Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Your preferred stereo listening position

I would assume directly in the middle (l-r) of your speakers is ideal. Does anyone find the sweet spot isn't in the middle? (in my house we have a corner couch, the comfy part of the couch doesn't quite reach the 'sweet spot'). How does position affect imaging? Even if the couch would reach, only one person could sit there anyways i guess.

Bass distribution is likely to be what is causing the "improvement" of one side over the other. Are you using a sub-woofer? If yes, try moving it in the room. If no, consider getting one.

ha, no subwoofer yet. we'll see how it sounds. it strictly a stereo system, not HT

Seated.

Oh, come on. You were all thinking it.

Correct as usual Tom!

lol, funny guys. i didn't think of that!

There are a lot of factors that will effect the “sweet spot.” If either speaker or the seating is nearer a wall on one side than the other you will likely get slightly higher SPL on that side even if sitting in the middle. Level matching the speaker will help but the wall will still effect the soundstage and tonality coming from the that side. If you can place speakers so that the drivers are at least 3 feet from the side walls it will help minimize this. Sitting close to the back wall will also effect imaging and clarity. Same thing applies with seating, try to keep it more than three feet from any walls.

This is where room correction systems like Audyssey are suppose to help in neutralizing the rooms effects on the sound arriving at your listening position.

Another factor I’ve found has a big effect on the sweet spot is toe-in. By using more toe-in I can create the best possible imaging at the sweet spot but at the cost of poorer imaging farther away. I’ve found that less toe-in generally produced a larger sweet spot at the cost of having the most perfect imaging. Of course the room plays a big role in how toe-in effects the imaging.

Cheers,
Dean

Okay, Dean's being "helpful" like usual.

Speaker positioning and room interactions make a very large difference in how you perceive the stereo image. Same with furniture placement, wall (floor, ceiling...) treatments, etc.

Somebody smart (Alan?) once said that The Room is the forgotten audio component. I've always liked that.

Standing up in the middle of the rug.

The sweet spot is my usual seating position when listening in 2 channel but I defer that spot to guests etc. when required and the system still sounds great off axis, which is a great credit to Axiom.

Hi Tom,

It was Dr. Floyd Toole, my mentor and old friend, who said that "the room is the forgotten audio component," and I've restated his wise comment often when discussions of room effects and interactions arise.

Thanks, Jakewash, for your compliments on Axiom's off-axis dispersion, which has been further improved by the new v3 tweeter. For the record, when listening in stereo only (seldom), I tend to migrate towards the sweet spot at one end of my couch, although the stereo image remains acceptable anywhere on the couch.

As Floyd remarked years ago during listening tests at the National REsearch Council (NRC), where he was the resident acoustical scientist, stereo is "a socially isolating listening mode" because of the sweet spot. No matter how good the dispersion, once you move sideways in one direction or the other, the differences in SPL and arrival-time disparity between left and right speakers and your ears will cause the stereo image to shift and default to the nearest speaker. Toe-in will help mitigate these effects to a degree.

In fact, when we did stereo double-blind listening tests at the NRC, we (Floyd, myself and Ian Masters) used to set up the "stereo train", our chairs lined up in a row, one behind the other so we'd all remain in the sweet spot.

These restrictions of stereo listening are also why multi-channel formats, including SACD and DVD-Audio, are preferred by many for music playback because the sweet spot becomes far more generous and less restrictive. I enjoy dts, Dolby Pro Logic IIx and Logic7 playback of stereo material in a number of different seats in the room.

Cheers,
Alan

I too like 5-7 channel stereo modes, mostly for party/house cleaning situations when you are frequrntly moving about the room.

in a 5-7 channel stereo system is each speaker in the 'left' (or right) side playing the same thing?

Yes, with the center usually receiving a mono mix of both the left and right.

that'd be interesting to hear a set up like that

Swing on by and I will give you an audition of some 5 channel stereo What's a couple thousand kilomteres between friends

...ya...i could handle some more of your snowboarding too:)

Lots of snow this past week around here too.