How's my imaging?


Hi,

I'm just wondering if my imaging is what it should be, let me explain. When I'm sitting in my listening chair (which is positioned at the apex of where my front speakers would meet since they are toed in), I'm hearing the voices right (directly) in front of me. But instead of being at head level, they are about one to two feet above where my ears are sitting straight up. (Please see my system to get a visiual, under - man cave system) If you pull up the picture of my room, the voices would be coming from the area where the stars on the flag are.

My question is, is this correct imaging or should the voices be lower? If the voices should be lower, what kinds of things could I try to correct it?

Thanks,
Mike
vman71
My center channel is off. I'm focusing on 2 channel, the center channel is there for future HT.

I think my system sounds really good but I just think that the voice(s) in the center is a little too high.
I don't know what causes it, but a dealer who I respect once told me that within reason the lower the speakers are in respect to your listening height the higher the image will be. I can't swear that is true, but it's not unusual for the image to be higher than the speakers. In fact. it is quite common.

Just think of it as a performer up on a stage and enjoy yourself.
Hi "V".
Sounds like it could very well be a polar response issue in which case, it's cross-over related and/or polarity related. Do all vocals image high? How far away is your listening position?

Regards,
Robert
Herman,

Interesting you say that because I've told myself that that is exactly what it is, the singer is performing up on stage.

Robert,

Hello! From the inside of the front speaker to other inside of the other front speaker it is 7'5". It is 9'4" to my listening position.

The main vocals are directly in front of me and are consistently at the area which I described (where the stars are). As a matter of fact, a few people have asked me to move the flag to make sure that a speaker wasn't behind it. I'm very happy with the clarity, I just don't think the voice(s) should be that high. Then again, I've never heard music before that sounded this good.
"V"...

I think the only thing you can do is try a closer (maybe 1 ft closer) listening position. It may help a bit, probably not much though. If it alleviates some of the problem, I suspect the compromise will be you'll lose some energy.

I'm pretty confident you're dealing with a skewed polar response which isn't too uncommon. Polar response is an amplitude measurement in the vertical plain of the speaker and is related to the transfer function of the crossover, driver placement in the vertical plain and driver offset. Polar response aberrations can be further exasperated by using 1st order networks and having one of the drivers wired internally out of phase.

In light of this, one other thing you might try if you're handy with simple mods is take the driver of the baffle and see if any are wired out of phase. With some of the Klipsch, if I remember correctly, you're likely to find at least one driver connected out of phase. Reverse the leads to correct polarity, put it all back together and give it a listen. Usually, when a driver(s) are wired internally out of phase, it's done to correct another problem such as frequency response so you may find yourself making some trade offs to sound quality.

Kindly,
Robert