Speaker positioning (toe-in)

How do you have your speakers positioned and why? Toe-in (triangle), dramatic toe-in, slight toe-in?

 

I think I've my speakers about 30° towards the centre of the room

 

Toe in is something one has to experiment to determine what is best. Toe in puts the listener more directly on axis to the drivers which will change the tonal balance the listener hears (ususually brighter sounding when toed in). Toe in will also decrease the amount of signal that will bounce off the nearby side wall and this too affects tonal balance and imaging. Generally speaking, with more toe-in the center image becomes more solid and focused, but stage width will narrow. This usually means a tradeoff between the two, and one has to determine whether more width or better focus is needed.

If one needs a very wide listening area (some chairs much nearer to one speaker than the other), sometimes extreme toe-in (the axis of the drivers crossing well in front of the center chair) will help with imaging. This is the case because the outside chair that is much closer to one speaker will also be much further off axis from that speaker and the far speaker will be more on axis so that closer proximity of one is somewhat compensated for by more direct (and therefore louder) sound by the other.

 

I am constantly fiddling incrementally with toe in to strike that perfect balance.

 

Me too. This week I've gone with about a foot outside the ears. This has helped with a problem of too much perceived warmth. My spread is pretty wide now so soundstage width is not really an issue. I think I'm sticking with this for a while.

 

Also depends on your particular speaker and it's dispersion pattern. Some benefit from toe-in more than others.

Experiment until you are happy.

 

Now that my room is of a good size 15X22 I have NO toe-in. I love the effects of the room like a small music hall. Plus the speakers I listen to mostly are Bi-Polar. John M.

 

Maybe two degrees of toe-in – almost not noticeable looking at speakers – which are about 12 feet apart.

 

I have Dali zensor 7's and the manual recommends no toe-in due to the "wide dispersion" tweeters. with my older amp i found i still needed to toe it in somewhat to make the soundstage feel cohesive. now that i have upgraded to my cronus magnum i found that my soundstage was a bit "hotter" and vinyl noise was more noticeable. so this weekend i was able to rearrange and increase the space between my speakers and listening position and left them with no toe in and it sounds much wider and the vinyl noise is now moved back to the sides somewhat like it used to be. i have the book from here getbettersound.com and i think i am going to try his recommendation and just move the speakers slightly more toward each other without changing anything else to see what i get from that.

 

Slight toe-in on my Rega R1 bookshelfs, optimized for the best compromise between dynamics and imaging.

 

Pretty significant toe-in with my Paradigm Studio 80s. I aim them for the center of the wall behind me, but the room isn't that large so that results in what I'm guessing is a 15-20 degree angle.

 

Magneplanars are a prime example!

 

My 3.6 Magnepans are toed in ...With the tweeters on the 'in' side. (Instead of the outside side) My Maggies are rather far apart. and the toe in the speakers are angled slighty mor than directly at the listening position. (say about 2 feet in front of it.)
The toe in is also to make the back angle sound more toward the corners.. instead of at the big picture window on the wall behind them...

 

Exactly! I prefer the imaging to be dead center and deep, making the speakers disappear.

 

Slight to moderate toe-in not matter what speaker. I have a fairly large, difficult room with a sloping ceiling that goes from 8 to 18 abruptly, then slopes down to 8 ft. It's about 20 x 18 feet, with a ceiling fan and wooden beams. Speakers aren't near any walls, but are in front of a bookshelf which helps improve the lower freq's. Was going to splurge on newer, more expensive full rangers, considered some huge Duntechs (now called Dunlavy), http://mssaudioservice.com/2012/12/...ori-corona-del-principe/duntech-crown-prince/ but I realized I may never get the bass oomph in this room without a sub or two additional speakers in back.

 

Pretty similar for my Studio 60's; aimed to hit the wall behind me , makes the soundstage decently wide with very solid center image.

 

Slight toe-in just to reduce side wall interaction a bit. Soundstage is still wide.

 

Me too, and I got these speakers four years ago. It's ocd on my part, and happily is the only thing I am ocd about. Four years and I still don't know which set up is best. My music room is rather small and there is a lot of clutter with my software and guitars.

 

Mine face straight down the room - well actually across the room as I'm set up on the long wall. No choice in the matter. I find the sound is better balanced without toe-in and too 'confronting' with toe-in.

 

I have the Studio 100's and just moved them a foot or more closer to each other, and back a little closer to the back wall. Listening to Van's Too Late To Stop Now and it sounds great. Hey, maybe I can keep this placement,

 

Toe-in is essential but you can only get the best results by experimenting. If we put my speakers in your listening room the toe-in amount that I use isn't necessarily what will work in your room.

Also, something else that I've found is just as essential is speaker height. Makes almost as big a difference as toe-in. Obviously floor standers are extremely limited in this respect but some of them can be slightly adjusted if they have screw-in spikes.

If you don't have floor standers, then use a bunch of books to find out what the best speaker height is for you. Do this after you've adjusted toe-in. Once you've got the correct height dialed in for your listening position, then you can purchase speaker stands that match the correct height

I think speaker height adjustment is more important based on how far away from the speakers you are. If you're listening near-field then it makes a huge difference.

 

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule with the variance in rooms, speakers and positioning but more times than not I have the speaker toe in (I use the center line of the tweeter and I think some use the inside edge of the cabinet) crossing just behind my head. I use a laser level to make the adjustment.

 

The amount of toe-in is effected by room treatment as well. If you have your side walls treated at the first reflection point then toe in should be less than untreated walls. Before I had treated my side walls I had my speakers toed in to cross about a foot behind my head. Once I treated the first reflection points on both side walls I set my speakers up straight ahead and only had to adjust them a couple inches to snap in the soundstage to my liking.

 

Equilateral Triangle x Golden Ratio x Listening Sweet Spot Fine Tune Adjustments

 

The Cardas web site has a great speaker set up video , great place to start then fine tune from there .
I prefer the sound from the 80% triangle method to the equilateral triangle .