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Listening Height Adjustment -- Is This Why Two People Don't Hear the Same?

Just wanted to pass on a recent experience, and surprise, in my system

My room (https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/5707) is set up for one person to listen. I have a medium height arm chair at the listening position and had always assumed that it left me with my ears broadly in line with the tweeters in my Magicos (i.e. 42-43" off the ground)

Well I checked and I was actually at 38-40" depending on how upright I sit. Wondering how much of a difference getting it just so would make I purchased a set of add on feet, each 3.5-4" tall and added them to my chair -- not a good look!

But wow, what an improvement in sound. Tonally the speakers take on a very different balance, upper mid range and vocal intelligibility is substantially improved, bass is lighter but better defined and overall integration across the frequency range is much much better than before

The odd thing is that I don’t have the tweeters pointed directly at me -- they’re angled about 2’ off to either side, so what would a couple of inches in the vertical make such a difference assuming the tweeter drop off is uniform in all directions? Is it more a matter of driver integration?

This experience leads me to wonder
a) how many of us have actually measured and adjusted our set height to optimal/tweeter level, and do we do this every time we audition a new speaker, and
b) if two individuals are not the same height do we adjust for the difference in height between them sitting -- say a 5’6 vs 6’ person that’s probably a 3" difference sitting -- unless your chair has adjustable feet the experience of the two individuals may be completely different
128x128folkfreak
folkfreak's avatar
folkfreak OP
1,349 posts
 
Well this seems to have wondered off into a discussion about speaker placement in the room in general which is fine ...

The only point I was trying to make was to observe that, in my room, with my speakers, even when they are optimally positioned the listener themselves must also be located to within +/- 1-2" in the vertical and lateral dimensions, with the ability to adjust front-back to taste

My room is basically set up as a near field system, truly a large set of headphones. It's not big enough to even have a second chair so allowing for more than one listener was never even part of the design. I will in future however try to ensure that if I have visitors I make sure their ears get to the perfect level!
samhar
1,048 posts
 
This is from a Michael Fremer review of the W/P 7.                                           "Wilson's excellent setup guide includes specific vertical angling requirements for the WATT, based on the height and distance from the speaker of the listener's ears. Wilson provides four sets of rear spikes for the Puppy so that you can adjust the system's height to ensure that the WATT's tweeter and midrange driver are at the correct height relative to your ears. Guesswork is eliminated: Plug in the numbers, and Wilson tells you which set of spikes to use".

tweak1
3,667 posts
 
I use an office type chair with adjustable height. Makes a BIG difference
schubert
7,386 posts
 
It never stops to amaze, I go in a house with 30-40K invested in system and never a thought but to just flop onto their couch .
prof
3,474 posts
 
I'm always playing with acoustics, including listener height and position.Even just placing a small pillow behind my head alters the sound (focuses and brightens to some degree).

In fact I suspect that at least some of the "component break in" phenomena that audiophiles ascribe to gear changing is due to the very real sonic alterations that happen when we move even a bit.  If you are listening for differences, and your head is even a slightly different position, or even a bit more upright, or a bit more slumped etc, we could attribute the sound difference to the component changing it's sound rather than to the acoustics that are happening.  Just a hunch.
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