The ear's ability to localize sound sources is quite good in the horizontal plane but rather poor in the vertical plane. In particular, the ear tends to mis-judge the height of low frequency and high frequency sound sources (it's pretty good in the midrange).
Consistently over numerous controlled blind listening tests, listeners mis-judge the height of a high frequency tone as coming from higher up than it actually does, and mis-judge the height of a low frequency tone as coming from lower than it actually does. One way of using this phenomenon in our favor would be to put the tweeter below the woofer.
Another possibility is this: The axis along which the different drivers sum most ideally may be tilted in the vertical plane, and if that tilt is towards the woofer, it may make sense to put the tweeter below the woofer if that is more likely to put listeners along the ideal summation axis.
I doubt that a designer would put the tweeter below the woofer without having a very good reason for doing so, as it "looks wrong", and unfortunately looking wrong can be a difficult hurdle to overcome in the marketplace... imo too many audiophiles are still inclined to listen with their eyes.
Duke
dealer/manufacturer
Consistently over numerous controlled blind listening tests, listeners mis-judge the height of a high frequency tone as coming from higher up than it actually does, and mis-judge the height of a low frequency tone as coming from lower than it actually does. One way of using this phenomenon in our favor would be to put the tweeter below the woofer.
Another possibility is this: The axis along which the different drivers sum most ideally may be tilted in the vertical plane, and if that tilt is towards the woofer, it may make sense to put the tweeter below the woofer if that is more likely to put listeners along the ideal summation axis.
I doubt that a designer would put the tweeter below the woofer without having a very good reason for doing so, as it "looks wrong", and unfortunately looking wrong can be a difficult hurdle to overcome in the marketplace... imo too many audiophiles are still inclined to listen with their eyes.
Duke
dealer/manufacturer