Listening chair height?


Many years ago I remember reading that ideally your ears should be at the same height as the tweeters.  Does this sound about right?

immatthewj

It does, although with some speakers that have good vertical dispersion characteristics the exact height won’t be so important.

This is why dispersion matters.

Not everyone wants a sweet spot that's limited to a few centimetres either way. Thankfully sites like ASR, Archimago and Erin's Speaker corner provide plenty of data on this regard.

 

One thing that has troubled me is when I read that speakers that can sound too sharp can be made more listenable if you angle them away from your ears.

 

Wouldn’t it be much better if they didn’t sound too sharp in the first place?

It’s a starting point, and not always true. B&W sound much better on mid axis, I believe that's how they are designed but not 100% sure, and sometimes it just turns out that way after building.

It’s good to listen to the entire range from on-tweet to on-mid axis in terms of height. Usually above the tweeter is a bad area due to crossover issues.

In terms of turning the speakers, some speakers, like Focal, really sound best with little or no toe-in.

Ultimately it is your own ears and room that matter, but I would not attempt to rigidly enforce the on-tweeter-axis rule.

Thanks for the input, @cd318 ; I am one that doesn’t want to be limited to a strict sweet spot, but I have always been thinking that if there is one in my "listening room," I’d like to find it.

@erik_squires sorry for the ignorance on this subject, what is meant by mid-axis?

These are the older B&W 805s (not the Diamonds) and the tweeter is sitting about 39" above the floor. I’ve been doing some rearranging in my "listening room," and one of the things I just did was I moved a bulkier computer chair out & temporarily substituted a folding metal chair. Slouched the way I like to, my ears are probably at 44 or 45" high. That is an approximate measurement, because I took it by myself. Getting lower is not going to be hard to do, seeing as how I paid about $10 for the chair, way back when, I wouldn’t have any problem at all with whacking 5 or 6 inches off the legs. Another option is the "pillow chair" from Walmart ($98), and from what I remember of my measurements it would get me down to about 4" lower without having to slouch (the slouch is built in) and it would be a lot more comfortable.