Hi
I am utterly humbled almost everyday by noticing how much I don't know about Audio.
I am an engineer (EE) and have been an audiophile for more than 50 years... Started very early ... but now can't hear past 15 kHz ...
I went through the subjective audiophile phase where speakers had to be parallel to the front wall (straight up), no matter which speakers, to, now toe-in them in as to form an equilateral triangle (ideally) but in reality a triangle with the listening position at the apex of the triangle.
Normally my L and R speakers (LSR 308) are toed-in that way, in my HT, an untreated room with large (most of the time opened) windows and furniture. Yesterday the speakers were moved while cleaning to straight up. I fired a movie and ... liked it ... a lot. The soundstage became bigger and the series I was watching , again, "The Expanse" took a new level of ... expansiveness ... , tried another movie, Armageddon, same, enveloping soundscape... Finally tried the sound from Ma'Rainey movie on Netflix ... I did like it ... Finally tried to listen to some music on the system in stereo with the speakers straight-in and did not like what I heard. Imaging became quite diffuse.. etc... no longer the galaxy-wide soundstage , etc ...
The system was calibrated with Audyssey XT 32 (the smartphone App) with speakers toed-in, I did not recalibrate them for straight-up ... I seem to prefer the straight up for movies and toed-in for music . I will try 2 calibrations files: one for straight, the other for toed-in and report.
Various questions came to mind.
There could be more questions if the thread gets some traction. In the meantime, I am enjoying my HT a lot. I may move to objectively better LR speakers once I have extracted and learned the maximum from the current, LSR 308, inexpensive but soooo good sounding. I am looking forward to use them in my new room that I will treat as things progress, then move to their better brethren the 708 perhaps or some other active speakers reviewed by @amirm, @hardisj, @napilopez or @mitchco , or other people whose methodology I believe in.
Peace
I am utterly humbled almost everyday by noticing how much I don't know about Audio.
I am an engineer (EE) and have been an audiophile for more than 50 years... Started very early ... but now can't hear past 15 kHz ...
I went through the subjective audiophile phase where speakers had to be parallel to the front wall (straight up), no matter which speakers, to, now toe-in them in as to form an equilateral triangle (ideally) but in reality a triangle with the listening position at the apex of the triangle.
Normally my L and R speakers (LSR 308) are toed-in that way, in my HT, an untreated room with large (most of the time opened) windows and furniture. Yesterday the speakers were moved while cleaning to straight up. I fired a movie and ... liked it ... a lot. The soundstage became bigger and the series I was watching , again, "The Expanse" took a new level of ... expansiveness ... , tried another movie, Armageddon, same, enveloping soundscape... Finally tried the sound from Ma'Rainey movie on Netflix ... I did like it ... Finally tried to listen to some music on the system in stereo with the speakers straight-in and did not like what I heard. Imaging became quite diffuse.. etc... no longer the galaxy-wide soundstage , etc ...
The system was calibrated with Audyssey XT 32 (the smartphone App) with speakers toed-in, I did not recalibrate them for straight-up ... I seem to prefer the straight up for movies and toed-in for music . I will try 2 calibrations files: one for straight, the other for toed-in and report.
Various questions came to mind.
- What's best way to position speakers as to have them presenting their most accurate behavior in a room?
- We measure the on-axis behavior of a speaker but I don't think anyone positions their speakers so that they fire at our ears, on-axis. For that we have headphones and the soundstage of those mostly reside inside our head . Speakers are always at an angle, always. If we are to evaluate speakers in mono, for example, how should they be placed? In front of us? thus being at 90 degrees of our eardrums (more or less ) or at the wall firing into our ears?
There could be more questions if the thread gets some traction. In the meantime, I am enjoying my HT a lot. I may move to objectively better LR speakers once I have extracted and learned the maximum from the current, LSR 308, inexpensive but soooo good sounding. I am looking forward to use them in my new room that I will treat as things progress, then move to their better brethren the 708 perhaps or some other active speakers reviewed by @amirm, @hardisj, @napilopez or @mitchco , or other people whose methodology I believe in.
Peace