Hi everyone,

I'm very excited about a pending puchase of some in-cabinet M60's. Interestingly, I plan to install these flush with a living room wall. My in-cabinets will poke out into an unused storage room behind the TV.

My question is this: My wife would prefer it if these rather large speakers were aligned with the top of the TV from an astetic stand point. This would put the M60 tweeter about 5 to 6 feet above the floor; quite a few feet above my ears when slouching in my chair.

However, if I installed the speaker up side down, the tweeter would be more in line with my ears - but now actually be below the TV screen (46" diagonal). Good idea? or not?

Other question: I'm thinking of making an MDF "frame" that will be sandwiched between the drywall and the flange face plate of this in-cabinet speaker. Using a jig, I'd run my frame through a thickness sander and be able to accurately taper it to replicate some toe-in. This would also have a side-benefit(?) of spacing the front surface of the speak out slightly more form the wall surface - hopefully improving standing wave stuff.

I look forward to all ideas!

Sounds fun and I would try the upside down position as a temporary position to see if you like it this way or if it sounds better with the more standard tweeter on top position. If you are adding an extra baffle you could also allow for some slight downward angle towards your listening poisition. Maybe try to have the tweeters aligned with the midline of the screen.

Thanks Jay - I hadn't thought to add a second "frame" to angle it downwards - that could certainly work out very nicey.

Do you think that any of the adgle adjustments will be adding any unwanted / uneven standwave type problems?

Sounds like an interesting install. I agree with Jay that its a good idea to test out the positioning before making it permanent. I think you are on the right track though.

We need pictures, of course...

I'd check with Axiom on the supplementary baffle-thing. I suspect you're over-engineering it. Axiom speakers have very good off-axis response, so it might not be necessary. Also, I can't help but think that those kinds of baffles (besides being a b!tch to build!) would detract somewhat from the aesthetic you are seeking. I don't think it's a "standing wave" issue; I think it is a diffraction issue.

So, your TV is pretty high up, eh?

Where would the tweeters be relative to your ears if you mount the speakers upside-down? I don't see why this would pose any problem. As a matter-of-fact, I think that is a pretty ingenious solution to your wife's concerns.

I suspect Axiom would have taken care to not allow for any standing wave issues inside the cabinet.

Hi axiomoholic,

I don't recall if you sent me the private email with the same question, but I essentially said that it's not a great idea for several reasons. The in-cabinet M60s are not measured or designed to be used in that configuration, nor are the double-blind listening tests done with the speakers inverted so it's anyone's guess as to just how the tonal balance and soundstage will be affected if the speakers are inverted.

Also, the dispersion of the drivers and the tweeter in the M60 is sufficiently good that the tonal balance and soundstage should remain reasonably consistent even if the tweeters are 5 feet above your ear level when you're seated. Keep in mind that about 50% of the sound arriving at your ears is made up of early and later reflections from the room, with the other 50% representing the direct sound from the speakers. This combination helps keep the tonal balance and soundstage consistent over a reasonably broad angle.

The amount the baffle protrudes is carefully adjusted in the design and the crossover to accommodate a fixed distance from the adjacent wall boundary.

Regards,

Alan

Interesting. I always thought that it was most important to have the tweeters at ear level and that mounting the tweeters so high would pull the sound stage up towards the ceiling.

Thanks Alan - Actually - I had asked a bunch of similiar question regarding inverting the W22's - for much the same reason - bring tweeters down closer to ear level. The fact that the W22's ports would then be forever swallowing dust was one of the big reasons I decided this wounld't be worthwhile.

Thanks for the input on the M60's. I know a number of people like to toe-in there M60's, but I go with a "flat" mounting - Sounds like it'd be a scary proposition to be messing with the origional design - so I will refrain from making saw dust!

Hi Fred,

Certainly the soundstage will shift upwards, but it's the midrange driver that carries much of the important musical and audio content, not the tweeter. The tweeter largely reproduces harmonics and overtones, except for the upper octaves of the piano, violin and other instruments as well as percussion.

Everyone thinks that tweeters beam like a flashlight. Modern titanium dome tweeters and aluminum drivers have very good off-axis dispersion so you don't have to adhere to the "exactly-at-ear-level" rule. There is considerable flexibility. Besides, with surround sound home theater, it's the center channel location that's really critical. You want it as close as possible to the video display so the image and dialog/on-screen sounds are one.

Alan

In my apartment I had my M80 center speaker upside-down above my TV. I found that pulled the center of soundstage up some but not as much as having it right-side-up. I didn’t notice any change in tone or balance just that when using multi-channel audio or Dolby PLIIx the center of the front soundstage seemed a little like it was on a dais.

I did find two things. First that having the tweeters at ear level wasn’t as important as having the tweeters and midrange drivers of the mains (sitting right-side-up on the ground) closer to the tweeter and midrange drivers of the center (above the TV). Having the smaller drivers nearer each other vertically prevented side-to-side pans from moving up and down as tehy crossed center. So to accomidated this I also raised my M80 mains so they were a foot or so off the ground.

This lead me to the second finding, that I felt my whole front soundstage sounded better with the speakers raised a couple feet. There was more of a wall-of-sound but w/o loosing any of the stereo imaging. Also the overall ambience was better even when using 2 channel music. I’m not sure why but surmise that elevating the speakers placed me closer middle of the driver array vertically which evens out where the sound is coming from in the vertical plane (more wall of sound) and also got the tweeters and midrange drivers above the level of my furniture allowing for better dispersion and reflection of their sound waves (better ambience). Just guessing though.

I liked having the speakers elevated so much I seriously considered using an AT screen and putting the M80s on stands behind it, but this would have pushed the screen to far out into the room. The compromise I found is that now for 2 channel music is sit on the ground in front of my main seating which puts the tweeters about a foot over my head.

Personally I think having your speakers above the screen as you plan will sound great, even better than having them on the ground. I also don’t think you will have any problem with placing them up-side-down, but I imagine the speakers are symmetrical so you could possibly try both orientations and let us know what you think of each.

Cheers,
Dean

Hi Dean,

Thanks for your thoughtful post. Like you, I also prefer a somewhat elevated soundstage, which is why I mostly use my M22s on stands for home theater because they are at the same level as my large screen display, whereas the M80s stand on the floor.

I wanted to be cautious in my recommendations re Axiomoholic, because while in theory there shouldn't be a dramatic difference in performance inverting floorstanding speakers, I've frankly never done any controlled listening tests to inverted speakers. Our tests at Axiom of the in-cabinet models were performed blind with non-inverted speakers, so that is the performance I rated and know.

It's certainly something that can be put to experimentation before any major installation work is done, although it would be awkward. It might be worthwhile doing the tests in mono, with one speaker inverted and the other floorstanding, just to see what differences in tonal balance might result, if any.

Regards,
Alan

I very much do appreciate all the feedback. I did some closer measurements and I think that the bottom of the speaker (with top at high edge of LCD panel) would be a little above knee level. That strikes me as way too low for the tweeter and mid (where they'd be if unit was inverted) so I think I'm going the scrap the idea of flipping them.

I will let everyone know how it works out.

Hi Alan,

No doubt you need to be careful about what you say since many might make invalid assumptions about it. It would be interesting to see the results of a controlled test since all my experience in the mater is anecdotal.

I’ve been planning to test a couple new configurations I haven’t tried yet and might also have to try the test you suggest to see what inverting one speaker does. I have a switch that would all me to play both simultaneously and also A/B/C compare them individually and in tandem.

Cheers,
Dean

I have always mounted "bookshelf" speakers upside-down when they were actually installed on a shelf to get them better aligned with ear level. The speakers generally had "early" dome tweeters which probably didn't have as wide dispersion as the ones Axiom uses today.

Note that the definition of "bookshelf" back then included some fairly large speakers

My recollection was that the sound started to degrade when my ears were maybe 15-20 degrees below the tweeter centerline. These were all two-way speakers so I can't comment on Alan's statement re: the midrange actually being more important than the tweeter, but based on the range of frequencies that seemed to be improved by inverting the speakers "back in the day" that statement (worry about the midrange) makes sense to me.

Ok I have a homework assignment for all M60/80 owners tonight. We shall go home, sit upside down on the couch (ala Mork), and study the effects of listening to inverted speakers and note any percieved changes in the tonal dynamics of such a configuration.

Axiomoholic, I'm afraid you're going to have to test your speakers upside down at least initially as we're all on the edges of our seats now in anticipation of this experiment. Don't be a tease, you can't just come on here, wet our curiosities about such an interesting proposition, and then leave us all high and dry for God sakes!

Hell you even have Alan's full attention on this one, he's posted 3 times already in a 15 reply thread... I'd say his curiosity is peaked! And while he can't recommend this unproven idea, he's obviously curious as to the outcome of the experiment. As are the rest of us. Don't let us all down old boy, you know you want to know if your idea was revolutionary or not.

I trust you'll do the right thing!

ok guys, I will test upside down when I get them!

thanks again for all the interest and assistance.

Lol, don't take me too seriously now... I don't actually expect you to go through all that trouble if you truely doubt you'll wind up keeping them upside down. Haha, I was just protesting for the fun of it.

Not that I wouldn't love to hear your impressions if you did try it mind you! But certainly don't let me pressure you into anything, I was only teasin ya buddy.

Geez, now he tells us. I was gettin' a headache standing on my head.

Oh... that was no joke. Back on your head young man!

Ok I couldn’t resist it. I posed what I found in my HT room thread to try and keep my rambling more or less in one place.

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=298202#Post298202