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
You have a good point @prof, hence it's important to a) be aware of these differences and know when you're experiencing them and b) have a setup that allows you the listener to get to a consistent and repeatable position. 

Hence probably a fairly firm chair, reliably located and so on.

One of the ones that always gets me is glasses on vs glasses off, this is both some sort of acoustic interference effect and also the removal of a layer of visual processing allowing more focus on the sound
Folky. I pay attention to everything.Even the well known scientific fact that your eyes are part of the nuro chain that determines what you hear .Which varies from person to person .
I feel it depends,on the speaker size and type..i have never been the type to just sit down in front of the system and listen  ,unless if i was watching a,movie or rock concert.
The shape, position and degree to which a persons ear protrude from the cranium make huge differences as well.  Try pressing your ears back or forward when listening...the results are quite shocking!
you can fix anything with a fifth margarita.....
seriously vandersteen adjusts tilt using number of washers......