Great video! I used to be a severe toe-in guy because I wanted a solid center image. It worked- but at the expense of soundstage width. In most cases a small amount of toe in will be enough. And don’t forget to pull those speakers out from the wall for soundstage depth!
I remember about 20 years ago my buddy and i would place a flash light flush at the top of the speaker and toe-in our speakers aiming the light to the center listening area 😁
I just use a tape measure. Have the fronts of both speakers off the wall the same amount. Same with back. If you want to know the angle, its some basic math. But then I have a mostly regular rectangle room.
Very slight toe in can improve the centre image and make vocals rock steady clear. I toe in my Audio Physic speakers very slightly. Excess toe in will always generate too much treble and reduce smoothness in the sound. I’ve tried to in and always go back to very slight toe in.
Depends on off axis response. My Wharfedale Diamonds, being 'less bright' than some would prefer, benefits from a toe in. Bright sounding speakers like B&O 606 and Emotivas would benefit more with less of a toe in or even without. For my Diamonds 12.2s, I would need a toe in but I would have to spread them a wee bit further apart to maintain a great soundstage.
I figured out towing speakers in before I bought my Klipsch. Realized over time they were a little harsh due to that horn tweeter so I towed them back out and it balance them much more.
I am using 4 "legacy" Dahlquist DQ10 speakers with a B&W Center and 2 Sony Atmost up-firing speakers. My primary interest is in Classical Vocal plus Atmos TV. I have a fairly large listening area, so when someone is at the far right or left of the room they say that everything is coming from the closest speaker. I have now toed the speakers in beyond the equilateral triangle so the left speaker is aimed at the right side listener and the right speaker is aimed at the left side speaker. This provides a very coherent image and a wide are of proper balance. Given my cathedral ceiling (that is higher on one side of the room) I have placed both almost speakers firing up behind the forward extended TV monitor they are side by side, and I adjust the height distance by playing the Atmos test track of helicopters while adjusting the height to get the optimum setting.
You should also pull those Cantons out from the wall more, even with the acoustic treatment behind them. I have my Ventos with the front baffle about 35” from the wall. The soundstage is huge. My room is 20' x 25'. BTW, No toe in for me.
Great advice 👍 Point of reference.... when purchasing a pair of stereo speakers, it's worth doing a little bit of research! I was going to purchase a pair of Dali rubicons and it was only until I read on their website that they are not designed to be toed-in, which would have meant my right placed speaker would have half slammed in to the side of the couch! 🙄
It all has to do with the design of the speaker, crossover. Toe in can have a bad effect on the high frequency. Some speaker manufacturers like canton create an off axis response for the sound. To much toe in will affect the speaker "sound" focus on the center image. For canton speakers toe in 5 degrees. Pull the speakers from the wall to create 3d image depth. I have canton 890dc speakers. Love them. How is the canton center, Is it worth the money?
It depends on the speaker and placement. toeing some speakers makes the tweeters "beam" like a laser at your ear and can create harshness. Some prefer that they graze the side of your ears.
One of my tests is moving around the room a bit from one listening position to another, from lying down on the couch to standing up. I want the sound to change as little as possible. My latest little tweak was having one sub fire forward and the other backwards. It never ends.
This might sound strange, but i ended up placing a sort of reversed toe in having my main floorstanders right next to each other but each facing slightly outward then used 2 smaller bookshelfs to create the stereo imaging and adding depth. I did this because of space constraints and room compromising but ended up really loving this configuration with this clear hybrid center channel right in the middle of the room, the benefit seems that listening positions are better room wide but i gave up on some imaging accuracy. Tho i feel like i dont value that as much as i do having clear crisp sound
Im probably committing some hifi sin somewhere somehow per usual, but sound is so subjective and i found that tinkering with unconventional sound setups can greatly reward you, usually against a compromise
Great informative video thanks. How about people that have small living situation. For me I toe-in, but still playing with it. In my room is not very wide in any way I switch the room . They are less than 6 feet apart, but I do my best to make it work. There are some things that I would have to work with and test myself. My set up is more narrow , but again I can only work with what I have in the space that I have. If I get the space I can work on the six feet thing . Thank you Kpaceguy!✌️
@@Kpaceguy" both ". And a maintenance room . It just get me to think outside the box. Did do acoustical treatment on the maintenance door and around the door leading to hallway. Not much you can really do there..design of the room everything is narrow, in this apartment.
Laser tape measure makes it pretty easy to get them identical also make sure you're doing this with room correction off and then rerun room correction after. Room correction could be EQing them for how they were positioned when ran and changing that could mean you need different eq or the original eq could make the better spot sound worse. Also you didn't talk about time intensity trading aka "crossing the streams" which a lot of narrow dispersion speakers sound better for giving you a larger sweet spot.
Great video as always!! Great information! Man you make me think about a projector as well .... I love my 77 OLED, would a projector be that much or any better?? Please advise
OLED to projector would be like breaking up with a super model for an old hag. Sure, projectors can have huge screens, but the color and contrast are miserable.
The only thing I would say is toe in should be equal only if the room has the same boundaries on for both speakers. If the room isnt uniform then toe in shouldn't be the same and may have to be adjusted. In my case on one side of speakers i have a wall and the other is an open area. The toe in isnt the same on both sides since I have to compensate for that open area.
@@andrewm1894 I played tracks that I was very familiar with where i knew the vocals were dead centre. I adjusted my toein until I got that phantom centre locked in. Then i used tracks where the vocals are off slightly to the left or right of centre to see if the imaging was correct.
@@dajikbatarang1 thanks I will have a go at this. I find myself adjusting the balance for different tracks. Balance seems to follow the open side of the room to different degrees depending on the track.
@@andrewm1894 you shouldn't have to adjust the balance once everything is setup right. It may take some time but once you get it right you will know. There are some system calibrating CDs that do make this easier, I haven't tried any myself but I've heard nothing but good things.
You have to know what you're listening for. Toe in alone won't always change your whole system. It's toe in plus acoustic treatment plus proper Calibration and so on all added together. Once you've gotten those things taken care of, you'll hear a difference it CAN make angling in or out your speakers.
i have paradigm monitor series complete set with smaller 6000 towers. my question is i have the atom surrounds on shelfs just above my head behind me. should i toe in those or straight ahead? i can only get 5 feet of seperation due to master bedroom lay out
Great video! I used to be a severe toe-in guy because I wanted a solid center image. It worked- but at the expense of soundstage width. In most cases a small amount of toe in will be enough. And don’t forget to pull those speakers out from the wall for soundstage depth!
I remember about 20 years ago my buddy and i would place a flash light flush at the top of the speaker and toe-in our speakers aiming the light to the center listening area 😁
jesus 20 years ago, thats longer then ive been alive lol. thats smart tho i usually just look with my eyes and hope that its equal
I just use a tape measure. Have the fronts of both speakers off the wall the same amount. Same with back. If you want to know the angle, its some basic math. But then I have a mostly regular rectangle room.
Very slight toe in can improve the centre image and make vocals rock steady clear. I toe in my Audio Physic speakers very slightly. Excess toe in will always generate too much treble and reduce smoothness in the sound. I’ve tried to in and always go back to very slight toe in.
Great review topic. I also take into consideration the off-axis response of the speaker when considering Toe in and placement
Depends on off axis response. My Wharfedale Diamonds, being 'less bright' than some would prefer, benefits from a toe in. Bright sounding speakers like B&O 606 and Emotivas would benefit more with less of a toe in or even without. For my Diamonds 12.2s, I would need a toe in but I would have to spread them a wee bit further apart to maintain a great soundstage.
I figured out towing speakers in before I bought my Klipsch. Realized over time they were a little harsh due to that horn tweeter so I towed them back out and it balance them much more.
I am using 4 "legacy" Dahlquist DQ10 speakers with a B&W Center and 2 Sony Atmost up-firing speakers. My primary interest is in Classical Vocal plus Atmos TV. I have a fairly large listening area, so when someone is at the far right or left of the room they say that everything is coming from the closest speaker. I have now toed the speakers in beyond the equilateral triangle so the left speaker is aimed at the right side listener and the right speaker is aimed at the left side speaker.
This provides a very coherent image and a wide are of proper balance.
Given my cathedral ceiling (that is higher on one side of the room) I have placed both almost speakers firing up behind the forward extended TV monitor they are side by side, and I adjust the height distance by playing the Atmos test track of helicopters while adjusting the height to get the optimum setting.
You should also pull those Cantons out from the wall more, even with the acoustic treatment behind them. I have my Ventos with the front baffle about 35” from the wall. The soundstage is huge. My room is 20' x 25'. BTW, No toe in for me.
The wider the room, the less toe in, and vice a versa
Great advice 👍
Point of reference.... when purchasing a pair of stereo speakers, it's worth doing a little bit of research! I was going to purchase a pair of Dali rubicons and it was only until I read on their website that they are not designed to be toed-in, which would have meant my right placed speaker would have half slammed in to the side of the couch! 🙄
Ir you're sitting in your listening position and you can't see your speakers, call the police. Someone stole your speakers.
Fair point
It all has to do with the design of the speaker, crossover. Toe in can have a bad effect on the high frequency. Some speaker manufacturers like canton create an off axis response for the sound. To much toe in will affect the speaker "sound" focus on the center image. For canton speakers toe in 5 degrees. Pull the speakers from the wall to create 3d image depth. I have canton 890dc speakers. Love them. How is the canton center, Is it worth the money?
100%
@@Kpaceguy thank you for your response. Will replace the dali zensor center soon with the 866 or 866.2 is the difference worth 400 euro's?
@@nathanvanstralendorff2405 no it is not
@@Kpaceguy thank you for your reply wil buy the canton 866 soon.
Love your vids man! Keep'em coming!
I appreciate it
It depends on the speaker and placement. toeing some speakers makes the tweeters "beam" like a laser at your ear and can create harshness. Some prefer that they graze the side of your ears.
One of my tests is moving around the room a bit from one listening position to another, from lying down on the couch to standing up. I want the sound to change as little as possible. My latest little tweak was having one sub fire forward and the other backwards. It never ends.
Great video and good info for your follower.
Thanks for watching
This might sound strange, but i ended up placing a sort of reversed toe in having my main floorstanders right next to each other but each facing slightly outward then used 2 smaller bookshelfs to create the stereo imaging and adding depth. I did this because of space constraints and room compromising but ended up really loving this configuration with this clear hybrid center channel right in the middle of the room, the benefit seems that listening positions are better room wide but i gave up on some imaging accuracy. Tho i feel like i dont value that as much as i do having clear crisp sound
Im probably committing some hifi sin somewhere somehow per usual, but sound is so subjective and i found that tinkering with unconventional sound setups can greatly reward you, usually against a compromise
I tow my speakers in slightly. It makes a big difference. Especially with home theater applications.
i have the polk s60 and i have tham tow in and thay sound very good when tow in
Great informative video thanks. How about people that have small living situation. For me I toe-in, but still playing with it. In my room is not very wide in any way I switch the room . They are less than 6 feet apart, but I do my best to make it work. There are some things that I would have to work with and test myself. My set up is more narrow , but again I can only work with what I have in the space that I have. If I get the space I can work on the six feet thing . Thank you Kpaceguy!✌️
What keeps you from having 6ft? A door or hallway?
@@Kpaceguy" both ". And a maintenance room . It just get me to think outside the box. Did do acoustical treatment on the maintenance door and around the door leading to hallway. Not much you can really do there..design of the room everything is narrow, in this apartment.
Laser tape measure makes it pretty easy to get them identical also make sure you're doing this with room correction off and then rerun room correction after. Room correction could be EQing them for how they were positioned when ran and changing that could mean you need different eq or the original eq could make the better spot sound worse. Also you didn't talk about time intensity trading aka "crossing the streams" which a lot of narrow dispersion speakers sound better for giving you a larger sweet spot.
I don’t have to toe in my left and right speakers because the tweeters are toe in
That's pretty cool
Great video as always!! Great information! Man you make me think about a projector as well .... I love my 77 OLED, would a projector be that much or any better?? Please advise
It's only better if you go much bigger than 77in
@@Kpaceguy idk if I'm ready for all that now ... Lols 😂🤣
OLED to projector would be like breaking up with a super model for an old hag. Sure, projectors can have huge screens, but the color and contrast are miserable.
The only thing I would say is toe in should be equal only if the room has the same boundaries on for both speakers. If the room isnt uniform then toe in shouldn't be the same and may have to be adjusted. In my case on one side of speakers i have a wall and the other is an open area. The toe in isnt the same on both sides since I have to compensate for that open area.
How did you compensate? I have the same room setup
@@andrewm1894 I played tracks that I was very familiar with where i knew the vocals were dead centre. I adjusted my toein until I got that phantom centre locked in. Then i used tracks where the vocals are off slightly to the left or right of centre to see if the imaging was correct.
@@dajikbatarang1 thanks I will have a go at this. I find myself adjusting the balance for different tracks. Balance seems to follow the open side of the room to different degrees depending on the track.
@@andrewm1894 you shouldn't have to adjust the balance once everything is setup right. It may take some time but once you get it right you will know. There are some system calibrating CDs that do make this easier, I haven't tried any myself but I've heard nothing but good things.
I really want to understand that Huge difference that audiofilits always say, because I never can hear that HUGE difference
You have to know what you're listening for. Toe in alone won't always change your whole system. It's toe in plus acoustic treatment plus proper Calibration and so on all added together. Once you've gotten those things taken care of, you'll hear a difference it CAN make angling in or out your speakers.
It's just incremental, unless you change rooms or speakers there won't be a huge difference.
i have paradigm monitor series complete set with smaller 6000 towers. my question is i have the atom surrounds on shelfs just above my head behind me. should i toe in those or straight ahead? i can only get 5 feet of seperation due to master bedroom lay out
Question. Do you think it's worth it to bi-amp your speakers?
Ask Dynaudio.
If your speakers are 150w or more yes.
👍
You don´t know much about this topic do you?
metal; alloy domes fuck up my ears when i toe them in