Yes. Wider directivity effectively means louder sidewall reflections. So you can be further from the sidewalls/less toed in and get a soundstage you like.
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KEF R3 Speaker Review
- Thread starter amirm
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Yes. Wider directivity effectively means louder sidewall reflections. So you can be further from the sidewalls/less toed in and get a soundstage you like.
Also, this is not intended to be a personal system at all. I listen to music and watch movies with friends, or family with it. I always found too much toe-in to be kind of a selfish tweak!
Larger toe in (speaker crossing in front of you) produce wider sweet spot. Your friends and family would thank you for having a soundstage again
I have very (very) different personnal experience about that.
Of course you do. If you want wider soudstage you don't toe-in your speakers.
Here is a nice article with some measurement examples that explains it.
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Whether or not the manufacturer recommends it, it's definitely true. Extreme toe in with narrow dispersion speakers definitely increases sweet spot width.
It is weird how they don't recommend it, though. I do wonder why that is.
No it doesn't, it emphasizes the direct sound and makes the soundstage narrower.
So you claim to know better how to position R series speakers than the engineers how built them? That is indeed weird..
HSU and Geddes(when he was selling speakers) both recommend extreme toe in (that's just fun to say), I believe. Most manufacturers probably do not because it's aesthetically atrocious in most cases and I agree lol.
Anyway, KEF's manual needs proofing for clarity. The above image you posted is specifically intended for 5.1 placement (it says 5.1 below the image). It is nothing specific to KEF, and is in fact literally just the exact angles/setup provided by Dolby for 5.1 audio.
In the same manual shows this:
Me: "Does KEF recommend toeing the R3s in? I know with previous speakers they've been designed to sound good off axis, but the manual for the R3 shows both positions, so I thought I'd check. "
Them: "...with the Uni-Q, KEF speakers will produce an extremely wide sound stage without any toe-in. Depending on certain variables like room acoustics and setup, some toe-in may help enhance sound reproduction in the main listening spot, but for all but the most extreme room conditions, toe-in is likely not necessary. We show it both ways so the end-user knows they have a choice for setup. " [Emphasis mine]
From a few conversations with manufacturers, it's clear engineers don't tend to design the manuals. They will proofread it, but they might miss things or confusing parts. Same happened to me with JBL where the engineer provided different advice than the manual. They then fixed the manual
Note that wider soundstage and wider sweet spot are not the same thing. While I had some luck with extreme toe in in my old place, in my current home it tends to just sound like a more diffuse soundstage with a bigger sweet spot, but not necessarily a bigger soundstage in the way wide dispersion speakers provide. I think this is because the soundstage gets a bit compressed by the opposite wall reflections.
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From their answer to your question I can only read this: "some toe-in may help enhance sound reproduction in the main listening spot, but for all but the most extreme room conditions, toe-in is likely not necessary." So, they don't recommend any toe-in, contrary to what Geddes recommends in his Directivity paper.
And yes, I'm aware that wider soundstage and wider sweet spot are not the same thing. I simply think that toe-in affects mainly soundstage width while width of sweet spot is mostly dictated with loudspeaker characteristics.
P.S. I also think that angles recommended by Dolby are there because they are optimal for most of the speakers.
New tries today: Found this EQ profile to work very well, filling the 1Khz dip, bringing fuller vocals. It also smooth treble just like I would:
Needless to say, little toe-in also works like a charm for near-field listening. R3 is no doubt a better speaker than 906 for this purpose.
What I also found today is their abillity to handle much more power. For loud listening, I can put the Arias mids to distort (midrange and bass sharing the same driver), while R3 is still able to play very clean, thanks to its 3-ways design. I don't want to go into some clichees, but yes: R3 seems to behave like floorstandings.
Don't know what to think at this point. This is without any doubt a strong speaker. If it's the right one for me is another story...
Needless to say, little toe-in also works like a charm for near-field listening. R3 is no doubt a better speaker than 906 for this purpose.
What I also found today is their abillity to handle much more power. For loud listening, I can put the Arias mids to distort (midrange and bass sharing the same driver), while R3 is still able to play very clean, thanks to its 3-ways design. I don't want to go into some clichees, but yes: R3 seems to behave like floorstandings.
Don't know what to think at this point. This is without any doubt a strong speaker. If it's the right one for me is another story...
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I don't think you understood my point, or maybe I didn't present it well. I don't claim that at all. Afaik, Kef recommends listening off axis, but I'm not sure about extreme toe in. That said, extreme toe in kinda gives you the advantages of on axis and off axis(straight ahead) listening.
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The dip seems centered at 2kHz or even higher in Amir's measurements.
You claimed that extreme toe-in widens the sweet spot. As KEF engineers don't recommend any toe-in, or in some special cases only moderate, you must know something they don't.
As noted, that is just the response I have in writing. I also asked a KEF engineer specifically in person during a launch event.
For the toe in comment, I was responding mainly to @richard12511 , clarifying that you were initially saying toe in wouldn't necessarily give you a large soundstage.
But extreme toe in absolutely increases sweet spot width. I've had narrow directivity speakers with wider sweet spots (not wider soundstage) than wide directivity ones on several occasions using this method. It works best with true constant directivity designs like the D&D 8c, but it also worked with the R3. That is not how I thought they sounded best though.
As for dolby, I can 99 percent guarantee you the way these things work they just copied and pasted the angles from dolby lol. Especially given multiple conversations with KEF about it, it almost certainly has nothing to do with the way the speakers are designed for stereo listening.
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Extreme toe in does increase sweet spot width. This is a fact. Do you disagree with that? Whether or not it sounds better is a different issue.
"Just the response you have in writing"? That seems uite official and valid to me.
Sure they do. And why wouldn't they? Or you think Dolby engineers got it wrong?
Erik
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The sweet spot width is very much dependent on the toe-in angle. Geddes himself explains why in this presentation.
Audioholics mentioned this in their latest video too.
Do you care to provide some proof for that "fact"?
I know what Geddes says, I read his directivity paper about that, but I would prefer some measurements instead of his opinion.
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As far as I know, there's no direct research on this, so you have me there. That said, this shouldn't be about winning an argument. This is about logic. What do you honestly think. If you have very narrow dispersion speakers, then extreme toe in means that as you get further away from the left speaker, you become more on axis to the left speaker. Do you disagree with this?
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