now the horn "points" more to the seats next to me, beams crossing in front of me about 2 feet or so.

 

I have to say, it really sounds good actually....and the sweepspot does extend! I can move my head now easily 1-2 feet  without a dramatic collaps of the phantom center image. Also the sound seems slightly less "direct" as I experience with certain recordings (eg. Eva Cassidy tracks - such a powerfull voice)

 

Now my only concern is for the back-seats. Some time ago I contructed a little stage with an additional couch (2-seat) begin the main 3-seat couch, but now with the even more "toe-in" from the fronts I wonder what the effect will be during movies.

For 2-channel, I briefly sat on the back couch and it was not THAT dramatic or anything.

 

I'll leave the fronts like this and try to re-calibrate to include my 2 SVS subwoofers so I can re-evalute the whole overall system.

 

Thanks anyway for all tips etc!

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