Speaker toe in

Not just toe-in. Tilt-back.


My speaker soul-brother, Troels Gravesen, and I have both found that sometimes when we design a speaker to be listened with the ear at tweeter height the best place to listen ends up being a little between it and the mid-woofer. 

The point is, of course, to have the most enjoyable listening experience for you.


No reason not to experiment even when all the tools and tech says to listen another way.


Best,
E

I've been experimenting to dial in my Harbeth Super HL5 Plus speakers now that I have my custom stands.  Sitting flat on the stands, they lose some of the midrange and treble.  Tilting them back a bit really opened them up.  They sound best to me either facing straight ahead or with just a hair of toe-in.  I tried some more aggressive toe-in and didn't like it.

wow ¡!¡! i tried the more extreme toe-in position with the intersection about a foot in front of me face... i am liking it. deeper soundstage and the AirPulse Model 1 always had invisible midrange.. but now it is ghostly. soundstage width had decreased but I am slowly inching the speakers wider.. instrument positioning in the soundstage is improved as well...

update #1.. the monitors do not like to be too close to sidewalls.. 

It is simply wrong to state categorically that any particular degree of toe-in is optimal and anything else indicates some kind of problem.  All adjustments--placement, toe-in, rake angle (tilt back) are specific to a particular speaker model, room acoustics, placement of the speaker and listener, listener taste, etc.  

With most speakers and situations, the ideal degree of toe-in involves trade-offs.  With little or no toe-in, the soundstage will tend to be wide and open sounding, but, the center image might not be as strong and pin-point tight.  By increasing toe-in that center image will tend to get more pronounced, but, usually the trade-off is a woundstage that does not sound as expansive, or the listener does not feel quite as immersed in the soundfield.  The "right" toe-in is where the listener is most satisfied with the balance of trade-offs.