Speaker Placement and Toe-In

+1 @ozzy 

Once you get it locked in, it really creates a very satisfying sound. You never know how good your system can sound until you find that spot, as frustrating as that project is. 👍...

Thanks, tomcarr,

ozzy

Anyone bought Paul McGowan’s new book, “The Audiophile’s Guide: The Loudspeaker?” I recently purchased it with the SACD.  Not a bad read and if anything it refreshes what most of us probably already know. Haven’t messed with it yet but I’m going to start from scratch and follow Paul’s thorough instruction with the disc to hear what happens. I’ll tape off where my speakers are currently to compare. My equipment is all between my speakers, which Paul does not recommend, so I’m going to move it off to the side but keep my amps, on their stands, in the middle but back closer to the front wall. We’ll see…

I typically have very little toe-in if any. Trick is I think if your speakers are not too far apart to run them with little or no-toe in which the stage should appear to extend beyond the speakers and even the width of the room; speakers farther apart, closer to sidewalls then the stage narrows. 

There is one missing pioce of info on this thread that affects toe in or no toe in: the off axis reposnse of the speaker itself. If the dispersion is very consistent, across the midrange and tweeter, you can live with less toe in as the off axis sounds pretty much like on axis. But if it varies significantly, say a bullet tweeter and cone midrange, the dispersion varies greatly and this doesnt work especially off axis. The test is pink noise: sit diretly in front and then move off to the side. DIfferent? Or not?

Someone mentioned vertical dispersion and this is important too. You must be on axis with this as the combined output of the tweeter and mid at crossover narrows the vertical dispersion quite a bit.

This horizontal off axis has one other important affect, reflections. If the reflections have a different response than direct/on axis, it can be a mess for imaging. When these on axis ouput and off axis reflections combine you get weird cancellations and the image suffers.

Brad

Wow! some very good information.

Placement guides are ok but use them only as a starting point. There is probably an infinite number of variables.

The best overall approach, at least to me, is, to experiment. When you hit the right placement, it all locks into place. You will know it. So don’t be afraid to move the speakers around and take good notes.

ozzy