I noticed something interesting the other day when my brother was over. I had put some music on and we were standing behind the couch talking when I noticed that the sound stage was much better than in the sweet spot.
I did a quick test ducking down so head level was where it would be while seated and standing back up several times. In the standing position the music had much more of that 3 dimensional quality I was so impressed by at Axiom. The music was being played in one of the surround formats.
Interestingly, when standing, my head is about 1-1.5' below the level of the surround speakers; within the recommended placement.
Not having done any level matching yet, it could be that I need to bump up the level on my surrounds. I was wondering though, if there are generaly known effects of placing speakers higher than the 1-2 feet above ear level?
On a related note, I was listening to the radio the other day and noticed that the voice was strongly centered to the right of the TV. I had kind of noticed this with movies and some music, but it was not nearly as pronounced. I bumped up my left front by 2db and it is now nicely centered.
I expect this is the effect of having the love seat along the left side partially blocking the speaker and blocking first reflections. I will experiment to see if I can verify this.
