Radical toe in once more


Hi all. I have bi-directional floorstanders, two way speakers with identical treble and woofer on the front and the back. Half of the sound goes to the front drivers, half to the back.

The toe-in of this type of speaker is very influenced by how the back sound wave and the reverberant sound behaves. These speakers often sound good with radical toe-in due to better room acoustics with a longer back wave towards the corners.

This is a huge topic, and my question is more restricted: what happens with the front firing sound?

Is there an "inherent" problem with radical toe in, when the main sound from the front drivers cross in front of the listener, instead of the more conventional setup where the crossing point is behind the listener - and if so, what?

Is this (potential) minus factor in fact low, if the listener is just a foot or so back of the crossing point?

 

Ag insider logo xs@2xo_holter

@newbee 

There is always a "right way" to set up well designed loudspeakers in good rooms with maybe 2 or 3 options. There is no good way to set up poor loudspeakers in either good or bad rooms.

@o_holter 

If you are not sure how they are wired take an AAA battery and while holding the negative speaker lead against the negative pole of the battery tap the positive lead against the positive pole of the battery for a split second. If both woofers move out they are in phase and Bipolar. If one moves in and the other out then they are out of phase and dipolar. 

Hi @avanti1960

Thank you. I have done some of this procedure before, and I have also investigated through measurements (REW, Cara etc). Basically I am back to using my ears. For now I think I am fairly close to ideal, but in the future I may try your ’back to basics / conventional’ method.

@gumbedamit 

Get a buddy to swivel the speakers while you are in your listening position.  Simple!

thanks will try when i get the chance

@mijostyn 

You can find this under my systems info.

Speakers: Audiokinesis Dream Maker v2 two-way bipoles. In phase. Big wide floorstanders made to "use" the reverberant sound.

Room: Dimensions: 8,30 x 6,10 x 2,62 m / 27,2 x 20,0 x 8,5 feet