I don't know either. It's confusing because geometry. I generally describe toe-in using the point at which the speakers "fire" as described by @avanti1960 above. So, in my case they are toed-in to fire towards a the spots a few inches on either side of my head. In terms of angle, is that (for instance) 50 degrees or 40 degrees; or 5 degrees off center (and if so, in which direction)? IDK. Math and science are, like, hard for me.
I had to look it up also, from what I can work out, zero deg is facing the listener (on axis) so mine are about 5deg outwards from that.
Not a fan of 100 percent toe-in (baffle completely facing the listener). Most if not all speakers I've owned or auditioned sounded better slightly toed out at least. Otherwise I find the sound tends to get a sort of hardened, constricted feeling, and soundstaging/imaging becomes compressed. That was true of the Harbeth's I auditioned, and the SuperHL5plus I owned. But..hey...everyone is different...
I have talked to Derek Hughes, to Alan Shaw and to the TAS reviewer Robert E. Greene about toe-in and the three of them have told me that the BBC monitors have the flattest response when there are auditioned on axis. This is also true for the Harbeth speakers as well but of course there is always the personal preference of the listener and the way the speakers interact with the room. As for everything else in audio there are no rules to be followed blindly.
Hi. Could you please specify what kind of toe-in we have in the picture below? And which one would be the 100% mentioned in previous posts. Thanks.
This is what I meant by 100% toe in. (baffle completely facing the listener) That's the way the dealer had them when I auditioned also. I also did a lot of experimenting & like that position best.
I don't have Harbeth's but my Audionote AN-J's are toed in like C pointing at my ears basically with a bit of the inside side of the cabinets visible.
The 100% thing confused me as well. Given how it's been explained, I think D is 100%. My speakers are toed in like C, where you can just see the inside of each speaker. Because of that, they cannot be facing me head on, thus cannot be at 100%. So that must be D then - toed in a little bit more, where all one can see is the front of each speaker.
Here I'm using my SHL5Plus with toe-in as type "E" of the pic. As my room is short, they are pretty near field too. The "C" toe-in didn't work well, here. Changing to "E" the magic happened and the image became better distributed and cohesive, and the bass improved well, too. I suggest you try it.
A lot left to be desired with that toe-in graphic- for example there is quite a large range between A and C that is not represented. Shown below is the position I used for my C7ES3 and I intend to start there with the SHL5+. The line fires away from the side of head by about 1 foot or so. Please note GRILLES ARE OFF! this is an important distinction when discussing and adjusting toe-in.
I assume this is with grilles in place. If so, I would agree. With the grilles removed, a foot off axis sounds best.
Yes, this is the other thing, grills are supposed to be in place. Again personal preferences and room interaction can change all this.
i tried to like the sound with the grilles on- but ultimately it was too soft for my preferences in my room / system.
That is all interesting but I suspect it is more dependent to your room acoustic than the speaker brand itself...
Yes, I did this drawing focused only on my particular toe-in curiosities. For me and my space, a very aggressive toe-in was what worked well. And I only use my SH5plus with grilles on. I suggest you test the various possibilities, including no toe-in and grilles on. Soon I intend to move, and will certainly test all positions again at my new room.
Every BBC-inspired speaker I've auditioned/owned imaged with tighter focus and cohesion with the grills in place. The grills are not there only for response voicing, but to reduce baffle diffraction - not as effective as ugly felt pads, however it does make a difference.
These Harbeths are mesmerizing on vocals - unbelievable presence Material played thus far Queen is Dead Odessey and Oracle Graceland Pet Sounds 10000 Maniacs Unplugged Murmur Wow ! I’m impressed
I prefer the grills on all my speakers - most sound their most coherent with grills on. But perhaps even more important from my perspective is that it hides the speaker drivers. I find bare speaker drivers quite distracting as my mind can not help but be drawn to the fact those cones are emitting the sound. With a speaker grill on, a speaker becomes more like a piece of furniture between and around which music just seems to be happening. The result is I'm less aware of the mechanics of the sound creation and it's easier to sink in to the illusion created by the speakers. I know many audiophiles just love to look at every bit of technology they paid for, including speaker drivers. Not me.
Removing the grid was not an option when I bought the Magnepan. Seriously, I prefer speakers with their grid on. Helps taming some of the harshness in the highs freq.
Actually, reflection is a better term for what the grills reduce, in certain frequencies. There are many explanations/illustrations throughout the web that explain it better than I can. My point is that owners of these speaker types should compare/contrast the sound with and without the grills. They are voiced with the grills in place after all. To my ears, the effects are obvious when the grills are removed with a smearing of images. Some may prefer this, since it produces more of a "wall-of-sound" presentation with increased output at certain frequencies. Harbeths IME, already produce more of a wall-of-sound presentation, similar to Maggies, so it's probably not as noticeable. It's been a while since I've had any Harbs in house to compare the grill effects but I do recall preferring the grills in place despite the detriment to detail.
Grill On, Grill off (I sound like Mr. Miyagi), toe-in, and amount of toe-in are pretty easy experiments to try, and it does not help to have precise information from others because each situation has too many variables to account for to make such information useful. As to toe-in, the appropriate degree of toe-in usually involves trade-offs. Typically, the more one toes in the speaker, the sharper the focus of the center image, but the width of the soundstage and the sense of the sound enveloping the listener tends to decrease. Most speakers have tweeters that have their strongest output directly on axis (tweeter pointing straight at the listener's ears), so toe-in can be used to adjust the balance of highs. High frequency energy is dissipated and drops off at increasing distance from the speaker at a faster rate than does lower frequencies, so toe-in can be adjusted to account for how close one sits to the speaker (very close might mean having to attenuate the tweeter and toeing in less could be one approach).
