How do I make the "sweet spot" sweeter?

[timerr]

Due to size limitations of my room, my RF 3IIs are about 7 feet apart, and toed in slightly. My "sweet spot" is about 8 feet out and for some reason seems to be a little right of center between the speakers. Hope someone can shine some insight on why that is. As in while sitting on the couch, it seems like I'm sitting closer to the right speaker than the left in order to have my vocal or "centered" instrument sound "blended" and not "one sided" Just by moving my head only a few inches to the left makes the left speaker take over the center blend. Any tips on making the "sweet spot" cover a wider range or am I stuck because of room size?

[NOSValves]

Try toeing them in further you could even end up with a extreme of them firing at a angle in front of you. But I think you will never all together cure this.

Craig

[justin_tx_16]

I put a bowl of candy at the sweet spot of my 2 channel setup. That doubled the sweetes by 32 grams.

[dougdrake]

Tim - You may be getting reflections off a wall if one of the speakers is closer to the wall than another. There's lots of room variables at play. Maybe you need to adjust to the "balance" to center the sweet spot.

DD

[@silverfox@]

all the above also try switching channel. not speakers.

[WMcD]

All of the above are good suggestions.

Let me add that you should check the connections to the speakers to see that they are in phase. I.e. that red output of the amp is to the red input to the speakers.

I thought I'd never make such a mistake myself and it would be immediately apparent to me. Nonetheless, in one set up I did make such a mistake. The result was similar to what you describe. The sweet spot was always just a few inches from wherever my head was.

Things got a bit more muddled when I was using a center channel speaker. Something wasn't quite right.

While you're at it, make sure all the drivers on each speaker are working. I had a situation where a connection to the bass driver on one side was bad. Again, I was surprised to find that this was not immediately apparent. Yet using the balance control showed up the bad connection.

Gil

[rowooo]

Also remember, and no I'm not kidding here, that each ear is different. My job requires annual hearing tests and my right ear always tests a lot better than my left. Sounds stupid, but that could be what's altering your perceived balance problems.

[lynnm]

rowoo

I had to chuckle about your point about differences between ears. I had long suspected that my left ear had gone to hello in the proverbial handbasket and finally went for a hearing test. The verdict was that my left ear wasn't really doing its thing all that well and my right ear wasn't going to win any awards either. My doctor referred me to a otolaryngologist on the strength of the audiologist's report.

In fact the results of the specialist's in-house audiological evaluation were such that he sent me off for an MRI. It turned out that the results of his tests were consistent with a tumor but thankfully the MRI revealed that there was nothing of any significance going on between my ears - If anybody had asked mein frau she would have told them that much

Unfortunately the tests also indicated that my right ear while somewhat better than my left was definitely underachieving. Bells !! I had finally scraped together the wherewithall for a decent system only to find out that my hearing is shot.

Fortunately it quickly occurred to me that lousy hearing notwithstanding I could still perceive the difference between decent sounding amps and speakers and crap. I got the hearing aids and can now contentedly adjust the left/right balance from my easy chair w/o fiddling with a remote. The downside is I am spending about the cost of a CD a month on batteries

Overall - that is money well spent!

[TheEAR]

Well about ears and hearing I have to say my right ear is the bassy ear! And its a fact,when I block my left ear I can gear more bass.When the right ear is blocked I hear less bass.

I did a few tests with 31.5,20 and 16Hz test tones and confirmed this clearly.Above 80Hz I hear about the same and the upper limit is also very similar(upper limit at around 18Khz,great hearing to 16Khz).

With 20Hz and 16Hz test tones my right ear lets me hear,not only feel the lower registers.My left ear does not have much below 25Hz! LOL

Disturbing! This is why I am TheEAR,since my right ear is THX Ultra Super Duper certified!

Or are my brain cells fried from extreme lower SPL prolonged exposure?

Now how to make a sweet spot ...sweeter?

Like a few here said,toe in the speakers.Move them further away from walls(should be 1.5m away from side walls if possible).Make sure you have some sound absorbing material on the side walls and behind you.Move the lisstening chair away from the wall,optimal would be 1.5-2 meters away from the back wall.Well at least 1 meter

This should all add up to a very sweet sweetspot.With my Dynes and Spendors I get a holographic image and speakers disapear.Plus you can cut instruments and voices with a razor.Its true 3D stereo

For my Klipsch setup I would need a much larger room,still the performance is great.As every inch of the room is used to its near max.

[rowooo]

This is my theory, just a theory nothing more. I would say that when they test my entire shift, which includes around 30 people, all males, 75% of there right ears test better than there left ear. Most are between the age 21 and 40. So here it is. Car stereos! Most people, me included certainly, listen at volumes too loud and were talking car stereo here so the sound quality isn't the cleanest. With the left front speaker being rather close and sometimes even directly pointed at the left ear, it makes sense to me that this might be causing this problem. Also this test includes tests of I think around 16 different frequency marks and the failures on the left ears were almost entirely in the upper frequency range where your little 3 1/2-4 inch speakers are blaring that crisp treble at you. Heck, you knows, but thats my theory!

[flappycars]

Hi,

I would suspect reflections of the room or things in it. Please do not think of what I am saying next as a joke. I once had the same problem and discovered my ears needed syringing!

Most likely reflections, of course. I assume you have tried all the usual stuff, like switching channelss etc

John C

[Manuel Delaflor]

Well, when having a cold (for example) it is simply awful to try to enjoy music and discover that you are almost deaf on one ear! I just hate it because listening to music is one of my biggest pleasures in life...

[sunnysal]

My doctor explained to me that my poorer hearing in my left ear (less treble extension and somewhat overall volume attenuation) was due to the fact that I use the telephone ALL DAY LONG pressed to my left ear. We interviewed for a about an hour before he said that to me...a big "ah ha!" when we discussed my phone usage in my office...I now face a quandry, stay with the phone pressed to the left ear to "save" the right ear, or start using the right ear to let the left recover (while risking damage to the right, good ear)...fun huh? tony

[Invidiosulus]

I agree with the thoughts on stray reflections.

Stray reflections are indeed a problem when listening to music, I found out that there are leash laws for reflections in some areas but luckily I do all of my listening with the windows shut so I don't have to worry about the reflections getting into my neighbors garden.

As far as my hearing goes I have never noticed a difference in left to right volume, although it is propably there.

One day in class my instructor played some test tones through the cheap ceiling mounted speakers and I could hear 17.9KHz pretty easily.

I play electric bass and when I was practicing with my band awhile back at first the drummer and myself were the only ones using earplugs.

After the first long night of practicing with my amp cranked up(to 11) our lead singer and guitarist both showed up with earplugs.

A couple of weeks later a county sheriff also showed up at my friends place, He said some neighbors were complaining about the noise, he also said we sounded really good as he had been standing outside my friends place for about half an hour before he even knocked on the door.

btw, the nearest neighbors were about 90 yards away

Peace, Josh

[Prana-Bindu]

I'm not so sure you want to toe in the speakers more to get a bigger sweet spot. I'd aim the speakers 20 or so inches behind your head (more if you want to experiment with the size of the sweet spot). Any adjustment one way will emphasize one thing and compromise another. You'll just have to play around with the position of the speakers.

A fellow from Singapore who used to frequent this forum had his RF-3's out from the wall behind the speakers by about 3 feet and flush to the side walls. He found this placement best for his goals (classical music in a concert hall). You might try this, but I think the horns need to be aimed at your head. I would figure out what off-axis response you'd be comfortable with and toe them out as much as still fits within that comfort zone. Toeing them out will give a bigger sweet spot, I think....

I have played with speaker positioning with my RF-3's, but the room is probably such an important factor that my experienced will be of little use to you. Those horns are finicky about toe-in, though: the slightest adjustment will produce quite audible differences. As such, experiment!

To address reflections and bass problems, I'd look into absorptive panels and bass traps. You can learn about easy DIY recipes for these treatments at the Tweaker's Asylum at www.audioasylum.com

Good luck!

[artto]

Its called acoustics. And the smaller the room, the more difficult it is to deal with. Some of the above suggestions/insights are also correct (controlling reflections & sound absorption)but it gets increasingly difficult to do the smaller the room is. And then there's the issue of room proportions which can have a profound affect on everything, especially the lower frequencies. Many times I've found that the recording itself just doesn't have things centered or proportioned correctly across the "stage". Thats where a center channel or an "imaging control" (verses a simple balance control) comes in handy. Unfortunately, not many preamp/control centers have this feature because of the "purity" (straight-line, wire with gain concept) most audiophiles want to retain. And just as no 2 people hear everything exactly the same, neither do our own 2 ears, or the way our brain interpretes sounds from either ear! So don't worry about it too much. Move your speakers around (if they are made for kind of thing), adjust your listening position, check for "hot spots" by walking around the room and clapping your hands. Eliminate any "pinging" with the use of reflectors, furniture, sound absorption (be careful, a little goes a long way), etc.

[marksdad]

for me it was a few simple tweaks, first adjust your time delay, and than use an spl meter, but i have limitations as well, odd shaped room, and i am much happier, plus it is just plain fun playing with the system.