Speaker direction?

How about their & there!

It depends on the speakers and the room. I have had a pair of Mirage M5si's for 12 years, set up in 3 different houses. In the first house they sounded best slightly toed in. In the second house they definitely sounded better facing straight ahead. And in the third house (where they've been for 9-1/2 years) they sound best toed in a little more than they were in the first house.

In each case, the toe-in I settled on or eliminated was based on the best image focus and clarity of sound in the listening area.

Some speakers even sound best angled at a point about a foot *in front* of the listening seat.

The only way to know is to experiment, and yes, it's a pain in the ass, especially with big spiked speakers, and those Mirages weigh 85 lbs. each. Still, the perseverence paid big dividends in listening enjoyment.

The more toe in used the the smaller the soundstage. Dynamics are also compressed. Some frequencies will be reduced more and others accentuated depending on room placement. The only reason I sold my Watt/Puppy 6's was do to the design flaw of having to aim them at your head ala headphones...without the toe in, imaging was unfocused. Theoreticals aren't worth diddly sometimes. I prefer my room to be filled with a living breathing sounscape...unrestricted and unhyped! Speakers should be on the long wall and 10 to 12 ft apart min. Seating should be no more than the distance apart, preferrably a ltlle less. Toe in only for adequate, realistic focus. Sit low with back against treated wall if possible.

Dave_b:

"The more toe in used the the [sic] smaller the soundstage." In fact, it depends upon the speaker and the room. A speaker like your WP 6 requires toe-in due to beaming caused in the upper mids by the use of what is basically a woofer as a midrange cone. Some speakers can achieve best staging when the axis crosses several feet in front of the listener (Revel Salons in some set-ups), others tend to sound best with no toe-in (Thiels), etc.

"Speakers should be on the long wall and 10 to 12 ft apart min." D'Appolito'd speakers like Dunlavys can play best that way, but many speakers will have a weak or non-existent center image if run without toe-in. As for long wall versus short wall, long wall happens to be my preference with most speakers, but not always.

"Seating should be no more than the distance apart, preferrably a ltlle [sic] less." Many speakers are best listened to far-field, particularly those with drivers spaced far apart so that the sound coming off the drivers has the space needed to properly integrate. The room boundaries and room treatment also affect optimal listening distance.

"Sit low with back against treated wall if possible." It depends. A basic rule of listening room acoustics is that either the front wall or back wall should be treated, but not both (and not always the back wall). Also, some speakers (the Aerial 20-T) require space behind the listener.

If you are interested, Robert Harley's book about hi-fi basics covers a lot of these points. Also, I noticed that your system is all-digital and uses Krell electronics - do you have experience with other types of systems?

Raquel, I assume you are a woman, because you are correct in everything you said:) Of course, I was generalizing for the average system and the most common mistakes made by audiophiles. I have owned many reference systems, but most were digital based. All things considered, I do believe most audiophiles tend to constrain their systems by placing the speakers incorrectly for whatever reasons they may have.