1. Home
  2. speakers
  3. 181684-18891

What Could Cause Center Image To Present Lower than Expected

I will preface with admitting, that I am not an audiophile, but a hobbyist at best. Purchased Totem Acoustic Forest Sig. I am powering them with a ModWright  KWH 225I with Morrow Audio Sp7 speaker cables. My primary source is an Ayon S10 MKII network player/DAC feed by Small Green Computer (ROON) with Snake River Audio Mumushi Sig XLR interconects.

Integrated/Player feed with Morrow Audio Elite Power cords from a Shunyata PS8 w/Defender. PS8 connected with Shunyata Alpha v2 NR power cord.

Room is 13x19. Speakers 7' apart and 4" from front wall and 2.5' from side wall. No toe-in.  Audio equipment behind speakers along short wall with TV above mounted to wall. There is an 8x10 decorative rug hung on wall behind tv/equipment.

From the get-go, I have been very happy with sound and center image / soundstage present without fiddling with anything. Better than my ATC SCM19 v2.

My issue is with how low the center image presents.  Not sure how to proceed. Where to start. Is it most likely a speaker adjustment or component issue? I know my room is not properly treated.

Scott

amboguzzi
avanti1960
1,744 posts
 

Two things you can do to raise the sound stage- 

1) Definitely bring your speakers away from the wall!  4 inches is much to close for them to develop the space around them needed for a large sound stage in all dimensions.  Try for at least 2 feet or more as you can manage.  

2) Try varying degrees of toe angle- experiment from none all the way to aiming at a spot 2 feet in front of you- in small steps.  

3) Tubes.  Your modwright amp uses 6DJ8 tubes and the type of tube has a large impact on sound stage- that is why we love tubes.  

See the link below and get the ones you can afford beginning with the following brands-

Amperex (always a sound stage winner)

Telefunken (likewise)

Siemens.  

 

Good Luck ! 

6DJ8 Tubes From Brent Jessee Recording (audiotubes.com)

sbonamo
65 posts
 

@avanti1960 no offence but none of what you recommended will affect image height. What affects image height is rake angle and it is somewhat speaker - dependent. In general, raking the speaker back will raise the image but again, with some speakers, especially when the Mid / tweet drivers are far above the sweet spot listener's ears, raking forward can raise the image. Tubes, toe - in and distance from the front wall will do nothing WRT image height.

jacupmakeup
32 posts
 

Coming in years late on this, but I’m in a similar size room with the same issue - center image is stuck on the floor. Did you ever fix it? If so, how?! Thanks 

larryi
4,577 posts
 

Erik sqires and sbonamo are correct.  The speakers need to be tilted back more to increase image height.  Of course other adjustments and acoustic treatment may help too.  If you have large reflecting surfaces near or along the psth the sound takes to reach you, you might try experimenting with moving them away or otherwise tresting them.  For example if you have s coffee table in front of you, try putting things on the table to break up reflections.  If you have hard flooring between you and the dpeakers, put an area rug in front of the speaker to reduce reflections.

Good luck.

zlone
1,337 posts
 

@jacupmakeup I am working on this same issue, with my soundstage being too low. I originally tried tilting back which raised the stage, but it messed with the phase. Instead I put them on a one inch platform and this significantly raised the soundstage. You might try progressively raising them to see if it resolves the issue. Ignore aesthetics until you find the solution. 

More to discover