Listening chairs - the forgotten component

Keith_W

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Mar 31, 2012
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OK, everyone agrees that speakers and rooms make a huge difference. There is some level of disagreement as to how much good components make. And there is even more disagreement to the effect of cables and tweaks. But - why doesn't anyone ever talk about the listening chair?

Here are some criteria (for me):

- tall enough to get your ears at tweeter level
- must not be canted backwards, otherwise you have to tilt your head forwards to listen. This gets fatiguing.
- must not have a headrest, as this can cause early reflections or mess up the rear reflections from reaching your ears
- must not be leather, because leather gets bloody cold in winter :)

This rules out all manner of listening chairs - no lazy boy recliners, no Eames chairs, etc etc. My listening chair is a simple leather sofa which I bought years ago. Unfortunately it is too low to get my ears to tweeter level, so I actually prefer to drag a dining table chair to the listening room for critical listening!

What are your thoughts on listening chairs?
 

Bill Hart

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May 11, 2012
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Remember those fake leather reclining 'home theatre' chairs with little woofers built into the bottom? Just kidding. I use an Eames chair. with no tweaks :)
 

Johnny Vinyl

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I have a leather chair similar in size/style to the old Maxell ads and it has served me well. It is slightly canted backwards, but I can easily sit quite comfortably in an upright position. My speakers' tweeters are at ear-height, so I'm good to go in that regard. However, unless I'm truly going for a critical listen I have no problem slouching down slightly and just taking pleasure from whatever song selection I happen to fancy at the time. Correctness be damned!;):p
 

Bill Hart

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Good thread Steve, just scolled through it quickly. It reminded me- the Aero is extremely comfortable and very adjustable- I use them for my office and they are the ultimate in non-fatigue. Car seats, by Recaro and the like- I've had them in cars, like Ferraris and big Porsches, and while they are very good for the purpose- keeping you locked into position when driving hard on corners and in hard acceleration, I don't think they are terribly comfortable. I think the hard/soft thing is partly a matter of personal taste- i find my butt aches after a few hours in any car these days, and kicks up my sciatica. Soft, comfy chairs, ala Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition, same thing. So, I guess it's like Goldy Locks. And, to my eyes, some of those chairs are just f-ugly!
 

Mike Lavigne

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OK, everyone agrees that speakers and rooms make a huge difference. There is some level of disagreement as to how much good components make. And there is even more disagreement to the effect of cables and tweaks. But - why doesn't anyone ever talk about the listening chair?

Here are some criteria (for me):

- tall enough to get your ears at tweeter level
- must not be canted backwards, otherwise you have to tilt your head forwards to listen. This gets fatiguing.
- must not have a headrest, as this can cause early reflections or mess up the rear reflections from reaching your ears
- must not be leather, because leather gets bloody cold in winter :)

This rules out all manner of listening chairs - no lazy boy recliners, no Eames chairs, etc etc. My listening chair is a simple leather sofa which I bought years ago. Unfortunately it is too low to get my ears to tweeter level, so I actually prefer to drag a dining table chair to the listening room for critical listening!

What are your thoughts on listening chairs?

well; my perspective differs on 3 of the 4 criteria you mention.

---agree on being ears being at tweeter level.
---as far as not being canted backwards, i'm opposite. i listen alot. sometimes hour after hour......i've had 12 hour sessions. and plan on more of them. a straight upright chair is about a 90 minute proposition at the upper limit. for short term critical listening i get it. i have two Aeron side chairs that are upright and very comfortable. i use them behind my sofa for when i have multiple visitors. aeron.jpg
i prefer to sit in my 'zero gravity' 'perfect' chair from the Relax-the-Back store for my own listening. i can listen to music for an indefinite time. doctors perscribe this chair for people who cannot sleep in a bed. until you actualaly try a zero gravity chair with the straight back and proper thigh support, you will never know how much better it feels for extended sitting. many other chairs that seems to soft and comfortable at first sit, start to stress the back after 45 minutes to an hour.
r30.jpg
if you want a different sofa where you sit more upright and have more support than the typical sofa here is the one i use from Ekones.

osloblack2010.jpg visitors seem to really like it and can sit for hours on it comfortably. other sofas i saw were either waay too soft or too low.
---not all headrests are created equally. some are very wide and cupped, which i agree do cause sonic problems. some are made of cloth, which wil deaden the sound. if you look at the head rest on the picture of my zero gravity chair you will notice first that the upper chair is narrow, and the headrest is raised, also that both the chair and headrest curve away from the ears, so no sound is directly refelcted back. i agree that having even this head rest is not that same as no headrest, but it does not intrude on the music. using this chair and headrest, i do move my head on and off the headrest, but i'm only moving my head a couple of inches. i have the chair in a fairly upright position.
---as far as not being leather, well, cloth sticks and binds to your clothing, which will become uncomfortable eventually. my chair does use high quality leather which can be a bit cool initially but is then comfortable long term since my clothing never binds on it. i have effective HVAC so the temperature in the room is always ina comfortable range. and my chair uses vico-elastic foam so it's heat sensitive and shapes to your torso.
 

slowGEEZR

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Sep 20, 2010
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That chair looks interesting, Mike. As a person who deals with lower back issues, I can appreciate a chair like that. I currently have three IKEA Poang chairs in my listening room.
 

puroagave

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Sep 29, 2011
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i always liked the looks of the eames chair, can anyone confirm they're good for listening? my friend is a howard miller dealer and his cost is high but its very well made and a classic.
 

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Peter Breuninger

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Jul 20, 2010
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IMHO...
1) comfort
2) back support
3) the back at or below shoulder level- must keep the head free from direct reflections inches from the pinna.
4) leather-so not to absorb the sound
5) sofa- so up to three can share- Terry listens with me all the time, we rotate listening position.

My favs so far are products from Ekornes (two sofas, one chair)
 

Bill Hart

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Puro, re the Eames, it may not be the last word in definitive position, etc. but it is comfortable. FWIW, the real ones are sold at a substantial discount to 'decorators' they don't usually go for 'list.' The price difference between a real one and a decent knock-off (if that is not an oxymoron) is not as great as it would appear and i know that some of the companies, like Knoll, have been clamping down on unlicensed copies. PS i think it is Herman Miller, although if memory serves, wasn't Howard Miller a clock company?
(I have an entire office of vintage Herman Miller from the 50's along with Eames plywood chairs one of which is an 'Evans Company' product. Eames had them build the first plywood chairs before he associated with Herman Miller. They are like sitting in a kindergarden chair- everything is super low to the ground). And the bent plywood was developed for WWII applications, perhaps airplane stuff for gliders? I don't remember.

PS i just checked, the bent plywood was used for leg splints for the US Airforce!
 

MrAcoustat

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MrAcoustat & Venus, in the sweet spot, i spend so much time in that chair that it as to be confortable and it is.


Sweet Spot 01.jpg

MrAcoustat & Venus.JPG
 
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MylesBAstor

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puroagave

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Puro, re the Eames, it may not be the last word in definitive position, etc. but it is comfortable. FWIW, the real ones are sold at a substantial discount to 'decorators' they don't usually go for 'list.' The price difference between a real one and a decent knock-off (if that is not an oxymoron) is not as great as it would appear and i know that some of the companies, like Knoll, have been clamping down on unlicensed copies. PS i think it is Herman Miller, although if memory serves, wasn't Howard Miller a clock company?
(I have an entire office of vintage Herman Miller from the 50's along with Eames plywood chairs one of which is an 'Evans Company' product. Eames had them build the first plywood chairs before he associated with Herman Miller. They are like sitting in a kindergarden chair- everything is super low to the ground). And the bent plywood was developed for WWII applications, perhaps airplane stuff for gliders? I don't remember.

PS i just checked, the bent plywood was used for leg splints for the US Airforce!

duh, i had howard miller on the brain because we just sold our grandfather clock, i did mean herman miller and i think they mfr the eames design under license. still, they're like $5k retail! and vintage ones are all over the map price-wise. thanks for the info.
 

Lee

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I am very comfortable in my affordable Ikea Poang chairs. I will upgrade to a proper leather lazyboy type chair at some point.
 

amirm

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Here is another thought. High-end home theater seating companies will custom build anything you want. Both of the companies we work with do that. For example, for my theater seating I had them make my rear chairs 4 inches taller. That way, I don't need a platform to do that. I think the cost was $100 per chair or something like that. I know they can customize just about anything in the chairs.

I have ekornes at home and it took something like 5 months to get them (in the color and leather we wanted) and were expensive also. Knowing what I know now, I would go with the custom solutions above. My new theater seating arrived in about 3 weeks.
 

Peter Breuninger

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Jul 20, 2010
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Here is another thought. High-end home theater seating companies will custom build anything you want. Both of the companies we work with do that. For example, for my theater seating I had them make my rear chairs 4 inches taller. That way, I don't need a platform to do that. I think the cost was $100 per chair or something like that. I know they can customize just about anything in the chairs.

I have ekornes at home and it took something like 5 months to get them (in the color and leather we wanted) and were expensive also. Knowing what I know now, I would go with the custom solutions above. My new theater seating arrived in about 3 weeks.

I hear a second for Ekornes... I too would explore custom seating but so far all the HT setups/demo rooms and their chairs are second to (to me at least) to my Ekornes. When we discuss $3000 ( and at times purchase) interconnects, and >$100K speaker systems how can we rightly sit on Ikea chairs? It's like driving a Ferrari in a parking lot. Just my thoughts :)
 

Bill Hart

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I drove a ferrari in a parking lot. I got my first one after I had let my driver's license lapse years before (NYC doesn't really require much driving). I applied for a learner's permit. When I picked up the car in Bryn Mar, near Phila, I called the NJ state police to make sure it was ok to drive the car through jersey with a NY learner's permit. Trooper on the phone said 'as long as i had one of my parents with me' I was then 40 years old. Before I took my test, a friend took me out to the old airfield in brooklyn, just to play around. I was doing skid pad circles- my friend had pretty good skills as an instructor. The police (national park, i think) stopped me, and said "what do you think you're doing?" I said "practicing." He said, "lemme see your license." that led to a whole discussion about my learner's permit. :)
 

treitz3

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Dec 25, 2011
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Hi, guys. I guess I'll chime in here now. I seem to be the outcast, I guess. I could care less what I sit on, just so long as it's comfortable. My current listening chair is all below shoulder height as to not interfere with the music. For critical listening, I move the ottoman out of the way. Even though it is more comfortable, I go without it unless I am just listening casually. With it where my feet go, it seems to affect the imaging and airiness [is that even a word?] in ways I do not prefer. Back when I was knee high to a duck and was listening in my trusty ol' lazy boy, I did enjoy the music very much but I tended to get heavy eyelids often. No matter how loud the music. Sometimes I would wake up to Mom yelling at me at the top of her lungs to turn it down.

Whoops. :D

I think mine were a custom upholstered set from sofa express. I have no idea what I will get for the dedicated listening room. Do they even make a lazy boy type chair with a fold down headrest? 'Cause that would be the chair for me.
 

Bill Hart

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the other thing to do is look at places like 1st dibs. they sell real vintage furniture and some of it is expensive but some is not. I like classic modern stuff. sorta like buying audio stuff on the cheap, used.
 

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