The often neglected tweak: speaker rake angle

Yup, a tiny tilt up on my Rainmakers improves timing.

 

In the OP I was referring to the Spendors in my primary system.

 

I assumed. Do you have the stands for your Heresy's?

 

Yup, that's critical for getting Vandys to sound as intended due to their physically time aligned drivers. It makes a big difference when it's right. Most other manufacturers rely on the crossover and polarity.

 

Yup, I've always used them with the angled risers. Some claim they improve when proped up on actual stands but I haven't been tempted try it.

 

Those are probably the same guys that complain about the bass. The low stand and the angle is critical.

 

My thoughts exactly! .5°. How do you even measure that?

 

Even harder, actually, its .25 degrees.

 

Very easy: machinist level.

 

My KEFs have a small leveling bubble at the rear along the base. Once I dialed in the speaker placement in the room I added the spikes and leveled everything so the bubble was dead center. I stood back and was amazed at the angle the speakers were now pitched, a very noticeable slope backwards. It did direct the tweeters more towards my ears and brought the tweeter back so they were more in alignment with the woofer. Do I hear a noticeable difference, not really but intellectual I believe they are aimed better than before so they would play at their optimum. It might be a subtle adjustment that would take time to notice however I have no intention of leveling them again to determine if I hear a difference. I'm going to go with the speaker manufacturers recommended setting.

 

How many of you sweet-spotters sit up in your listening chairs, or sofa, or loveseats, listen for the convergence, and then, satisfied you're "dialed-in"...you settle-back in your seat, ready to have that sweet, soundstage-y goodness wash all over you...

...you don't realise you're slouching into the cushions, about a foot-and-a-half back, your head nestled down around three inches lower than you were?

 

I just "raked up" .25 inches today. The tweeters are still below ear level, but the sound from my Polk Audio TSI300 floorstanders is a bit less flat (best way I can describe it).

 

I use a Stressless recliner that sort of forces me to recline. When at my usual angle, my ears are level between the midwoofer and tweeter. I made sure to sit at this angle when dialing in my speaker placement. For my speakers, rake angle has a significant effect on tonal balance --similar to toe-in.

 

I have a re-upholstered sofa with marshmallow-light cushions. Once I sink back into that center-seat, no chance of alignment with the soundstage. I really need to tilt the fronts and rears down a nudge. I'm always sitting up to listen, then sinking back, and "hey, where'd the sonics go...!".

 

My speakers sound different after I sink into the couch vs sitting up at tweeter height, but it doesn’t sound bad... just different.

 

No doubt a system will sound bad once you settle into a sofa particularly if your head / ears are backed by a cushioned back. Best if your head is above the back of the sofa / chair back.

 

Holy crap Batman. I too was having the “bass is better standing than sitting” so after reading this I put a jar lid u see each stand at the front. Measured to get close to the same angle between them.

SOUNDS SO GOOD I WANT TO KISS SOMEBODY

 

1/4 of a degree?!? What are you measuring that with? At a 3 meter listening distance that's 1.3 centimeters or 1/2 inch. I think you are bringing up a very good issue yet I have trouble imagining that after you get up to change the speaker angle that your HEAD is within 1.3 centimeters of the same spot it was before

 

From dead flat, I raised my front spikes one half turn at a time. It was definitely audible when I hit the sweet spot. Not sure what the degree of angle was, but it couldnt have been very much.

 

A machinist's level. It's capable of even greater accuracy.

I don't understand why that's hard to imagine. I recline at the same angle most nights; I don't slouch (doesn't happen in a Stressless); my chair doesn't move about the room; I'm certainly not getting any taller, and don't believe I'm getting shorter -- not yet anyway.

 

The tilt up/down, or even the design of the speaker where the tweeter may be below the mid driver matters more than one might think, because of the cancellations that happen asymmetrically around the crossover frequency. Often speakers will have a "sweet spot" several degrees above or below the plane of the drivers, with irregularities around this.

Here's one graphic (but not the one I was thinking of but can't find):

In the lower left plot we can see that there is a cancellation lobe around the crossover frequency just above the plane. This speaker might have less response irregularity if we look along the horizontal line -20 degree angle, see we can find a path through uniform orange response if we tilt our speakers up. You won't necessarily know this about your speakers except via experimentation or computer array modeling.

Canting stereo speakers inwards has less effects. There is only true "sweet spot" listening position, equidistant between speakers, time-aligned, that doesn't change. It may be beneficial to point the speakers at your ears instead of the walls to your sides, if on-axis has the truest response. Since speakers, especially tweeters, are directional, we can expand the acceptable listening positions for guests by pivoting inwards even more, though, so those sitting to the right side get more of the left speaker to balance their proximity to the right one.

 

I was not familiar with those. Gee, even the cheap ones aren't cheap! You put it on top of the speakers?

Ahhh...that looks comfortable...I can see more head-position repeatability than on my friend's couch. I wonder how one could actually measure the repeatability of head position? Plumb bob hanging from the ceiling and take pictures? (Or, get speakers that are not so beamy ha ha...and listen in an anechoic room to boot...)

 

Where did you get these curves???

I think that's generally accepted but I'd like to see the curves for that. Most speakers DO start to beam at mid/high frequencies, so the inward tilt can be more about reducing sidewall reflections instead of accuracy at the listening position (like at a friend's where the right speaker is near a sliding glass door and a marble fireplace-we have the tweeters crossing actually in front of the listening position which helped a lot with glare off that wall).

 

Genetics.

 

Correct.