Tweaking Your Speaker Placement

Herbie’s Giant Gliders make it easy on hardwood. My flooring boards run parallel to the front wall, giving clear points of reference for front to back and toe in. I put a piece tape on the center axis to measure side to side placement. All three pairs of speakers I use in this room reveal changes of a quarter or eighth inch, unfortunately. Placement is a time consuming bit rewarding task.

Tiled floor. Even the rubber/cork/rubber feet I have the stands on slide easy. Probably not the best for acoustics though! Lol

@jeffreyw 

No such luck. Speakers are on a large rug. Nothing is sliding on it.

@tony1954 

If your speaker stands are on hardwood flooring, tilt the stands and place an old T-shirt under the Gaia's. They will move like they are on ice. 

Also, you are lucky you don't own Wilson's; you would need to make 1/32-inch adjustments! And some people state they can hear the difference.

I use a cheap carpenter’s laser that my nephew gave me that looks something like this one,

I just center it atop my monitor and eyeball it while aiming at a pillow where my head would be, using the top of the sofa as a gauge. I used to be fastidious about it but just gave up by finding that increments of about 2" suffices for my tastes.

I could not discern much of a difference going any less than that. It could be dependent on the horizontal dispersion of the speaker that accounts for that as I remember having to be more picky using smaller tolerances with other, older speakers.

All the best,
Nonoise

@tony1954 ....Granted, but some posts give rise to thoughts to the 'per se' becoming the last 'tweak' (head position) to be addressed...
I begin to consider a small 'crawler-base' for floor speakers that would rotate 360, movement l/r, f/b....strong enough for the big units, remote controlled....

A version that could move those mono amps that you avoid moving because the weight outweighs the desire to move them as an alt....

Think there's a market for that? ;) *L*

@asvjerry 

"Where did you find a head restraint that didn't feel like a 3D clamp in 4D space?"

I am glad it doesn't work that way. Luckily the tweaking is fine tuning the speakers within the room's acoustic space and isn't reliant on one's head position per se.

@rubicon15 

Thanks. Rake angle is next.

I have also begun measuring my room with Room EQ Wizard and the initial readings seem to be reasonably decent, which was nice to see.

I am certainly no expert. Based on your follow up comments, I assume, you must be attempting to tweak the speaker’s position. In other words, you have found the sweet spot. You are hearing a difference in sound that you have never heard before and like what you’re hearing. If not, I would only use a 1/8 inch adjustment on the tilt not changing the distance from the wall, toe in etc in the beginning. Hope you are making progress. 

Jim Smith explains exactly how to setup, measure and move the speakers in small increments in his book Get Better Sound

My speakers weigh around 130# and are on Gaia ones. In the past I’ve used butcher blocks and found they helped a bit, but when I went to granite, things just came together. With my current speakers, the tweeters are higher and don’t have the same dispersion, so I can’t use the granite anymore. 
Oh and furniture sliders are a must.  Whether under the granite or just under the Gaia’s.

After adding Stack Audio footers, tweaking my speaker placement was easy. Isoacoustics footers work great, but a pain to play with placement. 

@tony1954 

Once the speakers are correctly placed in the room (i.e. they couple optimally), any slight movement has an easily perceptible sonic effect.

Since optimising speaker placement is, obviously, room dependent, I imagine we shouldn't take someone else's 1/8th move too seriously (or 1/16th for that matter)

Where did you find a head restraint that didn't feel like a 3D clamp in 4D space?

(...curious minds get more curious.....)

I'll keep digits off key for now, but playing with mm movements is a bit too too.....

"...'streme..."  Mho.... ;)

Admittedly, I have big Maggie's, which are very sensitive, but I adjust entirely by ear. No measurements. I suspect the channels are a bit different, different acoustic environment, different sound between channels, etc. My left speaker is slightly more toed in. I even have my listening chair on rollers so I can move forward or back depending on the recording. There's a big difference in dynamics,  depth and placement of the instruments across the stage. 

hey, it was the only place where my driving was considered normal, even polite at times. 

Ugh, Massachusetts. Sorry to hear that.

Massachusetts, where you learn how to drive like a lunatic and butcher the English language. Where Yield signs mean ’Gun it!’ and turn signals stay brand new.

@thecarpathian smarty pants. You are causing me PTSD for the 7 years I lived in Boston, under the pressure that I was the dumbest person inside 495. 

I actually learned the metric system in 4th Grade.

I keep my car’s clock on the 24 hour setting and temperature set to celsius.

Learned to do math using Roman numerals in 2nd grade.

Just some of the perks of living in Connecticut where our State motto is:

’Connecticut, Better Than You Since 1788.’

think 1/8" increments is pretty severe

that’s why I chose to be born in Europe and learned SI.

3mm is a distance everyone understands. No one every started a thread with "how do I move my speakers 3mms?"

I don't remove them ever. I use beautiful butcher blocks that actually add to the looks of the setup.

@ghdprentice 

"the sound can literally snap into focus."

Funny you should mention this.

Yesterday I pulled everything apart to put subwoofer and rear speaker cables under my carpet and when I moved my speakers back in place, I put them 6" closer to the front wall and a little closer together.

I put on "Friday Night in San Francisco" with Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin and was shocked by the change in sound quality. Imaging was suddenly sharp and focused, while the soundstage was wider and the tonal balance was better. The only thing that was off was that everything was "lower" than it should be, which I assume means increasing the rake angle of the speakers.

The question now is whether I just sit back and enjoy things or do I try to tweak things and get that extra 2% more. 

Can dumb luck actually work in one's favour?

Put my speakers on sliders, easy to move around. Use a tape measure, put tape on the floor. write on the tape my thoughts on the location. Rinse and repeat, till the "spot" is found. 

Just did this last month, while on vacation, spent almost an entire day moving the speakers around. Ended up doing almost exactly what the manual says to do. Weird. 

@rubicon15 

Watching Bob was part of the reason this discussion started. I watched this same video and was wondering how I would implement what he was asking us to do.

@thecarpathian 

Yes, I to use the stick with numbers, but as Maria Muldaur once said. "It ain't the meat, it's the motion."

@gregm 

That's just it. I don't think it is a figure of speech for a lot of people. Why else would so many people use such small increments when they reference the process?

@zlone 

Will definitely be picking up a proper laser measure. Why I can spend thousands of dollars on new components and balk at spending $50 to get accurate measurements, is one of life's little mysteries.

@baylinor 

I actually have a couple of walnut slabs that would work for this, but I have resisted this method because once everything is dialled in, then you still need to remove the slab or butcher block, which might spoil all the previous effort.

@onhwy61 

"An 1/8 of an inch -- does that mean you have to keep your head in a vice?"

I wondered about this at first as well, but the reality is speaker placement tunes their placement within the listening space. Where your head is located is almost irrelevant.

@mulveling 

To make things more frustrating with the Gaia's, I also have the carpet disks underneath them. Perhaps I just have to bite the bullet and put a slab of wood or granite under each speaker and trade convenience for aesthetics.

Check out this process. It may be worth your time.

WASP/Sumiko speaker placement method.

https://youtu.be/84Pf0ycbyBM?si=r3DZVAd6yWad7hUU

Laser measures are super handy for this process. 
 

I too use IsoAcoustics feet and placed them on thin slippery material so that I could tweak positioning. This was how I discovered how much difference they can make. When they no longer grip the floor, some of the magic disappears. 

60 lbs would be a piece of cake.

"Depending on the speakers an 1/8” move in the right way can have a significant impact."

You have realised, of course, that it's a figure of speech -- not a literal statement? Kudos, however, for creating a discussion out of it!

@tony1954 

I have 240 pounds speakers on iso acoustics. My solution is having them resting on a butcher block. Whether on hard surface of carpet, the butcher block can be moved by pushing or pulling it at the base accordingly. It will move even a 240 lb speaker, though it requires good hand strength.

Kidding aside, yes, I think 1/8" increments is pretty severe, but I've done like 1/2"  and believed I could discern a sharpening of the sweet spot.

I’d like to see a blind test where one speaker is moved 1/8 inch  (or not) and the person picks which speaker that was moved 

Man I HATED those IsoAcoustics - made it impossible to slightly adjust speakers lol.
 

I currently use IsoAcoustics and I must admit that slight adjustment are a complete pain. Using tape to mark previous positions and then using a towel underneath the isolation feet to move the speaker is a process. I think this is the greatest downside to using IsoAcoustics.

They are also on IsoAcoustic Gaia's, which don't really slide too well.

How do you do it? 

I just purchased some of these furniture gliders that I’m going to try and use underneath the IsoAcoustics vs using a towel. I’ve been playing around with placement quite a bit lately and these gliders seem like they would be handy. 

https://a.co/d/9dyucKE

I adjust until they sound right... 

An 1/8 of an inch -- does that mean you have to keep your head in a vice?

Such precise placement of loudspeaker and listener should not effect tonality or dynamics, but it might provide some soundstage/imaging info on some specific recordings.  Possibly similar to adjusting VTA or SRA for individual records.

It doesn't hurt to try!

Tell me. What’s the significance of adjusting speaker placement in exact increments of 1/8 of an inch? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Maybe it’s just a personal fetish. In over 40 years in high end audio, I’ve been pretty successful at optimizing speaker placement in my rooms by using, simple, good old fashioned, Kentucky windage lol. Happy listening.

Man I HATED those IsoAcoustics - made it impossible to slightly adjust speakers lol. Herbie's Gliders are great for sliding speakers in a very controlled, precise fashion. However, I'm not one of those who believes things need to be precise down to the micron.

I used to own planar speaker... those tend to be the ones that are that sensitive to really minor adjustments. I use a laser measurer... and then the sound can literally snap into focus. 

Dynamic speakers tend to be less sensitive. 

Easy I use one of these. https://www.amazon.com/BOSCH-GLM100-23-Measure-Backlit-Display/dp/B0C76CPGC7/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?crid=2WDR657NDUOSU&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rG5aOOoS3-JqO3BDybBQ3sS2K4rDOEnWggY2QeNhLMCg3VsIebM_aQQFFroRB_hgFD26MwCNdrMDE-qmmaH6CfdTkcHmm0z2eyFFXwU78oZN8beB0WjKOmQW0LIBlbe2Gc6xKS0ymILQtPGF64nlMThu9qgqRospN-dZ48UYbV7MvPpvVyA_gFMuwdfdXuIjWxrc4xdufC0AUBbqCx98XQ.as63VkuJwsaT9UU2_wxcetyFj9cy9nZ6DXc93h4Ntdw&dib_tag=se&keywords=digital+measuring+tape+with+laser+dewalt&qid=1736207966&sprefix=digital+meaduring,aps,127&sr=8-3

I use a one of those little sticks that has lines and corresponding numbers on it...😀