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Bookshelves Suitable For Listening Below Tweeter Height?

mj30250

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I'm attempting to upgrade my living room setup as my basement "theater" is seriously outclassing the small Definitive speakers I've been using upstairs.

I have Sierra RAAL towers in the basement, and I'm quite find of their high end. This made it immediately tempting to grab the Sierra-2EXs for the living room, however, the MLP there is well below tweeter height and I'm afraid the vertical dispersion of the RAALs just won't cut it.

For perspective, in this room, the tweeter height of a typical bookshelf would be around 75". MLP is roughty 11' from there. I can tilt the speakers forward a bit, but not much at all - perhaps 10-15 degrees at most.

If this sound ridiculous, it is. But while I essentially have carte blanch in the basement, WAF is in full effect in the living room. The speakers can change, but their locations cannot. Something with strong vertical dispersion would be a must here. Would that totally eliminate the 2EXs from contention?

The other rub is that I'd like a reasonably matching center. I only have about 7.5" in depth available, and because it would be sitting against a wall, rear ports aren't an option.

To help broaden the field a little bit, I do not require lots of low end (I have a sub) and the speakers in this room will never be played super loud - nothing approaching reference levels for any length of time - so I don't require tons of SPL.

This is being done primarily for music listening purposes, but decent moderate-volume HT performance is imporant as well. I'd like superb high end, something along the lines of the RAALs, as well as good midrange / dialogue intelligibility. Budget for LRC: Less than $2500 please, and much less is even better.

Thanks in advance.
 

gorb

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KEF LS50 meta. They don't meet center restrictions however as they are significantly deeper than 7.5" and rear ported.

 
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mj30250

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Yeah, those look like a great option, but could be a huge cosmetic issue for my wife (and thus a no go) as she hates looking at speaker drivers. Why must there always be something? Haha. The R3s would work much better cosmetically, but don't appear to have nearly the vertical window.

Assuming they would work, how terrible of a match would a Q250c be? I could fit it with just a bit of overhang. The center height is also much closer to ear level, and I could tilt it down some.
 

dominikz

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Yeah, those look like a great option, but could be a huge cosmetic issue for my wife (and thus a no go) as she hates looking at speaker drivers. Why must there always be something? Haha. The R3s would work much better cosmetically, but don't appear to have nearly the vertical window.

Assuming they would work, how terrible of a match would a Q250c be? I could fit it with just a bit of overhang. The center height is also much closer to ear level, and I could tilt it down some.
What about KEF Q350 (alt link from @pierre's spinorama gallery)?
SPL%20Vertical%20IsoBand.jpg

Quite a bit cheaper than the LS50 Meta (a little bit worse-measuring though), grilles to hide the drivers are available (but sold separately, it seems).
 

raindance

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The nice thing with a speaker having a single dual concentric driver is that placing it on its side may be an option also.

I'd suggest KEF Q series, 350 or 150, tilted forward.

Or simply EQ the system to optimize what you already have and live with it.
 
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mj30250

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Not unexpectedly, my wife immediately vetoed the LS50 Metas, "You're not hanging a pair of [breasts] in boxes on the wall."

I checked some measurements, and if I flipped the 2EXs upside down, the tweeter height drops to 70". Seated height at the MLP is 36". The tilt I could achieve is really only about 5 degrees towards the couch. That's still puts me well outside the ideal listening window. Maybe I should just stick with what I have and head to the basement when I want to hear pleasant noises.
 

theyellowspecial

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Assuming your ear height is 36" at the LP, you'd be within 10 degrees of tweeter axis if you tilted the speaker down 6 degrees or more.
 

dasdoing

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I once had a temporary stay requireing me to turn the speakers upside down cause the improvised stands where too high. there is nothing wrong with this solution
 

sdiver68

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There seems to be an opening in the market for speakers with large vertical dispersion. 1 would think center channel designs at L/R might fit the bill but many of those are worse.
 

Beershaun

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Depending on your budget how about in-wall? Those would absolutely disappear and take up no space.
 
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