Laser measurement for speaker position

wolf_garcia writes:

 slight differences in distance have absolutely zero, and I mean zero, effect on the soundstage or anything else..again, it's best to ignore those obsessed with false absolutes and silliness

I had a friend who talked like this. One time when we were having a party he thought it would be funny to prove just how silly it is with a little practical joke. So when no one was watching he gave the chair a little nudge. Not much. You'd never notice. I sure didn't. 

Not with my eyes, anyway.

But we were playing music for people and the next one, she wanted to hear this MoFi which I know to be recorded at a different level, and so not wanting to blast her out of the chair or be too low volume either, I decided to sit and listen for a second just to check the volume.

Immediately I noticed the balance was off. Then I noticed the center image was diffuse. Then I noticed the whole sound stage was off, with some sounds seeming to come from the speakers, instead of floating independent as they should. I double-checked balance, nope that was fine. Well then either someone bumped the chair, or one or both speakers.

So it took me all of about 10 seconds, if that, to figure out what had happened. And another 30 seconds to fix. At which point I look and see Ron standing in the doorway, and I only wish I had taken a picture so you could see the look on his face.

Because at that moment Ron knew for a certainty that I know what I'm talking about and you are, er I mean he was full of it.

It is not unusual to spend a few hours placing my speakers. And of course the point is that once your speakers are properly placed you can move your head, if necessary, to find the sweet spot. 

Fascinating story about the party.  So to be clear, you're having a social gathering at your house and the topic just naturally turns to your listening acuity and the precision of your loudspeaker/listening chair setup?  Okay.  And at this gathering some wild and crazy guy decides to play a joke by moving your chair and seeing if you notice?  (I can only imagine that copious amounts of alcohol were invovled).  Though the chair move was not visible to the human eye, you still were able to immediately hear the deleterious sonic effects.  Was the lady as impressed as we are?

Great find. I use a laser measure for the same purpose and I agree it's really useful, but it was more expensive than this one.

To those who are objecting that a fraction of an inch doesn't matter, that's probably true, but getting things reasonably close does and it's a lot easier to do that with a laser measure than with a tape.