Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo M60's on a raised platform?

Because of the layout of my room and the furniture, my M60's have to sit behind the front corner of a sofa and chair such that the woofers basically fire directly into the side of the sofa and chair. I am contemplating building 12-15 inch platforms to sit them on so that they will fire over the furniture.

Your thoughts, pro or con?

Shouldn't be a problem.
Some people preach that tweeters should be at your normal listening, ear height but I've never been able to hear a difference in experiments of sitting down, standing up, repeat.... so I don't think it is crucial. Absolutely better than having the sound blocked by furniture.

Some people preach that tweeters should be at your normal listening, ear height

I have heard that too, but with the 12" stand the tweeters would be no higher than in an M100. so I was thinking it would be ok. Maybe I will just try some temporary stands before I build the bettter ones.

I don't see any problem.

There might be a slight difference in highs from the raised tweeter, and there might be a little less bass out of them as you're increasing the coupling distance from the floor (boundary effect) but that likely will be inaudible or extremely subtle in comparison to some of the sound being blocked as it is now.

Yeah, try them on a couple of milk crates.

Yes, Bob; try temporarily setting them on anything convenient, such as stacks of magazines or newspapers. The M60 crossover is at 200Hz, and the bass frequencies handled by the woofers aren't greatly affected by the furniture in front. You might find that the difference resulting from raising them isn't worth any bother(unless you like the raised sound stage better regardless of whether the "blocking" factor is significant).

After years of listening to my speakers (M80 HP's at present) placed on cabinets I built for LP storage, I read the Axiomaudio blog on speaker placement. I moved them off the cabinets and put them on the floor. I wish I had done this years ago! Every aspect of the listening experience is so much better. My amp even seems more powerful.

I'm so glad I read that blog and decided to try something different!

What is current thinking about tilting speakers back rather than raising them off the ground ? I just did that with my M60s -- in my case I was looking for ways to reduce toe-in without losing the stereo image -- and so far I'm very happy with the results.

The speakers were in a slightly unusual setup, in the sense that they were (a) pretty close to the listening position, (b) as far apart as you would want to go (equilateral-triangle-ish), and (c) I'm 6'5 and sit with my ears even higher because the couch is lifted 4" to make it "normal height" for me.

Until now I had had to choose between moderate toe-in (where the frequency response seemed right but imaging was iffy and there was pronounced phasing/comb-filtering when I moved my head from side to side) and significant toe-in (much better imaging but frequency response seem harsh, almost the dreaded "bright").

After tilting the speakers up with pieces of 1x2 laying flat on the ground (so the midrange axis went through ear level rather than navel level) I was able to go back to a very minor toe-in while still maintaining good imaging. The bonus was that the frequency response went back to sounding very neutral, so win-win.

Not quite sure why there is such a difference though. AFAICS my ears are off-axis about as much now as they were before, only now the direction is "mostly off to the side" rather than "mostly up and a bit to the side".

Haven't tried raising the M60s on platforms in their current location and probably won't bother. I did raise them when they were up in the HT, but with an 80 Hz cutoff to the subs I wouldn't expect that to cause many problems.

I don't seem to see any discussion about tilting speakers up these days -- maybe everyone is just buying taller speakers instead

EDIT -- seems like the smoother sound let me turn the volume up a bit higher, and that has the predictable "everything sounds better" result. Wonder if that might be a factor in eggman's experience re: making bass sound better & amp seem more powerful ?

In my case, John, I gained the same listening experiences by simply being short.

Hmm, that's interesting -- while walking back and forth a couple of times between computer and living room I noticed the speakers sounded kinda harsh when I was standing in front of them but sounded much smoother when I was sitting in a normal listening position.

First thought was that it was not an "off axis" thing but just a consequence of reflections from windows or walls -- when I'm standing my ears are higher so the first reflection point treatments are no longer effective -- but the difference in sound is sufficiently similar to what I experienced before tilting the speakers back that I remain a bit suspicious.

Anyways, when set up "correctly" they sound awesome, so maybe I'll stop thinking about it for now and look into enjoying our first day of summer instead.

... or "optimized for audio"