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Fixing behind-the-head sound

freebird

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Hello!

We have an unusual living room layout, which means that the only practical way to put two speakers symmetrically is next to the sofa. To deal with having good sound on the sofa, we went for Larsen speakers, which we are currently trialling. With their 45° angled speakers and the tweeter being almost flat at 30°, the sofa is in the sweet spot and sounds great.
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The only issue is that there is this feeling of the sound coming from behind you, even though it's coming directly from the left and right. I assume that some vibrations travel through the wall and arrive first?

Dirac Live correction does not help with that feeling, so I was wondering if there are any other corrections that can be done with a miniDSP.

An alternative option would be to get two more tweeters of the kind used by the Larsens, install them in the ceiling, and point them at the sofa. Would that be a pain to get right and in phase?

Thanks!
 

DVDdoug

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An alternative option would be to get two more tweeters of the kind used by the Larsens, install them in the ceiling, and point them at the sofa. Would that be a pain to get right and in phase?
It will be a "different listening experience" and I have no idea if you'll find it preferable.

The soundwaves can't be in-phase at all frequencies unless the distance to your ear is the same. At 10kHz the wavelength is a little more than 1-inch so a little head movement will make it go in-and-out of phase... However, for "worst case" full cancellation the waves have to be equal in amplitude and that's unlikely. And the phase reinforcement and cancellation isn't always that noticeable. You get the same thing between the left & right speakers and the distance between your left & right ears and the reflections in the room. Most of the time it's not noticeable with regular program material but it can be very noticeable with constant high-frequency test tones.
 
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freebird

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Thanks! After a bunch of tests and measurements in REW, I couldn't find an objective difference between the two seating positions. The speakers were only +/- 2 dB at 15 kHz between the sweet spot and 90°, which I found pretty amazing.

Ultimately, what made a difference is my spatial orientation based on the left and right channel - after dozens of tests moving between the "sweet spot" chair and the sofa, my brain had a pretty good idea which way is front. So I configured a preset on the MiniDSP to reverse the channels and now there is almost no perceived difference between sweet spot and the sofa!

Case closed.
 
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