Angling your speakers depends very much on the speaker itself so you can't say that you are for or against it imo since that depends very much on the speakers itself that you use.
HI Paul, I've been at this hobby for more than 40+ years or so. This toe-in method is something I've always done. Having the speakers pointing towards my ears at pretty much 45º angles. I always thought it was the right thing to do. So for fun, last night, I tried putting my speakers face-on,... with no toe-in. I experimented with a slight toe-in, no toe-in, and found all of a sudden,.. It was like bang! There it was. I hit the magic spot. I bet I have about 10º of toe-in, with one speaker slightly more forward than the other. It took a while, but I found it. It must be that my speakers and not mirror images of each other with my tweeters over on one side, and on the same side for each speaker. Anyhow, my point is, as soon as I found that magic spot, the whole system found its sweet spot and the tonal balance became so much more pleasing, and might I say perfect? At least to me. The speaker setup is so worth while taking the time to get right,... and the best part is -- it's Free! I can't thank you enough. You have made what I consider and good system, even better, and that's what this journey is all about. Love your videos, and great advise. Thank you!
Paul's preferences are valid for him but when it comes to me, I like a lot of toe in, enough so the left speaker fires over the left shoulder and the right speaker fires over the right shoulder. This gives great clarity to images, depth in soundstage and an impressive center image. I have found this with many kinds of speakers, bookshelf, floorstanders and in many different rooms. You may not like this, you might prefer Paul's preference, or something in between. To me, there are no rules for this and the best guide is your own ears, your own preferences.
I found it in my room that there is no centre at all if I don't toe-in the speakers, but when I do, sweet spot becomes pretty wide - as the manufacturer recommended - Focal. Maybe it has something to do with inverted tweeter dome or my room but after a very long time I found the right postion for the speakers. For a very long time I had speakers too close together without toeing them in which had a result very bright highs. Now I'm listening music more then ever and my wife wants to listen to, even my 4 year old son appreciate some of the music... unbelievable.
Toe-in is easy enough to experiment with on your individual systems and decide what sounds best to your ears. In my experience it varies from speaker to speaker and from room to room.
Yes, it DOES! Different size -> different directional characteristics of drivers ->different sweet spot (unless it is an omnidirectional design). Also, toeing-in speakers help to increase the sweet spot. Usually, there is really no point in listening to speakers 30 degrees off-axis.
Paul's conclusion surprises me. I would suspect that a wide dispersion pattern would help to produce a wide sweet spot. If you regard the speaker cone as a piston, it can be regarded as a point source that spreads sound equally in all directions IF the wavelength is large compared to the piston size. But if the piston is large compared to the wavelength, it will produce a plane sound wave which will be projected forward. The wavelength of 10 kHz is around 3 cm which can be small compared to a broadband driver or the mouth of a treble horn. An electrostatic speaker has a very large 'piston' so the direction effect will set in at a lower frequency and it will be more pronounced. The effect can be countered by, say, using an acoustic lens or domed speaker cones. Disclaimer: I am no audiofile and I haven't heard many modern speakers, but I would appreciate comments to my reasoning.
The Ohm Walsh series speaker has a sweet sweep spot with a center image that can be heard perfectly any place in the room with a wide and deep sound stage and they like being close to walls ,all features that no other speaker has . They have a free 120 day free trial . Read PS audio's Copper magazine interview issue 104 about these speakers.
Hi Paul, I see your videos all the time. I just realized that one I see a video I just skip then you the next.... without clicking the like icon. Today, it made me feel like enjoying the show without buying a ticket. I am sorry 😞. I loved all of them. I have now started clicking the like button too.
Speaker toe in angles could determine the size of the 2 channel stereo sweetspot in a typical sized listening room - but the constant 767 mph / 13,504 inches per second speed of sound in air is the main reason why the typical listening room sweet-spot doesn't scale in larger listening environments like full sized IMAX movie theaters and 50,000 person capacity concert stadiums making multichannel audio a necessity in these large spaces.
Driver size is different than speaker size. Single drivers beam at certain frequencies and the larger the speakers the lower the frequency it begins to beam. He might have been inquiring about driver size. Also extreme toe in (crossing the streams) can give you a larger sweet spot covering a larger sitting area. Called time intensity trading.
The sweet spot size also depends on how wide the speakers disperse the sound and that can be quite frequency dependent too. A tweeter might beam the sound much more directional and you then lose treble/details when sitting more off axis.
I’ve been told that my silk dome tweeters have a very wide dispersion pattern, I tend to lose directionality in the midrange when i go off axis. Am I just nuts or something?
@@graxjpg It's of course possible. You can make a radar plot around your speaker at different frequencies and you will find that the frequency response can be highly different at different angles. A great sounding speaker at a certain angle can be a horribly sounding speaker at another angle.
@@ThinkingBetter I’m finding that to be more true the more I investigate. My ears are not as keen as other more experienced audiophiles but I’m beginning to hear things my brain normally would have labeled as unimportant info and I’m really enjoying myself haha..
@@ThinkingBetter again, I’m finding out more and more the implications of this truth the older I get. Meditating and not listening to music 24/7 really helps me.
bought a pair of home made cabinets in the 70s,utah celesta coax 3wys, rated for max of 30 wpc cabinets 1ft deep 2ft tall,15 in wide,( I still have the plywood and oak finish cabinets,reconed them with pyle drivers in the 90s),reciever was a panasonic with a measly 10 wpc amfm w cassette,,separated by up to 20 ft,,the system produced a wall of great sound,and the center sweetspot too it filled a big room out into the kitchen,
i cant think of any system having a large sweet spot, you need to be at exactly equal distance from both speakers. or else you don't hear the phase difference in sound. the only enlarging effect of sweet spot is in height, like with line arrays you maintain phase pretty large in height direction. but it still sounds bad at the floor or heigh up.
So dispersion has nothing to do with the sweet spot? I would have thought a wider dispersion would help with the sweet spot? Which is related to piston area?
@@stonefree1911 but when you're in that sweet spot it's pretty magical no? Never heard maggies but have a pair of full range 15 drivers in open baffle.
When you use your Maggies In your reference system did you tell them in? I find that a slight till win with the tweeters on the inside is helpful to finding a great sweet spot
Curious people opinion on Geddes approach with waveguide and speakers with more controlled directivity to use extreme toe in the speakers to allow for time intensity trading and so you can limit the absorption as they are coming off the opposite wall and thus contributed to spaciousness and not destroying the imaging. Thoughts / experiences?
Yes. speed of sound = 1145 feet per second at sealevel. 1145x12 = speed of sound in inches. then divide by the diameter of the drivers cone. ie: (1145x12)/3=4580. A 3" driver will begin to beam at 4580hz.
@@sudd3660 I answered the question Hugo asked instead of asking another question.... " Does the driver size have an influence on the off axis response of a speaker?"
I prefer one great subwoofer rather than two mediocre subwoofers. A great subwoofer with low distortion, fast impulse response and with a relative sharp low pass filter doesn't need another subwoofer of the same kind as sub bass isn't perceived with direction. When a subwoofer isn't actually making only sub bass then you can locate the sound from it and that makes you want to have two of them located near your stereo speakers. Of course if money is not a concern, go for two great subwoofers.
I have a slight low-in for my ELAC Vela 407 and they have a very wide sweet spot. Paul bases his advice on his gigantic system. Do your own experiments.
Angling your speakers depends very much on the speaker itself so you can't say that you are for or against it imo since that depends very much on the speakers itself that you use.
HI Paul, I've been at this hobby for more than 40+ years or so. This toe-in method is something I've always done. Having the speakers pointing towards my ears at pretty much 45º angles. I always thought it was the right thing to do. So for fun, last night, I tried putting my speakers face-on,... with no toe-in. I experimented with a slight toe-in, no toe-in, and found all of a sudden,.. It was like bang! There it was. I hit the magic spot. I bet I have about 10º of toe-in, with one speaker slightly more forward than the other. It took a while, but I found it. It must be that my speakers and not mirror images of each other with my tweeters over on one side, and on the same side for each speaker.
Anyhow, my point is, as soon as I found that magic spot, the whole system found its sweet spot and the tonal balance became so much more pleasing, and might I say perfect? At least to me. The speaker setup is so worth while taking the time to get right,... and the best part is -- it's Free! I can't thank you enough. You have made what I consider and good system, even better, and that's what this journey is all about.
Love your videos, and great advise. Thank you!
Paul's preferences are valid for him but when it comes to me, I like a lot of toe in, enough so the left speaker fires over the left shoulder and the right speaker fires over the right shoulder. This gives great clarity to images, depth in soundstage and an impressive center image. I have found this with many kinds of speakers, bookshelf, floorstanders and in many different rooms. You may not like this, you might prefer Paul's preference, or something in between. To me, there are no rules for this and the best guide is your own ears, your own preferences.
I found it in my room that there is no centre at all if I don't toe-in the speakers, but when I do, sweet spot becomes pretty wide - as the manufacturer recommended - Focal. Maybe it has something to do with inverted tweeter dome or my room but after a very long time I found the right postion for the speakers. For a very long time I had speakers too close together without toeing them in which had a result very bright highs. Now I'm listening music more then ever and my wife wants to listen to, even my 4 year old son appreciate some of the music... unbelievable.
Toe-in is easy enough to experiment with on your individual systems and decide what sounds best to your ears. In my experience it varies from speaker to speaker and from room to room.
Yes, it DOES! Different size -> different directional characteristics of drivers ->different sweet spot (unless it is an omnidirectional design). Also, toeing-in speakers help to increase the sweet spot. Usually, there is really no point in listening to speakers 30 degrees off-axis.
Paul's conclusion surprises me. I would suspect that a wide dispersion pattern would help to produce a wide sweet spot. If you regard the speaker cone as a piston, it can be regarded as a point source that spreads sound equally in all directions IF the wavelength is large compared to the piston size. But if the piston is large compared to the wavelength, it will produce a plane sound wave which will be projected forward. The wavelength of 10 kHz is around 3 cm which can be small compared to a broadband driver or the mouth of a treble horn. An electrostatic speaker has a very large 'piston' so the direction effect will set in at a lower frequency and it will be more pronounced. The effect can be countered by, say, using an acoustic lens or domed speaker cones.
Disclaimer: I am no audiofile and I haven't heard many modern speakers, but I would appreciate comments to my reasoning.
Paul, you forgot to mention how dispersion patterns come into play. That has a lot to do with sweet spot size.
Too interested in plugging audiophile book.
@@iampuzzleman282 you don’t have to listen.
@@omarghaffar1013 he dumbs down his videos.
@@iampuzzleman282 Big deal, he also explained well in the vid
The Ohm Walsh series speaker has a sweet sweep spot with a center image that can be heard perfectly any place in the room with a wide and deep sound stage and they like being close to walls ,all features that no other speaker has . They have a free 120 day free trial . Read PS audio's Copper magazine interview issue 104 about these speakers.
Nice.
Jbl states in one instruction manual that some degree of toe- in helps to achieve a more STABLE image if this is relative.
Hello sir, i like your presentation of clear questions and clear answers. Thank you.
Use two lil 1” Full-ranges and see how hard it is to find the sweet spot. 😄
Hi Paul, I see your videos all the time. I just realized that one I see a video I just skip then you the next.... without clicking the like icon. Today, it made me feel like enjoying the show without buying a ticket. I am sorry 😞. I loved all of them. I have now started clicking the like button too.
I can confirm you confirmed shipping of the audiophile's guide:))) can't wait to try it!
I already got it thru Amazon
Speaker toe in angles could determine the size of the 2 channel stereo sweetspot in a typical sized listening room - but the constant 767 mph / 13,504 inches per second speed of sound in air is the main reason why the typical listening room sweet-spot doesn't scale in larger listening environments like full sized IMAX movie theaters and 50,000 person capacity concert stadiums making multichannel audio a necessity in these large spaces.
1/3 rule seems to get you in the correct starting position of your room size very accurately 🙏🏼
_e v e r y_ time
Driver size is different than speaker size. Single drivers beam at certain frequencies and the larger the speakers the lower the frequency it begins to beam. He might have been inquiring about driver size.
Also extreme toe in (crossing the streams) can give you a larger sweet spot covering a larger sitting area. Called time intensity trading.
The question was indeed about driver size (first few seconds of the video)
The sweet spot size also depends on how wide the speakers disperse the sound and that can be quite frequency dependent too. A tweeter might beam the sound much more directional and you then lose treble/details when sitting more off axis.
I’ve been told that my silk dome tweeters have a very wide dispersion pattern, I tend to lose directionality in the midrange when i go off axis. Am I just nuts or something?
@@graxjpg It's of course possible. You can make a radar plot around your speaker at different frequencies and you will find that the frequency response can be highly different at different angles. A great sounding speaker at a certain angle can be a horribly sounding speaker at another angle.
@@ThinkingBetter I’m finding that to be more true the more I investigate. My ears are not as keen as other more experienced audiophiles but I’m beginning to hear things my brain normally would have labeled as unimportant info and I’m really enjoying myself haha..
@@graxjpg Listening is much about paying attention. It's like driving or talking...if you are not focused, you will fail.
@@ThinkingBetter again, I’m finding out more and more the implications of this truth the older I get. Meditating and not listening to music 24/7 really helps me.
bought a pair of home made cabinets in the 70s,utah celesta coax 3wys, rated for max of 30 wpc cabinets 1ft deep 2ft tall,15 in wide,( I still have the plywood and oak finish cabinets,reconed them with pyle drivers in the 90s),reciever was a panasonic with a measly 10 wpc amfm w cassette,,separated by up to 20 ft,,the system produced a wall of great sound,and the center sweetspot too it filled a big room out into the kitchen,
i cant think of any system having a large sweet spot, you need to be at exactly equal distance from both speakers. or else you don't hear the phase difference in sound. the only enlarging effect of sweet spot is in height, like with line arrays you maintain phase pretty large in height direction. but it still sounds bad at the floor or heigh up.
That's good info. I'll re-experiment with mine.
Always enjoy your passion and programming!
That's A Sweet Video !!!
What a spot to get into ...
My Driver ... is Size XXL ... Drives Mee Crazeee !!!
So dispersion has nothing to do with the sweet spot? I would have thought a wider dispersion would help with the sweet spot? Which is related to piston area?
I would add in room reflections.
planar speakers (are large drivers) with comparatively narrow sweet spot.... right?
Correct. My head just about needs to be in a vice
Mike; Bingo, that sums it up nicely!
Precisely why I got rid of my Magnapans....vice like sweet spot.
@@stonefree1911 but when you're in that sweet spot it's pretty magical no? Never heard maggies but have a pair of full range 15 drivers in open baffle.
When you use your Maggies In your reference system did you tell them in? I find that a slight till win with the tweeters on the inside is helpful to finding a great sweet spot
Curious people opinion on Geddes approach with waveguide and speakers with more controlled directivity to use extreme toe in the speakers to allow for time intensity trading and so you can limit the absorption as they are coming off the opposite wall and thus contributed to spaciousness and not destroying the imaging. Thoughts / experiences?
Let me rephrase that question: Does the driver size have an influence on the off axis response of a speaker?
so sweet spot don't matter this time?
Yes. speed of sound = 1145 feet per second at sealevel. 1145x12 = speed of sound in inches. then divide by the diameter of the drivers cone.
ie: (1145x12)/3=4580. A 3" driver will begin to beam at 4580hz.
@@NakeanWickliff beaming dont change the sweet spot, the best sounding spot still is pretty narrow and mostly based on tweeter.
@@sudd3660 I answered the question Hugo asked instead of asking another question.... " Does the driver size have an influence on the off axis response of a speaker?"
@@NakeanWickliff the question is not a good question, only if you expand on the topic you can get somewhere useful.
if it's subwoofers; many say they have to be pair, not single
ex: 2.2, 3.2, 5.2, 1.2
I prefer one great subwoofer rather than two mediocre subwoofers. A great subwoofer with low distortion, fast impulse response and with a relative sharp low pass filter doesn't need another subwoofer of the same kind as sub bass isn't perceived with direction. When a subwoofer isn't actually making only sub bass then you can locate the sound from it and that makes you want to have two of them located near your stereo speakers. Of course if money is not a concern, go for two great subwoofers.
What about with electrostatic panels like Martin Logan's?
I have a slight low-in for my ELAC Vela 407 and they have a very wide sweet spot. Paul bases his advice on his gigantic system. Do your own experiments.
Do 2 questions a day
Your all videos are nice
Need help , I am planning to buy 5.1 Home theater
want to know best position for my 12x16 hall
Need guidance 🙏
Acoustic fields makes great videos about speaker placement and room acoustics, start there 🙂
He was asking about the size of the sweet spot, not the location of the sweet spot.
Ohm says you don't need that vise.
Presumes that there must be a sweet spot.
So your saying my 12 inch tweeter idea is a fail.....lol All joke aside this lockdown revived High end Audio.....
Size matters.......opps wrong subject 😑
Are people taking the piss when they write these questions?
You want a bigger sweet spot get another set of the same speakers and put them right next to the first.
Comb filtering will be a problem.
The solution is multi driver setul big to small speaker.
Lol at all the people typing tow in and getting auto corrected to low in. Toe in. People. Toe
Well, according to the PGA.........sorry Paul.
Acoustics determine it, more than anything.
It's height not heigth. C'mon man.
A larger Driver size aids sweet spot size. To say otherwise without explaining isn’t helpful
How about if I claim that smaller dome tweeters provide wider dispersion of sound at the highest frequencies?
@@ThinkingBetter winner winner chicken dinner