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Speaker placement & tilting

reverbel

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Hi all,

I like to listen to music in bed and would like to have good (or at least fair) sound in my bedroom, which is very small. Due to lack of space, the speakers cannot be placed at the ideal height. The current plan is to put a pair of JBL A130 speakers in a high shelf (please see the attached images) and tilt them down so the tweeters point towards the head of the bed. That would mean tilting the speakers down some 35-38 degrees.

But I came across this:

"If you’re hell-bent on tilting your speakers toward the listening position, don’t angle them more than 15 degrees from vertical."
(http://arqen.com/acoustics-101/room-setup-speaker-placement/)

Should I take the above recommendation seriously? Why would it be so bad tilting the speakers down more than 15 degrees?

Thanks!
 

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Inner Space

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I never heard of a 15-degree limit. I have seen much more. But your best bet would be to put them on the shelf upside down, which would call for less tilt, which might look better visually.
 

MarkS

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Ditto on never hearing of any tilt limit, and it's hard to understand what the basis of it would be (other than not having your speakers tip over completely).

Also consider placing them on their sides. Most speakers have better horizontal dispersion (when oriented as usual) than vertical.

You have an unusual situation where experimentation is warranted.
 

Katji

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Yeh, don't worry about it, do what you gotta do. ...There's no other way, just experiment. - If you can. How are you going to keep them there though?
 

abdo123

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Hello, for the JBL Stage A130 you need to be on tweeter level or up to ~10 degrees below the tweeter level.

otherwise the tonality is colored, I can’t remember for sure but i strictly remember the response being the same up to -10 only.

So yeah try to use tri-geometric calculations to figure out the exact angle, and act accordingly.
 
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reverbel

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I never heard of a 15-degree limit. I have seen much more. But your best bet would be to put them on the shelf upside down, which would call for less tilt, which might look better visually.

Thanks, @Inner Space!

The problem with putting the speaker upside down is that then the heaviest part is on top, and the speaker becomes much less stable with regard to tilting.
 
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reverbel

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... How are you going to keep them there though?

That is not decided yet.

To tilt the speaker, I thought of putting a wedge-shaped chock under it. The shelf surface would have a small raised bezel just to prevent the speaker from sliding off the shelf. This works well for small angles (up to 25 degrees, as long as the speaker is not placed upside down on the shelf).

For larger angles you need to add something that holds the speaker and prevents it from tipping over. I think the simplest solution would be to secure each speaker with an elastic rope tied to a couple of hooks attached to the shelf. See the attached (and very bad!) drawing.
 

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reverbel

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Hello, for the JBL Stage A130 you need to be on tweeter level or up to ~10 degrees below the tweeter level.

otherwise the tonality is colored, I can’t remember for sure but i strictly remember the response being the same up to -10 only.

So yeah try to use tri-geometric calculations to figure out the exact angle, and act accordingly.

Thanks for mentioning the 10-degree limit, @abdo123! The 10-degree slack lets me to use a smaller tilting angle, which should be better visually and may even remove the need for some weird holder thing just to secure the speaker in place.
 
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