Speaker positioning - hight

So what's the deal here? I've always heard you're meant to have the tweeter at ear hight. Well, my tweeter is a mere 65cm from the floor! The tweeter is located below the mid/bass. Anyone any idea why this layout is used? Purely for looks? Or is there another reason? Also, is getting them higher worthwhile?

 

Hello MO, how are you?
The ear/brain is very sensitive to the direction of HF sounds, so tweeter positioning *should* be important. However, M**a users in particular have a tendancy to put their tweeters just short of the ceiling, and few floor standers are tall enough to get the tweets up to ear height.
Something that quite a few people do is angle their speakers upwards a little so the tweeters are pointing at their ears.
I don' have this particular problem (or not) as the tweeters on my speakers are at ear height.
One other thing that is often mentioned is distortion from off-axis listening. I don't hear this, either with my system or with real instruments of voices.
YMMV

 

Hi Joel

All is good thankyou, and yourself?

As I said, my tweeters are a mere 65cm from the floor. This would mean i'd have to sit on the floor too if I wished to have them at ear hight! Infact, a little experiment i'll try toMOrow :time: when I can have the volume up to louder volumes! Sitting lower and seeing what difference it makes.

I guess this could be another benefit of putting a few paving slabs under my stands?

Cheers

MO

:knight: <<<<best *smiley* yet?

 

If your spkrs have spikes, just make sure the front ones are longer than the rears. Viola, instead HF directionality.

 

Tweeters at ear height...... when seated !!


Yes you can adjust the "aim" of the hf unit with spikes but that means behind the listening position the best listening arrangements will be higher ! in most cases this is not a problem.

base units above the tweeters create a tilted time alignment dispersion [wrong words]. if you take the voice coil positions of each driver and draw a line perpendicular to them, to touch the start of the first windings, then draw a line at right angles

........
vc bbbb
vc*bbbb
vc bbbb
........
.......tw
...vc*tw
.......tw
........

vc voice coil ... bb lf ... tw hf
imagine a line draw through both * it will angle up, and obviously unit with the reverse the time alignment will be angled down.

This means that the start of each wave, from each drive unit, will be coincident as they leave the speaker along that line of propogation.

You can now start to see why KEF use the uniQ system.

 

I thought about this when I was looking at Dynaudio's new Contours. The 1.4s have been turned upside down, effectively lowering the tweeter height unless one goes for taller stands (your Missions are another example). Anyone heard them yet?, how do they sound compared to the 1.3s? I'd like to know what difference the lower tweeter has made.

A friend of mine has longer spikes at the front than rear (as Lamboy suggested) so the speakers are pointing up slightly but his speakers are Linn Sara with fairly tall stands. 65cm seems really low. How about putting large paving blocks under the stands for an experiment? I imagine the imaging will improve (or at least be different!).

 

Hi MO!,

I hope that I won't get a telling off from the Moderators about this.... it's not advertising as it's not a product....have a look at my website and go to the Tips and Talk section....we have a little write up about our experiances in speaker positioning. We have had some feedback from people who have tried our method of setting up and in each case it has been very positive. Give it a go and let me know if you have a result.

Regards

 

Some people, and some speaker brands, including SF, recommend that the ear level should be between the tweeter and the woofer/mid, and I like them that way, raises the stage... :MILD:

 

Ear height for preference. The tweets of each speaker being equidistant from the floor being of equal import. With speakers voiced for nearfield/monitor applications it may be beneficial for the listening position to be slightly below the tweets (and a worthwhile experiment for 'standard' speakers also).

Naturally, this simple advice does not account for the proximity of room boudaries and 'essential' furnishings. A factor that can only be addressed by the individual in his/her own listening room. But, one area that is often ill-addressed is that between the speakers and the listening position. It often being filled with all manner of acoustically inept detritus. In fact, the only accceptable thing to have between the speakers and listening position is fresh air.

 

Completely disagree with this one. The best thing is probably a coffee table to break up the first floor difraction.

On to tweeter position.

Having the tweeter below the woofer is a very good idea, as long as the designers then tell you how to set up the speaker. Most standounts will be placed on stand usually between 20 and 24 inches in height. With a bottom mounted woofer this probably makes the woofers centre about 26 - 30 inches above the floor. Now measure how far in from the rear wall the speaker usually is. I bet its about the same, as is the distance to the sides. Good recipe for B O O M . Now with the inverted woofer, it is like ly to be about 6 inches higher and less chance of wall boundry effects....maybe

 

My dealer recommended Mana soundbases for my Tannoy DC2000s (75cm tall with the tweeter in the centre of an 8" driver, so a fair way down the cabinet).

Yes really.

I didn't get any because I was after something cheaper, but nevertheless, they were reccomended to me.

Thought I'd better mention in so as not to show any undue bias. Dealer in question is one of the few Mana dealers to be found.



Cheers

 

What?. 'First floor diffraction' - this makes no sense whatsoever. I can only assume that you may have been referring to the axial room mode that exists between floor and ceiling?. In which case a coffee table would provide absolutely no benefit. And when in the horizontal plane relative to mid and high frequency dispersion - only detriment.

 

I think Lee may have meant "reflection" - he's been having a few troubles with his worms lately !

IIRC - the man from TACT did recommend either a bit of carpet at the reflection point, or a coffee table or something about 1 third of the way from your to the speaker, i.e. obstructing the reflected sound on its way up to you. I also remember him saying that the ceiling reflection was actually a bigger problem - so time to get carpeting the ceiling folks!

Edit - oh and back to the main point - my tweets are about 110mm from the floor. Gives a nice high and enveloping soundstage - just like being at the front of the gig - although possibly a bit too much so. Hence, I actually have the back spikes a mm or two higher than the front to bring it down a bit.

 

I have a coffee table made of wooven straw, both useful and difracts the sound... :MILD:

 

See somebody understood me. I'd take up signing but I know I'd definately get that wrong.

 

Reflection makes even less sense than diffraction.

Think of the speakers as sources of light rather than sources of sound. What happens when the radiated light from each, hits a hard surface such as a coffee table?. It'll mix, reflect, even diffract (creating further reflections). Irregular objects on the table will cause break up, but at what expense?. And any that hits the surface will reflect without break up.

Translate this into a sonic sense and you have artifacts that will interfere with the very necessary processes that determine soundstage/image quality: controlled reverberation, precedence, Haas, etc.

If said table is a necessary domestic fixture then i'd mitigate it's detriment with something like a dense foam pad and/or heavy cloth cover.

 

Difraction will enhance ambience, without interfeering with direct sound, unlike reflections, IMHO...

 

tt

I might have used the wrong word but I stand by what I said. The first reflection will be the strongest and will interfere with the sound more than all of the others.

This is also the main reason that speakers sound better if toe'd in. It is not the pointing of the tweeters at you, it is the breaking up of the rear and side reflections so they will have weaker interference with the main soundwave being produced by the speaker.

These reflections which, when broken down are difractions (using your light analogy) will have less impact on the main sound but add, as lowrider said, to the ambience.

 

Not certain you've got the tweeter below the woofer bit. In my refference text its to do with time alignment of the drivers, a bit like the old angled front of the spica's.

With bass unit to the top, best stand to get the most from this arrangment, will be lower than the norm. As the previously described arrangment allows the zero delay plane [ZDP] refference axis to be aligned with the listening area. Or cross over correction can be made, or the drive units can be stepped, niether I think have in this case been done [though I stand to be corrected]. If the crossover has an odd order network [1st order], the ZDP axis can be tilt back. If you've not gone to sleep, you can read further on this subject p92 ch7.23 The Accustic Summation: Driver accustic centres and ZDP. Loudspeaker Design by Vance.

Oh yes it make my brain hurt too.

 

Not fallen asleep, but no idea what you're on about though