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Speaker placement for brightness control.

I've been involved in several threads involving, among other subjects, my near preoccupation with controlling shrill sounds. I have a hearing issue called hyperacusis which makes me very sensitive to certain frequencies and dB levels. I've tried many things such as changing speakers, amplifiers, interconnects, speaker wires and added DACs and experimented with speaker toe in.

These changes did not solve my problem in any a way noticeable except for a tube DAC between the two CD players and the amp.

THEN, we remodeled the listening room ( living room) adding a large area rug over the wooden floor which I think helped a little. I was also forced to raise the bookshelf speaker pedestals about 10" in order for the speakers to fire over some newly placed furniture. Although this places them well above what I've seen is recommended, the improvement is quite noticeable even for me.

This may seem like an unorthodox approach to reducing brightness and in this case it was accidental and I possibly compromised some other aspect of listening. However, I'm leaving it this way.

One thought that comes to mind is that the tweeters are now directed about a foot above my ears and not directly in line with them. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone else and am not even entirely sure that some of this is not just in my head. Any responses / opinions will be appreciated.
128x128broadstone
jjrenman
279 posts
 
"Most tweeters have much less vertical dispersion than horizontal dispersion."

Unless you are referring to horn or some planer/ribbon tweeters I have not seen this statement to be true.

However it is possible that the relief the OP is describing is a result of combining less floor reflections with possibly some frequency lobing at the crossover point.

Lobing is caused by several factors such as slope and type of crossover as well as distance between the drivers. End result is that if you get to far above or below the tweeter height there will be some dropout at the crossover point.
steuspeed's avatar
steuspeed
501 posts
 
If you have two way speakers you can also try turning them upside down.
broadstone's avatar
broadstone OP
310 posts
 
Thanks for these informative responses. I don't really understand the technical causes but if I can discern a difference, it must be a somewhat significant one.

Steuspeed, I do have two ways (Jamo Concert Eights) and turning them upside down to increase the elevation of the tweeter never crossed my mind. What a good idea. If I had thought of it maybe I could have saved the cost of new pedestals. It wouldn't have raised the speakers high enough, though, to clear two pieces of furniture which was the original goal of raising them. The improvement, then, was accidental on my part.
philjolet's avatar
philjolet
2,306 posts
 
some have used felt around tweeters to tone them down a bit

I have done this myself and it worked, though a bit too much for my tastes

something to consider for cheap
lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,417 posts
 
Broadstone.... I feel for you since I too have Hyperacusis. I'm very happy with the sound of my system, but my tower speakers have metal tweeters and sometimes can cause some killer pain from high frequencies.
I can only suggest what I've tried and it's been very successful, but there will always be certain CDs that I can't play. (LPs are much more kind).

I tried many different speaker cables (as you probably have) and am using 2 different cables in a double-run configuration. Cardas for highs, which sound smoother and rolled-off. But the biggest improvement was to use a lot of room treatments for standing wave absorption. Acoustic panels on side and rear wall and a tapestry hung behind my listening position.

Raising the speakers sounds like a good idea, but what is your room treatment situation?
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