Speaker Placement and Toe-In

My speakers are fully horn loaded, with a 90 degrees directivity radius, in a room that is arguably too small for them. I insist on keeping them because they're a 20 years DIy development and they are "my babies" plus I'm just renting the place and will probably move to a different place at some point. But in the current room, placement and toe-in are a real PITA... half an inch or a single degree of toe-in change the presentation completely. Finding the right positioning requires a lot of sweat and tears as the location that gives the smoothest response isn't the one that gives the best imaging, and so on. Too much toe-in and you feel like you're listening sitting in giant earphones, OK for rock but very unnatural for anything else; not enough and it's wide and airy but lacks solidity in the center. Currently I have them in an equilateral triangle and very very slightly toed-in; this gives me the best compromise I feel, with a nice smooth midrange and well defined left to right panning but depth could be much better; also upper bass suffers a little and lacks punch (crazy for a pair of horn-loaded 15inch!) but I chose to sacrifice that. Locations that give me hard hitting, super dynamic bass suffer in midrange smoothness and gets too much "in your face".

All in all it's still very enjoyable and musical but I keep fantasizing about hearing them in the right room. I had them in a very large room in the past, but I've made some upgrades recently and never got to hear those as it should; but that's life!

rolox,

Very good post. Do you have any side (first) reflection panels? That may help dial in the soundstage better and then keep your speakers in the area where the bass is the best.

ozzy

@ozzy my room is very peculiar which of course only makes the matter worse: it's a long shallow rectangle, divided by pillars that create four "spaces" (living room, dining room, bedroom, kitchen) but everything is open. For practical reasons the speakers are on the long wall of the living room section, against the wall; my listening sofa is on the opposite wall (literally against it :-( ) and, the way the speakers are positioned, there are no 1st reflections on side walls because the side walls are too far; the first reflections are the wall behind my head. You can imagine what an acoustic nightmare it can become. The huge fabric sofa actually helps a lot in taming some of the issues, and I added a few panels but I need to be cautious as, just like speaker placement, every added acoustic panels brings benefits AND issues. Having Horns in such a space actually helps, I think, at least in theory, but their sheer size makes it impossible to try them firing down the length of the space: they would block the passage and block the light (only windows are at each extremity). 

The positive of that space is that it used to be a garage and my closest neighbors are offices, with makes it possible to listen very late and during the weekends at realistic levels.