Is large toe-in recommended

[Duke]

If any of ya'll will be at T.H.E. Show next weekend (June 7-9), in Room 519 you will find speakers set up with about 45 degrees of toe-in, such that their axes criss-cross in front of the "sweet spot". I designed these speakers with this configuration specifically in mind, which minimizes early sidewall reflections and increases the sweet spot width. Stop by and hear what it does and/or does not do well.

 

[garbulky]

I haven't found a speaker yet that I preferred to toe in severely (pointing right at me). I tend to find a more pleasing/believable imaging/tonal balance with most speakers either facing forward, or with a little toe-in. Too much toe-in and I find the sound often gets a bit too squeezed smaller and opaque sounding.

This

 

[BillG]

Can you do 20 degrees if you wish to experiment with ambiophonics...

http://www.ambiophonics.org/index.html

 

[CTRLM]

I have 3 way floor standers in a large living room with carpet & lots of soft furnishings. The wall behind me is treated with acoustic panels and there is at least 2 metres each side to any side walls, so reflections are minimised. I like them toed in just a few degrees off straight keeping in mind that I'm not always sitting in the main listening position. I tried toeing them in a lot more aggressively in a few iterations - crossing in front, just behind and at the MLP and I didn't like any of them. The speakers themselves are also quite deep from back to front and aggressive toe in just doesn't look great in a room that's used for other purposes apart from listening to music.

 

[Sal1950]

This

This what?

 

[Sal1950]

The speakers themselves are also quite deep from back to front and aggressive toe in just doesn't look great in a room that's used for other purposes apart from listening to music.

What's "looks" got to do with it? It's all about the music

 

[CTRLM]

What's "looks" got to do with it? It's all about the music

Let's just call it a bonus outcome

 

[Juhazi]

Most speakers wth coaxial mid-tweeter give smoothest response 10-15¤ off. But if listening distance is more that 2 meters, room response is getting more important and only the highest top end is affected by toe-in.

Many examples from Stereophile here. They show average frontal response (often misread as on-axis) and dispersion normalized to on-axis, so be careful when reading/comparing those!

An example of coaxial KEF R100 at Sounstage (NCR), which shows responses without averaging.

 

[Purité Audio]

Grimm suggest 45° crossed in front, and there is also a setting for the more ‘normal’ 35°.
Keith

 

[Sal1950]

Here's what Dr Hsu suggests for his satellites

.

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[GrimSurfer]

It's the back wall distance that's often hardest to achieve, but Dr. Hsu's advice is a little more practical than some I've seen (1/3 way into the room!).

 

[napilopez]

Just to back up what a couple of other people have mentioned, some speakers are indeed designed to sound smoother off axis, or at least as smooth. Both the KEF R3 and LS50W are just a little bit smoother at 15-degree off-axis, and sound best that way to my ear in my room. At one point in the whitepaper for the passive LS50, KEF says: "the LS50 response is slightly smoother 10 degrees off axis and in many cases this is a preferable listening position". This is backed up by my own measurements at home:

LS50W:

KEF R3:

I quite like this about KEF speakers for simple reason that I think the speakers look better when facing straight out.

That combined with wide directivity works quite nicely for my long, narrow apartment with an open floor plan. It's pretty remarkable how the R3s sound pretty much the same wherever I am in my home. For some of the other speakers I'm testing I have to boost the dialog on my receiver when I'm cooking, but the R3s sound almost as clear from 25 feet away as they do when I'm seated in the main listening position seat 8 feet away from the speakers

 

[digicidal]

I usually adjust toe-in based on my subjective perception of the tweeter. I'll start with a direct placement (mostly equilateral to MLP) with full toe-in... If the highs sound too bright or exaggerated, then rotate them out by a few degrees and listen again. Obviously it's quite different with stuido monitors or where DSP is involved... since then you can simply adjust the built-in attenuation or adjust your EQ to do this.

I have some small Polk bookshelves that sound way too bright on-axis... but at about 20-30 degrees they became very neutral sounding.

 

[Thomas_A]

If you have neutral speakers (flat on axis response), then yes. It may even be better in some cases to let the on-axis lines cross before the listener position (e.g. speaker turned 45 degree instead of 30). According to Grimm Audio (they demoed the LS1 in Munich Highend 2019 just so) this reduces the reflections on the side walls. Another advantage is that the sweet spot can get bigger: if you move your head from the middle position to the right you are moving your head closer to on-axis of the left speaker and away from on-axis of the right speaker. This counter acts the loss of amplitude of the left speaker and the gain of amplitude of the right speaker due to the change in distance.

OTOH we often see and read that hifi speakers are not toed in at all or, if toed in, only a little bit. This is either just a personal preference (the sound looses directness, due to change of FR and an increase of room reflections) or the speaker has no flat on axis response and the off axis FR is better. Looking at JA measurements of highend speakers at stereophile I got the impression that the more expensive the speaker and the more exotic its design the worse is its on-axis FR. Just the opposite as with good active studio monitors.

EDIT: @edechamps was 1 minute faster - the linked PDF tells better what I wanted to say.

I use speakers that are toed in a bit more than direct facing the sweet spot. It makes a clear difference both with broadening the sweet spot so that the phantom image does not tilt very much when moving seating position. It also reduces the level of reflection from the nearest sidewall increases the level from the opposite side wall. Works good IMO for small listening rooms.