I’ve had my ESS AMT6 professionals for 2.5 years now, they’re the size of small refrigerators so I mistakenly believed that toeing them in towards my listening position wouldn’t do much due to the size of my living room and shape of my house. They truly fill my house with beautiful music from anywhere I am (depending how loud I turn them up) Anyways about a week ago I toed them in to my main listening position and lo and behold the right channel opened right up and the soundstage is much more balanced, with depth and just a huge improvement overall. I’m simultaneously delighted and annoyed I didn’t do this years ago! So please, do yourself a favor if you have gigantic speakers and haven’t done so yet, toe them in and reap the rewards.
What are these odd things above the speakers
No.
I gave up telling r/battlestations that their budget JBL 305s shouldn’t be placed on their sides, 12 feet apart, facing straight out.
Posting the ‘listening triangle’ has straight up pissed people off.
I’ve never in my life found a speaker that didn’t have a much better phantom center channel, better treble peaks, and clearer imaging and separation, after toeing in the speakers using equilateral distances between the speakers and the listening position.
Dude for real! I’d even go as far as to say that slightly angling them up makes the sound so much better too.
Not all speakers will sound better toed-in.
I always try both and just go with whatever sounds better.
It costs nothing to try. That’s the key bit.
There’s no single answer, but almost every speaker will benefit from the reduced side wall interactions since the walls become even more off-axis with regard to the tweeters. And heck, constant directivity speakers often sound better with even more toe, to the point where they’re crossed some 16" or more in front of the listener.
Toe in is as much about the interaction between the speaker and the room as it is between you and the speaker.
In a living room I think it depends on the off axis frequency response of your speakers and your personal preference.
Depends on the room and the speakers. Trial and error until you get it right. Have fun experimenting.
these are perplexing speakers, unfortunately I wasn’t able to find detailed specs with a cursory digging.
some assumptions i’m making here based on the design:
- super wide dispersion ( like 90 + degrees) on the tweeters?
- tweeters are meant to be dipole? but i’d think they would have less dispersion on the back wave because of the frame? seems an odd choice
I would think that the stuffing might actually dampen the dipole effect as well, but seems to be an aftermarket addition. I would think these would sound best without the stuffing but moved quite a bit further out in the room (at least 3 feet from any walls) but it doesn’t look like a possibility with the current arrangement. I would also thing that making that making that adjustment would greatly reduce the effect of toe in due to the dipole effect and the level of dispersion.
since these seem heavily modified and not ideally placed to begin with i’m sure toe in helped a bit, i’m assuming firing straight forward you are beaming a lot of sound at the walls and that is causing a lot of early reflections.
I know they are large and probably very heavy, but i’m curious what would happen if you moved them further apart (switch places with the av units and chair) and toe them in even more. that outer left tweeter for sure is just beaming straight at a wall which i cant imagine does anything good for the sound
These were pro speakers. Not designed to be used in homes. They are purposely stuffed behind the amts to eliminate their dipole sound. Someone would buy these as traveling gig speakers. As they are built to fill a a small club, trying to get them to be “perfect” in a living room might be a waste of time. I think op just just rock out how they are. They should be able to take a good amount of power. My amt 1b are plenty powerful with just one amt. I can only imagine what 4 of them can do in a living room.
I agree with trying it, but realize you might be better straight ahead or even toed out
Check with your speaker manufacturer. My Dali Oberon 5 speakers are designed for no toe in.
Are the lamps also toed in?
Newbie question: I hear some speaker reviewers say “toed out” for best listening experience. What do they mean?
Maaaan! That collection of old Donkey Kong consoles on top of your speakers is amazing!
I love the vibe of this room.
Way too many people have amazing speakers yet won’t spend $80 on a measurement mic so they can see what they’re actually getting out of them in their room at the listening position. $80 is on the verge of being free when you consider how expensive this hobby is. Get one and see what responses you get with your speakers in different positions with different toe ins. With some physical placement/toe in adjustments based on what gives the best response and basic EQ adjustments to balance each channel independently from the best physical starting point you can give yourself what sounds like a $$$$ upgrade to your system in less than an hour of playing around
I just remembered I wanted an original Felix the Cat clock to finish up my space.
If only they weren’t so damn expensive or the knockoffs were better made.